The Final Countdown…

The hours tick down as we ready ourselves to leave this incredible island paradise and return home to Australia.

It’s been an incredible 5 months here in Bali and we could never have imagined the laughter and adventure that was bestowed upon us during our stay.

Amazing friends, astonishing food, bizzarre tales of the strange and unexpected. This island home that has opened it’s arms and embraced us so lovingly and now, forever blessed us with the next generation of Adventurers Extraordinaire.

This journey has been beyond our wildest dreams and in 5 months from now, a new adventure awaits us at home (technically, still in Fiona’s belly).

But for now, I guess our time has come. Our bags are packed, it’s time to leave the island.

Jeff Probst has donned his blue shirt and snuffed out our torch…

Justin and Fiona…the tribe has spoken.

Thank you Bali…we love you LONG TIME 🙂

5th Year Wedding Anniversary

We celebrated our 5th year wedding anniversary in a day of style and cheeky indulgence. We got picked up in a private car and delivered to the Prana Spa Bali in Seminyak. Where decadence and opulence runs like hot and cold water from the extravagant tap of “Oh My God”.

This spa treatment facility was like walking through an Ali Babar Wonderland. A drippingly delicious Indian setting in rich burned ocher colours, intricate tile designs and bilious striped canopies, you’d be forgiven for thinking we’d just rubbed a genie out of a bottle and made all our wishes come true.

Fiona was treated to a gentle salt foot scrub, pregnancy massage and a hair cream bath…(which is how she got pregnant in the first place). And I indulged in the “Man package”…(not my actual man-package, which again, is how she got pregnant in the…whatever), but a salt foot scrub, full body massage and facial.

And if that’s not manly enough for you, I’d happily smash your face in and smile at you with a soft but glowing complexion.

They poured us under the door on our way out and we flowed across the street for lunch at a kooky little restaurant called “Word of Mouth”, (but for the life of me, I can’t remember how we found out about it?). Kooky for a number of reasons, firstly, because it had some kind of weird “egg-theme” going on, with giant egg cushions, lampshades made from hundreds of tiny eggs stuck together, egg light fittings and even the tables had a small mirror in the centre, resembling a large fried egg. And secondly, because everything on their menu was tiny. Tiny bite-sized burgers, a bowl of wedges with only six wedges in it with wasabi mayonaise. Either these people really know how to stretch a buck by rationing their food, or their clientele mainly consists of elves, dwarves and Barbie doll figures.

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Dinner was at our favourite restaurant, Pavone. Where we’re always treated like part of the family (not sure if it’s hers or mine or which one is better), but as my new Bali best friend, Yudha, put’s it…“You’re never alone in Bali, my friend.” And that’s almost as comforting as cuddling my sexy wife of 5 years. 😉

 

Spider Sense is Tingling

During our time in Bali, we’ve encountered all kinds of of weird and exotic creatures, and today was no exception. Only instead of it being a cute and fury creature, or a weird but cool gecko, lizard or amphibian, today’s encounter was one of the creepy eight-legged variety…

The biggest spider in all of Bali.

And I knew it was big when it slid open the glass doors to our balcony, crushed a beer can on it’s forehead, lifted up the bed to get past us and wore the curtains as a napkin as it scaled the wall like King Kong on the Empire State Building. This thing was way bigger than my hand, and could easily text message way quicker than I ever could (and without using predictive text, even).

Call me inhumane, but I have a wife and baby on the way to protect, and it’s kill or be be killed in the jungle. And this mo-fo was on my turf. Being the hero that I am, I jammed a dagger between my teeth, stabbed it into the curtain and slid down like a pirate splitting a sail in those old pirate flicks, and pounced onto the giant creature’s back. We wrested to-and-fro, knocking furniture upside down and demolishing the room. Before giving him…

A face full of Baygon.

It was an agonizing (yet fascinating), defeat. And as the creature rolled over onto it’s back on the wall, it clung to a single silk thread, spewing from it’s abdomen. Refusing to give up, hanging on the wall like a giant swinging metronome under Big Ben.

Like Indiana Jones on the rickety rope-bridge in the Temple of Doom, I grabbed the nearest machete and hacked my way through his web, sending him hurtling into the alligator infested river below, (which looked amazingly just like the marble tiles of our floor).

Victory was had. But for how long? For now, my family can rest in safety and peace and I will unceasingly watch the horizon (and skirting boards), for any sign of their return. A task, I will lay upon myself til my last dying breath, (or until we catch the plane back to Oz next week).

Til that day, spiders…beware!

Wet Dreams

Holy toledo! Looks like our day dreams in the sun are more like wet dreams in the rain with all the weather we’ve been getting lately.

They don’t call it the wet season for nothing!

