beliefs - good or bad?

i woke up this morning to a very strange thought...no idea where it came from. what if people were to suspend all beliefs at each new experience? 1) is that even possible? 2) how would the world be different? i find it an intriguing question. even better, what are beliefs? they develop - that means they can be destroyed, yes?

so, here is my update:

-i've been studying diligently for the LEED AP exam. i have also started to look into feng shui principles more deeply, including the i ching, and i will soon be taking a course and moving that little business along.
-i am tossing around the idea of purchasing a condo. they are RIDICULOUSLY cheap in this area right now. prices have dropped 50% or more. i am debating if that is a good or bad thing. i was pre-approved for a loan, but the housing market is so unstable, i am unsure if now is the time to go big. (thoughts, anyone? anyone?)
-that being said, no word on the transfer to tempe. things are moving slowly, and frankly, i am fully happy with 'what is' right now. i feel like i am finally learning to be content with what i have and not feel the need to constantly go go go, move, plan, be quick with decisions, etc. also, it's crossed my mind that i could move down there and then my family up and relocates - anything is possible. i need to make sure the move is for ME and not anyone else.
-the job is...interesting. these days, i am doing battle with four permit offices.
-my hair is uber long - i made an appointment for next week.
-my biking is going really well. i feel very strong and am looking into joining a race team (mountain and/or road). i am going to a camp early august for advanced mountain biking techniques. the trainer is a two-time olympian. sweet!
-i have finally managed to make yoga a regular practice. that is a big deal for me.
-and i have a date tonight. with a scorpio. and i have no expectations. threw those suckers out the window a while ago.

freestyle

i have nothing to say, really. but i got this strange urge to regurgitate some thoughts onto my blog, so we'll see what comes of it.

i spent the past three days in seattle: two graduations (one in qwest field), one birthday, one "make up" mother's day, three new condos to check out, an obnoxious family meal, and a wine party in the first eco-condos in seattle. sleeping on floors in a sleeping bag. waking up to burglar alarms at 130am. drinking vino at the tacoma yacht club post michelob ultra at el toro. one day i was driving my cousin's mini cooper; the next day i was in the hummer. in bellevue. i arrive and it's raining; it's sunny and hot when i leave. my mom wanted to go to the beach. my aunt rebaked her fred meyer cookies, and i brought two loaves of fred meyer bread home with me in carry-on luggage. red wine got dumped on me in the plane and stanley steemer carpet stain remover took it out because the maxi pad did not (don't ask). my niece is dating an "l.a. act-OR." i don't go to bed before 1am for four days straight. and my southwest airlines flights got delayed both ways. stranger things have happened...haven't they? well, it's seattle. quirky, but you still love it. :)

frankly, i think this trip gelled just fine with my new mentality: ANYTHING is possible. darn near anything. i didn't even buy coffee on this trip. in seattle?! hmm.

i got promoted at work. i am now an "e-3," or engineer 3. that rocks.

pix and flow

i survived the bug. absolutley the worst pain EVER. i now feel i have experienced childbirth. three times. in a single 11-hour flight.

just a quick note about pictures. i ended up with 775 of them. no idea how that happened! i must have been bored or something. needless to say, it's going to take a bit of time to get them organized.

in retrospect, i am still processing this trip. i didn't go with the intention of finding myself or doing any sort of soul-searching. i feel like i already knew myself pretty well stepping into the trip. however, spending three weeks alone does some funny things to a person...even me, the "loner." i think i experienced every emotion under the sun while i was over there. thoughts and memories bombarded me and i didn't have a distraction as an escape, so i kept getting pounded! i feel like i came back to the states raw, and a little euphoric. i do know myself a lot better now, amazingly, having my soul ripped open and bared to the world like it was. seriously, that's what it feels like. and these days, i feel so much more relaxed and yet confident! i speak louder, and with more conviction...i even make decisions more quickly. i have a much stronger sense of what it is i want! it's a nice change. the best part is, i feel so much more content with the mundane aspects of my life. i don't feel like i have to be doing something every second of the day, "moving forward" or "progressing." i've realized that sometimes just sitting around and enjoying the moment offers more progression for the soul than any action, and i need to savor, rather than fear, those moments. all that being said, i feel much more at ease with my life, exactly as it is. i have no burning desire to change it at this point in time, but rather wait for life to work its magic and see what manifests. it's exciting to think that way because truly, anything can happen. SO, i am just gonna take a seat and surrender to the flow...like i am still floating around in that warm, turquoise water. :)

buggy

i got a little bali belly. i have the worst cramps ever, and all on my 39-hour travel day! super bummed. i am scheduled to fly into sfo on may 26 at 7:30pm, but now i hear there is bad weather in taipei, my layover...i hate flying. and the best part: my hotel played 'castaway' the other night, featuring a good ole plane crash. damn it!

needless to say, i am excited to go home. i've had enough. i think i wouldn't be so eager to head home if there were someone here with me, but i'm bored. i need another person to entertain me for an afternoon...at least just TALK to me! but no doubt my eva airlines flight will be exciting, with more kids crawling all over me.

