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Published: November 21st 2010
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selamat pagi to everyone in year 3/4
Well, I just wanted to write and say a big thankyou to you all for your lovely messages wishing Jane and myself a happy wedding. We had a beautiful day on the Wednesday and a great party on the Saturday night. Although it did rain an awful lot and my backyard now looks like a mud-pit, it was a wonderful night and we had so much fun catching up with all of our friends and celebrating late into the night.
After the wedding, we got on a plane and flew to Bali which is a small island in Indonesia. We arrived late at night and as we got off of the plane, we immediately noticed how hot and muggy it was. So we were waiting for our bags and thinking how the first thing we would do would be to change into some shorts and a t-shirt. And the bags kept coming and everyone else was collecting theirs, but there was no sign of ours. We waited and waited and then suddenly there were no bags left. Uh-oh, Jetstar had accidentally left them in Sydney!
Well, there wasn’t much we
could do so we found a driver and were just hoping that they’d arrive the next day. We set off in the dark and slowly made our way to Ubud, driving through lots of little villages high up into the mountains. We finally arrived at our hotel which was so beautiful. A bunch of our friends had organised our hotel as a wedding present and we had our own wooden house perched on the edge of the Sayan Valley. From our balcony all you could see was the thick jungle and terraced rice paddies with a raging river far below. Each morning we would wake up to the sounds of thousands of birds, frogs and insects and the odd gibbon hooting away. And a couple of very noisy roosters who cockadoodle-doed loudly at sunrise.
We’ve been quite lazy for our first few days. Jane and I have both had a really busy last few months between renovating our house, organising our wedding, studying, working and of course I’ve been teaching all of you as well. So we decided that our first week would just be spent swimming in the pools, reading books and getting massages. It has been wonderful!
Ubud itself is a lovely little town in the mountains. There are only a few main streets and all around there are dozens and dozens of rice paddies. At the moment they're harvesting the rice so you always see lots of people in the fields working away all day. And there are also hundreds of little temples tucked away everywhere and the locals make offerings of fruit, flowers and incense. Families live in compounds which are a bunch of houses all together and if you peek through the gates you can often see their own little shrine inside with some beautiful stone statues. And count yourselves lucky - the kids here start school at 7:30 in the morning!
The Balinese are some of the nicest and friendliest people that I’ve ever met. They are always smiling and
going out of their way to make sure that you’re having a good time. They are mostly Hindu but there are a lot of Buddhists and Muslims too. They have the most amazing ceremonies that last for days and days – we saw a wedding the other day and the whole village lined the streets dressed in their very best traditional
costumes to wish the couple good luck and to help them celebrate.
And the food! Since we’ve been here we’ve been eating and eating and eating. They have some lovely dishes including mee goreng and nasi campur which is rice with bits of chicken, beef, fish and prawns. All wrapped up in a banana leaf. Yummy!
Yesterday we visited the Sacred Monkey Forest. It’s a very old Hindu temple surrounded by jungle and with hundreds and hundreds of monkeys everywhere. They certainly aren’t shy and you have to be one your toes as they are likely to steal your sunglasses, hat or even your camera if you’re not careful! But it’s a beautiful place and we spent a few hours wandering around looking at the temple and the stone carvings. We have a few adventures lined up for the next few days so I’ll be sure to write and tell you all about them afterwards.
Anyway, I’d better go (the swimming pool just looks too nice!) but I hope you are all well and working hard at school. And if you have any questions about Bali, just let Donna, Wes or Luciana know and together you can
email me and I'll try and find the answers for you.
Cheers
Simon
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moreland34
Donna Schilov
3/4s say Hello!
Hello Simon! Just want to say the children really enjoyed your blog and there will be some questions and comments from the students in the next few days. We have been a bit hectic lately with last minute rehearsals for the performance which is this week and we have been busy with using the "On demand' testing program. But there will be something before the end of the week. We all think the photos are fantastic and are very envious!!!!