Now if you have ever seen the movie The Hangover, I think you can imagine how this day started. After sleeping only about 5 hours both of us were awake, feeling as you can imagine, bright eyed and bushy tailed. We drank an ungodly amount last night. It was arguably the most fun day and night id had my whole trip. Me and Hannah woke up feeling way to good, we went and got breakfast at the lounge. As always it was great, I really do love Japanese scrambled eggs on rice.
I think it was on the way back down from the lounge when we both realized we were totally still drunk from the night before. The headache I had in that moment could split a mountain. We were dying from here out, we went back to the room, called and got late check out and went back to bed. From several more hours being horizontal, we were feeling still woefully unprepared to embark on the 1.5 hour journey to the airport.
Well we did it with a little more swearing than normal, a few dry heaves and only a tiny argument. We had a wee bit of a hassle with checking our bags, as we bought these wizard robes that weighed like 2 kgs each. There was a bit of emergency rummaging, and a bunch of gratitude to past me who packed a spare plastic bag incase we needed to board with anything to make weight. We almost just wore the robes in the airport. From there we decided to get sushi, It was the last chance to stuff ourselves before flying home.
Well let me say, I never trust airport food. Ever. Its never very good and its always really expensive. Well all other airport food is not in Japan. We had arguably the best sushi of the trip in the airport, waiting for our flight. It wasn’t that expensive and it was just so bleeding good.
After our sushi we went and waited for the flight, it went off without a hitch. Hannah found us some ice cream in a pouch, that was weird, but good, but very weird. Sucking ice cream? That is just plain weird. Hannah hates flying and was asleep for most of the flight back, I on the other hand can never sleep well after I’ve been drinking. I slept for like an hour on our 8 hour flight back. We arrived at just after 9 am in Vancouver, on the same day we left. Man the past sucks, I liked going into the future.
The last day of our trip started with naught a cloud in the sky. We went up to the lounge for breakfast, Hannah and Is favorite breakfast this trip was by far soft scrambled eggs on rice. The Hilton did not disappoint us on this front. As we ate our breakfast on the 37th floor we looked out longingly to Mt Fuji, and its snow covered beauty. We intended on going there, but it never made sense with the rest of our plans. Today we decided to go to the Warner Bros Studio Japan to see the the Harry Potter exhibit there.
The view of Mt Fuji from the lounge over Tokyo.
After a 30 minute train ride we arrived at the studio. Hannah and I are both pretty nerdy about Harry Potter, so even though I had little expectation that the tour was going to be worth the $80 entrance fee per person we were excited.
From the moment we walked from the bright sunshine outside into the studio, my expectation of it not being that great was blown out of the water completely. Everywhere around us were grown ass adults, fully decked out in wizarding ropes and costumes from the movies. I mean 3 out of 5 people where dressed up. Immediately feeling underdressed, we hit up the absolutely massive store at the entrance and got ourselves decked out in our house colors.
Flying books in the bookstore.The great hall, these are all the real sets used in the films.It was really cool being in the sets.Hannah’s head of house. Cant believe she’s a Slytherin.The moving staircase. In all the films they used this one mechanized prop to do the moving staircase shots with the help of green screen.The Gryffindor common room.The Slytherin common roomThe Goblet of Fire.The practice dummy from The Order Of The Phoenix.The queen from wizards chess.Death Eater masks. Hannah loved these.Typical Slytherin loving the dark ones.Centaurs from the Forbidden Forest.In the freezing cold wind at Hagrid’s hut. A typical Slytherin meal, of bangers and mash with roast veggies and gravy. This was actually so delicious, both of us were impressed with how good the food was.The Hogwarts Express. At least a replica.Hannah becoming blurry as she’s about to get sucked up the fireplace.The Ministry of Magic set was really cool. I particularly enjoyed it.Just some Daily Prophets, I had to fight the urge to take one of these.Diagon Alley as seen in the 6th film.The original model of the castle used in the films. This photo does it no justice, this thing is the size of a house. Like 40ft by 40ft, all built by hand.
Now I could write a 3 page essay on our trip to the Warner Bros Studio, but I’m not. To sum it up it was one of the coolest experiences Hannah or I had ever done ever. Especially with all the people including ourselves dressed up, It was quite magical. It however proved a point that Hannah has been trying to shove down my throat the whole time we were here. I am a nerd, correction both of us are nerds.