It rained three days straight in Bali, and while that was no great cause for alarm for us, I did notice the neighbours acting a little weird, gathering all their animals two-by-two. But basically for us, it meant we had to barricade ourselves into bed with videos and whatever we have in the cupboards, to snack on. And mind you, a grass-weaved placemat is no substitute for a salada biscuit, no matter how much butter you smear on it.

It also meant we had to amuse ourselves in other ways to prevent us from going stir crazy. Thankfully, my sister-in-law Steph, gave me an Impossipuzzle Jigsaw to help us wheedle away the time. Unfortunately for us, it took us less than 6 mins to complete the puzzle. Five minutes and 20 seconds for me to get it out of the box and 40 seconds for Fiona to solve it.

So, it’s back to wet dreams and videos in bed, eating furniture and editing crazy videos of our trip, like this…

“Not-so-instant” Pyjamas

Fiona received a curious X-mas present from her sister, Steph, that promised a spectacular outcome.

The results speak for themselves…

Our Crazy Bali Xmas

Christmas morning in Bali. The stockings were full…and so was, John (full of Scotch). Stephie bummed a smoke off John in the morning which he misconstrued as on open invitation to stagger into our villa and hang out for a while. Lucky for all of us that Steph didn’t light up in front of him, or his breath could have blown us all to kingdom come! I think he spent the remainder of the day hibernating…poor John 😦

Gusti joined us for lunch at the Mal Bali Galleria and we booked in for Christmas Dinner at Pavone, in Legian. A huge 5 course meal with welcome drinks, bruschetta starter, seafood entree, roast beef and turkey main meal with vegetables, christmas pudding dessert with sherbet sorbet and tea/coffee with mince tart and gingerbread.

They also had a Bali Santa who gave Candice a gift (a packet of plastic zoo animals – score!), and they played Christmas carols on the baby grand piano while we ate. The staff, Yudha and Dedy, were absolutely top notch and Mark, the owner, even greeted us and thanked us as we left (something we didn’t see him do to any of the other customers). But then again, nobody else was sporting such festive headwear…

Only the cool kids 🙂

The funniest part of the night that almost called for ringing the ambulance to administer oxygen to Irene and Stephie, was when Irene ordered her coffee “white.”

“Sorry, mama. We don’t have white coffee, only black. But we can give you black coffee…with milk?”

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Space Invaders

I’ve been living alone in this huge two story villa for 4 weeks now and finally the love of my life has returned (with some family members in tow), to brighten my life and prevent me from going “Island Crazy” without them. A welcome invasion of this huge empty space, if ever there was.

So, Fiona and “bubindabelly”, arrived about 2pm in the arvo and I picked them up “quick-az” on the scooter in an absolute flash. I was in and out the airport quicker than a teenage boy in a brothel.

And speaking of space invaders, Fiona’s arrival at the villa must have been like being visited by aliens from another planet, when she walked in the door, right into the waiting open arms of…

A 60 year old American man…in his underpants!

My next door neighbour, John. He’s a nice guy with a big heart but, an even bigger pair of y-fronts. His heart is definitely in the right place, but his underpants are usually not (up around his neck).

So we talked, swam…and looked away every time he climbed in and out the pool.

About 11pm that evening, I picked up Fiona’s Entourage (mother Irene, sister Stephanie and niece, Candy). Only this time, I was in a cab with our Bali Taxi driver friend, Gede, so we were in and out the airport slower than a 40 yr old Bigfoot enthusiast losing his virginity.

So, ’tis the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature is stirring except...the hacking cough and moonlight twinkling of a sixty-year old man bobbing for Xanax.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Final Destination

Ever had a déjà Vu moment? Where you think or feel like you’ve done this before?

Today marks the 4th and last time I have to extend my visa in order to stay on this beautiful island…

Sure, that’s repetitive, but not the kind of déjà Vu I’m talking about. I actually mean, the Final Destination type of déjà Vu. The kind where you notice a string of seemingly unrelated incidents that cause a path of destruction that kills everyone before any of it actually happens!

That’s the kind of déjà Vu moment I had in the traffic this morning. Now don’t send in the Coast Guard or call 911, nothing actually happened and just to be clear…NOTHING ACTUALLY HAPPENED! (Was that déjà Vu?)

I had the moment where I’m riding along and suddenly become aware of the guy weaving on the scooter in front of me on his mobile phone, then looked next to me at the uncovered ute with a pile of sharp aluminium table legs shifting in the back. All coming to a stop at the traffic lights behind the Elpigi tanker and the other guy on another scooter who lights up a cigarette!

But thanks to my black ops training from watching 5 Final Destination movies…I did what any hero would do…

I got my ass outta there!!

Unlike the Final Destination movies and fortunately for me, nothing happened and nobody died, which means “Death” won’t be looking me up in the Karmic phone book anytime soon.

And such is the start to yet, another crazy day in this beautiful crazy paradise 🙂