Selamat Datang Di Nusa Dua Bali

Because we've never been to Bali before, and prior to this trip we were quite busy and so did not have the time to look up what Bali has to offer, our only plans for this trip were to get daily massages, the Hard Rock Cafe Hurricane Glass for the Chief, and then see what else is there to be bought in Bali. We've already two wooden puzzles from Bali courtesy of the Taman Tun-ites when they went to Bali not too long ago, plus we already have the Bali Starbucks City Mug thanks to our sis and otousan.
What else is there to do in Bali? From what we heard, surf (hence there's a beach if we want to tan and swim), and look for babi guling to eat.

Sad to say, Nusa Dua is more of a place for us once we are bored of exploring about Bali, or tired of bargaining when we shop, and just rather stay in whichever hotel we checked in. The only avenue for shopping and dining within Nusa Dua was Bali Collection, while it may be a nice place for shopping for boutique stuff, we don't really think we'd get souvenirs there when you can bargain elsewhere.

Nevertheless, Nusa Dua is pretty with lots of greenery and the hotels were enough to make us think we were there on holiday instead of attending some congress - really, we needn't drool over the Hanging Gardens in Ubud. No dodgy streets or dark alleyways.

As we weren't in Bali for a vacation, our only free time when in Bali was after 6pm - and by 6.30pm, it's dark, similar to 7.30pm back here in Bolehland. Thus we'd only got to spend most of our time at Bali Collection for dinner before heading back to the hotel to soak in the tub (we bought bath salts the very first night!) while watching Dexter on our iPhone.

Quick aside: just when we thought 9 episodes of Dexter was more than enough to keep us occupied for the three nights we were in Bali, we finished everything in two nights. Thank goodness we had the pilot episode of Stargate: Atlantis as well for our final night in Bali. Must work faster in converting telly shows for our iPhone!

So...Bali Collection. Only on the final day before leaving Bali did we get to explore the rest of the place, and only then did we realize our three nights there we only explored about one third of it...shy. Luckily our flight was late in the evening, giving us plenty of time to explore the rest of Bali Collection. We found a Sogo in there, which got us something unexpected!

Somehow or other we never could bring ourself to spend more than a hundred on sports shoes, the last time we bought sports shoes was in...August 2007. And because we don't remember how much those pair of Reeboks costed us then, we did remember that there was a very good discount on them (checking back and it's 60%!) and somehow thought that we paid less than a hundred for them (who knows, maybe we did). Hence we've not gotten any new shoes before this even when the Chief took us shopping in Sporeland where shoes were going cheap too (but still above a hundred after conversion).

And in the end, we didn't even get our daily massages because we balked at paying Nusa Dua rates. Sigh. Nor did we get any babi guling.

Next time, we'll go specifically for a vacation and get our daily massages!