After a few hours of chilling in the room recovering from our 5 hour studio tour, Hans and I went and helped ourselves to some more canapes and bottomless champagne in the lounge. Ill miss that lounge, the views were stunning. It was a great place to get loaded up on champagne before hitting the town and going bar hopping at the Golden Gai.
From the hotel we walked the 20 minutes to Golden Gai through downtown Shinjuku. What a place it is, there is like 10 cross walks at this one intersection. Golden Gai is a few small streets of teeny tiny bars that seat between 4 and 8 people. It was quite the place.
Hannah with her hot chocolate trying to stay warm in the icy breeze of nighttime Shinjuku.
We had an absolute riot at Golden Gai, we went to two bars. The first was a super fancy spirit bar where we had an amazing vodka cran. The second was a sake bar, at the second bar we met 2 other small groups of travelers. We stayed there for hours. After 3 giant bottles of sake had been drunk dry by our new friends and us, we parted as a much larger group of ten. From there we went into downtown Shinjuku to a karaoke bar and proceeded to terribly sing every song we could think of from our younger years. From karaoke things got hazy for a while, I came back to reality at another bar, some 2 hours had past. This was such a fun night. We said goodbye to our new friends and got a taxi back to the hotel.
Hannah belting out the words to what I guess was one of her favorite terrible pop songs.
Hannah and I were up early to leave Hiroshima, we grabbed a quick hotel breakfast and caught a cab to the train. Side note, cabs in Japan are extremely cheap for short journeys, but extremely expensive for long ones. So weird. The train from Hiroshima to Tokyo takes about 4 hours, Hannah and I both made good progress in our books.
At this point the train system in Japan is really starting to make sense, I am very jealous we don’t have such an Intricate and functional system back home in Canada. After the 4 hour shinkansen train to Tokyo station, we caught a subway to Shinjuku. Now this was the only stay we booked where it wasn’t really that great of a location. The Hilton Tokyo is kind of off in a corner in Shinjuku, so its about a 10 minute walk to get into the more lively area.
So as this was our last stay of the trip we went all out with the hotel and booked a junior suite at the Hilton. Now we did not realize, that all suites come with access to the Hilton executive lounge on the 37th floor. That’s complimentary breakfast everyday, as well as canapes and open bar every night.
Very nearly as we arrived in Tokyo, Hannah was feeling off. We had tried another 711 sandwich of fried egg and teriyaki chicken on the train, but it did not sit well with her. After we tried to eat lunch she was full blown food poisoning. Kind of a bummer for our second to last day to spend it in bed. I am quite a restless person so with Hannah tucked in bed with some room service and a movie I set out to explore a bit in Shinjuku and maybe try Pachinko again.
My first experience with pachinko was such a riot, I think that’s what made my second venture into the game doubly abysmal. I lost $40 in like 15 minutes. I have an addictive personality, because of that I set limits on gambling if i ever try it so my plan to kill time was a complete failure. From the crowded insanely over stimulating pachinko parlor, I set off to try and find a particular convenience store favorite of Hannah’s, the rare salmon maki. We found this snack by means of a TikTok video Hannah had watched some weeks earlier. After successfully finding it on our first forage in Tokyo, She has looked for them in every Family Mart, 711, or Lawson that we have passed. Its funny when you are actively not trying to find something its always there, but as soon as you start looking for it, its nowhere to be found. I think I hit 9 different convenience stores on my way back to the hotel with no luck at all. this however did kill another hour. With Hannah having slept for a few hours she was feeling a lot better when I got back.
When she was feeling fit enough to get out of the hotel, which was only a few hours after being violently ill. I am pretty proud of her for rallying so quickly. We set off for the executive lounge with its bottomless champagne and canapes. We met a couple from Guam while we were sitting in the lounge and proceeded to chat with them for a couple of hours whilst getting nice and tipsy. When the lounge closed we decided to head down to the sushi restaurant in the hotel. We did not check the price of this restaurant, before we got a table. My goodness, we ordered 6 pieces of nigiri and 6 pieces of sashimi and 2 glasses of champagne. It was incredibly good sushi, but the price of $200 for that was definitely steep. All in all it was a pretty good day.
