Bali good times and pre-wedding festivites

It's been about 4 days without Internet connection and I must say it has been nice to be disconnected for a little bit, although I have been aching to see more pictures from the wedding! Dan and I had a slow wifi signal in the restaurant we were in last night so we looked at a couple of them uploaded by my fabulous cousin Grant, but we couldn't take the 2 minute loading time so we gave up! They look great, cannot wait to see the rest.

It has been a dreamlike experience the last week and a half. Since we have arrived in Bali we have been catching up with friends and family, and it has been so so great. I loved having all of my family together - its been over 5 years since my Mum, Dad and my sister Rachael and I have all been together, and even longer since my extended family has been together. It made me realize how much I miss everyone, but also how time flies - you have conversations with people you have not seen in years and it seems like no time has passed.

Bali has changed a lot from what I had remembered it. It has become more resorty and swanky, although not it a bad way. The street hassling and poverty levels are not so confronting - you can actually walk along the beach without being offered to buy a hat. We stayed in Semingyak for the first 5 nights at the Pelangi - it was a nice hotel right on the beach with a great pool. The area along the beach there is particularly cool - lots of beach bars where you can sit on a beanbag and have a cocktail while watching sunset. Semingyak is the center of swank - so many upscale villas, shops and restaurants. I did not have the opportunity to do any shopping unfortunately, although I may have a peak on our way back through when we fly out.

We had a great day out on the beach in Nusa Dua jet-skiing and para-gliding with my cousins and friends, although we did not get to stay up in the air all that long. We were hoping there would be more opportunity to do jet-skiing in Lembongan, but alas it was all snorkeling and diving. Para-gliding was fun, although I must say I was pretty scared shitless. We had about 2 minutes of training which entailed wearing two different colored gloves that had holes in them - blue pull right, red pull left, and run on the sand to take off. Oh and no safety waivers of course :)

Massages have been the high point for me! $6-$25 (depending on the swank level) for an hour! I mean c'mon, doesnt get better than that. Gosh they are so good! The hotel Mum and Dad were staying in had a great little hut where you could get a massage for $8 where I went 3 times! Reflexology is also really big here , Dan has had quite a few foot massages, I have only had one, so need to catch up! :)

On Wednesday the official wedding festivities started with the welcome Breakfast at Legian Beach Hotel. It was AMAZING!  The hotel had just been renovated so they had a brand new restaurant and a huge variety of food. Egg station, fruit, cereals, cold meats, dumplings, and a pancake and waffle station. We were then treated to a lovely sing-along by my cousins little girl Sarah (aka the flower girl) and a great photo opp as girls and boys had to stand on either side for the concert!

Wednesday night was hen's/stag's night and Rachael/Kate/Jess, Liam/Thomas did a stella job of organizing! The boys went for an afternoon of go-carting and then out to a beach bar and a bar with a pool. Us girls were treated to an afternoon of pampering - we got our hair, nails and make-up done at a swanky salon (will post photos it was super modern and over-looking a rice paddy), then we were off to Naughty Nuris where everytime you order a drink something naughty happens! Delicious BBQ food (although I stuck to my veg and rice) and potent cocktails 'Naughty on the Beach'. We then made our way to a Cuban club - unfortunately they were supposed to have salsa, but being Bali (where things get cancelled at a whim) it wasnt on, but we enjoyed our free ladies night cocktail, before hitting the gay bars. We headed to Mixwell for performances from Britney, Katy and go-go dancers and yours truely - those photos are bound to surface on facebook one of these days. We then headed to Sky Garden to meet up with the boys. Believe it or not the olds (Dad, Mum and my uncles) were still at it at 3am! Dan and I didnt make it back to the hotel until 4.30am and luckily slept until 11am before getting up to move to the wedding location hotel!

And we're off!

Greetings from Taipei, Taiwan! What a crazy 24 no 48 hours. Thinking we had done the majority of our packing and organization we thought we were in pretty good shape. The last few days have been a blur, particularly Thursday (yes, the day we were flying out).

Luckily I got to finish work early on Thursday (TIP! Take a few days off work BEFORE you a leaving for your wedding, 4 month trip and moving out of your apartment!), and as soon as I logged off it was non-stop. Dan had taken some more boxes to his Mum's and was stuck in traffic so I started the clean down of the apartment. I scrubbed two bathrooms, cleaned out and scrubbed the fridge and freezer, vacced, mopped floors, washed windows - my manicure from Wednesday was ruined! We had our inspection from our landlord at 4.30pm, and I just managed to finish in time. We passed with flying colors!

