Indonesia: Back to Bali!

On the way to Ubud from the Denpasar airport we passed by many beautiful monuments. Each monument represents something historic, but I'm not sure exactly what...

This was the first statue we drove by and it represents a Balinese warrior.

This monument was by far my favorite. It had the most intricate of detailing.

When we arrived in Ubud we had to find a hotel. Of course, as soon as we got out the cab to look for a place it started to rain. I guess I can't complaing though because we were visiting during the rainy season and there was more sun than rain in the two weeks I was there. We ended up randomly stumbling upon the place Jen was staying called, Sonja's house, so we checked if they had available rooms and they did, so we took one with a/c and hot water. I have to show a picture of our room because it was very 16th century, so see picture below:

Our first night in Ubud we decided to go see a traditional Balinese dance show. We went to see the most popular, which is the Legong Dance. There is one common story line, but many different dances within the main dance that represent different characters. Make sense? Below are some pictures from the dance and I have labelled the best I can remember. Also, flash photography wasn't allowed, so they are rather blurry because of that.

WThe Welcome Dance: Offering in the form of a ritual dance. Symbolizes the joyful reception of the Gods who attempted a temple festival. Warrior Dance: Glorifies the manhood of the triumphant Balinese warrior. Legong Kraton Dance: Classical dance, which is usually staged in the palace courtyard to entertain the King. It is performed by three girls in colorful costumes. Bumblebee Dance: Traditional Balinese love story, performed by a boy bee and a girl bee who fall in love. Topeng Tua Mask Dance: Popular dance with a variable number of characters depending upon the story being depicted. Performed most frequently during religious occasions. Most of the dancers taking a bow at the end of the show.

The next day we too a Balinese style cooking class through Casa Luna. Along the way we saw the students at the local elementary school out doing their exercise in their awesome pink and navy uniforms. And, yes the boys have to go through the torture of wearing their pink uniforms everyday.

They all look so Pretty in Pink!

Before we started the cooking part of the class, our first stop was a two hour tour of the Ubud market, which opens at the crack of dawn. They wanted us to see where the spices and other ingredients used in Balinese cooking came from and explain each ingredient in detail to us.

These women came to the market around 4:00 a.m. to start set-up because they the food they sell is only sold in the morning, so they work half a day and go home. This woman was cute selling her fruit. She kept trying to get us all to try it.

When we were finished at the market we headed to the place we would be cooking our meals. We got fed breakfast and were given cookbooks before we started the cooking process. Each of us got to try out with the cooking process.

This is me trying a cooking technique used to turn chili peppers, spices and other vegetables into a paste. Let me just say that it's not as easy as it looks. It takes some serious arm muscle and you have to avoid touching the stone bowl while mixing. The woman do this almost everyday, crazy! These are the completed dishes we cooked: Mie Goreng (fried noodles), Kare Tempe (tempe curry, which contains tofu), Sambul Tuwung (roasted eggplant sambal, Kuah Ikan (tomato lemongrass sauce for fish), Urab Pakis (fern coconut salad) and dessert, which was Dadar Unti (green pancakes with coconut).

It was a great experience attending a cooking class because we got to witness first hand how the Balinese cook all of their traditional/featured dishes and how much time and effort is put into them. We got to eat all the food we cooked and it was delicious.

We decided to go to another dance while we were in Ubud and why not when they are all under $10/show?!?! The dance we chose was Legong Dance and Ramyana. The pictures below aren't labelled because the story is to long and intense, so just enjoy their outfits.

Legong "JOBOG" dance story. "RAMAYANA" Dance. "RAMAYANA" Dance. "RAMAYANA" Dance. The main dancers taking a bow after the show. This dance show was my favorite.

We decided to go out after the dance for a night on the town, but Ubud doesn't have nightlife quite like other parts of Bali. We started at a bar that had a live Reggae band playing, we are automatically, drawn to reggae in Indonesia and after S2B on Gili T. Then we headed about 10 minutes out of the city to a night club called, OziGo, which had a live band playing. We ended up partying into the wee hours of the morning, pretty much until the bar closed and we had no choice, but to leave :)

Heidi and I were very happy to find a place to party. It was the highlight of our trip to Ubud finding OziGo!

It was roughly around the wee hours of 3:00 a.m. I decided I wanted to be the drummer in my own band. No one else there seemed to be digging my mad drumming skills.Who needs them anyways, I can make it on my own...lol!