Where is Steve?

After non-routine layovers in two airports and a routine hour drive home, my Asia 2012 trip has come to an official end. The trip took me to six countries (counting layovers and the United States) and will forever be cherished. My thanks especially to Mary, Joseph, Evangeline, and Freddy for housing me, showing me around Hong Kong, and including me in the Bali excursion.

My brain is so whacky right now that I can’t type an appropriate wrap-up of the trip, too many things would be left out. I have a parting bit of advice, though: I think the best way to do long flights is to find a season of television that you haven’t seen yet and watch it. At the least, that worked wonders for me on the return trip. At Joseph and Mary’s recommendation, I watched most of season 1 of The Killing, which I think is so far a great show and is worth watching for the cinematography and art direction alone. Of course, the risk with following this advice is you may end up choosing a bad season of television. Your mileage may vary.

To all those who read this blog, I leave you with my favorite wish for the New Year: May 2013 be your best year yet and your worst to come.

We saw an amazing Andy Warhol exhibit at the Hong Kong museum of art today. It is touring the world so if you get a chance to see it do so. It is a fascinating and incredible collection of his work.

The three most memorable pieces for me were:
1) he did a painting of a photo of the Birmingham race riot, which was significant to me because of my great interest in the march to civil rights
2) his painting of a US weather map – Joseph and I both liked this one a lot but I haven’t been able to find a print for sale yet
3) there was a room of balloons that would float freely around because of fans and what the balloons were filled with; we had a good time playing in it

I’m going to have to read more about Andy Warhol now.

Joseph and I went to his university in the morning because he had an errand to run and I wanted to see where he worked. His campus has some pretty neat views. In a park there is this tree whose bark is like red dust, which was cool.

I also had a bubble tea in the afternoon, which is a Hong Kong drink Mary really wanted me to try. It was really good. I should’ve tried it earlier so I could have had more of it.

Speaking of Mary, she made dinner again. This time it was a delicious vegetable pot pie with mash potatoes and peas on top. Picture is attached. Mary is a great cook (and also an incredible cake baker, seriously you should see some of the cakes she made back in CU).

We played 7 Wonders and Bohnanza before bed. Those were fitting choices because we played A LOT of them in Bali.

I leave for the airport in the morning. This has been an incredible two weeks. And that is due in large point to the Joneses. I’ll miss them greatly.

We went to Evangeline’s museum today — the Hong Kong Heritage Museum. It was a pretty good museum (and quite plausibly better than the History museum that we went to pre-Bali). My favorite exhibits were:

1) Au Ho-nien’s art exhibit — these were some pretty cool paintings with each work consisting of multiple panels. Au Ho-nien is a 20th century painter from Hong Kong. My favorites were his landscape paintings. His animal paintings were impressive as well, but they seemed a bit over the top for my tastes. I’ll have to find an Au Ho-nien print I like and buy it once I’m back State-side.

2) The history of the New Territories — just 50 years ago this land, where the Jones’ live, was undeveloped countryside. Most of the development has occurred in the past 30 years with the population increasing by 2 million in that time. There was of course the exhibit that expressed faux concern for environmental protection. It is faux concern because it is obvious that there is not much to the concern. One example is a recent development. The developer went ahead and build the few new buildings even though by doing so it raised the temperature in the area by a couple of degrees (because it blocked air flow from the mountain).

3) The Cantonese opera exhibit. Cantonese opera seems quite one dimensional and singularly themed when compared to western opera. But the exhibit was neat.

Joseph and I achieved a milestone today: We didn’t lose a single mentos from our package of fruit mentos. Every time we’ve had fruit mentos on this trip we’ve always lost one. It feels like we should celebrate this every year.

While we were consuming said mentos, there was a Chinese marching band nearby that was playing American* patriotic songs, like “Old Glory”. It seemed really odd for a Chinese marching band to be playing those songs. Perhaps the Chinese wrote them after singlehandedly defeating the Japanese in World War 2.

Mary made black bean burgers and purple sweet potato fries for dinner. They were DELICIOUS. I had been craving a black bean burger for several days, so it was a big deal to me.

After dinner we played Flashpoint, which is a cooperative board game where each player is a firefighter. It is a whole lot of fun. Since I own a copy to, we’re going to try to play it together over the Internet via web cams and Google Hangouts, once I’m back Stateside. Hopefully we can make it work. It’ll be fun to try anyway.

