On an island in the sun, we’ll be playing and having fun

So today was Saturday and our first full day in Kuta Beach.  We had no major plans really except to relax and enjoy our vacation.  As frequent travelers, we have status with Marriott and we got to enjoy a seriously AMAZING breakfast buffet each morning that was included in our stay.  You could literally get just about anything for breakfast.  The only thing missing was bacon… real  bacon.  (They only had beef bacon which, let’s be honest, is NOT bacon).  They made up for it by having things like this donut bar:

We also tried yellow watermelon because yep, that’s apparently a thing!  It originated in Africa and is quite common over in the eastern half of the world.  We were told that it would taste sweeter than the pink kind, but I beg to differ.

Our delicious fruit platter (clockwise from top left: Cantaloupe, Strawberries, Pineapple, Pink Watermelon, Yellow Watermelon

Because we had been doing so much over the course of the trip so far, we determined that the absolute best course of action for the day would be to relax by the pool.  However, before going to relax for the day, J and I had to take a moment to document our moment as millionaires…. yes we are each holding one million…..Indonesian Rupiah.  Slightly different than USD, but fun to pretend!

After having our moment, we headed down to the pool.  Little K was so excited to play with her mermaid Barbie and splash in the water.  She is such a water baby.

Since we were so busy soaking in the sun, we figured we’d lunch by the pool as well.  This meant ALOT more yummy fresh fruit and some Indonesian chicken and beef satay.

After lunch we headed back to the room for Little K to nap while J and I relaxed and binged on some more shows.  After our restful day we decided to walk around the city a bit so we walked through/around some of the little markets where everyone is offering you deals to purchase their goods.

We happened upon a cute little restaurant nearby and had worked up our appetites by then so we decided we’d see if it was any good.  And it was wonderful!  The restaurant was called Lemongrass and it was just about a 15-20 minute walk from our hotel.  They branded themselves as a Thai restaurant, but they also had a lot of Indonesian and American options too.  J ended up having some kind of fish with curry  and I tried an Indonesian dish called Babi Kecap… pork belly carmalized with garlic and spices and served with rice.  YUMMMMMMMMM.  After we had finished our main entrée at Lemongrass, we decided our second stomachs were game for trying a dessert.  Many of the Indonesian restaurants served up friend bananas with ice cream so we figured we needed to find out what all the hype was about.  It was actually caramelized/fried banana and served with a little sprig of mint, so pretty perfect.

By then it was getting late so we headed back to the hotel to get Little K put to bed and I went down to the spa for my pedicure appointment.  I’m not certain what I was expecting, but it ended up being a neat little experience.  I could hear the live music playing outside near the pool during my pedicure which was awesome.  No fancy foot spa (though they did have a massage chair still).

As I was sitting there, with my feet soaking in the hot flower petal-filled bowl of water, I could hear the band outside playing their own acoustic version of The Sound of Silence and I thought to myself how lucky I am and of course that THIS is what it means to relax.

I’ll be in Bali, beautiful Bali…

Our third full day in Bali meant our last morning at Mara River Safari Lodge/Bali Safari Marine Park so we relished our last “morning meditation” aka feeding the zebras and the gnus.  For those of you who don’t have kids, Little K enjoys a book series/tv series called “Llama, Llama” (created by Anna Dewdney) and LLama LLama’s best friend in the book is Nelly Gnu.  Little K was super excited to “meet” Nelly Gnu and her family in Bali.  

After our morning ritual, we headed back to Tsavo Lion restaurant for our breakfast buffet and to bid good morning to the meerkats and lions. 

We also met a Burmese python that Little K safely avoided.  However, J and I needed a picture of our new friend… especially since the snake and I had matching outfits. 

After breakfast we headed back to the room to pack up a bit and I got some morning snuggles in with Little K.

We had pretty much everything packed up for our upcoming check-out (e.g. we made good time) so we headed over to the Tiger show (also included in our package).  Before we got there though, Little K made a friend.

After the Tiger show, we headed to grab our luggage and some lunch before our ride to our next stop… Kuta Beach.  At lunch Little K asked to practice her photography skills a bit more.  She was able to capture a successful shot of mom and dad with celebratory drinks.

On our ride to Kuta Beach, we learned that Little K’s name means “rich” in Indonesian.  We also learned that our driver grew up farming rice paddies and he had recently decided to become a driver so that he could interact with people more.  He was young, in his early 20’s, and told us a little bit about how social interactions had been difficult for him having grown up mostly working in the solitary environment of his family’s rice paddies.  It was really interesting.

We soon arrived at The Stones Hotel, a Marriott Autograph Collection site located in Kuta Beach and where we’d be staying for the remainder of our trip. Upon our arrival we were greeted with a cool towel and fresh fruit popsicles.  Since our room wasn’t quite ready yet, we decided to walk around to explore a bit of what was nearby.  We needed to find an ATM (or so we thought) and man oh man does the bank make it hard to take out money in Indonesia. J ended up on the phone with the bank no fewer than five times during our trip.  Below is the view from our room, a junior suite on the 4th floor (the hotel had five floors).

Once we were able to check in and get our room, we decided to enjoy a little bit of the pool and we ordered pool-side dinner that evening.  We chose this hotel because we love the Marriott hotels, particularly the Autograph collections, and we initially chose Kuta Beach because it was somewhat in the “middle” of some of the places we wanted to visit yet still across the street from the ocean. Relaxation — we are READY for you!