A month ago, we had a chance to fly down to Bali, Indonesia and opted to stay at the Novotel in the secluded town of Nusa Dua. We chose Nusa Dua because of its isolation (the point of the trip was R&R, so leaving the town was not something we were planning to do anyway) and we were upgraded to a suite on arrival, not that we made much use of the kitchen. Nusa Dua has no beach parties, no temples, actually aside from the beach, there is nothing too noteworthy to see or do. But because of this, the beaches were pretty empty, I am talking kilometers of beautiful beaches with only a handful of people.

In the mornings, we would eat before heading down to the beach and in the evening we would head back to our resort and swim in the artificial lagoon (although it was a fairly large lagoon, it was still crowded and full of kids while the sun was up, but it transforms into a peaceful place to swim at night… By the way, random frogs occasionally swim in the lagoon too). The resort had a restaurant down by the beach where you could get drinks or food and at night, they put some tables out on the beach for dinner.

On our first night there, we decided to go down to try it out, and we ended up being the only patrons there. It was pretty amazing, having dinner on the beach that we had all to ourselves. To make things even better, the full moon was out and it was so bright that we could see our own shadows on the beach!

We also found this little shack near another resort, I believe it was meant for the workers of the resort to eat there, but we ate there anyways. I mean Nasi Goreng for $1US ?? Can’t really beat that. We also got to try Tebs, a carbonated “Tea Cooler” and Tehbotol, a sweetened cold tea.

We did spend the last day exploring south east Bali, most notably, heading to Uluwatu Temple, home of these extremely cunning monkeys. If you are not careful, they steals your belongings and will only return them when you trade for them with bananas. orz

As usual, Flickr photostream here (if you saw the photos on Facebook, then there aren’t too many additional photos on my photostream this time)

Domaine Pinnacle, Ice Apple Wine (Quebec, Canada)

KAVALAN, Cask Strength Single Malt Whiskey (Taiwan)

I swear, Polymetrica and his Lovely Package shares on Google Reader are turning me into a package whore. Also, I should really shoot these things with better lighting :3

I also found these really cool bottles of rice wine . The bottle was shaped like a Tiger, filled with clear rice wine with gold flakes and the tail of the tiger comes off and that’s how you pour the wine out. Another bottle had a glass dragon inside the bottle. Both were pretty darn expensive (we are talking hundreds of US$ here) and unfortunately, I couldn’t get a photo

Taiwan photos tomorrow (hopefully)~!

Edit: oops, yeah apparently I can’t even spell KAVALAN properly. Fixed.

Its autumn! You know what that means? American Sitcoms, cooler weather and hockey season is just around the corner. But yesterday was Mid-Autumn Festival. You know, mooncakes, lanterns and such? Yum.  I was out near my apartment and attended the famous Tai Hang Fire Dragon / 大坑火龍 (I’ve seen it on TV before, always wanted to go).

It is pretty much a very long (75-100 meters?) dragon covered in incense. SO MUCH SMOKE. But so pretty.

Setting up incense (this is the dragon’s tail)

All lit up and ready to go!

Lanterns!

RAAAAAAAWWRRRRR (or whatever noises a dragon makes)

They had the kids hold lanterns and walk in circles. There’s probably some symbolic meaning in that.

Looks heavy~

It was really intense, trying to get the rest of the dragon’s body to keep up with the head. The whole dragon took over 35 people to operate and countless more on the side directing where and how the body should be moving. And the whole time, burning ash is falling onto the people carrying the dragon!

More photos can be found on my flickr stream

Skiing was great, we spent four half days skiing, some drinking, and of course, there was lots of food involved. It felt kinda strange though, because I grew up eating poutine and burgers by a fireplace when taking a break from skiing, not ramen and bulgogi. The second last day there, it started getting warm, it even rained in the afternoon! But nightime came, and the rain turned to snow I woke up on the last day with some fresh snow on the slopes. I considered giving snowboarding a try on the last day, but the fresh snow made me rent skis instead so I could hop onto the gondola up to Dragon Peak for its 7.4km run back down to the base (If I rented a snowboard, I’d be stuck on the cruddy green hills).

Going at the tail end of  ski season has its advantages; there weren’t alot of people on the slopes and rentals + lift tickets were at a 40% discount! However, be warned that the ski equipment isn’t that great, we got these oldschool boots I haven’t seen for years instead of the buckle boots. Next year I’ll hopefully have my own set of skis and boots~

View from the top of Dragon Peak. Its got two black runs and a 7.6km blue run.

And yes, they really bow to you when you get off the skii lift (I have a video, but its gonna have to wait until the weekend until I can upload it)

While I was in Korea, I noticed how I had become too accustomed to the HK lifestyle..