Tomorrow is the last full day in Hong Kong!

*This is a test to see if a certain someone is reading this blog.

We returned to Hong Kong today without much of a hitch, aside from not knowing Bali would charge us a fee before we could leave (none of our guidebooks or the Secretary of State’s website mentioned it).

We had a three hour layover in Singapore. It is one of the best airports to have a layover in. There is so much stuff to do. We found a butterfly garden this time and a child’s playground (fun fact: Evangeline called it a play structure). For longer layovers there is even a cinema with several options.

I intend to end my 8-day fast of Coke Zero tomorrow. (I had avoided it in Bali because I was worried of getting dehydrated, something I was prone to do as a child or early teen. It was readily available and like all things cheap.)

I’m pretty sure the beach is my most favorite place ever. This afternoon reaffirmed that. First, Mary and I went to scout a place for dinner. Then, we all went to play in the sand. Evangeline was buried in the sand plenty of times, she loved it.

I love the smell of the ocean breeze. I love walking on wet, firm sand. The beach just quite simply rocks. (Although as the Jones can attest to I am not a big fan of just swimming in the ocean. But being on the beach, most definitely.) This was certainly the best location for celebrating Christmas even though the company was incomplete.

There were wonderful rock formations on either side of the stretch of beach we were on. I’ve attached a photo that shows the best formation.

Poor Evangeline has not slept much due to the heat during naptime and fireworks at night. This has resulted in hilarious statements from her due to her lack of sleep. Some of my favorites, “I don’t want to take a picture of me”, “I said it is not your time to help me, it is my time to help me”, and “This is not going well at all.” The latter was uttered when Joseph went to settle the room charges for tonight. Despite the lack of sleep, Evangeline is a joy to be around. She shares her food, toys, and imaginary friends. She has taken to calling me “Stevie”, which just makes me smile each and every time.

We head for the airport in the early morning. The next post should be from Hong Kong!

Today, we took a hike along an established trail around rice paddies. Only the trail wasn’t so well marked. We came to a fork and didn’t know what way to go. There was a naked dude bathing in the stream and he told us what way to go. Since much of Ubud reminds us of Lost (our cottages remind us of the Other’s Camp and the hike today reminded us of the Island… Sadly there was no smoke monster to befriend), there is a deep moral to this story: if you are somewhere tropical never trust a medical doctor named Jack but always trust the naked guy in the water.

The hike was beautiful. The rice patties were interesting to say the least and the forest vegetation was absolutely lush. It was green country as far as the eye could see, to steal a line from Gandalf. Halfway along was a refreshment stand, where I had two cold waters, Joseph had tea, and Mary had a fresh coconut – the stand proprietor macheted the coconut right in front of us.

After the hike we ate lunch at this great cafe. I had vegetarian pasta primavera and it was awesome. Evangeline and I sang the “Jingle” song several times, which unsurprisingly is just a repetition of the word “jingle” thrown together with refrains of child laughter. In the taxi ride to lunch, we had accidentally left Evangeline’s water bottle. The driver came back and delivered it to us. Talk about a nice person.

Speaking of taxis… after lunch we couldn’t find a taxi!! In Bali, you can’t walk five feet without being offered a taxi ride. But not so today. It was one of the most peculiar things ever.

Then it rained. And rained. And rained. And rained. And rained. And rained. And then rained some more. So we had a chill afternoon (and didn’t become gelatinous from sweat), and it was glorious. Joseph and I tried out a two player variant for 7 Wonders and it worked really really well: essentially you have a third board that you alternate controlling. It adds a whole new facet to the game.

We ate at the Eco restaurant again tonight because Joseph and I had things we really wanted to try. For me, it was pumpkin ravioli. For Joseph, it was partly a special salad and the gado gado (which I can attest is delicious). Sadly they could not make pumpkin ravioli for me. So I had satay instead. Sad face.

Tomorrow we head for Balagan Beach, reportedly one of Bali’s best, for a very brief stay before heading for the airport.

P.S. Evangeline REALLY likes it when Joseph dunks Mary in the pool.

Yep, you read that right. I rode a Sumatran elephant today! I think this is the only time I’ve rode an elephant. Her name was Nicky, and she was 25 years old. She is almost my age and yet will probably live longer than me (her life expectancy is ~90 years).

