We've been researching Bali a fair bit for a fair while and really, one is spoilt for choices. Bali is as thrifty as you can manage and as spendthrifty as you would allow.

Weather-wise, Bali in August is just about perfect. Wallet-wise, the deluge of Ozzies eager to escape the winter cold means that hotels charge peak rates. Ah, what can you do? Happily, a bonus pay packet (and an embarrassing number of emails) meant The edge and "Book Now". Joy!

The edge is located in the southernmost part of Bali, cosseted in the heights of the Bukit Peninsula, resting splendidly on its very fringes. The property is built atop a cliff some eighty meters above ground, and offers sweeping views of the Indian Ocean and the stark relief of the south's chalk cliffs.

We were met by the GM, Melida, who was quite the engaging lady and sent on our way in some style. A quick buggy ride... And in seconds we were delivered to our pocket of paradise. Bestest of the bests: We were the only guests!

Keys to unlock the doors of heaven...

At last...

I knew Bali was big but I did not know that it was big to the litany of Amed, Candidasa, Canggu, Denpasar, Gianyar, Gilimanuk, Jimbaran, Karangasem, Kerobokan, Kintamani, Kuta, Legian, Lovina, Negara, Nusa Dua, Nusa Lembongan, Padangbai, Pecatu, Pemuteran, Sanur, Seminyak, Singaraja, Tabanan, Tanjung Benoa, Tanah Lot, Tuban, Ubud, Uluwatu, Umalas, Ungasan big. (Gasps. Now there's a mouthful.)

Initially, it was Ubud for the arts, Jimbaran for the seafood fiesta, and Nusa Dua for the seascape escape. Easy peasy.

Before long, it was Umalas for the ricefield vistas, Uluwatu for its towering chalk cliffs, and Sanur for its sunrise views. Not so lemon squeezy...

I changed my mind again and decided on a Gianyar forest retreat, Candidasa for its underwater wonders, and Lovina for cavorting with the dolphins. But...

As happenstance would make happen, as luck would have it, as good fortune would bestow, we ended up dividing our time between Canggu, Seminyak, and Pecatu. That is how you do bliss.

Ametis Villa in Canggu was selected almost solely on the strength of these two statements on their website:

1. Canggu is a place that most surfers will know about, apart from that, it is quite (sic), very local and offers lovely views of rice fields as opposed to cement in Seminyak.

2. Ametis is located in the sleepy coastal village of Canggu. It is now the preferred destination for savvy travellers seeking an alternative to the urban sprawl of neighbouring Seminyak. The serenity of Canggu is a refreshing change to the hustle and bustle of Seminyak with its crowded streets and limited parking.

Well, I am an odd girl and found it good for a laugh.

Since the commonly-held view of Seminyak is a locale with some of the best lodgings, restos, and beaches in Bali; I came to the conclusion (convoluted, to be sure) that any place that feels itself worthy to be derisive of Seminyak must offer something special.

Canggu does! Although, I should confess... the word "surfers" sealed the deal.

The hard-core tourists in us had originally penciled in a trip to the Tanah Lot Temple, Alas Kedaton, and the Mengwi Royal Palace on our day of arrival. But we were well and truly knackered by our Singapore exploits (Tut tut, self. It is a sad day when you say "exploits" the same time you recall "museums", "cereal prawns", "endless walking"; god, what a marmishly middle-age thing to say.) and found indoors too great a force to resist...

How to even entertain the outside world when...

While not strictly true, since I once salted (eeeek) a cuppa as I sleepwalked through the kitchen for my caffeine fix, Cebu Pacific’s “brewed coffee”, was-- on preponderance of evidence, in satisfaction of that considered substantial, beyond all reasonable doubt, verily, verily, past any quantum of proof by which coffee goodness is gauged-- the sorriest coffee I have ever had to pay for.

Premium, my foot! Yeah, yeah. And I'm the Queen of Bathsheba!

Miko declared that she was done with hers after three unsuccessful attempts to convince herself, it was indeed coffee, and not wash water; but I had about P40 worth of mine before I gave it up for... well... the sorriest coffee I have ever had to pay for. But I wasn't the one who couldn't resist telling the flight attendant how terrible it was.

Pink guava juice at check-in was just the thing to counter that disastrous drink!

Fresh fruit and flowers are love.

It’s not as if we were tired, but we couldn’t drag ourselves out of the room, and spent a good three hours engaged in our favorite pastime, Aimless Talk, e.g. discussing, among other monumentally meaningful things, whether there were indeed tomato plums (we know there are plum tomatoes).

The certainty with which you make a statement is frequently half the battle, much like law school recitations.