What a big day Hannah and I had planned for today. We started our day with a short walk to an incredible Japanese/western fusion breakfast restaurant, called Ivy Place. We shared an smoked salmon avocado toast with Brie and fresh greens, and some yogurt with granola and fresh fruit. It was delicious.
Having Hannah with me, has changed my eating habits a bit. I mean this woman loves a snack. We have been trying so many interesting new snack foods. Today was a snacking day for sure. Between the hours of 7am and and 1pm, we had breakfast, family mart snack sushi, Krispy Kreme donuts, hash browns, udon noodle soup, swirl cake, and a teriyaki chicken burger with a small fries from the tallest McDonalds I have ever seen.
During the middle of this walking snack tour of Shibuya, and Shinjuku we went to a place called Samurai Restaurant Time. Well lets just say we had no clue what we signed up for in the slightest, The whole place was covered in anime titties and fake jewels when we entered. Was it lunch, was it a dance show, music, strippers? Well it wasn’t strippers, but not far off, It ended up being a samurai themed musical theatre performance. And it was loud and exciting and absolutely crazy. Both Hannah and I left the show feeling a little shell shocked. The food they served was ok but nothing to write about.
We checked out piss alley after the show and it was cool but without knowing we had showed up before most of the stalls had opened for the day. At this point we already been walking and eating for 7 hours, both of us were feeling gassed. We had seen a lush store on a previous outing near our hotel, Hannah had the bright idea to get a bubble bar, and have a bubble bath back at the hotel. Now Japan is not really renowned for the size of its bathtubs, or having them at all, but our hotel had an amazing 2 person bath. It was quite rejuvenating in the middle of a big day.
Something that has become Hannah & I’s thing on this trip, Is strawberries. Strawberries in Japan are ludicrously expensive, and insanely good, So on our way back to the hotel for bath time, we found a little market that sold some “golden” strawberries. Gotdamnit, they are so good.
After a little hangout to rest our legs a bit we jumped on a train to go to Teamlabs, It is an interactive multimedia immersive experience. There is multiple Teamlab exhibits in Asia. Borderless is the one we went to, There was no map no explanations, every animation flowed into the next, all the different rooms were hidden and needed to be explored. It was really easy to be confused as to where you were as the floor to ceiling animations changed over time, making it really hard to set mental waypoints. There were so many different rooms and experiences, I think Hannah an I’s favorite was Infinite Expanse. The room was filled with floor to ceiling Led Diodes set up in a grid pattern, thousands of strings of LEDs all changing designs and effects synchronized to music. It was utterly breathtaking.
From Teamlabs we tried to go to a popular conveyor belt sushi restaurant. It took us ages to actually find it, Google maps decided to be useless in our hunt for this one. After finding it we made the realization that Japan is unlike Canada, People wait hours for seats in good restaurants. The waiting queue, was 53 tables strong with a minimum wait of 115 minutes. We had been busy all day and hadn’t eaten anything since about 1, Hannah had had it with not being fed in that moment. We Bailed on sushi and got a seat in the closest restaurant that served pasta we could find. To be honest there was no way I was going to wait for over 2 hours for food. Thankfully most restaurants here are in kind of upscale food courts, so getting a different decent place to eat was easy.
Both Hannah & I had pasta, meatballs and a limoncello soda. The food was decent, not the best Italian Id ever eaten, but what do you expect in Tokyo. At this point we were nuked, we ended up walking close to 24 kilometers throughout the day. It was a big day, We hit up a family mart on the way back to the hotel for our third round of Japanese snacks of the day. I found Spam Masubi, prepacked ready to eat. It was one of the weirdest things I’ve eaten, but also so delicious that I almost went and bought another one. Hannah has become very fond of snack sushi rolls, where you unwrap the rice and filling and the nori at the same time then freshly wrap the rice in the nori. They are pretty darn tootin. I think we have amassed about 12 different random bags of candy at this point from several trips to convenience stores around Tokyo.
After getting back I booked us some train tickets and got our next hotel room in Kyoto. Then we both fell straight asleep.
Welp, I really have been slacking on writing. Its wild how much doing this exercise of writing down a chronicle of my life on this trip has actually helped bring a lot of calmness and peace to me. The last 3 days have been an absolute whirlwind.
