For Jayde's Graduation, I'm taking her to Asia. I'm excited to expose her to new cultures and experiences. It is funny to see how nervous she is about certain experiences--navigating the subway, staying in a hostel--and remember how wide-eyed I was when I started traveling. This is a new experience for me too. It's just three weeks (rather than the epic month plus I'm used to). I guess that is part of growing up . . .
Anyway, we left SLC Thurs. night and chased the Sun. all the way to Bali. We skipped Friday altogether. We arrived too late to do anything except walk down to the beach and watch the sunset. We stayed in Kuta, which has a disturbing number of McDonalds, KFCs, and Starbucks. Fortunately, and disappointingly, the locals are proficient in English.
We got hustled by some nail-polish toting ladies, but managed to escape with a cute pedicure (and most of our money). While we were wandering around, Lenny (a very helpful rastafarian) pointed out a "monster" and told us about a parade/contest taking place the next day. We later learned that before the New Year, groups of boys and men get together to make HUGE paper mache monsters, parade the monsters, and burn them to the ground. It is symbolic of chasing out demons before the new year.
As we were playing spot the monster, and walking back to our hotel, I couldn't help but noticing the large number of men in very traditional dress (a long sarong skit and a turban-like head wrap), walking out of the temples, answering their cell phones, and driving off on their mopeds. It was a bit surreal.
1 comment:
i absolutely love that pic of you walking on the beach! sooo beautiful! (you and the beach!)introspective, realaxed, confident- this is one for the memory bank so that when i imagine you in bali i will see this pic...
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