bali bliss

stealth ninja

temple in ubud

laurel says:

eat, pray, l-o-v-e bali.  prior to our trip here, my conception of bali was a techno party scene full of drunken australians.  the austral-asia version of cancun.  on the contrary, ubud is a zen paradise.  many an expat has come for a week and stayed for a lifetime.  and it is easy to see why.  gorgeous resorts set amid working rice terraces.  organic restaurants where one can be vegan, gluten free, raw or a host of other yet to be named diet fads (we felt like amateurs being “only” pescetarians).  and spas by the dozen where a heavenly hour long balinese massage will set you back all of $10.  we had to extend our stay. we went trekking thru the rice paddies, learning about the process of growing rice along the way.  we attended yoga classes at the infamous yoga barn.  i even managed to drag emil to a cultural balinese dance performance and a textile class on the traditional fabrics of indonesia.   and he managed to drag me to a cooking school (touché!).  one of the highlights of the trip was motoring thru town on a pink scooter stalking down all the various sets from the eat, pray, love movie (both the book and movie are set in ubud and feature real people).   eat prey love, or ”epl” as the locals call it, has brought a steady stream of tourists to ubud looking for 'self-fulfillment’.  but despite the growing surge in popularity, ubud and its people have maintained their original culture.  men in sarongs sit and sip tea, oblivious to the changing world around them.  women walk around carrying giant baskets of goods on their heads. daily handmade hindu offerings dot the sidewalks despite all the foot traffic.  and everyone you meet has a genuine smile on their face, just happy to be healthy and surrounded by family.    

even buddha needs protection

emil survived 2 hours of balinese dancing

walking thru the rice paddies

ducks gardening the rice paddies

aloha from ubud

iron chef wolmut at work

emil says:

if anyone out there has a desire to just ‘escape’ for a few months this might be the place: yoga all over, mediation guides, super cheap and fantastic food, a small walkable town dotted with zen-cafes in which one knows true enlightenment is being discovered over every buddha bliss lemongrass honey and ginger elixir.  and continuous 2hr flights to Singapore if one needed to return to civilization in a hurry.  i know we will make our way back here one day. the food alone is worth the trip, but the kindness of the balinese and the serene topography (rice paddies, 7k ft mountains, jungles, and just looking out your bedroom window) are enlightening in and of themselves.   but on the other hand there is a ridiculously laughable side to the ‘enlightenment seekers’ that abound (and that draw me even closer to this place). pop-culture, via the ‘eat, pray, love’ book/movie, has surely added a “bali-wood” spin to this place.  julia roberts finds enlightenment via javier bardem’s gentle touch, and alas there are droves of divorcees at the numerous cafes seeking a bit of the same good fortune.  the local yoga spot is overwhelmed by expats with refillable aluminum bottles paying san francisco type prices for the same classes they could have at home with lesser crowds. this video that my buddy rob pointed me too (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-8IPDR4Khc) probably best describes the scene at yoga barn. i am not mocking those that are trying to find themselves in ubud i’m just mocking the fact that pop-culture somehow drove those seekers to seemingly this one place.  and the characters it attracts make for some great people watching. anyone could go find a tree by the river in some remote village outside of tibet to get away and seek the truth but for me it’s a lot more fun being surrounded by the same goal seekers teaching me their new version of ‘dog over barking moon’ poses. if one wants to really get off the grid there are far more off the run spots than ubud, but i challenge you to find a place where you can ‘escape’, with gourmet food, in a stunning setting, surrounded by kind people, and just a great hippie/yogi ex-pat community. 

streets of ubud

one man's take on "eat, pray, love"

christmas in bali

blogging bali style

ketut's compound from epl

rice terraces

our fave restaurant in the middle of a rice paddy

emil riding his pink hog

aussie roadtrip

surf camp noosa

visiting my friend. mindy in brisbane

sand crabs on fraser island

contemplating something

emil says:

