Category: Photo Content

…where you are right now, only much, much better.” Or so says the Laurie Anderson song. I think I had a good preview of paradise though on my recent trip to Bali.

My idea of travel typically is going to a major metropolitan area, staying in a hotel, and going out to various sites and taking in all the city has to offer. The idea that going to a resort can be fun, just hanging out, seemed like a colossal waste of money. As Tomo said a friend of his would say, “If I just wanted to sit around and read a book I could do that at home.”

I never thought I would enjoy an isolated resort. Just like I’ve never really liked the idea of a cruise. But, I guess I’m getting older or opening my mind a little bit. I still haven’t been on a cruise since I was 14 years old, but I have ended up hitting various resorts. Since I’ve moved to Japan, I’ve been to a resort in Karuizawa (Hoshinoya), a resort at Hakone, a visit to a resort in Thailand, a ryokan in Matsumoto, and recently a resort in Bali.

This past weekend was spent at the BVLGARI Hotel and Resort in Bali. I’m almost embarrassed to say that, because it seems so over-the-top. I don’t really even like much that Bulgari has to offer as a brand. But the resort looked really, really nice and we were not disappointed.

The trip from Japan is a lot easier than trying to get to Bali from the US. And the best part of all – there is a one hour time difference. That’s it! Interestingly, when I was still in Japan around Christmas time, freezing, Tomo and I made plans to come to Bali. We had tried to go in the past, but it didn’t work out. This time it did. We made reservations at the Bulgari, vowing to explore other options. We marginally explored.

I can’t say I had any experience about Bali while in Bali, and for that I have some regrets. In some respects, the resort could have been anywhere. But we did have Italian influenced Bali architecture, traditional Indonesian food available on the menu, and the warm Indonesian people as our hosts.

So what did we do? Relaxed, ate, went to the spa. The resort had about 70 individual villas nestled in rows on a cliff. But even with so many villas, each villa was very private. The villas were about 300 m2 of indoor and outdoor space, and consisted of 3 huts, two of them enclosed and connected, and one outside. The outside hut was where the living room was, and looked out to a sweeping view of the Indian Ocean. We had two lounge chairs in front of our own plunge pool. The plunge pool was clean, a great depth, and a nice temperature. Yes, we used it (as opposed to Thailand where we thought it looked a little scary).

 

 

 

 

The bedroom was completely windowed on three sides, with large sheers and heavy curtains. The roof was thatched grass, and did have a tendency to drop a few things at times. The colors were dark, the lines simple but still felt Indonesian-esque to me (whatever that means).

 

 

The bath area was the same hut style as the bedroom, and it too was completely windowed on three sides. But this has no curtains! It was wide open to the outdoors, although there were privacy walls to protect others from seeing in. I didn’t imagine that I would like the huge, open bathroom, but in the end I loved it. I was even able to take advantage of the outdoor shower.

 

 

Our neighbors were monkeys, and they stopped by for a visit.

 

The resort did have a private beach, but since it is situated high on a cliff (the resort, not the beach), accessing could have been difficult. To ease the burden, there was an incline rail to take you up and down. I had never seen a 6 person incline rail before, but there you go. We went to the beach twice – both times at high tide. The water was really rough and swimming is not allowed. We were still able to enjoy the view though.

 

 

 

The bar was well situated, and in the evening it was very peaceful to enjoy a drink and a snack. The staff was kind enough to offer to reserve a table for us for sunset on the first evening there, and that was good because it was the only night with a visible sunset.

 

 

 

At the spa, I had an exfoliation scrub, a foot massage, a facial scrub, a scalp massage, and then a long stroke hot stone oil massage. Although I’ve grown to like shiatsu massages, it’s hard to top a hot stone massage. Basically, the massage incorporates palmed hot stones as part of the massage stroke. We were in an open air hut with waves crashing below and a really nice breeze blowing though.

 

 

 

The pool was very beautiful, and never crowded. I think people were hanging out in their villas.

 

 

 

 

 

The Indonesian Rupiah has suffered from inflation over the years, so now, as a rough order of magnitude, 1 USD = 10000 IDR (actually around 8600), and 100 JPY = 10000 IDR (ish). I had a lot of zeros floating around in my head, and prices were often listed in 1000s of IDR. When I got my massage, I wanted to leave a tip. Afterwards, I was fuzzy as I often am after a massage and had to write in the tip. I wanted to leave about a $30 tip for the two therapists, and so I wrote 30000 IDR. Later, as I was looking at the price of something on the menu, I wondered to myself, “Did I really just leave a $3 tip?” That’s almost an insult! The next day we went back to the spa, checked out my bill, and sure enough, I had given them a $3 tip. Ooops. I made it easy and handed over some cash and offered my apologies.

