whims and obsessions: February 2009

Last September (was it really that long ago?) Lee and I went to Bali, Indonesia for vacation. We were looking for a vacation spot that was a little more adventurous, with scuba spots, good food and pampering. From the reviews we read on the internet, it seemed like Bali was just the place.

The adventure started just with the flight to Indonesia. We flew out of San Francisco airport on Singapore Airlines. Although we flew in economy class, we found out just how bad service had gotten on airlines in the US by comparison. We flew in a 747, which seats about 400 people - we were boarded in about 10 minutes. The fleet of staff went down the line to check our tickets and passports, pulled out anyone that needed extra help and handled them separately. Inside the plane, anyone struggling with where they needed to be seated or with carry-on luggage was helped and efficiently seated. The seats themselves weren't too cramped. I typically don't have too many issues fitting since I'm short, but Lee noticed the extra knee room immediately. I had my own video screen where I could control my own programming with some hundred or so channels including around five movies. I could start and stop them whenever I wanted and I could even rewind or fast forward as I wished. We had full hot meals and even real silverware and hot towels before the meal. We each got our own "sock packs" as I'll call them - a packet that had some socks, a toothbrush and toothpaste, and tissues. We had pretty lengthy flights, from San Francisco to Hong Kong, to Singapore then Denpasar on the island of Bali. For breakfast, I was delighted to learn that I had a choice of Western breakfast or Asian. I opted for the noodles for breakfast simply to get a different experience. This was also the trip when I started my current fixation with English tea. Black tea with milk and sugar. Normally, I'm a green tea sort of person. On these flights, there and back, I ended up watching Get Smart with Steve Carrell, Kung Fu Panda, Forbidden Kingdom, Fearless, Ed Norton's version of The Hulk and skipped right over Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull. I saw a bit of the last one and decided it was so bad, it wasn't even worth viewing on an airplane.

Even the airports were interesting to spend our layovers. The shops were very high end, especially in Singapore. I don't think I'd heard of most of the shops there, but the ones I had heard of were the expensive type. I got a kick out of finding the Asian eateries and trying out their fare in between flights. Tea and rice could be had just about any hour of the day.

After about 20+ hours of flying time we touched down on Bali. We marveled at the exchange rate of rupia to US dollars. We started off the trip by withdrawing over a million rupia from the ATM! This only amounted to approximately US $100. The number of zeroes on a given bill certainly felt extravagant.

We split up our vacation into two different hotels. The first was so that we could get some beach time and the second because all the reviews said we should go into Ubud, the cultural heart of Bali.

The beach hotel was at Nusa Dua. It was billed as the resort hotel part of the island. I had tried booking us into one of the more popular beaches, but it seemed we picked a busy time. I think we chose a period of time when Australians were having a holiday and Bali is a typical destination for them. The streets are pretty narrow and crowded with the lanes acting as mere guidelines. Most of the inhabitants are on scooters that weave in and out of the trucks and cars, in dangerous proximity to each other.

The hotel at Nusa Dua was beautiful and we got our first taste of Balinese sense of decor - in a word, ornate. There were water features everywhere, pools and fountains, replete with statues. All the corridors in the hotel were open to the outdoors. I was surprised at the lack of mosquitoes. There were a few insects around, but given the heat and humidity, I had expected to have to wield my Deet religiously. Thankfully, I didn't need to. Our room had a balcony overlooking the gardens and wood slats seemed to be its theme. We had a welcome plate of fruit delivered shortly after we arrived with exotic fruits that weren't all recognizable. There were apples and later we found out that one of them was called snakefruit. There was another fruit that we dubbed "snotfruit" because the inside edible bits looked like seeds in clear snot. It was much tastier than it sounds though, slightly sweet. We took a shower and determined not to sleep until it was actually bedtime to combat our jetlag.

