Deepavali

On Friday we celebrated Deepavali at work. Deepavali aka The Festival of Lights, is the Hindu's holiday celebrated similarly to our Christmas. It's a time for their traditions to come out. The official holiday was last Wednesday, but we went all out yesterday instead. ISKL encourages students and teachers to dress in traditional Indian clothing and they put together all kinds of activities throughout the day for students to learn about the culture and the holiday. Here's my Deepavali day in pictures:

I work for/with some of the sweetest ladies! Here is some of the gorgeous office staff! I borrowed Irma's adorable punjabi for the day. :)

I was trying to get one of my students to take a picture with me, but she was being all shy. Using the camera is all I got out of her. haha. You can see the punjabi better in this pic.

 And her picture of my Henna.. 

(which did NOT cost $20 like they do in the states, and it only took her like 2 minutes to do this)

Some of my sweet dressed up kiddos during the day!

Learning how to do dance!

The lady making these didn't know the English name for these things. So she just calls them rose cookies. They were pretty tasty!

Some of my dressed up 5th graders acting out the Magic Flute. The play is irrelevant to them dressing up obviously, but I thought they looked too cute!

Deepavali lunch in the Canteen. Yumm!

Happy Diwali!

MotoGP Comes to KL

This weekend the MotoGP was in KL! I've never been into this before, but when a friend of mine asked if I wanted to spend two days watching boys on motorcycles, anyone that knows me knows what my answer was. Heck YES! Haha. We took hundreds of pictures of pretty much the same thing.. but here are a few of my most favorites from the weekend: 

These are the MotoGP guys, the biggest bikes, during their qualifying.

Awesome view of the course.

Boys, doin' their thing. I looove that blue motocycle!

This girl was wearing Beats as her earplugs. Um, I know they're noise canceling, but I think you're doing it wrong.

At lease this fam got it right with their BABY. :|

As close as I got to the racers!

Watching the races at the end of the day.

Sport bikes at the Start line!

Rocky, showing off his new shirt with the Faito ladies.

Kenny :)

The Petronas bike that I accidentally matched on Sunday.

Some guy on our way out! Other people were taking pictures with him, so I had to get in on that.

The traffic was so bad on our way home. The normal 45 minute drive took us nearly 3 hours Sunday night. This is what the first couple hours in the car looked like before it was nap time for me. It was a party. 

Sunday at 4pm was the main event. The MotoGP guys were the last to race for the weekend. There was a horrible crash involving three bikes not even 10 minutes into the race. Marco Simoncelli, number 58, racing for Italy, died.  It was a heartbreaking moment in the day. We had been talking about him all weekend. His crazy hair and sweet last name made an impression on us instantly. All I could think about, though, was that at least this adorable 24 year died doing what he loved.

RIP Sic.

A Day at Legian Beach

One of my favorite things in the world is to be on the beach. Legian Beach in Bali is definitely one my favorite beaches in the world. We spent two different days during our trip enjoying the sun, water, and people watching. Here are few pictures from the perfect first day:

The fabulous beach..

This coozy was the theme of the day!  

The fabulous guys that sold us lounge chairs and drinks. 

They brought this stuff out all excited to share with me. It's called Arak Madu. Arak is the vodka looking stuff in the bottle, and then they add honey and lime/lemon to it.. I guess that's the Madu? Hah, I don't know.

It wasn't the tastiest drink, but it was just too fun to pass up!

Cheers!

 The tide got so low, so quick.

View down the beach.

I'm not usually a coconut fan. But this fresh coconut is the best! I wish I could get it everywhere. A lady on the beach cracks open the coconut and snaps it into manageable pieces. It's fantastic.

I love this picture! I was walking down to the beach and snapped this quick pic of one of my new Balinese friends. 

As good as it could get on a cloudy evening. Beautiful none the less.

Fishing day in Bali

We came home last week from an amazing trip to Bali. We stayed for 6 days, and did so much that I thankfully have things to blog about for weeks. I'm gonna spread it out, cause I want to share so much!