I can go on and on, but I’ve been reminded more than once that nobody really wants to read that much in a blog. If the entry is too long, people will be bored and skip it. Or just look at the pictures, which is what I figure actually happens with this blog.

But if people are reading the whole thing, I do have a few more comments. When we were checking out this resort, I read some really negative reviews. People complaining about the beach, about bugs in the room, about it being too dark, about the restaurants being expensive compared to other places in Bali. I guess if I wanted to, I could complain about things. Yes, there were bugs here and there (it is the tropics, after all), yes you can’t swim on the beach, and yes you are paying premium prices at the bar, restaurant, and spa. I’m not sure how to measure value, but I felt that I got great service, I wasn’t “nickel and dimed” on every service provided, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Maybe since I am now calibrated to Japanese prices, even the high prices didn’t seem THAT high. So I highly recommend the place if you are not going to stress out over the money you are spending. If you are going to stress out about it, then don’t go.

 

Last year at the beginning of the year, or maybe even earlier, Tomo and I were walking through Nagoya Station and walked past a bunch of images of some of the country pavilions for the upcoming World Expo in Shanghai. They looked really cool, and we decided that we would visit Shanghai and the World’s Fair in 2010. Tomo did some quick checking, and we booked a trip in June. It is really easy for Japanese to travel to China – they just get on a plane and go. Americans still need to get a visa. I was quite fortunate that I had a trip to LA coming up, so I was able to arrange for my visa there. Otherwise it would have been much more difficult and slightly more expensive to get in Japan.

In the end, we had to cancel our trip in May due to work scheduling conflicts. Everything was refundable except for our Expo tickets. After some investigation, we decided to give it another shot and book again in October. We were minutes away from cancelling again due to scheduling conflicts, but decided that the proper work / life balance was more important. In the end, there was no major issue going, but sometimes you just don’t know.

We figured that the place may be less crowded in October compared to May since the initial excitement of the event would be over. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. We were wrong.

But first, before we even got to the Expo, we were in Shanghai and that was cool in itself. We were staying at the Portman Ritz-Carlton, which sounds a lot fancier than it really is. Sure, it is a very nice hotel, but it isn’t a small, little boutique hotel. It has over 600 rooms. However, I am not complaining.

I had been to Shanghai before, and there were definitely some areas that I wanted Tomo to see. We started walking, and Tomo had picked out some interesting places along the way too. The goal was to walk from the hotel, eventually getting to the walk street area of Nanjin Road, and then ending up at the Bund for a view across to Pudong. From there, the night would be whatever it turned out to be.

10 years ago, on my first visit to China, walking along the streets of Shanghai was amazing to me. The fact that I was actually in China, walking down the street, was cool enough in itself. Now, I live in Asia, and everyone around me is Asian, and walking down a street in Shanghai is kind of like walking down a street in Japan, or Taipei, or Bangkok, or Singapore, or …. Of course, the cities I mentioned are extremely different, but they are all starting to merge into a similar style of “major Asian city.” Still, even on this trip, I found it exciting to be in Shanghai, walking down the street.

We first stopped at a restaurant that served soup and dumplings. It was incredibly cheap, and really good, and soon got very crowded. If you can imagine, I was the only white guy to be found.

 

 

We made it to Nanjing and continued to walk to the Bund. The last time I was here was during the day, and I got some interesting pictures at that time.

Older pictures.

 

 

Recent photos.

 

 

Of course, when we finally made it to the Bund, the experience did not disappoint. The old of the bund contrasted against the new of Pudong across the water. Interestingly, I found the view to Pudong very interesting the first time I was in Shanghai, and yet at that time there were only a few buildings, primarily the TV tower. Since then, other buildings have been built that are quite spectacular.

 

While we were wandering around, we split up taking pictures. As I was peering across the water, I was approached by three girls who started chatting me up. They had just graduated, were from Xian, had been to the Expo that day, and so on. I’m always a little cautious of wily strangers but I chatted back. Tomo joined me and they continued to talk and next thing we knew they were inviting us to a cultural exposition just down the street. Why don’t we come with them? Ahhhhh, no thanks. I have no idea where that was actually going, but I think they probably weren’t from Xian, probably didn’t go to the Expo, and were out gathering people for something. I doubt it was anything to serious, but we elected not to go. Instead, we went to a restaurant / bar on the Bund for a light snack and a great view at a sky high price. It was worth it though.

 

We wanted to check out the view from the Pudong side as well, so we rode a really cheesy “train” underneath the river to Pudong and enjoyed the “art” exhibition on the way. After accomplishing our mission, we returned across the river, to the subway, and back to the hotel after a remarkably full first day.