Come dinner time, we wandered off to the hotel buffet down a pathway through the gardens lit with candles. Bali, unlike the rest of Indonesia is primarily Hindu. One of their beliefs is that too much light at night disturbs the gods so they keep it very dim. I found it soothing and romantic. A dance troupe performed a traditional Balinese dance. I had to wonder if the performers weren't really trained for it. The music was compelling, but jarring in its tones and rhythm, but it sounded professional. Some of the dancers didn't seem comfortable with their roles as they kept looking towards the one confident dancer in order to mimic his movements. There was some sort of story to go along with the dance, but it was convoluted and hard to follow even when I read the synopsis later. It involved demons, some royalty, a rescue and death. The food was decent for buffet food, nothing too challenging. I had heard that they liked their food spicy here, but since we were at a resort hotel, it was probably watered down for the non-native palate.

We spent the following day on the beach. Sadly our beach was very shallow, but warm with no waves to play in whatsoever. Lee tried snorkeling a little bit deeper in, but didn't find anything worth reporting back. We rationalized that a bit of downtime was called for after our day of travel. Especially since the following day took us to the northeast coast of Bali for some scuba diving at Tulamben.

We had arranged for a day trip with Scuba Duba Doo (I wanted to buy one of their shirts because of their awesome name, but they didn't have any cool ones when we stopped in their shop). They picked us up, provided all the gear and meals for the day. We had 2 dives scheduled, both off the shore. The first was to a shipwreck of a US Liberty ship that had sunk in WWII. The boat wasn't very big and there wasn't really enough left to be inside a boat, but the skeleton remained. It wasn't quite as gloomy as diving under piers, but it had great atmosphere. Lots of fish feeding on coral. We even saw a school of tuna and a purple ray that was trying its hardest to hide in the sand away from our group of divers. Our second dive after lunch was to a coral wall. I found it a little less interesting than the first dive, but Tunas, our divemaster pointed out creatures along the way which included seahorses and a poisonous spiny thing that he pointed at with his fin so as not to get too near.

The following day, we hired a taxi driver to take us to our hotel in Ubud. There was no way we were driving ourselves in that kind of traffic. The custom with taxi drivers for tourists was to spend a day being taken to shops selling all sorts of crafts and souvenirs. The drivers would get a cut of what you paid to the shops. Bali has entire villages devoted to a particular craft, from batik to silver and gold jewelry, to wood and stone sculpture and painting. I was a little leery of the whole taxi system but our driver, Mudita, seemed very accommodating and only took us to places we were interested in rather than where he wanted to go. Of course, he was happy to wait as long as we wanted to stay. The only place we did go was to a batik shop. We marveled at the batik-making process, which they demonstrated to us. It's basically alternating between applying wax, dyeing, removing the wax, adding new wax, dyeing again, and so on until the intended pattern was realized. We spent quite a bit of time inside picking out souvenirs for family as Christmas presents as well as a few bits for ourselves. I was sorely tempted to buy a bunch of fabric myself so that I could make my own clothing, but that would have been quite a bit more expensive.

Mudita dispelled my wariness with his choice of a lunch place. He drove us to a restaurant in the middle of a rice field, somewhat off the beaten path. The restaurant was upstairs, overlooking the field as well as a beautiful pool that no one was swimming in. Lee ordered a sampler plate - rice, chicken satay, shredded chicken stew and some cone-shaped meat concoction that was very tasty. I had the mie goreng, a fried noodle dish with vegetables. The rice field was a lush green, with plastic bags fluttering on the ends of sticks, presumably to scare away the birds that eat the rice. The pool was a brilliant blue with a temple off to the corner. It was warm, but upstairs a breeze was blowing that made it very pleasant. After lunch, they brought out the standard fruit plate with papaya, snake fruit, honeydew, and watermelon.

Which reminds me that I forgot to mention the most memorable restaurant in Nusa Dua: Bumbu Bali. According to our travel books, the idea of restaurants is somewhat awkward to Balinese culture. When not eating at home, people are generally eating at a friend or family member's house. Bumba Bali was created so that tourists could experience that sort of home hospitality in a restaurant. They also give cooking lessons, but we weren't able to schedule one on our trip. We were greeted with plumeria blossoms to wear in our hair (and both men and women wear flowers in their hair there). We picked out two dishes, served family style, a beef in coconut milk and vegetables in peanut sauce. Luckily for us, they left us to add our own additional red spice in. They served it with three different kinds of rice, all grown on Bali. The yellow jasmine rice with turmeric, a brown wild rice and red rice. Each had a different texture and went wonderfully with the food. Perhaps they had also toned down the spices in the food as it wasn't too challenging to my palate.