We had done a test pack the night before, and it didn't go great. I had brought a new toiletry bag for the trip, awesome bag for a normal trip, but for a backpacking trip not so much - this sucker was taking up half the room and the material was very thick. We decided to make a last run to REI at 6pm to swap it and return a couple of other things I had brought on Wednesday. I am SO GLAD we did. Swapped it for a new lightweight Sea to Summit bag, Dan picked up a new lightweight wallet and we got a few more smaller packing cubes. We then rushed over to Best Buy for Dan to get his 'travel keyboard' for the ipad.

By the time we got bak to Brooklyn, picked up a few Clif bars and got home for the last time to 320 Bedford, it was 8.30pm. We packed our stuff (and it all fitted and I didn't have to cut anymore clothes! yeah!), loaded up the car and said goodbye to our apartment. It was off to Dan's Mum's again to drop the stuff off and head to the airport.

Our flight was super late - 1.45am so we were exhausted - they served as food on the plane around 3am and remember eating a salad and that is really all. The flight was too bad for over 15 hours. Now we are waiting for our connection to Bali! Until then xo

The Onion is better than The Village Voice

It was half a great weekend! Actually it was all pretty good :) - we just did a big chunk of packing on Sunday with isn't the funnest way to spend a weekend but definitely has helped with the stress levels!

Saturday we spent the day at Pt. Lookout at the beach with some of my mates from my swim team. Weather was looking terrible on Saturday morning, but it managed to clear up and it was a great day, except for my latest foot injury - I cut my foot on a shell while playing volleyball. The cut isn't that deep but my foot is all bruised underneath so its tender, but I did manage to belt out a few miles this morning after taking a few days rest.

Dan and I both enjoyed playing volleyball, and we both commented in the car ride home how much we miss team sports! For me its netball, for Dan baseball. I think next year when we get back it will be a must for both of us.

Sunday it was pretty overcast, the weather gods deemed it a packing day. I finally managed to pack all the little bits of crap that we had piled in the office - pens, cords, papers, extra bulk costco things - all that junk that doesn't really 'fit' anywhere logically when you are packing categories of stuff. Dan took all that stuff to his Mum's and I started on all the plates, cups and glasses. I highly recommend only taking The Onion (its a free newspaper) to wrap your fragiles - its one of the only free papers that doesnt have staples in it. When you are wrapping up lots of the breakables (and I was double wrapping them), having to take out a staple every time makes it even more painful! AVOID THE VILLAGE VOICE!

After the second round of boxes where packed, we both headed out for the drive and stopped off for lunch at a Vegetarian Chinese Dim Sum (Yum Cha to the Aussies). Absolutely delicious and so cheap. Dan's Mum had put him onto the place and they go there quite frequently. We order the mock roast beef and seriously it tasted like the real thing. So good!

Now it really just the furniture we have left, plus food, the bathroom stuff and more of my clothes. We are planning to do this on Friday. I am hoping to also do a test pack today, there are a couple more clothing items I WANT to buy, but not sure they will fit. My toiletry bag takes up half the space! 

Back to work!

Decisions, Decisions and More Decisions

I am not going to lie, planning a wedding is stressful, and we are only having a very small one! I thought once we decided on which country to have the wedding in and the location it would be smooth sailing. Initially it was, but the last month has been the most stressful as decisions have had to be made on the detail things.

Veil or no veil, what style veil if I wear one, satin edge or rough edge, how will I wear my hair, what jewelry to wear, what flowers to get in the bouquets, what color, which centerpiece, which decorations for the ceremony... and I can go on and on.

What makes this worse is that I have the 'Rob Jones' (my father) 'shop around for the ultimate best deal' trait so that plays a factor in my decision. I can't tell you how many pairs of earrings I have stared at for hours on the net, over and over again. I did actually end up buying some earrings - very plain ones which actually really like! I think I spent at least 12 hrs total making that choice!

I've said this many times to my friends, planning a wedding is a bizarre experience. The actual wedding is not even one day - will anyone even remember you had the white napkins with the cute silver monogram vs. the plain white ones? No. But, you have put so much effort and so much of your time into planning, and the monogram would be really nice personal touch, so why not? Seriously, this is what you weigh up every decision you have to make.

Luckily some of the bigger things I did not really have to much of a problem with. It took us a while to decide to have our wedding in Bali, it came down to Bali, Hawaii and New York, but once we decided on Bali we only looked at two venues and picked the Bali Mandira and a wedding planner very quickly. The food, drink and entertainment again we picked very quickly, and I also didn't have to much stress with the dress. I had looked last year with my Mum when she was over in New York and thought I would get more of a mermaid style, but when I went to try dresses on in May I found them all very constricting, so ended up picking something totally unexpected! See more about our wedding details here.