My flight from Bali to Japan was a doozy, I traveled all damn day. When I finally arrived at my hotel, 15 hours had passed and my wallet was $36560 Yen Lighter. For those who don’t know the conversion, that’s $365.60 Cad. I was very tired and used to just taking airport cabs all over SEA for basically nothing. Well Japan is not SEA, its Japan, and cabs are f%#king expensive here. I was livid at myself and starving when I arrived at my hotel. That night I had vending machine peanuts and a sweet waffle for dinner, probably my cheapest meal ill have here in Japan.
The next morning I awoke with a bunch of hours to kill, while i was waiting for Hannah to arrive from Canada. Oh I forgot to mention, I booked the wrong airport hotel. Instead of being at Haneda Int, where I landed, it was at Narita Int. where Hannah was landing today. Hence the 1 hour $365 cab ride. All I could say about that f%#kup, was “IDIOT”. Any who, I had some time to kill and wanted Hannah’s entry into the city to go smoothly, so I figured out the train passes and caught a train into Narita city to go have a walk about and some lunch. On the train I met a sweet elderly Japanese man who spoke flawless English, he suggested that I go visit a nearby temple and try a local specialty dish of BBQ eel. Well the temple was incredible and every restaurant I passed had BBQ eel on the menu. After the temple I found myself in a city park that was incredibly manicured and gorgeous, even in the dead of winter. It was a serene place to sit and enjoy nature, the park was in a hollow and basically all city sounds were completely drowned out. It was almost silent. After walking back from the park, I found a restaurant that was full but didn’t have a 50 person line down the street. There is a reason Narita is famous for this dish, It was stellar. Much better than any eel I’ve eaten before.
After killing a bunch of hours in town I went and picked up Hannah from the airport. What a reunion that was, you would think we had been apart for a year. We loaded up and jumped on the skyliner train to Tokyo. The train systems here are incredible. After a smooth 1.5 hour ride with a single train change, and a small kafuffle with maps. We landed at our absolutely sick penthouse suite in a small hotel, just a block from the famous Shibuya scramble intersection. What a spot! after a quick unpack we headed to a local sushi bar to try Japanese sushi. Well we were a little surprised, to say the least. It is not like back home, in the slightest. It was fool hardy to think so. Some of the dishes we thought we knew, were so vastly different in flavor that we didn’t like them. It was really good but kind of weird. And sushi is very expensive in Japan. Like way more than back home, but you know that’s all part of the fun of traveling. We were both bagged from travel and it was sorta late, so after dinner we basically just hit the hay.
This morning, Hannah was up at the crack of dawn. To be expected when your brain and body don’t understand why they are sleeping in the middle of the day, but it is actually 5 am. So we got up and went for an early morning walk around Shibuya before the vast crowds of Japanese locals flooded the streets. The intersection does not look very daunting when there is nobody in it. We have yet to see it in all its glory. On our walk we stopped at a 7eleven and got a pork katsu sandwich to share with a warmed bottle of green tea. 7eleven is shockingly good here in Japan.
after a brief planning session at the hotel, we traveled a stop down the YR line to Harajuku station. What a cluster f%3k that area is, especially when today was a national holiday and there was parades and protests. The area is known for all kinds of clothes shopping, restaurants, and of course Harajuku girls. The shopping was really cool but nothing in Japan will ever be my size, so I was mostly just exploring. Hannah on the other hand, was like a squirrel in a nut factory. She showed some pretty damn good willpower on a few very expensive items. After an hour of exploring we found a very popular ramen place, with an oddly fast moving line to get in. Well Ichiran Ramen is a ramen bar where they serve 2 dishes (regular & deluxe) and you order and pay from a vending type machine at the entrance. That place was efficient, no servers, just a line of bars with a little door at the back of each bar spot. After you sat down a person behind the doors takes your card, and a few minutes later. A delicious bowl of ramen arrives, Hannah and I were blown away. For $30 Cad we were both stuffed and satisfied.
From lunch we continued out wander and accidently came face to face with a large protest, and an even larger contingent of Tokyo police. Nothing violent happened but there was some obvious unrest in the crown of people around the intersection, as the protest marched past. It was wild. Hannah was a little shook. From there we wandered into the tourist trap potion of Harajuku, now at this point it was like 2 pm and people we out. It was mayhem trying to get down the little alleys stuffed with people. It was very overstimulating. When we escaped that craziness we walked to the Shin shrine just on the other side of the train line from the crazy alley area. It was busy but very peaceful. So at this point we had walked like 18km and we were both beat so we hopped on the train to have a chill at the hotel for a bit.
