24 January 2006 Tuesday

day two in Bali

retroposted: {====== Monday 23 Jan 2006 ======}

7:49pm~ beautfiful ‘traditional’ Balinese wedding/vow renewal ceremony for Mom and Dad. even Lor and I got decked out.. This is a very nice place.

Monkey Forest earlier in the day.. not quite the same as Monkey Mountain in Japan.. the Monkey Forest here is much more of a temple in beautiful forest setting.. and the monkeys are much friendlier, as they are kept well fed… and they’re encouraged by the guides to climb on you to get fed extra treats. much much unlike the monkeys from Monkey Mountain Japan where if you look at them in the eye for a few seconds too long, you could find yourself charged at and killed very very painfully. i’ve thought about it — it may be much more pleasant to be killed by a large animal like a tiger or a bear — they can simply crush your skull or rip out a big enough chunk of you to bleed out quickly. but to be attacked by little creatures? like monkeys or porcupines or guinea pigs or a swarm of crabs or or wasps or fire ants… that would take a little longer.. and that would really really really hurt.

Did i mention i saw little bunnies yesterday, being sold on the side of the road as we were driving by? Tiny lil bunnies.. being sold every couple of meters.. Reminded me of my lil bunny Tinsel back in Bangkok days.. Tinsel could fit easily in one hand when we got her.. and we were told she’d stay pretty small — supposedly a Dwarf Rabbit. Well, she turned out to be much more of a Dutch — grew to be the length of my whole arm when lying down spread out a lil. Anyhow, I saw the bunnies and was like, “awwww…bunnies!” and thinking how i’d like to go play with the bunnies and take bunnies back home. A couple hours later, it occurred to me…. “Dad, what are those bunnies being sold for? As pets? or bait..?” Dad: “Likely to be taken home and raised for dinner.”
Oh. Awww.

Apparently the general Muslim/Hindu (I dun remember which) rule is that thou shalt not eat anything with paws. (My recollection of Muslim general rule on meat is that thou shalt not eat anything that’s a scavenger/eats dead things — no crabs, sharks, pigs, etc.) I dunno who’s buying and eating these rabbits then.. I tried to think about raising a bunny and then eating it. I think I can conceivably do one or the other.. not both with the same bunny.

Onto another side of Bali tomorrow.

in a couple hours, it’ll be happy birthday Dad o^_^o
and happy anniversary also to Mom and Dad..
additionally, happy birthday Matt o^_^o
and happy birthday Hanley o^_^o
and happy yesterday birthday Alina o^_^o

My awful cold from the past few days has, as of a little while ago progressed into a cough. Yay. well, it is progress. I think it started as sneezing.. and then a rough, painful throat… and then lots of nose blowing.. and then totally stuffy nose and lots of nose blowing.. and after a day of getting a bit better but also still being a bit yucky and then spending hours and hours in a car driving up and down mountains and on very windy roads rather quickly and giving me headaches and elevation making my ears totally stuffed up and similar pain to airplane landing and then left ear wouldn’t unstuff half the day (is there a different spelling for the verb “stuff”? it doesn’t seem right to be the same as the noun..) and then finally unstuffed toward the end and then now is restuffed again… now i have a strong cough instead. i got through that Balinese ceremony without needing a tissue, all the way through! that’s good.

this trip is going by rather quickly.. even tho i do need to get home, the fleeting time here is much noticed and is a bit sad. will have to be back soonish.

7:47pm~ Lor thought it would be a genius idea to open the window to look at the rain storm that’s beginning. the window that has no mosquito netting. now there’s a big cockroach flying around our room. not cool zeus.