Bali and Singapore

Catpoochino, coming soon to the many Starbucks near you.

Jack here.  Coffee lovers, beware of this post. It may destroy coffee for you forever.

Still here? Well, I did warn you. On our first day after arriving in Bali, we decided to take a long, seventeen mile bike ride to see some villages around Ubud, the part of Bali in which we were staying. The catch; the starting point of the bike ride was an hour away. So we drove. And, as drives go, it was pretty uneventful. Except for when we stopped for coffee.

We pulled up into a clearing, and got out of the van to walk a few meters into a forest. We found an area where they actually made coffee from scratch, and we ordered samples of ten different kinds of coffees and teas. There were some good ones:  vanilla coffee, lemongrass tea, and so on, but they were all negated by one thing. Cat poop coffee, aka catpoochino (or luwak coffee). The Balinese make a special kind of coffee out of the coffee beans that the civet cat eats then poops. And we had to drink it. My parents always said I was an adventurous eater. I was not informed that was supposed to apply to drinks as well.

The bike ride was really nice, though. We rode around different villages, and it was all downhill, so it wasn’t very strenuous.

All over Ubud, we saw people getting ready for Quiet Day and the festival that precedes it. The festival includes large paper mache figures that are paraded through town. This boy was working on one of the heads.

But the big moment was when Dad, Catherine and I let spiders climb on our faces. I wasn’t gonna let it on me at all, but Catherine did, so I had to. And then when Dad let the spider on his face, I wasn’t gonna do it, but Catherine did it, so I had to. I don’t like to let my siblings one-up me. So after a spider bigger than my hand crawled around on all of us, we finished the ride and returned to the hotel, where we stayed the rest of the day.

The next day was centered around one thing only; white-water rafting. We’ve been in Colorado a few times, so we all know how much fun rafting can be, but this time was better than most. Usually, in Colorado, the river we raft on is slow with some occasional big rapids. On this river, it was all rapids, all the time. We never got a break, but we all loved it. We rafted until lunch, and we then took a long drive back to the hotel, spending another afternoon doing nothing.

The next three days were spent almost entirely in the Indian Ocean. We drove to a new hotel, a beach resort, and we played on the beach almost the entire time. A few waves almost threw us back 20 feet. A few waves would have… if we had been in the water at the time. But it was (mostly) safe, and we all had a lot of fun. We spent the rest of the time doing my favorite thing in the world; absolutely nothing at all.

The 27th was Mom and Dad’s 15th anniversary, so they went out to dinner while we stayed home, watched TV, and played video games. Yes, it’s sad that we do so much of those two things. But every fad nowadays is two things put together. One thing just isn’t enough anymore. And let’s be honest, lazy or not, can you really beat TV and video games.

Here are some nice sunset pictures from the beach in Bali:

Only one temple on this trip – Tanah Lot!  And of course, Catherine and Ryan (not me!) with snakes:

So after a week of laziness, minus two awesome adventures out in the middle of Bali, we went to Singapore. It’s maybe the most Western place in all of Asia, and we loved it.

Our first night there, we went to the night zoo. Coolest. Thing. Ever. If you’ve ever been to a zoo, you know how a lot of animals, particularly the cats, are always sleeping. That’s because a lot of those animals are nocturnal, and at night… wow. The lions even roared for us. We got to see all kinds of animals running, and roaring, and it was the coolest thing ever… second to only the aquarium we got to see the next day, the last day of our trip. But I’ll get to that in a minute.

The first thing we did was go to the orchid gardens, which were filled with tons of different colored, shaped and sized orchids. They were really beautiful, and some of the pictures Catherine took were really amazing.

But the aquarium was the highlight of the day, and maybe of the whole trip. It may not have been a night zoo, but octopi usually aren’t very active during the day. On this day, the one we saw was swimming around all over the place. I got to take some truly amazing pictures of my favorite animal ever, which would have made the whole trip worth it even if the rest of the trip wasn’t just as great. The only bad thing about the aquarium was having to fight my siblings (and parents) for who got control of the camera.

We then went back to the hotel for a while, before going to Gardens By The Bay, which was sort of a mix between Disney World and a giant garden. It’s impossible to describe, because I can’t think of anything to compare it to. It was impossible to get my mind around, but some of the plants we saw there were, and I know I’ve been using this word a lot, truly awesome.

Then, because no day can be perfect, we got street food. But I ate twelve satays, so I could have done worse for myself. We then went back to the hotel to pack for our return to Shanghai, and I sit on the plane there typing this.

Overall, I’d say that the rest and relaxation that came with Bali combined with the general awesomeness of Singapore made this my favorite trip we’ve taken this year. We got a perfect blend of adventure and time to relax in a beautiful place, and I loved the whole trip.

Jack