and as for bali, overall, ironically it was the people who drew me to this place, but it is also the people driving me out of this place. tourists are nothing but a walking dollar symbol around here. it is impossible to walk by a balinese person without them trying to sell you a massage or a pedicure or transport...honking their horns at you...yesterday i just wanted to be ignored. no, i don't want to look in your shop! no, my purchase really is not good luck! no, you'd offer me the discount even if i weren't the first customer of the day! ok, can you tell someone is fed up? i just don't feel good...

i'll rehash my trip when i get home. i must keel over now in pain.

isolation

wow. six days without internet access and i feel like i fell off the planet! after ubud, i landed in remote toya bungkah, located on the shore of lake batur at the bottom of mount batur, an active volcano. my first night, i got a knock on my door at 3:30am. it was my trekking guide, putu. we started out for the summit, just the two of us, in the pitch black. kinda freaky at first! not many tourists stay in toya bungkah, but come in on tours from other parts of the island. however, my starting from town allowed me to sleep in an extra two hours...but then it creamed my pocketbook, just getting to this town. it's hella isolated. so the hike was pretty intense. putu is a crazy hiker. he's fast, and he worked me. i thought i was going to have a heart attack. it was steep and slippery in a lot of areas, but man oh man, it would make for some wicked mountain biking! so we get to the "sunrise view" 1.5 hours later and there is a little makeshift cabin with an old balinese woman in the back...with her cat. she has a fire going, on which she cooks our eggs, fried banana (which goes in our sweet hawaiian-like bread), and kopi (yummy balinese coffee). we got to eat away during the sunrise which was remarkable. a snowboard instructor from austria (a kid, really) and another traveler from toronto joined in the fun. they got chocolate on their bananas. i was so jealous! anyways, after my little tantrum, we made it to the top of the volcano and got to peer into a crater (actually, two of them) that spanned 7 miles. it was unreal. little pockets of steam were shooting out of the sides. i guess that sucker demolished a town in the area twice before the residents wised up and built their new town on a hill. there is also a temple down at the lake. the tale goes that the lava stopped at the foot of the temple. i suppose all those balinese offerings to the gods pay off.

after the hike, i went to the hot springs. what a joke! it's a big pool. i laid out for a while (after paying the equivalent of $10 usd) and promptly left when two meatheads tattooed from head to toe moved their towels near me and wanted to know, "what is up?" uh, no.

the rest of my time in toya bungkah was BORING. there is nothing going on in that town. after my second night, i made a six-mile walk to the town next door, kedisan. totally happening town. not. then i spent some more time with putu. he drove me around on his moped through another town in the area, songan. i don't think many tourists go here, so i was lucky! and what a place it is. if you make it up to the hills (which is quite a hike, even on a moped - i had to jump off a few times so putu could get his bike up), you end up in a remote jungle with crazy views...when it's not foggy. supposedly the ocean was down there. then we drove over to putu's sister's place. these people live in shacks, seriously. BEAUTIFUL area, but shacks. i saw a person's mattress. oh my big g. however, everyone in this area is a farmer. lots of agriculture in songan/kedisan because of the fertile volcanic soil, and i got a big ole avocado as a visiting gift. i just ate it, once the ants crawled off. so good.

upon my pricy escape from toya bungkah, i landed in paradise: amed. GO THERE. i think it's my favorite in bali. still, no internet, and no atms (which proved problematic when i ran out of money - i couldn't pay my driver, but that's a whole other story), but no tourists, either. well, not many. the beaches are empty. fairly small and pebbly, but empty. i laid around for two days at the dancing dragon cottages (a "unique feng shui boutique hotel" with dragon energy!). i was such a sloth, drinking espresso by the pool, sipping coconut water, floating in the turquoise blue water...it was a dream. and the snorkeling is UNREAL there. step off the hotel property, walk into the water and immediately you are in a coral reef, absolutely stunning! no repetition, whatsoever, just color after color after color...and last night, my final night in amed, i ate a killer tuna dinner with a lively group from, get this: oakland. i travel halfway across the world to make new friends in oakland. a very diverse bunch, too. one of the best nights of my life! i got drunk on brem...well, not really drunk. you can't get drunk on balinese liquor. the balinese think you can, but they are so small.

now i am in sanur. my last stop in bali. it's weird here. lots of colorful boats, banners, and "mature" traveler types. the balinese don't even greet you in english here - it's all german or spanish. i was sipping an espresson on the beach just now (totally trying to fit in, no doubt) and a dude asked me to dinner, some english bloke. totally weird! i said no. men are trouble.

three more days and back on the plane, when i really just want to go back to amed. :(

ubud

i have a rant (of course!) - travellers checks are a biotch to deal with in this country! with the exception of kuta. just don't do it. but if you find yourself someday in desperate need of cashing one out in ubud, go to bii bank. a little bit out of town, but i spent an entire morning finding this place (which gave a pretty decent exchange rate) so i had to make note of it. onwards...

