Bali - Part 2 - Hotel Tour

I was awaken by the sound of an old lady who slept in the next bedroom. My handphone alarm has not rang. Why on earth did she wake up so early? My..oh..my..she had a voice louder than an alarm clock. I set my alarm at 6:30am only to be awaken at 5:30am - the time shown on my handphone. I got up and told her to ssshhhhh.....it's only 5:30am. And she exclaimed...hah?? 5:30am the sky where got so bright one?

Alamak, she's quite right also. I checked my wrist watch and found out it was almost 7am!!! Damn! I forgot my handphone has got auto time setting for worldwide time. But then, how do you explain about that "no time difference thingy"? Beats me, I am still puzzled until today.

So, we all got up. Opened the windows and saw beautiful view. We quickly showered and went to the coffee house for breakfast. The coffee house has a Balinese setting. They served continental breakfast buffet style. Not many choices but it tasted pretty good. The environment was really good. Shady and breezy with the fans running and some soft Balinese music in the background much to our joy.
Waiting for omelette

Next, we went strolling around the hotel. The name Puri Bambu tells all. It's filled with bamboos. Something which I adore.



At the poolside.


Taken from part of the compound

Still at the hotel's compound



As we strolled, we came across a humane looking monkey right on tree.
Flowers blooming at the garden.
I don't know what this is. I think it is a deco item. Actually towards the left hand side there is a reading corner, sort of like a mini library. Guests can actually sit right at the patio and read while enjoying the scenery at the same time.
While waiting for the tour guide to arrive, at the entrance of Puri Bambu.

Bali - Part 1 -before departure, during flight and upon arrival

I have been wanting to got to Bali since a long, long time. Somehow...some issues would just surface and then I had to put the trip on hold. I remembered the Bali bombing which created fear in all of us. Then came SARS. This time round, Dad actually tried to talk me out because of A(H1N1). Sighhh.....it just had to happen. Dad kept saying, today's news said this....today's newspaper said that...bla bla bla. For days he tried to talk me out of it. No, I don't care. I was adamant about my trip. I must go. I have put it on hold for so many times!

As a precaution, I enquired about Tamiflu tablets। Then I bought my multi vits including vitamin C. I increased my dosage intake। Just to convince myself that I have better back-up with stronger immune system. Not only that I had to buy masks - 1 box (50pcs). You might wonder why on earth would I need 1 box. Well, I am travelling in a group of 8. I estimated each person to use 3 masks for each route. And that's not all. I went looking for hand sanitisers. Making sure each of them has a bottle. Ok॥I have to admit I have been very kiasi and kiasu...but hey....better safe than sorry.

I don't want any of us to be infected or to be quarantined under suspicion due to my stubborness. It ain't fun to have a police standing outside your door for a week though you have not committed a crime. Because we were all so kiasus, before arriving at the airport, we donned on the masks।

We were the only people in that flight with masks। I thought I was being overly paranoid until I hear a passenger in the same flight sneezing away। Phew! Good thing I had the mask on.

The mask is pretty uncomfortable. It feels warm. I almost wanted to remove my mask while inside the airplane. And then suddenly I heard "Achooooo......". Oops.....and again "Achooooooo......". Aiyoyo...I changed my mind. Stick to the mask. My cousin and her mom who initially refused to put on the mask immediately took it out from their bags and donned it. Kakakakkaka..... As we were travelling in the evening, we managed to catch the sunset from inside the plane।

During flight, I kept trying hard to figure out about the time zone। Here's what happened। I called AirAsia to check if theire is any time differences and the girl said , yes...Bali is 1 hour behind us। Ok॥that's fine। I checked from one of the webs in the internet and yes, there is 1 hour difference। But when I looked back at my ticket, and calculating backward and forward, using my own logical explanation, I was not able to figure out how the time zone work। AirAsia girl said flight time is 2 hours but ticket showed 3 hours। So there has to be some kind of time difference। Still thinking hard, I heard the announcement...."we'll be landing shortly। FYI there is no time difference between Malaysia & Bali"। Huh?? No time differences?

Not trusting my ears I checked with the airport authorities when I got to the ground. Yeah.....no time difference. Ok, I told myself....1 last try...I'm going to ask differently this time. I approached a taxi driver. I said, "Excuse me, can I know what is the time now?". Taxi driver looked at his watch and said, "It's 10:30pm now." Hmm...that confirms it. No time difference. So much for my hard thinking during my 3 hours flight. Duh!

