Day 3...

22/10/09

Decided to have a quiet day at the hotel to try and relax a bit... it is a holiday after all! Woke up a bit later than usual (7:45am!) when Alex and Andrew asked if they could go down to breakfast by themselves. Nasty mother that I am, I told them to wait for Brad and me. We all had a lovely breakfast together topped off by some laughs at Alex’s expense when he was frantically looking around the table and then demanded as loudly as only Alex can, “Where’s my fork? Who took my fork?” We all just looked at him in stunned disbelief as he put food into his mouth using said fork and then asked again “where’s my fork?” I wish I had been able to capture the expression on his face when he realized what he’d just done, but I wasn’t quick enough with the camera. The people at the next table thought it was pretty funny too!

After breakfast we went down to the pool where I decided to splurge by hiring a cabana for the day for the low, low price of 200,000 rupiah (AUD$25) with the sole intention of lying back and reading a book while the boys tried, once again, to turn themselves into prunes. Five minutes of that was enough so I sent Elle a text inviting her to join me (her boys were at school) which she did as soon as her driver turned up for the day.

We lay back and chatted for hours until the boys started making noises about ordering food from the poolside restaurant (I think my purse is still shaking from the shock of that thought!). We ended up going for a walk down to Poppies Lane II to see if we could find a cheap little place for lunch, walking straight past McDonald’s and Pizza Hut, much to the boys’ disgust.

Bradley started whingeing about almost everything so Elle offered him a piggy back ride. I tried to stop them but they seemed quite happy until Elle took a tumble on the very uneven ‘footpath’ and ended up with skinned knees. Brad escaped without a scratch and I’m still wondering where’s the justice in that? Of course, Savlon, Dettol and other non-sting equivalents aren’t available over here so she ended up buying rubbing alcohol to clean her knees and then had to drink half the bottle to numb the pain... just kidding! By this time, we were at a little place called Bagus Pub (means good pub) so she had a beer instead.

The whole concept of changing things on the menu seemed quite difficult for the waiter to comprehend. There were jaffles (toasted sandwiches) but both Alex and Andrew just wanted cheese and tomato sandwiches, untoasted. I asked the guy for them and was told “we don’t make sandwiches” so Elle piped up with “OK. We’ll just have a cheese and tomato jaffle, not cooked.” “Oh, OK OK. Can do uncooked jaffle with cheese and tomato.” We both just sat and shook our heads. The sandwiches, oops I mean uncooked jaffles, arrived and were polished off very quickly.

Dessert was the next big milestone to overcome. I asked for 2 chocolate and 1 strawberry ice creams. Keep in mind that there are three children sitting at the table. He came out with a single sundae glass that had two scoops of chocolate and one scoop of strawberry ice cream and put it down in front of Elle, who hadn’t even asked for an ice cream! After some explanation from us and many apologies from one of the bosses, we got three ice creams, two chocolate and 1 strawberry, each with three scoops of the same flavour in each glass. Now before you go thinking it was a lost in translation/language thing, this guy spoke better English than most of the Aussie tourists I’ve come across so far. I think he was just too busy scoping out all the bikini clad girls walking past at the time!

After lunch, we took pity on Brad and Andrew, whose faces were hot enough to start fires with, and took a taxi to a mall called Discovery. The first stop was Dr Fish. Elle had mentioned Dr Fish and how it was brilliant for your feet a couple of times and I thought she meant an actual person called Dr Fish who did reflexology or some such thing. Nope, she meant actual fish that nibble at your feet to get rid of all the dead skin cells and leave you feeling rather refreshed. After overcoming my initial westernized fear of something nibbling on you while you’re still alive, I thought what the hell and gave it a go. The boys were a bit hesitant but decided to try it. It’s definitely an unusual experience, more from the thought of it than the actual feeling. If you don’t look down and see the fish, it feels just like you’re sticking your feet into a bubbling spa bath. Very relaxing but 20 minutes was definitely enough at one time. The boys want to go back again!

We had a wander around the rest of the centre, checking out prices on the types of souvenirs the boys want to take home and then went down to the bakery that Elle reckons has mud cake to die for only to find that they had sold out for the day. The boys bought some chocolate fudge cake and a muffin each instead and then we headed back to our cabana by the pool.

Bradley had been begging me to go into the pool the whole time I was talking to Elle, so I jumped in with him as soon as we got back. The pool looks lovely but at that time of night (5:30), it was like swimming in pea soup. I swam and played with the boys for about an hour then (gasp) ordered some dinner from the poolside restaurant: 2 ‘don’t worry, be happy’ pizzas (design your own so of course the boys ordered ham, cheese and pineapple!) and a drink each which came to only 250,000 rupiah which was much more reasonable than I had expected. If we had ordered individual meals it would have been at least 520,000. Sometimes I thank my lucky stars that my kids like plain stuff!

After dinner was completely demolished with nary a crumb to be seen, Alex and Drew went up to the room to have a shower, get into their pj’s and read. Brad wanted to finish watching a movie that was playing on the big screen over the pool so I waited there with him, then headed up for the comfort of my bed.