UBUD, BALI

Ubud, Bali has been probably one of my top travel highlights this year. It's a land of lush rice fields, peaceful rivers and the warmest people. I had a hard time leaving.

We traveled there with our good friends, Katie and Steve, in town from Chicago. We stayed at the beautiful Villa Semena where the hotel owner, Jurg, and his staff took the best care of us. They arranged every detail of our trip and gave us great recommendations on what to do and where to eat during our stay in Bali. The complimentary daily breakfast and afternoon tea outside overlooking the beautiful hotel pool and and river below was definitely a highlight.

The door to our villa

Plunge pool overlooking the rice paddies

A special spot to meditate by the river

I could easily come back to Ubud just to chill out at Villa Semena for a week. It was such a peaceful place.

However, this time our 2 day schedule in Ubud was packed with activities including a trip to Monkey Forest, a bike ride through the town and surrounding villages, lunch in the rice paddies and practicing our acrobatic moves at a Flying Yoga class.

Monkey Forest may have been the boys highlight of the trip. Monkeys were everywhere looking for all of the bananas and treats they could find. I have to admit, they were pretty entertaining to watch.

A monkey jumped on M's back while taking a picture:)

Feeding the babies

They loved the offerings

After Monkey Forest, we headed to Yoga Barn to take our first Flying Yoga class. Flying yoga is best described as acrobatic yoga with partners. Still confused? The pictures below may be helpful.

I am glad we tried it, but we all agreed that the more mainstream vinyasa yoga was more for us. Regardless, the Yoga Barn is a great place and I would definitely recommend you check it out if you travel to Ubud.

The Yoga Barn

That evening, we had dinner at Naughty Nuris, a place famous for their ribs and martinis. I can't say Bali is known as the BBQ capital of Indonesia, but if you're craving grilled meats and a strong drink, this place is the perfect spot.

We kicked off day 2 with a private bike ride tour of Ubud with the goal of seeing a picturesque volcano that the locals rave about. After visiting an art gallery and coffee plantation via a minivan, where kick-backs were definitely involved, we told our tour guide that we had no interest in visiting the breakfast spot, since we had already had breakfast at our hotel. We wanted to start our biking adventure. Unfortunately, the breakfast spot was located at the volcano. so skipping breakfast meant missing the volcano (which we didn't learn until it was too late to turn back). On the bright side, we did see many beautiful rice paddies and some of the local villages.

Local waste management

We visited a local school

And rode past some breathtaking fields

Our bike adventure ended at Sari Organik, a popular restaurant situated in a rice paddy (we couldn't get enough of them!) where we had lunch. The menu included things like a "happy potato salad" with a "purple haze" juice. We definitely enjoyed the refreshing fresh juices and vegetarian friendly meal.

After lunch we went back to our hotel to pack up our things before heading to Semiyak (the beach!) that evening. Before leaving town, we had one final meal at Lamak, which serves delicious asian fusion dishes. I highly recommend the restaurant if you travel to Ubud.

I will write a detailed post on Semiyak, which was beautiful, but I must say Ubud is one of my favorite places I've visited. I hope to get back there again to spend some more time in the rice paddies:) In the meantime, I will live vicariously through Julia Roberts in "Eat, Pray, Love" as I re-watch the scenes in Ubud.

OH THE PLACES WE'LL GO - UPDATE

As I mentioned in a post last year, our goal for 2012 was to visit a new country every month! Unfortunately due to work and holiday schedules, we didn't visit a new country every month...  However, we did visit 12 countries in a year! Have a look below...

1. January - Phuket, Thailand

2. February - Shanghai, China (The list of cities visited since we moved here includes Chongqing, Chengdu, Wuhan, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing)

 
3. March - Singapore, Singapore

4. April - Bagan, Myanmar (Burma)

5. May - Penang, Malaysia

6. June - Taipei, Taiwan

7. July - New York City, USA

8. August - Hanoi, Vietnam

9. September - Tokyo, Japan

10. October - Bali, Indonesia

11. October - Forster, Australia

12. Our new 2012 Home - Hong Kong

In addition to the travels above, we also made some side trips, which didn't exactly count as a new country (for me)... But thought I would share.

April - Manila, Philippines (I missed out on this trip. But, M had a great trip with his friends from California!)