There are 8 of us....16 biji of eyes scanned the arrival hall, all on the lookout for our hotel driver. Saw so many people with signs but none that showed Puri Bambu Hotel. Oh dear....I went walking around, checking with strangers who has signage with them but was turned the other way round. No one could see what the signs said. All that I approached, none showed Puri Bambu. I decided to call the hotel. Darn, I was not able to get through. Not because the line was engage, more so like I have no connection. That's Celcom. I had to borrow one of our member's phone..DiGi user and it got through. My cousin who is a Maxis user couldn't get through either. The guy at the hotel said driver is already at the airport. He told us to walk to information counter and he will get the driver to meet us there. And yes, we found him. Aiyoh...I told the driver. Hold your signage high high. Don't hold low low. You place it around your waist area noone can see. Poor guy....he was apologetic and very patient with us.

We told him we were hungry. And he took us to have Nasi Padang at a small warung.The food tasted good...either that or we were all very hungry. Cost us 395,000 Rupiah. Quite frightening to have a meal which costs hundreds of thousands.

We checked in with welcoming drinks. 2 big interconnecting bedrooms greeted us. It was really spacious. We got excited for a while and not long after we fell into deep sleep.

Back in action

I lost my blogging sense. That was why I stopped blogging for more than a month. At times when I wanted to blog, some things would just crop up and there goes my ideas and creativity.

Well...I am back again after a good, short holiday. Feeling refreshed and fully recharged, I am back in action..be it work or blog.

Coming up next, I will be blogging about my holiday with loads of pictures to share.

Culture Unplugged Video

View this movie at cultureunplugged.com

Burnt a hole in my pocket

It was raining heavily this morning. Was really, really reluctant to wake up. I had to drag myself off the bed at 5:30am. Darn!!! It just had to rain at this hour.

My right eye has been twitching for the past few days. Call me superstitious but I truly believe that something horrid was gonna happen. How serious is the matter depends on how long or how hard the eye twitches. For this round I was bracing for the worst. The last time when I had eye twitching was a few years back when my dad was seriously ill. Each time my eye twitches, I get emergency calls from the hospital. That prompted me to believe that bad luck was going to befall.

Dropped my son off at his school at about 6.55am and then noticed the air-cond was not cold. How come? It was raining heavily. I should be freezing inside the car. One look at my meter temperature and I saw the needle going towards "H"...Up and up it went until it reached the red spot. I was alarmed.....praying hard that my front bonnet would not explode. I imagined my bonnet burst opened by the amounting pressure with smokes blowing out.

Stopped by the side and sat in the car for easily an hour. Heck....who could I call at such early hours. I can't open the water tank anyway. It's too hot to open it. Wouldn't want hot boiling water gushing onto my face and leave me scarred for life.

So I waited. Good thing mom was with me. She started telling me true stories about life after death. Geez......what a way to pass time. An hour later, we opened the bonnet. It was still drizzling. Water tank was full with water. So it cannot be the car running out of water. Phew....I really said to myself if it is because the car ran out of water then I only have myself to blame for. I would be so ashamed...good thing it wasn't that.

Around 9am++ the mechanic came. He checked and confirmed there is nothing wrong with the car except for the air-cond. And so I had to drive my car to the air-cond workshop. from the school to the workshop is about 1.5km. By the time I got there, temperature was at its max again. The guy had to wait for a while vefore opening the water tank cap. He said water is boiling. Yeah...when he opened it I could hear the ssshhhhhh sound followed by gluglug gluglug sound and then smoke coming out of it.

After the "CT scan", the car was dignosed with "lung failure". The fan has kaputed. And because the fan was not working, while driving, it actually add on the stress to the relay causing the relay to burn. He showed me the relay. It was black all over. He said had I continue to drive further, it would damage my car engine, thus I will have more headache.

So now he had to dismantle the fan and replace it with a new one. The original set costs RM500- RM600 for a Hyundai Atos. The not-so-original one costs RM290. A few things which I learnt today.

