After Ubud we took a shuttle to Nusa Dua, an area on the coast near Denpasar, the capital city of Bali. Nusa Dua is a new resort area built on reclaimed land. There must be about 15 hotels here and a couple of shopping malls. We jumped into the hotel pool for a short swim before going to the beach for a sunset dinner. And when I say we went to the beach for dinner, I mean that the table and chairs were in the sand. We picked out our fresh seafood and paid by the kilo (pound). Katka and Misa had lobster and I had prawns. They grilled the seafood, I had mine with garlic and sweet chili. Once you paid for your main course and drinks, the soup, fruit, and vegetables were included. Along the beach are 24 restaurants, covering 1/2 mile. On the beach they were selling grilled sweet corn with garlic butter. The man was peeling the corn and cooking it fresh on the fire, so after we ate we went down and bought one ear for Misa. When we got back to our hotel they had a small market set up in the hotel. We bought 5 dresses ($35), 4 bracelets ($5), 3 necklaces ($8), and 3 carved wooden owls ($5). Given that we don't have any extra room in our suitcases, I am not sure how everything is making it back to Sydney.
Monday morning Misa and I went to the beach for banana boat riding, parasailing, and kite riding. Somehow Paul had booked us the activities for $10 each. When we tried to add another activity we found out the normal price is $30 each. Even $30 is a good price, but somehow we did all 3 for $30. The parasailing was amazing, we have never tried it before. The banana boat riding was fun, but the kite riding was really cool. The "kite" is a large inflatable raft. We were flat on our backs on the raft with our feet on a ledge, and holding onto some straps. As the boat pulled the raft faster and faster it went up in the air like a kite, and we were facing away from the boat, standing on the back of the kite. It was sort of surreal, as we were just standing on the ledge and holding on to the straps, we easily could have jumped off. We hired a photographer to take pictures, and I had my video camera on. Misa thought the kite riding was the most amazing, but she liked the parasailing the best.
We returned to our hotel for lunch with Katka. We found her sitting by the pool relaxing, she likes that more than banana boat riding, parasailing, or kite riding. Now the girls are shopping while I am checking my email and sending updates.