It was a pretty fun trek with Nicky, although it was hard to take good pictures because of how much movement there was. She stopped once to yell at a squirrel (or point at one Doug style… it wasn’t clear). Then there was the stop to defecate and urinate. Finally Nicky took us through the wading pool and back to the starting place.

The elephant safari was really awesome. It was started in the 90s and now has 30 elephants – with a baby elephant due in Q1 2013. Most of the elephants were brought 3,000 kilometers to Bali. Crazy talk! It is billed as the best elephant safari park in the world and I can definitely believe it. Definitely the highlight of the trip.

This was also a special visit for Evangeline because she LOVES elephants. She really enjoyed feeding the elephants. Tourists can feed them coconut bark, which the elephants seem to dig. At one point another little girl was there who was afraid of the elephants and Evangeline took her hand and showed her the elephants (that was after openly asking several times why she was afraid of elephants).

The elephant show was also super cool. The elephants walked holding each other’s tails. They sat down and waved. They played soccer. One played a harmonica (so awesome). And one painted. I wanted to buy an elephant painting but didn’t because Nicky’s paintings weren’t for sale.

The safari also had these HUGE fish – known as mega fish. They could be in a horror movie.

After dinner, Mary left to see some night entertainment and Joseph lost his ATM card. So while he looked for it and then called the bank to cancel it, I got some quality one on one time with Evangeline. We jumped around on the sidewalk. We played lots of I Spy With My Little Eye. She was impressed I could carry bug spray, a water bottle, and her blanket all at once. She gave an argument for why I was a girl and not a boy. Then I explained to her the difference between cold and warm blooded animals. Don’t worry – no one had used Joseph’s card, so the only problem is a slight inconvenience.

Only two more days in Bali, then it is back to Hong Kong.

We went to the monkey preserve Saturday night. We were surrounded by monkeys. It was really cool and a little scary – being outnumbered is a little anxiety maker. There were mammas carrying their young, there were newborns whose hands were being played with by other monkeys, and content monkeys just laying in the middle of the path. The preserve looked like Jurassic Park – it was so lush. Easily the most beautiful thing in nature I had seen.

The place we are staying at is serene. There is no other word for it than serene. I wanted to incorporate the Firefly theme song but they didn’t seem appropriate. I don’t think I’ve gotten a single mosquito bite while here. And the masseuse is excellent.

Fourth! Evangeline said I was the fourth cutest kid ever. She refused to say she was the first, instead this three year old said she was the third cutest kid ever. What a show of humility! She also said I was the silliest kid ever. I accept that.

Poor Evangeline, after our picturesque (literally we have a picture of it) dinner by the sea, we stopped at the gelato stand. She got a chocolate chip ice cream cone. Unfortunately the cone disintegrated on her and she lost it. Tears were shed. Mary tried to explain how her mother once lost a cone and just laughed about it. But Evangeline would not believe it was appropriate to laugh, rather than cry, about such an event. Listening to her present her argument was classic. She is a fantastic kid. It is a huge joy to get to spend two weeks with her.

We spent the morning at the Bali museum, which had a huge bamboo spear and an interesting art gallery. My favorite was an impressionistic-esque painting of a temple ceremony. For my philosopher friends, there was a painting that depicted the study of philosophy as a tree with mastery getting more difficult the higher and further out you went.

There is a park across the street that had a war memorial depicting a valiant Balinese family defending their island against the 1906 invading Dutch. A photo should be attached.

We also went to this HUGE market. It was in a building that seemed to span a whole city block in each direction. There were three floors. It was just surreal.

Tomorrow we leave for Ubud, which should be the primary cultural leg of this journey. After three nights there we go back to the beach, that time south of Jimbaran, where I hope to get the most epic sunset picture ever.

Bali has great fruit! Perhaps unsurprisingly. Part of breakfast was some of the best pineapple I’ve ever had along with some new fruit I’ve never had, which was seeds in some kind of sauce (that grossly enough reminded me of mucus in its consistency).

Today we went to the beach, which was pretty grand. The sand was soft (but hot) and the water was clear and comfortable. I partook of my favorite beach activity: walking on the wet, firm sand (that results from waves of different lengths).

After lunch and during Evangeline’s nap time, we went and got massages, which was only about 10 cents a minute. It was some of the best $6 I ever spent.

The Mosquitos aren’t too bad. I’ve only been bitten a few times. Maybe that’s because I didn’t take my defense ideas from the French.