1. Never ever buy a Korean car. The guy told me Korean cars are sold cheap but spare parts cost a bomb. In fact for some parts the cost is equivalent to a Mercedes.
2. There is only ONE fan in Atos. Meaning, the fan will need to "look after" the air-cond and the engine. In Japanese cars, there are TWO separate fans, each looking after their own portfolio.
3. The cost of Atos fan is equivalent to 2.5 fans of a Toyota!!! Can you beat that?
4. Saw a Camry parked inside the workshop. We aked if it was his. He said yes. We asked further if its fuel savings. He said yes, definitely better than my car.
5. Never ever buy a Korean car. Seriously fuel consumption is so high and there is no 2nd hand value.
6. Car air-cond needs to be serviced every 18 months.
7. The air-cond filter needs to be changed every 30,000km. Filter is important as it looks after the compressor. The compressor is like the air-cond's heart. If it suffers a heart attack, it will die. And the replacement is not cheap.

So best is to send your car for a regular medical check before it is too late. When it requires surgery, chemotherapy and radiology....your pocket will suffer.

My cooling coil was removed to check if it is still in a good condition.

From the inside of the car at the passenger seat, below the dashboard. You probably can't figure this out. It looked a lot like the skull's been removed.
This is the front bonnet. Water tank's cap been removed.
Damn! I bought Atos because it was cheap. Didn't realise the spare parts price could match up to a Mercedes and Toyota. From poor became poorer now. Sighhh.

Added Family

Please welcome the new members to my collection.

Bought these from Charming Pieces.

Named The Secret not by me but by the lovely lady who founded and made them.


Originally it came with a pair of earrings made from the same black stones and dragon fly. I personally thought it didn't quite match this bracelet so I requested to have a pair of customised earring that matches. And here's what she produced.


I also bought The Accompaniments from her. I love dragon flies and couldn't resist this one.
Shi Min, the person behind Charming Pieces actually visited my blog and noticed that I am a crazy fan of earrings. Hence when I opened my package, I was surprised that she gave me this...for FREE! Another pair of earrings which came with this note and tied with a ribbon. So sweet of her.She certainly made me a happy customer. Smart marketing tactic. Haha.....

April's Fool

Was anyone of you fooled today? I was......early in the morning.

It was 6:35am when I heard my message tone. Wondered who could it be sending me such an early message. The message said "Tell Edrik today no school". I replied, "why?"

And that made me think hard...so hard.....squeezing all the juices in my brain wondering why. I recalled hearing the news last night. Nothing announced about a public holiday. Then I said to myself, did our Ruler passed away or something?. Why no school? Then I told Edrik....a message came from your grand aunt. She said no school today.

And Edrik asked. "why no school"? He quickly took the memo out from his schoolbag. His school has actually given him a memo on Public Holidays and class replacement dates. He went through it. He said," no ah...nothing mention about holiday today" "Aiyah..don't botherlah", I said and we left home.

Shortly, Edrik said, "Mi, I think I know why. It's April's Fool Day today". Just at the same time a message arrived on my phone. From my aunt who replied to my "Why?". She said, its 1st April...April's Fool.

Shucks!!! Who would have guessed a 50++ years old lady would pull such prank at such early hours of the morning!

Today is also the 6th death anniversary of Leslie Cheung, one of the most talented artiste I have ever come across. A handsome man with a beautiful voice. A singer, an actor who sings, dances and acts. He sings not just Cantopop but Chinese Opera as well. Unfortunately at the peak of his career, he died.

I learned about Leslie through a cousin of mine. He was so crazy over Leslie. He always play his songs and sang after him.

I still remember that fateful day. I was having dinner when my brother texted me and told me that Leslie had died. I choked on my food, not believing a word he said. I told him, please lah...it's April's Fool today. No good to pull such prank. He said it's all over the radio.

I rushed home. Don't know why I rushed home either. I turned on the tv, I called my friends, I listened to the radio. Yeah...radio was talking about it throughout.

Apparently Leslie committed suicide. Jumped from the 24th floor of Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong. A note was found on his body. Fans who heard about it rushed to the scene. Lots of us wondered why. Why did you have to do it?

I remembered watching the news. I saw someone with a broom and water scrubbing the spot where he landed. Must be washing away the blood.

I stayed at home to watch his funeral. I was sobbing in between. I wasn't even a diehard fan of his. I don't collect his albums and posters and etc. But I was deeply saddened. My mom who watched his concert from the DVD which my cousin bought after hearing about his death kept shaking her head. She kept saying...what a waste...why?

It's been 6 years. Till today, the radio stations still pay tribute to him. His fans still remember him dearly. I wonder if he ever regretted taking his own life.