Now that I have had some medical intervention from the BIMC, I sleep rather well as I am not waking up with as much pain in my eyes as the previous night. Despite my penthouse room at the U Paasha Hotel facing the main road, it is not too noisy. There was one incident at around 3am where a group of drunken twenty somethings stood outside to sing a rendition of a song unknown to me but they moved on quickly. There was a time in my life where I would have been that drunken young person belting out a Cold Chisel classic but alas, those days are long gone and 11pm is now considered a late one. My, how times have changed......
I wake up early on the Saturday and although still light sensitive, I can at least keep my eyes open and will no longer need assistance in navigating stairs, pavements and menus. Hooray! My mood is lifted immediately and I dress for breakfast and join my friends shortly after 8am. I gave the buffet another once over before deciding on cereal, fresh fruit & yoghurt and then an omelette. After the poached egg process of yesterday, I decided to go with the option made in front of me & requested a mushroom and cheese omelette. Sure enough, it was made as I waited and as I was doing this, enjoyed watching the plates of poached eggs arriving on trays from who knows where. The omelette was nice, a little rubbery but compared to what you get on a plane, still far better.
After breakfast it was back to the room for a bet of rest - this eating too much for breakfast is terribly tiring work. I next wandered up and down Jl Laksmana, looking in shops selling 'resort wear' that although lovely in Bali would never see the light of day in Melbourne so it was strictly window shopping only. I looked in some lovely homewares stores & dreamt that one day I will have a home bigger than my current shoe box that I can actually fill with these beautiful items.
Around midday I returned to the hotel where I met with Grant & Petrina from MadeBagus Movies. This is a great company, run by a local man called Made who employs Grant & Petrina to work with him. They basically have an enormous catalogue of movies, tv series & ebooks that you can pre-order via email. Both C and myself had left hard drives purchased back home with hotel collection and they were collected a couple of days ago. Today, Grant & Petrina met me to give me both the hard drives loaded with movies & tv shows. They bought along a pc so that they could sample any show of my choice to check the quality. Each one I requested was excellent quality & since arriving back home, have not had any issues at all with any of the movies. If you are interested in doing this, their website is http://balimovies.balibagus1.com. Not only does it save you loads of time from shopping & buying individual dvd's but you also save loads of space with just a hard drive to bring home.
While I was chatting to Grant & Petrina, C & company returned and we all sat around for a while in the foyer talking about what we both love most about Bali. Nice way to spend a few hours and a really lovely couple to chat to.
For lunch we wandered across the road and down to Mykonos Greek restaurant. This is one of those restaurants that I have passed on each visit to Bali and have never gone in. I have always been a little dubious of how well the Balinese take on Greek cuisine may be. I needn't have worried - my spanokopita was flaky and filled with spinach and fetta and the Greek salad was fresh and had a lovely dressing on it that did not saturate the lettuce leaves (soggy lettuce is a pet hate of mine). C and company ordered various meat and calamari dishes and everyone was very happy with their meals.
After lunch I hailed myself a taxi and headed off to Amo Spa down on Jl Petitingetit. I have been to this spa on my last two visits and have always been happy with the quality of their manicures & pedicures. I was greeted on arrival & shown a locker to place my belongings in before being taken into the main treatment room and shown to a large, comfortably chair. Two very friendly ladies then asked me to choose the shade of polish that I would like & then they got to work - foot soak, hand soak, buffing, filing, no knife anywhere near my feet thank you, then a hand & calf massage followed by the painting of the nails. Very pleased with the results I took myself off for a wander down the road passing Sarong and Biku - two favourites of mine that I unfortunately will not get a chance to eat at on this trip. Oh well, another fabulous reason to return.
Once back at the hotel, I joined C & company for a spot of shopping. We discovered a new little shop called Stroberi or something like that - it specialised in kitschy things that little girls (or some Asian adult women) tend to like - pretty little headbands, purses with cats on them, cheap jewellery with funny motifs etc. I bought a ridiculous number of headbands for my nieces and returned them to the hotel before heading off to Rudi's Place to change some more money.
After a couple of beers in my room this afternoon, I met the gang to visit their friend Ketut who funds a DVD store on Oberoi. Absolutely lovely man with the most infectious laugh I have ever heard. Truly hilarious. I bought a couple of dvd's from him that I did not have on my drive & also a heap of gift cards that although $2.50 each are loads cheaper than what we have to pay at home for cards and will pretty much sort me out for birthdays for the next decade. We also picked up some little fireworks for 10 year old Miss E who thought all her Christmas' had come at once. Fireworks/crackers are banned in the state of Victoria these days and whilst it was something I grew up with, for most kids of this generation, it is something entirely new. We all had a load of fun walking along the street and throwing the little rockets onto the empty road watching them spark. In fact, it is entirely possible that the three adults enjoyed this just as much as Miss E.
Dinner tonight was at Motel Mexicola opposite Bodyworks. This had just been opened when I last visited but I did not get the chance to get here. Out the front is a little bar area which was packed and I did not think we had much chance of getting in but sure enough, a table was found for us and we joined the party. The restaurant was absolutely heaving - long tables filled with people (many Australians) drinking margheritas, mojitos and all number of exotic looking cocktails. For the first five minutes or so, we just sat watching the scene in awe. It was not that the Australians were out of control but there was this one Balinese waiter that was literally going off his head. I don't know if that was his normal behaviour but if you behaved like that in a bar in Melbourne, you would be locked up pretty bloody quickly. He was entertaining to say the least - running around waving his arms in the air, yelling, screaming, laughing, dancing. He did it all much to the amusement of the diners.
We ordered a variety of quesadillas, empanedas and tacos. All were good but not fantastic like I was expecting. Quite honestly, I had better Mexican last year at the tiny little Taco Beach Grill than I did tonight. Sure, the atmosphere was great but there was just something lack lustre about the food. Perhaps I got them on a bad night or perhaps the cocktails are what you go there for - perhaps I should have had one instead of the Bintang!
Back to the hotel, throwing the last of the fireworks on the way, it was straight to bed for another awesome sleep in the incredibly comfortable bed.