A few hours later, fully rested we set off on a train ride across the city to go up the Tokyo Tower. Now me being the most thoughtful boyfriend in the world, completely blanked that Hannah is terrified of heights. The tower is a replica of the Eiffel tower or just very familiar. Its bloody tall. Well she did great and we went up the tower to gaze over Tokyo. It was not her favorite thing. On our way down to find a restaurant for dinner, our noses directed us to a crepe stand at the base of the tower. We had some delicious savory crepes for dinner, the Japanese have crepes dialed. I had a chicken, curry and cream cheese crepe. Hannah had a chicken teriyaki crepe with mayo. Both were stellar, its not were we intended to eat but it was delicious.
All in, it was a busy day. I cant wait for tomorrow. We are going to Team labs.
Today started with another terrific breakfast at the Kawi resort in Ubud. After getting all or stuff organized, Brian and I loaded up our scooters and went to go check out the Ceking rice terraces. It was a cool little hike, and we got to see a Kivet. Which if you didn’t now is the little forest ferret cat thing that eats the coffee beans and shits them out. Which creates an incredibly expensive coffee called Luwak.
Traditional Balinese porridge, this stuff was so good.Ice cream for breakfast? yes please.
From the rice terraces we drove the rest of the way to Ubud, and returned our scooters. I had a bit of an unfortunate incident with a bungie cord, when I was untying my bag from my scooter. I had mistakenly let go of it, and it came around the bag at about 200kph and hit me square in the face. God I felt like such an idiot, and the Balinese guy from the scooter place wouldn’t give me any room to breathe standing and staring at me like I was made of glass.
Leaving that embarrassment we called a Gojek and headed the 2 hours from Ubud to Seminyek, to me Brian’s friend Bryan. Who has lived in Bali for several years. After checking out his incredible apartment, we went to a beach club called Mana for a bite to eat. I had a pulled beef sandwich on fresh focaccia, with the best damn fries I’ve had in my memory. Two times now in Bali I’ve had French fries that were just unreal.
This was by far the best Kombucha I’ve ever had, ever.Funny enough, this focaccia was one of the best I’ve had. And the fries, OMG the fries. These were the best damn fries. with a Gochujang Mayo. YUM.
I said goodbye to Brian and Bryan after we ate and grabbed a car to take me to my airport hotel. When I arrived, I was a little disappointed with the shabbiness of the front of the hotel, as it did not look like the photos. After checking in, my disappointment deepened as I was led to a room with no windows, a faucet that never stopped running in the sink, a stink of mildew, and absolutely filthy bedding. Now never in my solo travels have I actually walked on a room, so I went to the front and asked for another room. This one had windows, but is about all it had going for it. There was the same mildew smell, the bedding was filthy and stained, and the walls were covered in dirty fingerprints. It was the most disgusting hotel I’ve ever stepped in. With my bags still on my shoulders I got online and found a room at the Hilton down the street. Now when I say I ran out of there I mean it. I kind of tossed my key card on the desk as I left, saying I couldn’t stay there.
It was was so F*#king gross. Anyways I was able to get a room at the Hilton for next to nothing thanks to Agoda. And after a decent meal of lamb Nasi Goreng with lamb chops and some fresh fruit, I quickly was able to push the shitty hotel from my mind. It was a pretty weird energy day for me, after being solo for a month, I found spending every minute with a friend for a few days kind of taxing. I napped pretty hard in the Gojek and have felt sorta out of wack all day. It may have been the fact I had ice cream with my breakfast, but I doubt it.
Today started with a nice stretch , and a beautiful bowl of Balinese porridge at the resort. From breakfast we met up with Rama, from Monk climbing and 3 other climbers. Rama picked us up in his white shit box with no suspension to be found and we sped off to the Mt Batur Caldera to do some climbing and visit some hot springs.
20 minutes into our drive, Rama’s shit box blew a tire. Now with Brian, myself and the other 3 climbers, who all seemed like pretty capable men, the tire was changed in less than 10 minutes, and off we sped.