australia has a lot going for it, maybe everything going for it.  great live/work balance (paid sabbaticals are commonplace), low unemployment, tremendous healthcare (2 prong system – all get basic coverage and one can elect to pay for supplemental care), surf camp for kids instead of little league baseball, brilliant beaches and mature urban centers with great business connectivity to asia, and just a straightforward warmth from folks.  if i could choose anywhere to raise our children and cat it would be here.  nice to finally spend time in a country whose economy is still rather booming too.  some things we ran into confirming this:  remember what “help wanted” signs look like?  well they are on display everywhere in australia, including highway billboards; minimum wage here is $16/hr and perhaps that’s why the people that work in these jobs are competent, capable, and kind; riding around in a car with laurel’s exchange family there were 6 people with positive work stories regarding recent pay raises and promotions (when is the last time 6 people in a car in america all have positive stories to share?).  sadly if you can mine it, or drill it, or frak it, its being done here in voracious style and loaded onto a container ship heading to china. that said, if we had these natural resources back home i figure we would be doing the exact same thing.  the beauty of the mining biz though is forget occupy wall street garbage and taking down the 1% for the sake of wealth redistribution, here the mining industry just picked up the 99% by the bootstraps and just created an explosion of wealth for the average truck driver, excavator, and dishwasher (someone’s gotta do the dishes at a mining site).  laurel and i treated ourselves to a night at a she-she foo-foo resort and you gotta love seeing all the neuveau-riche miner-types enjoying the fine life as well (picture the plaza hotel in nyc overrun by the cast from west coast choppers). rich/poor disparity in australia almost seems to have been single handedly abolished by the metals and mining industry.  australia is a tremendous place. we surfed, met up with friends, sailed, snorkeled and scubad the reef, drove a rental car up the eastern seaboard, and pigged-out on cheap sushi and fish and chips, and all the while met many cheerful, fun-loving, good-natured folks along the way. it’s the first time i have been jealous of how other people live and it’s the first time on this adventure that i am sad to leave a country. 

heron island at low tide

reef wall

our fave snorkeling grounds

whitehaven beach, whitsundays

the sand is pure white silica

laurel says:

i am lucky enough to call this trip to australia my 4^th visit to this spectacular country.  and every time i have to leave, i end up in tears.  this visit in particular was a real gem.  to have the luxury of time allowed us 3 weeks of open-ended exploration.  it was also fun to see emil fall in love with a country that means so much to me.  the bulk of our time was spent on a fabulous roadtrip that took us all the way from sydney to cairns, logging 3k kilometers on our little hatchback.  along the way we stopped at countless stunning beaches and quaint little seaside towns.  noosa, a beach town just north of brisbane, was one of our favorite ports of call.  here we enrolled in a surf school run by a world pro-am champion that told me i had what it takes to become a hard core surfer (note, he did not say this to emil).   another highlight was heron island where the great barrier reef begins right outside your doorstep.  in low tide, you can actually walk right onto the reef 200 yards from shore and along the way spot sea stars, rays and multiple species of sharks.  and the grand finale of the trip, a 3 night sailing adventure thru the scenic whitsunday islands was the perfect way to end the trip.  snorkeling here was like being in a giant tropical technicolor fish tank.  i even overcame my fear of scuba diving and took 2 incredible dives on the reef.  i am excited for asia, but heartbroken to leave oz.     

assisting the skipper

scuba diving the great barrier reef

sailing the whitsundays

what is whiter: emil or the sand?

bats of cairns

itinerary:

sydney

port macquarie

coffs harbor

byron bay

surfers paradise

brisbane

noosa

fraser island

heron island

whitsunday islands

cairns

melbourne family

federation square 

banks of the yarra river

with my host brothers luke and dave

don't fight the australian law

my host mum, val

laurel says:
in 1998, one month after my 16th birthday, my parents shipped a bawling teenager off to australia to live in the homes of strangers for 12 months.  this turned out to be one of the best years of my life and was instrumental in forming my entire future.  i spent my junior year of high school as a rotary youth exchange student in the tiny town of mortlake, australia (population 1100).  i owe many thanks to my grandpa bob for encouraging me to pursue the rotary opportunity to study abroad and my parents for their support.  the graciousness, love and friendship afforded me by my host families is a gift that will never be forgotten.  now 13 years later, it was a pleasure to be able to take emil to melbourne to meet some of my extended family.  and we picked up just where we left off. laughing, drinking and running thru the streets of chinatown in pursuit of dumplings at 2am.