• I was surprised when cars actually stopped to let you cross the street
• I totally forgot you have to clean up after yourself at fastfood places
• I totally expected a McDonalds or Starbucks within a 5 minute walk at any time
• I totally forgot things that “close way too early” should actually be “things close at normal time, things in HK stay open way too late”

Anyway, some photos from the trip can be found in the flickr stream below:

I think I totally ruined this shot… me and my stupid peace sign. Sorry

Actually the only time I really like taking photos of people are when they don’t know I’m taking the photo (yes, I realized that came out kinda creepy. Trust me, I’m not creepy … I think.)

Anyway, enjoy the set!

Taken from right ontop of the falls. Bet you can’t do this at Niagara!

Arriving at Sha Tin we took a <secret> bus out to <secret>. The (almost but not quite) 25 man group made their way to the foot of an uphill path where our afternoon was about to being. We started up the paved road, pausing once in the shade for some water. Along the way up, Benny said to me “Hey, this must be a cinch for you”, I agreed. Hiking up paved roads and dirt trails? Easy as pi. Little did I know, this would turn out to be a Class I scramble.

Very rarely were there ropes, and even more rare for it to actually be of any help

You see, after a 15 minute walk up, the paved road ends at a a stream. At this point Robby told us that we’d have to follow the stream up to the top, and follow we did. Climbing over rocks, around boulders and across streams we zigzagged our way up. The journey wasn’t without casualties, however. Someone fall into the stream, another had lost a flipflop. I had dropped my only bottle of water crossing the stream, and it quickly got washed away by the rapid current and it was forever lost!

Soon after that, I dropped my lens cap for my camera while climbing up some rocks. This was definitely not my day!!

Ahh shade! Taking a break from the climb.

But after what seemed to be an hour (I really didn’t keep time), we made it!!

Extremely hot, tired and sweaty, everybody eagerly and very quickly stripped down to their bathing suits and jumped in.  And some JUMPED in…

…Yes from up there.

We didn’t get the place to ourselves. A nice old couple joined us, and even let us use their floaty toys they brought with them!

After a few hours of swimming, sitting in the sun, then swimming again (as well as an unsuccessful exploring with bare feet which turned into a bushwhack. Have you every tried bushwhacking with your bare feet? With the hot stones, sand and twigs beneath your feet? Its not fun.) As the sun started to set we made our journey back down and went our separate ways ….. well not really. We split up and had dinner, I ended up eating in Causeway Bay with a group of (mostly) Canadians.

So despite losing my water early, losing my lens cap, banging up my camera’s UV filter, getting fire ants up my pants, barefoot bushwhacking, and not actually getting to go cliff diving (because I had my contacts on, I wasn’t really in the mood to lose them, especially since I had to climb back down).

I’ll count today as my win.

Flickr stream:

Oh and if you’ve made it this far and REALLY want to know where it is? Its near Ma On Shan…. I think. Actually I’m not sure.

IMG_0092, originally uploaded by cokematic.

Not only does it look like a pack of smokes. It tries to use the fact that it can make you feel more relaxed as a selling point.

Then again, this kind of stunt isn’t particularly new.

And yes, I finally got the Flickr photostream embeds working (it wont work, however, if you are reading this via an RSS reader like Google Reader or Facebook Notes)

What was I doing there? Nothing in particular I guess… I ate alot of food though! (note: I normally don’t take photos of food. Well I do, but I normally don’t take photos of food and put them up on the net. This time someone made a request so I’ll let it slide. You can find the food-only photos here)

This was my second breakfast of the day. Pineapple bun with a huge ass glob of butter.

Some half cooked eggs with soy sauce and some sort of slat mixture? It was actually quite good

It wasn’t all eating…

… I wandered around Orchard Rd, absolutely amazed at how much things had changed.

Apparently you can play air-guitar for money on the streets -_-; (well its better than sitting there and begging I guess?)

At the scene of the crime where an alien was murdered!

.. subway entrance o_o

Concluded the trip by eating a stingray! (it was quite good)

All in all, a short but satisfying trip!

A general overabundance of butterflies along the 50km trail. Side note – I almost swallowed one while running through Stage 7 of the hike.

Oh, did I mention the GIANT SPIDERS?

“No horses allowed” … wait, what?

Beautiful day on Jardine’s Lookout. Must come back to watch the sunset one day

My hike not only took me through forests and over peaks, it also brought me through Tai Tam Reservoir

As I try to finish the trail before sunset on day 2, I find myself taking a break from the peak of the Dragon’s Back. To my right; Big Wave Bay, to my left; the sun setting over the rest of Hong Kong.

Full flickr stream here.

IMG_0300

Originally uploaded by cokematic

Hong Kong mosquitoes take steroids