Going into todays trip, All I knew of Mt Batur was that it was an ancient volcano and still is an active volcano, now the ancient Volcano is Absolutely huge. I mean it is like 4 or 5 kilometers across and several hundred meters deep. With the new Mt Batur poking up in the middle. I mean this place is incredibly beautiful, it was breath taking as we drove over the edge of the Caldera into the crater. The Caldera is just stuffed full of farms growing every fruit and veggie you can think of. And then there is the two massive lava flows from 1963 and 1986 , which were the last two eruptions. Huge black swathes across the caldera.
We stopped at one of the lava flows for a quick photo, which was so cool, and then we headed through some farms to the basalt rock wall of the caldera to do some climbing. I’ve never climbed basalt before and it was a nice change from the razor sharp limestone of Thailand and Cambodia, It was not without its own challenges as it was very smooth and much slicker than limestone. So a move easy on limestone was hard on basalt. Thats a super fun part of climbing though, learning all the types of rock.
We climbed a plethora of routes throughout the day of many different difficulties. The guides brought us a simple lunch of chicken and rice with a spicy sauce which was great. from the crag we went to a local hot spring for a relaxing dip, which in my mind is the best recovery after a big day climbing. We all were absolutely thrashed at this point and it was so needed.
After the hour long ride back to the resort, Brian and I went to the pool and had a cocktail before dinner. We ate curry, nasi goreng, and mi goreng for dinner. It was lovely. I’m absolutely falling asleep writing this if it seems sloppy.
Tomorrow we head back to the coast, and Brian goes back to continue his holiday with his parents in Uluwatu. Its been really rad spending time with him. Especially doing all the hilarious couple’y things we have done just for shits and giggles.
Today was a good day, we started the day with a nice workout in the room, followed by a lovely 3 course breakfast of fresh pastries, Fruit with yogurt and a Croque Monsieur. This $60 a night resort is pretty friggin awesome.
Brian and I last night in our matching robes.
After breakfast we taxied into town and rented some scooters, Ubud is a crazy part of Bali. Its so busy. When we had our scooters we set off for our chat gpt planned Itinerary of natures walks, wildlife, temples and waterfalls. Brian loves to use AI for planning and it truly was a pretty damn good aid.
Titty fountains….
First stop was a ridge walk, that was a nice little walk through a beautiful part of Ubud. From there we drove to the Monkey Sanctuary and did the several kilometer loop through the grounds, there is several temples and some amazing sights. Apparently there is close to 10,000 monkeys that call the sanctuary home. It was built many hundreds of years ago. It was a really cool experience.
We then visited a local climbing gym to book a sick volcano climbing tour for tomorrow. By this time the sun had been high in the sky for a few hours and we were feeling it, we chose a random Warung on maps and headed for some food, cold drinks, and some well deserved shade. Now warung Adji, ended up being such an incredible spot. It was a classic SEA shithole, but the food was absolutely positively excellent. Both me and Brian ordered the crispy duck and volcano fried rice. Now we were not expecting to be served half a deep-fried duck each, although both of us ate it all. it was so good. And the Volcano fried rice served in an omelet was equally incredible.
As we left lunch, the skies decided to cry on the island. It pissed rain for a good 20 minutes. We were not phased at all as it cut the temperature and humidity by a fair chunk. We then visited a cave temple called Goa Jojh, where we got yelled at louder than I ever had before by some ladies trying to sell their tourist wares to us. So loud and incessantly I had to yell back at them to stop yelling. It was jarring. The temple was super cool and had this amazing green space behind it with a beautiful little creek running through some ancient ruins. It was breath taking. After another crazy downpour me and Brian walked out of the temple back to our bikes, to find our helmets missing. Now this is probably one of the ballsiest, cleverest tourist traps I’ve ever fallen in. Those yelling ladies, they took our helmets into their shops “to keep them dry”. Now both me and Brian felt obligated to at least have a look in the shops, Those clever clever girls. We ended up spending a couple dollars each, and they sold us hard. you have to respect the hustle, when they do shit like that.
A sacred tree with the coolest root formations ever. they look like concrete.
From there we drove 20 to Tegenungan waterfall. What a cool place that was, the whole area was about 5 degrees cooler than the city. And it was just an epic spot for a dip.
We were laughing so hard at these signs. They all had spelling errors.Post waterfall ice cream.Tree Chickens, a species native to Bali.