We spent a day out with Ena Dive deep sea fishing. The beaches in Bali are out of this world. We went fishing off of Sanur Beach, and then spent the evening at a restaurant on the beach. Fabulous food and drinks, the best company, and fun music made for a very pleasant day. Here's what I saw:

The beach in the morning. I LOVE how the sun was shining on the water far away from us. So cool looking.

The offering that is placed on the boat. Some of them are so cute! They offer all these things to their god(s) for protection during the trip.

Beautifully clear water. Snorkel was great, except cut a little short because it was so cold!

The lunch on the boat. One sandwich was great, one not so much. Can you tell which is which? ;)

Jaxie and a fish he caught! It wasn't a good day for fishing. The boys only caught 3 little ones.

A beach.

"Would you like a cup of coffee?" Pleasant surprise on a fishing boat.

Waves in action.

People fishing on Sanur beach when we came in from our trip.

Delish satay on this cute little grill.

This beach restaurant was too fun! I love the "Arak Obama" cocktail. Haha. Remember the Arak- it'll come back in my next post!

Super low tide plus the sun setting makes me love this.

Cover band at the restaurant. 

I just like this picture. It was a hot mess of stuff, but I love the colors.

I hope you feel like you came with me! 


Job update-- I finally started working this weekend! It feels great to be back in the classroom. Getting up for something in the morning is a great feeling. The principal asked me come on as a permanent sub, so I'll have a job everyday! Which means I don't have to wait for the night-before or 5am call! :) I am beyond blessed.


I love you and miss you.

Phuket

I just came back from one of the best long weekends ever. Phuket, Thailand showed me a great time and I've got to share some of it with you! Phuket is pronounced Poo-ket. Not whatever I'm sure you just said in your head right before you came to the conclusion that I'm too vulgar for the internets. 


These boys right here make some pretty fab travel buddies:

Josh, myself, and Kenny on a very pretty lookout cliff.

Thai food is easily my favorite. I think I ate enough to last me a while. I took pictures of some of the  dishes we had cause that's just how I roll:

 Pork! It's like magic when it's on every menu in a city.

 Super yummy pork noodle soup.

 Spring rolls with that perfect Thai chili sauce.

Lunchtime.

The beaches in Phuket are some of the most beautiful I've ever seen. That blue water is captivating. 

Patong Beach. Our hotel was a quick walk from this fabulousness.

We took a speedboat tour our second day there to Phi Phi Island. We stopped at a few different beaches and each time the water and rocks made me want to stay there forever:

 On the way out to the islands.

 I'm speechless when I look at this! Gorgeous.

 Driving around..

 One of the stops on our speedboat tour. Our boat was the one cut off on the right. But these very fun canoe things were just so photogenic!

 Playing with the effects on the camera made for an awesome beach pic.

Want to see me being a tourist? 

Dinosaur snack.

 Sunset on Patong Beach.

Oh Kenny. Bloody Marys at Rock City. Never had one before.. Tasted like soup and I loved it.

Khatu Falls on a rainy day. Lots of steps and bugs in this rainforest-y thing. 

Of course my eyes are kinda closed! These Buddhist temples were SO neat. The architecture is pretty and everything was all glittery. You have to take your shoes off to go inside- I'm not being trashy. ;)

So windy! This is Peter!

Miscellaneous pics from the trip:

 Awesome cart lady.

 In the temple. They were putting those little gold flake things on these statues. Love the colors in that place! 

 A fab assortment of sarongs. 

Josh being our tour guide! 

 Tuk-tuks! This is a view of one, from ours. Really fun way to get around. We met a really fun tuk-tuk guy that drove us all around on two different days. Saw a couple of things we didn't even know about cause of him! 

 Thai beer. I actually had one!

Big Buddha. :) I wanted to see him in real life as soon as I saw him in the guide book. So cool. This thing is like 150ft  high, and was paid for totally by donations! 

 Incense on our way up to Big Buddha 

 Love these ribbon things. At the temples, these pieces of fabric are tied around trees and posts. I'm not sure if there's a purpose, but it gives even more color to the already fab scenery. 

Chimes at Big Buddha.

Besides all of that, we went out every night and Patong lived up to its party city reputation. I'll put many more pictures on Facebook.. so you'll have to check em out! 

Miss and love you!