August - California, USA

November - Chicago & Detroit, USA

December - Bangkok, Thailand

2012 was quite the travel year for us. We are looking forward to more adventures in 2013!

ONE YEAR

It's 9pm in Hong Kong and I just realized today marks 1 year since M and I arrived in HK. I can't believe it. Boy does time fly by.

We landed here on Friday, January 13th (who decides to make the biggest move of their life on Friday, the 13th?).  I don't know if we have ever felt so sad, scared and excited at the same time. Can't you tell in the picture below? Wow, I was feeling so many emotions inside. We were so sad to be moving far away from our family and friends, so scared of the unknown and so excited for our new adventure in life.

At JFK before we departed for HK.

Here's a look back at life 1 year ago today.

That's us in front of our corporate housing apartment. We loved living steps away from the wet markets.

We arrived with 4 suitcases. The rest of our belongings were on a boat en route to Dublin, Ireland (there was a slight mix-up with our shipment!).

Here I am in our corporate housing apartment. Little did we know, we would find our permanent housing just 2 blocks up the street (after seeing around 40 apartments around the island).

One of our goals that first weekend was to get M set-up with 3 computer screens so he could work from home. Thanks to the Wan Chai computer center, he was up and working in no time.

We had dinner plans with friends from CO our first weekend in HK. Looking back, I can't tell you how much it meant to spend time with familiar faces when everything around us was so unfamiliar.

It's been a crazy year and I will need some more time to digest all of the important things we've learned since we made the move abroad. One thing is for sure, I am so proud of us.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

I hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday. We are off to Bangkok tonight to celebrate the new year with friends.

I apologize for the lack of posts. Between our travels, celebrating the holidays with our families and mandarin classes, there hasn't been much time for blogging. There is so much I want to catch you up on, but I will start with a photo journal of our first Christmas in Hong Kong.

We found great decorations at Ikea and the Hullett House Christmas Market to add some Christmas spirit to our home.

We had to buy 2 Christmas trees this year. The first tree from Ikea died the day after we received it because it did not get it a fresh cut before delivery. I guess we learned for next year.

Here's a picture of our partially decorated first tree from Ikea.

And the 2nd, much healthier tree from Anglo Chinese Florist in Soho. We were fortunate to have M's mom in town to help us decorate our tree. And a special thanks to our Aunt Titania for all the wonderful Christmas tree decorations!

And here she is all lit up!

I took Christmas Eve off from work to do something I really enjoy, which is cooking and baking. I made Smitten Kitchen's braised short ribs and mash potatoes. For dessert, I made Martha Stewart's lemon mascarpone crepe cake. All of the recipes were a labor of love, but in the end it was worth it.

Prepping the meat with thyme and pepper

Preparing the braising sauce

The braise is made of balsamic, red wine, port wine and beef stock - smells so good!

I modified the recipe slightly based on the ingredients available in Hong Kong. I substituted kale for Swiss chard (I literally laughed out loud thinking about how to locate Swiss chard in this city) and small red onions for the pearl onions.

The onions and kale

The mash potatoes

Voila! Let the feast begin

If you have the time, I highly recommend Smitten Kitchen's braised short rib recipe. The meat was truly "fall off the bone" delicious and I couldn't get enough of the onions and kale.  I think it may be our best home cooked meal yet.

I also made a cake, because what is Christmas without one? I had seen the lemon mascarpone crepe cake recipe in Martha Stewart's Living December magazine and couldn't get it off my mind. If you plan to make this recipe yourself, I highly suggest you invest in a crepe pan. I didn't have one and as you can see, my crepes were far from perfect circles and came in many different sizes.

The batter yielded 19 crepes, but I had to discard 2 being new to crepe making.

Lemon curd frosting

Putting the cake together one crepe at a time

The crepe prior to being frosted

Frosting the cake

The crepe cake is really nothing special until you cut into it. I wish I got a better picture of a slice, but these will have to do for now.

On Christmas Eve, we stayed up late to track Santa on Norad and luckily he made it to Hong Kong!

On a sad note, my Great Uncle Jul passed away today in Minnesota. My mom was with him holding his hand as he passed away peacefully. I will always remember his hearty laugh and wonderfully thick Minnesotan accent. He never passed up a game of domino's or my mom's chocolate chip cookies and adored spending time with family. He was a great husband and Uncle. He will forever hold a very special place in my heart.