{"id":1794,"date":"2011-10-20T02:25:54","date_gmt":"2011-10-20T09:25:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thejohnsonsjournal.com\/?p=1794"},"modified":"2011-10-20T02:25:54","modified_gmt":"2011-10-20T09:25:54","slug":"a-holiday-break-in-bali-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thejohnsonsjournal.com\/?p=1794","title":{"rendered":"A holiday break in Bali (Part 1)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Its been two years now since we left our jobs in California, got married and moved to Australia.\u00c2\u00a0 To celebrate (well mainly our 2nd<\/sup>\u00c2\u00a0wedding anniversary), we headed of to the island of Bali in Indonesia for a small holiday break.<\/p>\n

We arrived in Bali on the evening of Scott\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s birthday, October 8th<\/sup>, and while we were both exhausted from the long flight and 1 hour and 20 minute drive on the busy streets of Bali to the small town of Ubud, we were welcomed to our first hotel with a cake and birthday song for Scott.\u00c2\u00a0 And he was very surprised!<\/p>\n

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Scott's birthday cake<\/p><\/div>\n

Our first day in Ubud, we woke to the sounds of the jungle from our balcony. \u00c2\u00a0We spent most of the day enjoying the Balinese gardens, ponds, and lounging around the pool at the hotel. \u00c2\u00a0We also enjoying the complementary afternoon tea (something that I grew to look forward to each day).<\/p>\n

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View of the jungle from our balcony<\/p><\/div>\n

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Relaxing pool area<\/p><\/div>\n

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Lounge chairs built into the stonework - a great place to spend the day!<\/p><\/div>\n

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Beautiful surrounds at the Warwick Ibah Hotel<\/p><\/div>\n

The following day we were feeling recovered and decided to hire a driver to show us some of the local sights. \u00c2\u00a0Our driver, Jiwa took us to two temples, Tirta Empul, the sacred water temple and Pura Gunung Kawi, one of the most important temples in Bali.<\/p>\n

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Dressed up to visit the local temples<\/p><\/div>\n

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Statue at the temple<\/p><\/div>\n

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Stone statue<\/p><\/div>\n

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Pura Gunung Kawi Temple<\/p><\/div>\n

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Women making offering at the Sacred Water Temple for the full moon celebration<\/p><\/div>\n

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Natural spring waters of the Tirta Empul<\/p><\/div>\n

We were also able the visit a local coffee plantation where they produce Bali coffee and Luwak coffee, which is said to be the most expensive coffee in the world. \u00c2\u00a0This is due to the small productions and since it has to be eaten and digested by an animal called a Luwak, which is a cat like animal, before roasting.<\/p>\n

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Luwak coffee, world's most\u00c2 expensive\u00c2 coffee<\/p><\/div>\n

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Roasting the coffee<\/p><\/div>\n

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Then the coffee is ground down so small it is almost like instant coffee, but much stronger<\/p><\/div>\n

We enjoyed many cups of Bali coffee. \u00c2\u00a0But were not adventurous enough to try to Luwak coffee. \u00c2\u00a0(I’ve always been told that cats are one of the most\u00c2\u00a0dirty\u00c2\u00a0animals and even though these animals are not cats, the\u00c2\u00a0comparison\u00c2\u00a0has put me off the coffee for good.)<\/p>\n

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Amazing rice terraces on the drive back to the hotel<\/p><\/div>\n

The last stop was the Monkey Forest in Ubud, famous for the resident monkeys that you can feed with bananas.<\/p>\n

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The monkeys like Scott (or they like the bananas he has in his pocket)<\/p><\/div>\n

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Monkey Forest in Ubud<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Its been two years now since we left our jobs in California, got married and moved to Australia.\u00c2\u00a0 To celebrate (well mainly our 2nd\u00c2\u00a0wedding anniversary), we headed of to the island of Bali in Indonesia for a small holiday break. We arrived in Bali on the evening of Scott\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s birthday, October 8th, and while we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71,70],"tags":[60,106],"class_list":["post-1794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bali","category-indonesia","tag-food","tag-indonesia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejohnsonsjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejohnsonsjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejohnsonsjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejohnsonsjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejohnsonsjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1794"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/thejohnsonsjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1849,"href":"https:\/\/thejohnsonsjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1794\/revisions\/1849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejohnsonsjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejohnsonsjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejohnsonsjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}