Stylish in Seminyak

In Bali, we stayed in an area called Seminyak. Kuta is the party place, kind of like Patong in Phuket, Thailand, and we were told that we wouldn't want to stay there. I'm glad we followed that advice. Seminyak was a beautiful area with a nice, clean beach, great restaurants, and amazing shopping. Zack especially had fun exploring the international designer brand stores. Here he is sporting his new hat, shirt, and swimming trunks. He's also sporting a mustache; I'm not sure what that's about!

We had an amazing two weeks in Thailand and Bali. We celebrated our final night with a fancy dinner at a place in Seminyak called The Living Room. Here we are looking tanned and relaxed. Zack also bought this shirt and the white linen pants on his Bali shopping spree, as well as a necklace and bracelet for me (you can't see the bracelet in the picture). Though it's nice to be "home," (whatever that means as an expat!) we sure do miss the warm weather and the beautiful beaches. Summer in Melbourne can't come quickly enough!

Bye bye beautiful Bali!

Here's a map of our travels:

View Full Size Travel Map at Travellerspoint

Partying in Patong

After a few days in Chiang Mai (more about that later), we flew through Bangkok (more about that later too) down to Phuket in the Southern part of Thailand. We spent two nights in a place near Karon Beach. This is outside of the crazy Patong area, though we did go check it out one day and evening. During the day, there's tons of shopping for cheap T-shirts, fake brand name items, and souvenirs. The vendors are pretty aggressive with their sales tactics; they really want your business! In fact, they are kind of mean. The beach itself was busy, but the water was rather dirty looking. We spent the afternoon boogie boarding and hanging out on nearby Kata beach instead, which was much prettier.

Busy Patong Beach

People in Thailand often travel by scooter or motorcycle. They weave in and out of traffic, and I don't know how they survive. The streets are crazy; traffic lanes apparently mean nothing.












At night, Patong is insane! Bangla Road is the main street, and there are hundreds of clubs, bars, pubs, etc. Each one tries to lure you in with drink specials, dancing girls (or lady boys), or the promise of ping pong shows. Luckily, we knew not to check out a ping pong show. If you don't know why, I don't suggest Googling it at work or school! You can't walk down the street without somebody stopping you every five feet to try to get you into their place. We went to a couple of the much tamer bars and enjoyed some live music and people-watching. It was interesting to witness the partying in Patong for one night, but that was enough for me!

Hanging out on Bangla Road in Patong

Strange Finds at the Store

Sometimes the things I find at the grocery store amuse me. Only in Australia would you find potato chips that are "pie & sauce" flavored! No, I didn't buy them, so I can't tell you if they actually taste like a meat pie with ketchup. These are a limited edition flavor, but there are always chicken flavored chips on the shelves. No, I've never tried those either. Somehow, meat-flavored chips do not appeal to me!

Dogs get some interestingly flavored food as well. Here's one choice I saw the other day. Mince is what Australians call ground up meat. Ground beef is called beef mince. There is also lamb mince, pork mince, etc. I'm not sure which kind is in this food. And marrowbone...mmmm!

Lamb is also a common ingredient. There are all sorts of lamb soups and cuts of meat and such. And pumpkin items, but none of them are sweet. You can even get cream of pumpkin soup! Anyway, it's interesting to come across these distinctly Australian items while doing the grocery shopping, so I thought you all might enjoy them too.

G'day Grocery Cart!

Good morning. Um, yes, that is a shopping cart in our living room. Why, you ask? Well, when you don't have a car, and you're tired of going to the grocery store nearly every day to buy things and try to figure out what's for dinner, then you make a menu plan for a few weeks along with a long shopping list, and you need to bring the cart home with you because you can't carry everything! Woolworths (called Woolies here...it's basically Safeway) is just across the park, so it's not like I hauled this thing very far. And I'll take it back today, especially because I want my money back.




Yes, money. You have to pay to get a shopping cart. You put a gold coin (either a $1 or $2 coin) in the slot in order to unlock it from the row of carts, and when you put it back, you can get your money back. I guess it's a good way to get people to not leave their carts all over parking lots and such. But it can sure be a pain when you don't have any change.

Grocery shopping here is kind of stressful. It always takes awhile to learn where everything is in a new store, and things here have different names. The other day I learned that cilantro is called coriander after a very confusing exchange with the produce man. Also, the selection is quite limited in many areas. In some ways, this is good. You don't stand in front of shelves of peanut butter or cereal trying to figure out which one is best. But in other areas, it's pretty frustrating. There are no black beans for sale in this country! Or all of the varieties of wholegrain pasta! But the Asian aisle is bountiful. You can get all sorts of curry pastes, Indian naan (bread) flavors, and rice. I'm not even going to talk about prices. You learn to just deal with it eventually (or else starve!).

Well, that is all for today. It's rainy and cold (as usual), so maybe it's a good day to clean my desk. Exciting, I know. Oh yeah, yesterday I updated my Shutterfly site, so if you're interested in lots more pictures of the things I mention in my blog entries, check out the link in the upper right corner. Enjoy!

Date Night

On Friday morning, Zack informed me that I should get dressed up for the evening. In fact, he told me that I should go shopping and buy something new to wear. So I did! Not that I need his permission, but I tend to not buy too much for myself unless it's a really good deal or I really need it. So, having no clue what we were doing that night (he wouldn't tell me), I ventured out to see what women's clothing shopping was like in Melbourne. After a little research, I decided to go to Chapel Street. This is a long street/area with all sorts of shops, restaurants, etc. I had been there before (we rent cars from Avis on that street), but I had never been in the clothing stores. Wow. It was overwhelming. You could spend weeks just shopping. There are little boutiques (um, $500 for a shirt-I don't think so!), European designers' shops, and so much more. After lots of browsing and sticker shock, I found a store called Ojay that was having a 40% off sale, and I bought a top (pictured here) and a blue silk dress that I just "had to have." I'm sure I'll find an occasion for wearing it at some point, and it was on sale! Anyway, I also got a black skirt and some jewelry at Sportsgirl (a pretty popular chain here) and called it a day.

As I got ready for the evening, I snapped a few pictures of yet another awesome sunset from our balconies. I'm not sure I'll ever get sick of this. I may have to create an entire photo book of sunset shots when we leave Australia! Seriously, the sky was this color. The water looked like gold.

Soon Zack came home with full grocery bags and started to prepare a feast!  We started with an appetizer (Australians would call this an entree or canape) of toast with brie cheese and spiced pear paste, paired with a delicious Yarra Valley wine.  You can see me enjoying that in the picture at the top. Side note-wow, do I look pale. I don't think I've ever been this white; I guess that's what two winters in a row will do to you! Anyway, it was enjoyable to watch Zack navigate the kitchen. I did have to tell him where to find a few things, but he is darn good at making a few things (namely sandwiches and pasta), so he didn't need my help.

Zack made us a delicious dinner of pasta with alfredo sauce and crab cakes, along with some yummy garlic bread. It was awesome! Yes, he even bought that candle to go along with the dinner. What a guy; I think I'll keep him! After we ate, we went out to a fun little bar on Acland Street and had a drink. Some Australian guy even shared his chocolate dessert with us-random (but delicious)! We went home and didn't even have room for the dessert Zack had bought for me (my favorite chocolate cake from the place near his work), so I got to eat that for breakfast on Saturday! It was a great Friday night on this side of the world. You should leave a comment and tell us about your weekend!