Bali 2008 - December 4

Breakfast this morning was black rice pudding. This is not actually a pudding at all, but more like a sweet soup. It is made with black rice, which has to be soaked overnight, coconut, banana, and sweetened condensed milk. It is a lovely shade of purple, and one of those things I could eat every day.

Once we had finished licking our bowls, we met Made for the drive to Batubulan. Batubulan is the stone carving village, but also where one of the better barong performances is held. We took loads of photos, and I tried shooting video, but my card filled up early in the performance. The funny thing about extra camera cards is that they don't work so well when you leave them at home! The performace is still very good and the kids really got into the story. Jake enjoyed it so much that we ended up buying him a barong mask later in the market.

From there we headed to Sukawati, a nearby village with a much larger market than the one in Ubud. This is where we've been told we can find many of the items we're looking for, and at a cheaper price. Unfortunately, it was very hot and we were all hungry, so we didn't explore as much as we might have. We did make a few purchases, but then we left for Ubud to get lunch.

We went to Bumbu Bali again. I had mentioned before that we couldn't get our favorite refreshing beverage, and again today there was no lemon sorbet. We settled for iced lemon tea, and the kids and I each ordered a pizza. We were very disappointed to find that they are now using pre-made pizza crusts, which are thick and not very good. My pizza was a "super supreme" which was supposed to have ham, onion, tomato, mushroom, peppers, eggplant, olives, anchovies, and cheese. I ordered it without olives and anchovies, and they also left off the mushrooms and peppers. I wonder if they have a microwave, because the thing looked as if it hat not seen the inside of an oven. The cheese was barely melted, and the tomatoes were raw. To top it all off, they didn't have Lace's favorite Chocolate Caramel Peanut Pie. Another one off the list.

At the end of the day, Lace and the kids went to bed and I took the laptop over to Melati to catch up on some blogging. As soon as I got there, they lost power. It was back on quickly, so I continued to set up. A few minutes later it went out again. I was surprised to hear my phone ring at this point - no one calls me at night! It was Made asking if I was still at Melati. Still? I've barely been here 10 minutes. Well, yes, I said.

"We need you to come back. There is a problem."

"What's wrong?"

"Very big problem. Come back right away."

So, thinking that the power outage had affected Londo as well, and that one of the kids had fallen down the steps in the dark, I quickly threw the laptop back in the bag, packed up all my stuff, and rushed back to Londo in a panic. Turns out, the really big problem was that my surprise birthday party was waiting for me to get home. Kadek had ordered a beautiful chocolate cherry birthday cake and they had number candles on top. Of course, we didn't get any pictures because I had the camera cards with me. Oh well! It was a wonderful surprise.