bali! part 1

i can't believe i forgot to write about bali!


the purpose of my visit to indonesia was mainly visiting my younger brother who is working at alila. i hadn't seen him in over a year and a half, so a meet-up was in order! the icing on the cake was that my parents were also flying to bali from california so this was this first family vacation we'd had in ages. simply put, the food was amazing; i didn't have one bad dish. however, i did get the runs starting from the second day (probably from contaminated ice cubes) so that did slow me down a bit. stupidly, i didn't tell my family until almost the last day, thinking that i didn't want to ruin our vacation. in hindsight, i could have become seriously ill in the heat and i was constantly in danger of getting dehydrated. haha, anyway.. D:


suckling pig, or babi guling from a warung. can you count how many pieces of fat there are?
somewhat ironically, the most memorable meals i had with my family there were (relatively) the most expensive. all the food and grocery was extremely cheap to me, coming straight from copenhagen, while it was probably just okay to my parents. having lived in jimbaran for 2 months at this point, my brother was already used to the prices and would exclaim "expensive!" to most any entree that was priced over 25,000IDR, which is about $2.30USD. don't get me wrong, the warungs (small local restaurants) all served up amazing food for very little money, though most of them left a lot to be desired in the hygiene department.



in seminyak, we went to potato head. this restaurant/club/bar that my brother led us to is something of a secret, or at least it was when we got there. a hip place like this can't stay under wraps for long. sitting there watching the sunset with my family, i felt like i could have been at some new beachfront cafe in newport beach back in california. except the water looked way cleaner.


we weren't all that hungry so we all opted for cocktails and cheese; don't worry, we had a driver. i'm really glad we decided on that because it was beyond my expectations. i always assumed that asian places would not be able to put together a decent cheese plate, but boy was i wrong! i really regret not taking something to write with, because i can't remember any of the names. it was a reasonable 85,000IDR. the cocktails were equally delicious, also not too strong or too weak.


before the sun set, people of all ages were getting in and out of the pool. kids, people my parents' age, people my age. my brother and i agreed that we loved the vibe of the place with kids playing on the lawn while their parents were making eyes at each other at the bar. though potato head is extremely hip, there is no pretentiousness when you can hear children laughing.