Bali Update

5 June

Good Morning Momoots and Pops,

Today we leave the Bukit region here at Jasmine's house and head to our second destination - a beach town north of here named Seminyak. This is the villa that I told you was the former pro surfer's who lives half of the year in California.  We will have the entire house to ourselves. I'm excited to see what this next place holds, but I'm sad to leave Jasmine's home.

Staying here at Jasmine's has been a dream.  Since last night was our last night here, we invited her family out to dinner and we went to a place she recommended at a beach called Jimbaran (about 20 minutes driving from the house).  It was a delightful experience!  You arrive to a parking lot that is super smokey and is part of a string of restaurants that are literally built right next to each other.  As you walk past the open-air kitchens you see about 15 chefs in front of huge fire pit bbq grills cooking fresh seafood. They cook the seafood inside of the husks of matured coconuts so that the fire doesn't burn the seafood, and it gives the food a wonderful taste.  This is the first time that I've ever seen this technique used and it's a good way of using the brown coconuts since they strip out that brown mesh-like inside and cook the seafood on that bed of coconut mesh.  

She then proceeded to walk us up to a glass pane where you select which seafood you would like them to prepare: fish, crab, lobster, squid and prawns.  We chose a good sized Pompano, as well as about 25 large prawns.  You're given a number and find a place to sit. The most exciting part was yet to come!  You walk through this sandy alleyway and then into a large bohio and just beyond the edge of the bohio you get to the beach where there are about 200-plus tables and hundreds of people all sitting in front of whichever "seafood grill" they have chosen to eat from.  While we waited for the waiters to clear our table, we walked down to the water's edge to admire the full moon. 

When we were leaving the house, the moon was bright red and rising just beyond the trees on Jasmine's property.  The last time I saw a red moon was in Coronado about 10 years ago.  Now, at 7:45 pm as we stood on the beach with the waves lapping at our toes, the moon was massive and yellow.  Next to us, there was a man and his wheeled rickshaw cooking delicious corn on his fire pit. The smell was like creamy corn...soooooo good! Jasmine's son (Zen) told me that I should wait and have the corn for dessert since it's a specialty here in Bali.  I decided to take his advice and wait until after dinner.  

Once we took our seats at a candle lit table, we chatted about surfing with Jasmine's 12 year old daughter who had been at the beach while we were there earlier in the day.  She was telling Hector all about the local spots.  Hector and I had talked about how it must be crazy to live on an island where you enjoy world-class surfing waves while going to school. We laughed about how we would have skipped school all the time to hang out at the beach if we had grown up here.  What a life these people live.

Soon, dinner came out and boy was it a feast!!!  To accompany our seafood, they served us a large portion of steamed white rice in a bamboo tub with a lid on it, as well as a spicy watercress salad. The watercress salad was just the right amount of spice to perfectly accompany the coconut smoked flavor of the fish & prawns. They also give you 4 tiny bowls with different sauces you can put onto the seafood if you like (a garlic and onion in a vinegar, a sweet soy sauce blend, and two picante sauces). Hector and I ate the seafood without any of the sauces because it was just so incredibly tasty. I've never eaten fish or prawns that have such an amazing bbq taste to them!!!  Dad would have loved it.(Pops, I've thought about you many times on this trip as we have eaten some of the best food I've ever tried in my life...and we've had some pretty good food on our travels around the world). After dinner, as promised, Zen ran down to the man with the corn and ordered 2 sweet corn on the cobs.  It was the perfect ending to dinner.  They apply a honey glaze and brush it on the hot husks.  It melts in your mouth. 

We then all walked up to the restaurant and washed our hands and headed back home. When we arrived back to the rooftop, I started up the tub that sits under the moon and stars and let it fill up to enjoy a moonlight tub.  We all smelled like marinated bbq smoke, so it was necessary to shower before crawling into bed and passing out.

I woke up early this morning before the sun rise and the full moon was still out.  Hector is writing and checking his emails now and we have both had our 2 cups of coffee and are heading out on scooters to our favorite breakfast joint down the road called Cafe Moka.  I think I will have a chocolate croissant with breakfast this morning!  Yummy.

Thinking of you and love you very, very much!!!!

Seminyak, here we come!

Besos,

Kelly (and Hector)