sunny sydney

first glimpse of the opera house

laurel says:
dear sydney,  i love you.  you are a-mazing.  cosmopolitan city.  perfect scale.  five star beaches.  postcard perfect harbor.  lively night life.  and some of the friendliest (and best looking, i might add) people on earth.  it is hard not to just pack up shop and move here.  living for a week in an apartment in the pristine beach neighborhood of manly gave us a taste of the good life.  commuting 30 minutes by ferry thru the stunning harbor would not be a bad way to live.  chowing down on dirt cheap sushi.  and knocking off work at 4pm to go surfing (no wetsuit needed).  maybe it's time to dust off the resume.

the rocks district, oldest part of sydney

view from the rocks

sydney harbor bridge

sure beats a subway

opera house by night

antarctic adventure

rough swells along the drake passage

our first landing on the shetland islands

both penguin species we saw

gentoo penguin

this ice is slippery 

chinstrap penguin

how can we get on that boat, fellas?

march of the penguin

penguin colony

wing man 

slip n' slide

emil says:

not what i had expected. i doubt this place is like anyone expects. antarctica is surely not a flat white snow covered beach with 3 penguins blankly looking at one another. this is a fierce awesome place. moon-like labyrinth of active volcanoes, glaciers, ice floes, and icebergs the size of several football fields.  colonies of hundreds of thousands of squawking and nastily fighting nearly-loveable penguins scrambling to find prime nesting real estate. it’s a zoo out there. more life than i had expected but at the same time much more hostile an environment than imagined. one stands upon just a seriously unforgiving, phenomenally wicked terrain and then one spots a bunch of seals yawning away. and penguins seem to be smiling the nastier the weather gets. not a lot of grey area here.  a certain species will either thrive in this environment or not.  we are of the latter group. the air is so clean and so devoid of dust particles that objects actually appear closer than they are (the opposite of your car’s side view mirrors). at night the stars don’t twinkle as there’s just not enough dust to distort the light from the shining stars (pretty cool).  when i stared out at the vastness from land or sea it just made me smile ear to ear.  it just feels so awesomely indestructible.  it feels tremendously bigger than humanity. tough to find the adjectives to describe such a space. i walk away just excited about how enormous and how unspoiled and purely virginal this land is, and hopefully remains. 

not photoshopped

deteriorating whaling boat at deception island

deception island cemetery

on the caldera at deception island

remains of old whale oil tanks

monster leopard seal

one too many buffet meals 

200 yard long iceberg

sea ice

boat hidden by heavy ice floe

zodiac cruising 

snow petrels chillin'

laurel says:

we live in a world where few mysteries still exist.  it seems the human footprint has traversed nearly every inch of this earth.  antarctica remains the one exception.  in fact, it was just 100 years ago that the first polar explorers staked out the south pole. 

it is an honor to visit the white continent and one that must be earned by enduring the volatile drake passage- the body of water which separates south america from antarctica.  two full days at sea with rolling 20 foot waves.  it was commonplace for china and glassware to come crashing off the table in the ships dining room.   then you take your first unforgettable glimpses of the frozen tundra and realize all the motion sickness pills were worth it.  antarctica is far from the white plateau i had envisioned.  instead, snow capped mountains jut up thru the ice, meeting the crisp blue sky.  icebergs frame the sea in shapes you never knew existed.  raw, rugged, untouched by the human hand and completely breath taking.  it is difficult to describe just how stunning the landscape is.  greeting you upon your zodiac boat arrival are thousands of penguins, awkwardly making their way across the ice.  bloated seals rest leisurely on the snow, digesting their daily catch.  bright blue glaciers float by along the sapphire waters.  it is sensory overload.   a night spent in hurricane force winds while our ship anchored in the volcanic caldera at deception island.  observing humpback whales dive for krill sheer feet from the boat.  stepping foot where the likes of shackleton spent time.  plunging into the -1 degree celsius waters of the southern ocean.  these are memories that will not be forgotten.  

our tiny zodiac near iceberg

humpback whale 

pacific life ad

arrival on antarctica mainland

argentine research station surrounded by friends

laurel celebrating her 7th continent

taking the polar plunge

crazy style points