Back to our trip to Ubud. We didn't stop in any other shop. We spent quite a bit in the batik shop and weren't up to more shopping already. It wasn't for lack of interest in the wares offered. We saw some benches and statues that would be fantastic additions to our back yard garden but would probably be cost prohibitive to ship. I thought it would be great to have one of the parasols with red fringe over a bench to replace the rickety one in our yard, too.

The Furama Villas and Spa was just north of the center of Ubud. As I had mentioned before, Ubud is the heart of Balinese culture as the center of the arts villages. We had gotten a villa and frankly weren't expecting anything extravagant for the price. Boy, were we in for a treat. Our greeting included a cool towel and a lemongrass lemonade. We were also told that a free Italian dinner came with our stay as well as a 15-minute Balinese massage. I wondered faintly about why the dinner was Italian instead of Balinese, but I wasn't about to turn down free food. We were delighted but not quite done with being delighted yet. They loaded us up on a golf cart with our luggage to our villa. We rode past the hotel swimming pool and were told that we wouldn't care about that since we had our own. That comment was the preview for the awesome villa we saw next. When I read "villa" in the description, I didn't really take it seriously. I just thought it was a cute name for whatever room they put us in. But it was indeed, its own building, large enough for a huge bedroom and bathroom. With its own yard, and yes our own pool. In the yard, we even had our own pair of spa tables in case we wanted a massage at our villa. The front porch had our dining table. Behind the building, with tall walls around it, we had an outdoor shower - Lee's favorite. We had to spend a while marveling at the awesomeness that was our vacation digs. We had opted to have our free Italian dinner that night but we still had time before then so we went up to the spa for our free massage.

It was only the first of several massages we ended up getting at that spa. We even had a "surprise" one - we were planning on going for a second scuba day, but Lee got food poisoning and ended up having a villa and spa day instead. We kept doing their spa deal of the day (which saved some money) and was typically a package of some sort, involving a dry rub and tenderizing routine. The Balinese massage was one of the hardest pressure massages I've ever experienced. I could have sworn that my masseuse was standing on the table to apply that much pressure. It felt ridiculously awesome. Add to the fact that the spa room was elevated, open to the air behind screens and facing the sunset and you can see why we went back a few more times. We also tried Thai massage which is a combination massage and stretchy poses.

One of the activities I insisted on was catching one of the dance performances in the center of Ubud. Bali has a number of traditional dances, each telling a story in ornate, gilded costuming accompanied by similarly decorated instruments that looked like xylophones. The dances that we saw looked like the dancers were trying to mimic moving versions of the 2D sculptures that were all through their temples. They had exaggerated, wide-eyed expressions, and their foot and hand positions were mostly aligned sideways. It was a fun performance that was unfortunately truncated by a downpour. With the costuming and make-up they wore, I wasn't surprised that they beat a quick retreat, abbreviating their dance performance smoothly at the direction of the band leader.

We were repeatedly encouraged to visit the Monkey Forest (one of a number, apparently) while we were there. Lee brought the telephoto lens thinking that it would be similar to our wildlife outings at home, beautiful outdoors with the occasional and faraway glimpse of the animals. We couldn't have been more wrong. An environmental and monkey protection group sold tickets to enter the forest, which was set among temples in the trees, but they also sold bananas for the tourists to feed the monkeys. We opted not to buy any bananas, which was a lucky thing since the hungry monkeys all hovered at the entrances waiting for such tourists. Apparently the monkeys viewed banana-bearing tourists as walking food trees. If they were unhappy with the rate at which they received the bananas, they had no hesitations whatsoever about climbing the person/banana tree to get their share. We even saw one monkey, climb one woman and dig into the tote where she had hidden her bananas. The monkeys were many, they were up close and personal and they were endlessly fascinating.