From the waterfall we headed back to our bougie couples retreat to lounge in the pool and have some cocktails, well mocktails for me, cocktails for Brian. They were incredibly good. Funny enough, as soon as I placed our drink order and walked to the pool, it started pissing rain again. Now there is something very satisfying about being warm in a rain storm, in a pool sipping a drink. It was wicked.
When we were fully pruned we got back to the room and ordered room service, I had crispy duck again and Brian had beef rendang. Both were delicious. Brian never having had ordered room service before in his life got all kinds of excited and ordered dessert as well, we got Balinese crepes and fried bananas with ice cream.
All in all it was a great day, Its super fun hanging out with a close friend from home. I’m exhausted and writing this quickly so I can get in bed and rest up for climbing tomorrow, so I apologize if my grammar is terrible.
Today started with blue skies and excitement. Today It was planned that I meet up with my old pal Brian from back home, and his parents. Brian has been traveling Asia with his parents for the last few weeks and was quite excited to be around someone his own age again.
After checking out of my hotel, I dumped my bags at the front desk and decided to go for an adventure to a hidden beach that has some picturesque views and some awesome photo opportunities. It was called Nugugalian I think. There was a sweet 15 minute hike down some carved steps to the beach. It was hot as hell at the beach and I was sweating profusely in the midday sun. I took some photos had a quick fresh coconut and hiked back up to go and meet Brian and his parents. Now I am pretty fit and reasonably acclimatized to the heat and humidity here, but that hike had me so drenched in sweat there was puddles in my sandals that splashed every time I took a step. So silly me did not reapply sunscreen after this epic sweat fest, got on my bike and rode back to drop off the scooter and catch a taxi to Brian’s villa. Well sure as shit by the time I met up with them I was a bright rosy red color. Lovely.
We hung out in the pool at the villas for an hour, and then trodded off down the street to a Thai/Indo fusion restaurant named Kats Kitchen. Funny enough with the same colors, sign and logo as the Kats Kitchen in Chiang Mai Thailand. I asked the owner, and she said shed never heard of another Kats Kitchen before. Curioius. Anyway our meal consisted of a bunch of my favorite Thai dishes all with an Indonesian twist. It was delicious, so good that I didn’t take any pictures.
We had a loose plan to meet up, leave his parents in their villa in Uluwatu and travel inland to the cultural center of Bali, Ubud for a couple days. Now I want to be a spur of the moment traveler, but leaving things to the last minute stresses me out. So without consulting Brian, several days ago I booked this amazing deal on a 4 star resort a few kilometers outside of Ubud.
When I say we had a loose plan I mean the plan started and finished with us meeting up. Now in Brian’s mind we were going to get a place together, In my mind we would get our own places. Now we are pretty close, so getting a place together was no big deal. except that I had already booked a resort. After traveling 2 hours from Uluwatu our taxi delivered us to the swankiest place I’ve seen in Bali to date. I will post pictures tomorrow. Now what I failed to recognize, when booking this resort was that it was a spiritual honeymooners resort.
Now we are both straight for the most part and absolutely just friends, and in our heads we’d just show up and ask for two beds. Well this resort has ONE room type, and its a Romantic 4 post king bed room with a lovely view of the jungle. So now two dudes are in a honeymooners sweet sharing a bed. We both found this quite comical. The room is lovely by the way. I wish my partner was with me, but Brian will have to do for now. Hahaha.
Till tomorrow.
P.s As funny as the sleeping arrangements are, this hotel is nearly empty and I got this room for $50 cad a night with a complimentary 3 course breakfast every morning, fresh fruit delivered to the room every day as well as afternoon tea. Its a win.
Today started very early. I woke at 5am to get ready for my 6am pickup. Promptly at 5:29am, my driver called to say he was here waiting for me. Well there went my 30 minutes of stretch and wakeup. I hurriedly got ready and met my driver. Now all over SE Asia I’ve noticed many subtle ways people just think fundamentally different here. As I approached the low rider minivan that was my ride, I noticed it was parked unusually close to another vehicle in front of it on a steep down slope. I met my driver and he stopped me from getting in. He says ” I just need you to go in front of the van and stop it from rolling forward and hitting the other car”, No shit he just asked me to put myself in a completely life threatening position at 5:45am. Thankfully there was a hotel staffer there who also jumped in and with the two of us (not between the two vehicles like originally suggested) we pushed the van to stop it from hitting the other car. Of course the 2 ton minivan rolled forward but only very lightly tapped the other car. No damage. What a start to a day.