Last Triathlon of the Season

Yesterday I competed in what will probably (cry) be my last triathlon of the season, NJ State Tri. I performed really well at the NYC Tri a few weeks ago, so was hoping to improve my time this week since they were both Olympic distances.

To much disappointment, it seems like my timing chip was faulty, even though it 'beeped' when I crossed all the timing mats. The official times come out after 6pm this evening, so I am hoping somehow they can fix my preliminary time of 00.00.00. I 'think' I finished it around 2.45 which is a bit slower than NYC, but the swim in NY is a lot faster. I am still so annoyed!

Overall I the race wasn't my best. I woke up feeling sluggish and not really in the mood to race. Dan was awesome and drove us out there @ 5am and I was having my normal panic attack that we would not make it in time, especially when the saw the signs for the Verrazano Bridge lower roadway closure. But we made it (of course) with plenty of time to spare.

I think my swim was pretty good - I didn't have the same issues with sighting as I did in NYC. The lake was beautiful and calm and the water was about 75, which made it wetsuit legal. I could have swam a lot longer! The only negative was I swallowed a lot of water, a habit I have developed recently which I think is what made me sick later in the race. Read on!

T1 was a breeze (I am normally pretty fast and relaxed through transitions), and it was onto the bike. My hamstrings were tight and I was feeling cramped not even after 5 miles. There was a lot of wind kicking around too which made it difficult. Fortunately though I was able to relax, take in some Cytomax and Chia seeds and settle in, and just maintain a comfortable speed of 20m/h. The course was pretty flat, a few rollers but nothing too serious, which for me is a bit of a disadvantage, since I am a strong climber.

T2 again was fine, and then the torture of the run started. It was not a particularly difficult 10K - it was through the woods and actually beautiful scenery, but my stomach was playing up. I actually threw up twice throughout the run, and overcompensated on the water stations to get that taste out of my mouth, so was running on a full bladder. I think I had about 50 people pass me, but I kept trucking and did not slow to a walk. Like I said, I think I finished in about 2.45 which would put me at around 7th out of a field of 50 in my age group which was not too bad considering it was not my best day.

We decided to come back into the city afterwards, even though we had packed our beach stuff to go to the Jersey Shore, but since I was feeling meh, and the weather was overcast we decided to come home.

I headed out later in the afternoon to continue my search for wedding accessories - hairpiece, jewelry, veil, wedding bands, but alas came no closer to a decision. I still don't have a picture of what I want to look like in my mind and since I am not an accessory person (I think they look silly on me), I am having a hard time deciding. AND because I am cheap too, I don't want to pay much for something I won't wear again. I have found plenty of great deals, just can't decide on the style. I am getting sick of looking so will probably bite the bullet soon.

We did not make that much progress on any other wedding stuff or travel/packing stuff this weekend either. I found out I sent the wrong clothes to Liam (groomsman) and Dad - luckily they were about the same size so they can work with what I sent them - I still can't believe I did that, after making sure I checked the packages before they sent!

6 weeks to go!

Wedding, extended backpacking honeymoon, moving out of our apartment... its all exciting but stressful too!

June crawled by, I felt like I had so much time on my hands, but not anymore. July has flown!

We have began packing up the apartment, and I feel like we have made quite a bit of headway, yet we still have so much stuff here! It's amazing the amount of crap that accumulates. We seem to be particularly skilled in collecting power cords and dell chargers.

The wedding plans are pretty much under control, we have a wonderful planner from Baliku Weddings, Katie who has been a dream. Last week we chose the centerpieces, bouquets and ceremony decorations. I have hard a hard time making decisions from photos - but I probably would be even more indecisive if I had the real thing to look at.

The only thing that has really been tricky is the food. Dan and I decided to try a plant based diet (vegetarian) early this year. We watched Forks over Knives and it made us want to give it a go. It didn't come as a surprise, but the chefs at the hotel we are having the wedding at sent us pack the vegetarian menus to look over to select for the main course and they all had fish! We ended up getting it sorted out, but I think its going to be pretty common while we travel through Asia. That could mean we both get really skinny (or eat a lot of plain rice and deep fried vego spring rolls mmmm)

This weekend we are going to try and organize our wedding bands and probably look over the travel insurance yet again which is one of those pain in the ass tasks. I think we will probably end up going with World Nomads or perhaps a combo of Nomad with the AMEX insurance. Its a bummer AMEX will only cover a max 45 day trip, but it is the cheapest option.