The next day, a Thursday, we planned on going to the Expo. The weather was pretty miserable in the morning. Rainy and not so warm. That did not deter us, or hundreds of thousands of others as well. What we had heard turned out to be true, the place was PACKED! The grounds are huge, so at first it seems pretty wide open. But then you start making your way to the pavilions and it is crazy. Of course we went to Japan first, and the girls had told us that you can jump the line if you have a passport of that country. Japan did NOT have that policy. The same treatment for all people. And the line was about 4 hours to wait. That didn’t sound fun and we were living in Japan anyway, so what’s the point? Next up, Saudia Arabia. 6 hours, and jammed packed with pushy people. That didn’t look fun either. At this point, there was a little tension.

 

The line for some exhibition.

 

I got a big kick out of the signs reminding people of proper manners. As if it would help.

 

 

 

Thank goodness for New Zealand. They were our gateway to smaller, more accessible pavilions. We finally started going into some of the smaller country pavilions and at this point I can’t remember all the countries we visited. I will try: New Zealand, Singapore, Australia, France, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Finland, Croatia, Slovenia, Canada, USA, Mexico, Brasil, The Netherlands,

Switzerland.

 

UK.

 

Luxembourg.

 

For my space geek friends out there, Slovenia.

 

France.

 

Architecturally, Finland was my favorite. Australia had the best “show” but Canada’s Cirque de Soleil designed experience was cool as well. Slovenia had the coolest exhibition, Croatia’s was by far the cheapest and most lame, and Brasil was disappointing as well. Mexico was very interactive and fun, the Netherlands was just trippy, and the USA tried really hard to be gracious.

In and around Finland.

 

 

 

Canada.

 

I will say that the passport trick worked really well at the US pavilion, and while others queued for a long time, I waived my US passport, got a friendly, “Where are you from?” and was given immediate access, +1.

 

One of my biggest excitements, which I paid for dearly later, was discovering Mexican food at the Mexican pavilion. Ooops. The Mexican pavilion was full of interactive art.

 

 

 

In spite of the rain, we had a long and complete day in the country pavilion area of the expo. To say it was huge is an understatement. Am I glad we did it? You bet.

 

Prior to going to China, everyone was telling me to bring Immodium or some other intestinal troubles masking agent. I told myself I would be careful, I was only there for a few days, I was in a major city, and there would not be any problem. Until Friday morning. Yikes! I was miserable and could not keep any food in my stomach. Nothing like spending a vacation day timing trips to the bathroom. I ended up sending Tomo away to do his own thing because I could not imagine being away from the room. Fortunately, I started feeling better and by 3:00 pm was ready to risk an adventure in the city.

Tomo really wanted to go to another restaurant in his excellent Japanese guidebook. Since I couldn’t find any English language guidebooks for Shanghai in Nagoya, how could I overrule his request. We took a taxi to the general area and arrived to see that the entire block where this restaurant was supposed to be was now a giant construction zone. That’s progress! And also really frustrating. With guidebook in hand, we went to a different restaurant in a different part of Shanghai that turned out to be right where we were the night before. Anyway, the food basically was a great choice, and was basically chicken and noodle soup. My stomach was on the road to recovery.

Not an easy menu to choose from.

 

Coca-Cola products, Coke and Sprite.

 

 

We still had one more ticket for the Expo, so we decided to go to the technology and commercial side of the Expo across the river. We had heard that it wasn’t crowded. Whoever told us that was completely mistaken. It was even MORE crowded, perhaps because it was a Friday night. The most popular pavilion? The Coca-cola pavilion – a 5 hour wait. We wandered through a few pavilions, and then wandered around the grounds for a bit, and decided we had saturated on the Expo.

 

Other interesting pictures from the commercial pavilions.

 

 

Our plan was to go back to Pudong and go to the top floor observation deck of the Shanghai World Financial Center. I never imagined walking across a glass catwalk at the 97th floor of a building, but I did. For someone who doesn’t like heights (me), it was surprising easy. Maybe it’s only open heights that bother me. I think it is a beautiful building.

 

 

At that point it was pretty late, and we were tired and hungry, so we ate at some western place on the lower levels of the building. Whatever I ate was good for my stomach so I was happy.

Our last day was easy, we took advantage of the hotel spa and then went to Din Tai Fung, this time in Shanghai and right next to the hotel, and were able to meet up with ex-colleagues of mine who are now living in Shanghai. That was cool.

Finally, to put the finishing touch on the trip, we rode the MAGLEV train to the airport, reaching a top speed of 430 km/hr (267 mph).

 

Not quite 430 km/hr at this time, but close.

 

Again, a very good trip – one of the great advantages of living in Asia is to be able to take a long weekend to Shanghai.