So after that I got in the van, and we streaked off up the dark street. To cross the lower peninsula of Bali, to the town of Nusadua. Nusadua is where all the boats launch from in this area. Today I was going deep sea fishing on a private chartered boat. Now all my friends and family know, that last year I had planned a chartered boat fishing trip out of Phuket, Thailand and it was cancelled on the day of. Coming here to Bali, fishing definitely was not on my mind. But luckily yesterday morning I saw a sign for fishing charters. With a couple hours of research and a few WhatsApp conversations, I had a boat a captain and a fishing guide. Wahooo!
After the 35 minute ride through Bali, we arrived at the boat launch and I paid the small fortune of 9.5 million Rupiah ($850 cad) for the charter. It was incredibly beautiful sailing out of the Nusadua harbor. My guide was telling me that we should have calm seas all day. Good for fishing.
What a crock of shit that was. About ten minutes out of the harbor, the 10m fishing boat was being thrashed around in 2 meter chop. I was assured this was only due to the location we were currently sailing through. Another crock of shit. We motored for about 40 minutes to our first location. Still in 1-2 meter swells with a bunch of chop. We difficulty fished for about 20 minutes, and one of the guides landed a small barracuda. The entire morning went like this, motor for 30 minutes, fish for 20, etc. I’m not going to lie, I was really starting to wish I didn’t go on this boat. 1 to 2 meter seas are not that big of a deal, but when the water is also very turbulent and choppy, it makes for an incredibly unpleasant ride. My stomach was tested for sure.
This was around 11am, when the seas started to calm.
Around 11am the ocean finally calmed with some nice rollie 1 meter swells and the chop dissipated. Now I have fished my whole life back home, in rivers. Not in boats. What a different animal it is, I felt like it was my first day at school. The river bank never tried to buck me off of it before. For the first several hours I struggled to produce anything, let alone stand.
That fishing line was in a terrible place. Standing was hard, posing was harder.
As the sea calmed my confidence grew, we switched from jigging to bottom bouncing. A technique I am very well experienced with. Through the next several hours I managed to catch 3 small red snappers, and with the help of my guide. I brought up a nice red grouper. The hours rolled by like the swells, and after a few gummy sharks, and several re applications of sunscreen. I was spent.
We headed back to the boat launch and the office of the boat company, where my guide and another staff member prepared all the fish we caught into a sumptuous little fresh fish feast. I was served an Balinese Grouper soup, with a side of fried snapper. It was delicious and I’m glad it was, because that’s the most expensive fish I’ve ever eaten.
All in all it was a super cool experience. At this point in the day, I realized that even though I had applied several coats of sunscreen. It was no match for several hours of direct sunlight, as all over my body little patches of sunburn started to appear In the most inconvenient places. My forehead, the tops of my knees, my hands, the backs of my knees. Well whoops. By the time I got back to my hotel, sun stroke was for sure, starting to set in and I was very excited for the cool reprieve of my AC’d hotel room. Normally I would never hide in my hotel to avoid the sun, but today was a necessary exception.
After several hours of reading in the beautiful temperate AC, i finally felt cool enough to go back into the world and find some dinner. Google brought me to a place called Warung D’Bucho, which was a Balinese BBQ joint. Now in Asia, finding high protein meals for less than your whole wallet can be a challenge, as meat is expensive. So a BBQ spot that was only $10.95 cad for fall off the bone chicken and ribs with rice and veggies, was truly welcome. It was banger too, they served a homemade shallot sambal for dipping. It was excellent.
Now even though I am Totally dehydrated, Sunburnt, Heat stroked, And my computer keeps swaying likes its made of water. Or maybe its me that’s swaying, I’m not sure. Today was such a great day.
Till Tomorrow.
P.s I have met my fair share of restaurant cats in SEA, But none of them have been like this cat. She belonged to the owners, and was very clean or I wouldn’t’ve picked her up. She cuddled with me for 20 minutes on my lap while I waited for my meal, and then sat beside my chair the whole way through my meal. Such a sweetheart.
The Great Dopamine Rush of 2025 