There were many activities in Bali that we didn't get a chance to experience. On our next trip there, whenever that may be, I think I'd definitely go back to Ubud, perhaps hit a different beach experience and try the northern coast for scuba diving. It was a sad day to have to come back.

I practice Shotokan karate, an Okinawan martial arts style founded by Gichin Funakoshi. I've been practicing for about three years on this most recent stint. I started way back in ancient times when I was in college, took a break and now I'm back. Last weekend I attended my dojo's semiannual karate camp. It's like going car camping - days of strenuous activity, eating, no showers, sleeping and rising with the sun.

Our karate camp is held at the dojo. We sleep on the hardwood dojo floor. The rhythm for the weekend is practice-eat-sleep starting Friday evening and going until mid-day on Sunday. Typically, Sensei picks out an advanced kata (training form) and breaks it down in detail so that we better understand each move. This is usually through application or "bunkai". Every move can be used as a block or counterstrike against a particular attack. I find this also helps me remember the kata sequence. The advanced katas tend to be long and short sequences of movements may be similar to other pieces of katas, so memorizing the sequences can be tricky. And I typically don't do these longer katas in my everyday training (I tend to work on a particular kata in preparation for my next belt test). Trainings also range from breaking down a particular advanced move to pure endurance/cardio tests to oblique activities that may not, at first blush, be directly applicable. But of course, Sensei doesn't make us do anything that's irrelevant.

This time, I learned 2 advanced katas, Hangetsu and Jion. We only practiced Jion the first day and worked on Hangetsu for the rest of the weekend. The bunkai for Hangetsu was probably the most complicated I'd tried so far. But I did work with a couple of our black belts so that helped me understand. Even though Sensei changed it up as we were still trying to practice the original application.

We also worked on moving around blindfolded so that we could develop sensing our environment without relying so much on sight. We practiced moving around the dojo around obstacles as well as trying to sense when others were near and their relative location. I wasn't very good at finding other people, but I did try and employ the sense you feel when someone is reading over your shoulder. I think that was effective a handful of times.

There's also a philosophical aspect of camp. That's one of the precepts I like about this practice - I'm working on mind, body and spirit instead of just body. Since Sensei is Sufi, which I understand to be a mystical study Islam, he views Funakoshi's teachings of karate through that lens. Which is a bonus because I learn about Sufism and karate teachings all at once. Most camps, the philosophical segment is primarily done through our after meal talks where Sensei will talk about his past, the meanings of his faith, karate teachings and how it applies to living life outside the dojo. This time, the philosophy segment was augmented by a movie we watched called Bab'Aziz. It's an allegorical movie set in Iran about a dervish wandering the desert with his granddaughter in search of a gathering of dervishes. It was only later, when I had access to the internet again that I understood that a dervish is a Sufi Muslim mendicant ascetic, known for extreme poverty and austerity (Thanks Wikipedia!). I had thought dervishes were weather phenomena in the desert like mini tornadoes. It's a beautiful film with a beautiful score but I'll need multiple viewings to fully understand what's going on. The dervish meets other travelers along is journey and we find out about their goals and search as well.

One of the two things I took away from this viewing was in the opening screen. It was a quote that said, "There are as many paths to God as there are souls on Earth." The other concept I liked was when Bab'Aziz, contemplating his death, explained that it was his wedding night to eternity and there's every reason not to fear it.

Our final practice on Sunday morning is Qigong. It's not nearly as energetic as our regular practices but in some ways it's actually more physically difficult. Holding poses for minutes at a time takes its toll on my muscles. But the fascinating thing for me is feeling the chi energy that we're focusing on. I'm not enough of a qigong student to really sense the power of it, but Sensei says that you can defeat enemies simply with chi. I suppose for the time being, I'll just have to take his word for it. My engineering brain can't visualize how that could possibly work and believe it.

Before I started going to karate camps, I used to dread it. But as I've attended several now, I find myself looking forward to the whole experience, especially the learning part.

whims and obsessions

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Bali

Sunday, February 15, 2009

What I Did at Karate Camp

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Dancing Globally

Monday, February 2, 2009

My New Favorite Band: Journey

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