ubud is BORING. yeah, it's beautiful here. but once you've seen monkey forest (which is really cool), the botanical garden (also really cool), walked monkey forest road a billion times, and seen a balinese dance, you're likely over it. the locals have picked up on this, obviously, and as they are always looking to make a buck, everyone offers totally overpriced tours for every sort of personality, OUTSIDE of ubud, of course. in that respect, if you're willing to shell out a few hundred bucks, "ubud" is very entertaining. let's see, you can zipline trees in bedugul for $60, go see dolphins in lovina (along with 20% of the tourist population on the island at any given time - i hear it's turned into quite a joke up there) for $50, whitewater raft a class II/III river for $65 (for a mere two hours...come on! whitewater adventures in yolo county gives you a full two DAYS, AND a rave party in the woods, no doubt, for $99)...the options are endless, but my bank account is not. thus, i opted for the more serene choice of spending Rp 250.000 (~$26 USD) at a spa for 3.5 hours. yes, that is right...i get a massage for 1 hour, a soak in some crazy balinese bath with milk and flowers for 30 minutes, a hair creambath for 1 hour (really needs it at this point), and a facial (my first one ever!) for 1 hour. sweet! massages around here actually go for like ~$8 USD for an hour. if you are a spa junky, bali is the place to come...well, ubud in particular because the market is saturated here (the women all say "massage?" and the men all say "transport?"), but really anywhere in the country.

so yeah, i've had a couple days here of total boredom, just waiting for the day to end. sad, huh? i made it through a book i purchased at a local shop in only three days, called "the friday night knitting club." pretty good, but the ending made me cry. what else? i did laundry yesterday. by hand. that was a production. i've eaten at different restaurants - most are gorgeous, e.g., view of a rainforest or rice paddy, and food is hella cheap here, like $5/meal or so, and the food is SO GOOD...and healthy. i get these killer indonesian health drinks for the equivalent of an american buck. one was made with tumeric, and it rocked my world. i am definitely going to research these suckers when i get back to the states. i am eating a ton of rice, and i never eat rice back home. and i've eaten breakfast every day for nine days! it's a record, and i kinda like it - nice time to sit back, relax, and read some more...and more...and more. (yes, i have actually gotten in quite a bit of studying for my LEED exam.) you actually need to eat in the morning because afternoon is too hot to eat, so you go all day totally full until the evening when it cools down. i've been drinking a ton of tea, too, especially ginger tea. they put real ginger root into the pots. yummeee.............

one more night here and i am off to toya bungkah for three nights, which is on danau (lake) batur, at the bottom of the volcano. i think it will be chilly there, but after my trek up the volcano (before sunrise), there are hot springs. that's what i'm talking about!!!

crazy beautiful

i am in ubud. holy crap, this place is gorgeous! with the exception of all the older new age hippy foreigners wandering around trying to find "enlightenment," this place is darn near paradise. fyi, this is where the people with money come when they visit bali. high-end restaurants and shops everywhere, and some of the prices are actually comparable to the u.s. still, mostly an outstanding deal for some of the freshest, most delicious food on earth. but it's so hot, i don't eat much.

this morning i went to the monkey forest and took LOTS of pictures. those critters are hilarious. they try to take everything from the tourists, e.g., cameras, food in shiny packages, sunglasses...one got away with a water today. they know the system: steal something, then get lured back with food. and the forest is crawling with monkeys. they hang out right next to you. the forest itself is ridiculous. it's a primary rainforest, and absolutely breathtaking. i was lucky to find a path where no other tourists were venturing...got some time alone in the quiet, got to sit around and just listen to the forest. the monkeys even left me alone.

i later stopped at a restaurant for some tea. i've been doing that a lot lately. they have really good ginger tea around here for like a buck! i sit and people watch, although everyone is starting to look the same - aussies and euros. i hear there is a couple from the u.s. staying at my "hotel," but i haven't come across them yet. still, it could be my first encounter with people from home. weird. i thought this place was crawling with u.s. folk. apparently not. i keep getting mistaken for german (my last name - my invoice at the first hotel was even printed out in german). oh, and the best part is whenever i go into a restaurant and ask for a table, they want to know where my "number 2" is, every time! i'm like, yeah, it's just me. then they're shocked and look like they feel sorry for me and want to make small talk because they think i'm weird or maybe lonely, something. they want to know if i am "married or have boyfriend," and "where is he?" when asked if you're married, you're supposed to say "not yet." that's what they all say around here. i flat out say, "no way jose" (which they don't quite understand), and "men are nothing but trouble." they understand the word trouble and most woman agree with me. still, to put them at ease, i usually end the tension by simply saying, "ok, so not yet." hmm.

i have definitely learned a few things about myself on this trip so far. for one, traveling solo for three weeks is too long...for me. i am CRAVING some good conversation right now, and i am not finding any with other tourists. really, the tourists here (again, aussies and euros) are SO not friendly. they don't even return a smile. i have also learned that i don't so much miss my apartment or bed or clean tap water (i think i've traveled enough to have already learned to appreciate such things), but it's the people i miss. ok, i am not going to get all sappy here, but seriously, i miss my friends and family, i miss the phone ringing, and i actually miss work because i have the coolest coworkers ever! but i am taking this trip for what it is: an experience in another culture.

ok, it's tea time. i think they've put the tea outside on my front porch now. i can go drink some yummy tea and stare at the rice field next door to me. hehe.