Still on Vacation

Earlier this week, on Monday night, I left for Bali, Indonesia.  I did not take my computer and thus have not blogged for a while.  I've been home a couple of days now, but find myself being pretty lazy and still on vacation :).  Thus, no blog updates.  Here's a quick overview of the trip and I'll try to post more details later.

While I had heard of Bali, I did not really know where it was.  So, here's a map for everyone's benefit.  It's about a 2.5 hour flight from Singapore - so pretty close, which is good because I would love to go back!

I stayed at a resort, the Nikko Bali, which is pretty much at the southern-most tip of the island.  It was very nice, but a bit secluded from the rest of the island.  This was perfect for me though as my main priority was relaxing and not running all over like most of my vacations are. I had nothing planned when I left Singapore :).

I arrived late on Monday and left late on Thursday - so I had 3 nights and basically 3 full days.  Day 1 was at the beach and pool, Day 2 was in a car exploring the island and Day 3 was back to the beach.  I did wear my sunscreen, but still got burnt.  Most of it has seemed to fade away by now though.  It's rainy season (monsoon season in December) here, so I was worried about the weather.  It was beautiful for Day 1 and 3 on the beach but rainy for Day 2. 

Following are some pics to highlight my mini-holiday :).

View from the main lobby out to the Indian Ocean.  Yep, I can now say I've been in the Indian Ocean :)!  Open water scares me, so I can't really say I "swam".

My building, which was a garden view room.  I had the first floor - I think all the way to the left. 

My spot that I scoped out on the far end of the beach.  I had it all to myself on Day 1!  You can't tell too much from this view, but it was a pretty steep walk down to the water from here.  Gave my calves a good workout - especially in the sand! :)

For my drive inland, I hired a driver for the day - cheaper than trying to do a package tour.  It wasn't the best of days, but more of that in my next post.  It finally cleared up after 4 and we drove through some of the countryside - rice paddies.  I find it so interesting how they grow rice, must be the farm girl in me.

The driver taking my picture while waiting for the bench to free up from other tourist photo-takers.  Hopefully it's not too obvious that I was a little annoyed.  This was our last stop before going back to the hotel.  It's a temple in the background, Tanah Lot.

A better side of the back of the hotel.  The hotel is built into a cliff.  The lobby was actually on level 2, one floor above my room.  There is a separate building from mine that has all of the beach/pool view rooms.  From lobby level 2, you walk to level 15 of that building - so you can imagine the size of the "cliff".

A view of the pool and beach from the observatory tower above level 15.  It was really neat.  My beach spot actually isn't in the picture above.  It's to the right of the tree in the upper right corner.  They had several pools.  The big one you see had two volleyball nets and a basketball hoop along with a real sand beach for the kiddies.  Yes, the big wet spot is a small beach. 

I leave you with an awesome blue sky.  I don't know how I got the colors to come out like they did (I'll thank mother nature on this one), but I love the sky in this picture!!  I took this with my new Nikon D5000 - my first DSLR.  I'm still figuring it out - thus the buildings and such aren't as sharp as I would hope.

Hope everyone had a safe and wonderful New Year!!

*I was on my flight home for the countdown to midnight.