Cynch: Plums that taste like tomatoes cannot be anything other than tomato plums.

Not so in this instance.

Cynch to Self: They are red plums, you plum!

Incidentally, Annsley is convinced that boys are such red plums. (They are a bunch of grapes as well, but that is another story from another trip for another day.) They promise so much and deliver so little. Of course she didn’t say that. I did. But the beauty of blogging is that you can put words in other people’s mouths. Unless Annsley, of course, and by right, exercises her superduper mod powers, very prior restraint-ly, in which case this portion will be expunged or otherwise annotated.

My little family hols started with as little an incident as would be expected with my mom around-- which is to say that she had a completely unwarranted response to NAIA security personnel; she misunderstood what was said by the hapless man and infliicted on him quite an earful.

Our beloved metropolis, right after taking off, was a picture of... uncontrolled particulate pollution. Lovely, nonetheless.

This reminded me of my favorite football player, i.e.; skies and sole star (squint and there's one smack dab in the top center) and splendor and all that.

>

And then Incheon International Airport, which is an accomplishment in megalomania and airport planning for dummies. I have no, absolutely no head for directions but I skipped from drop-off point to a walkalator and down flights of escalators, waltzed through immigration, boarded a train to the exit, and hopped on a bus to the hotel. The airport awards are smashingly deserved.

Coat and scarf (and flip flops) weather,

A warm welcome from my home away from home,

And midnight dinner, although the acronym for the resto, Fried Chicken Baengi, called to mind a football club which drubbed (in convincing fashion, yes) Arsenal FC in the Champions League...

Starters were popcorn and pickled radish, which is a blinkingly odd combination, if ever there was one...

Instead, FCB came up with two... One of the chicken platters was as head-scratching... kimchi (surprisingly amazing), a blob of boiled noodles (cold, unseasoned, made me ask "why?"), canned peaches (fancily called "Imperial Peach"), and fried chicken. In the odd pairings charts, that's a combo that can't be beat.

It's hard to go wrong with chicken, almost impossible to go wrong when the same is fried; but FCB got everything right.

We wanted a steaming soup bowl to counter the cold, so the most exotic one on the menu, the gigglingly intriguing "A Fish A Cake" it was. It had sea cucumber, fishcake and rice cake (aaahh, that's why), and shrimp.

The blur of hands only prove the hunger.

Seeing as I get carried away with pretty much everything I write, I have decided to narrow this post down to my Fave Five in Seoul (I was striving for alliteration but unless I change the name of the city...)

But sometimes the universe remembers its conscience, grows kind and directs its forces to conspire and deliver the fantastic. I was reminded of its ultimate benevolence: PAL seat sale (and flight attendant, a sibling's old friend who gave us a great booty bag) + IHG friend and family rate (courtesy of another sibling's friend who cannot possibly resign his post).

I took to the city instantly. The streets were wide, the greenery was lush and the skies almost constantly blue. It was every bit as tumbledown and shabbying chic as it was luxe and modern. It had a sense of languor about it even as a million motorbikes zoomed by/tried to mow you down. And anywhere you went, there was something to intrigue (wares at Cu-chi), appall (the escalators at Anh Dong market were so ewww), amaze (magic tricks at Bonsai), snicker about (the display convertible Audi's godawful floral decor), or get teary-eyed over (War Remnants Museum).

Here is to making a beeline for the bright side!

My other reasons for hearting HCMC follow.

We had every intention of spending the day at Sentosa, but the rain, a tiresomely tireless trickle, foiled our plans. United in the fellow feeling of the prior night’s Perfection, however, we were in a benevolent, unruffle-able mood. We slept in.

We headed to the Bugis Junction Mall (I had never malled so much in my life) for brunch. It is not as though we do not have it in Pinas but mine was

Embarrassingly enough, I scarfed down by my lonesome a serving good enough for two.

A brief stop at the Kinokumiya Bookstore. I was sorely temped to buy Japanese/Taiwanese/Korean teenangst romance serials, but fearing that I would end up with something rubbish, I moved to the sports section, where I was much less likely to buy anything. I had to resist every urge to squeal at the sight of these must-reads: Cristiano Ronaldo: Moments and Fernando Torres El Nino: My Story. (Francesc Soler Fabregas, if nothing else, promise me that an autobio will not be written until at least twenty years hence…) We checked a zillion overpriced unnecessaries, saw some bad shoes, but was charmed by the prettiness of more than a few dresses.

We went to look for the money changer since we were low on funds (Singaporean Dollars disappear with appalling effortlessness, I tell you) and the hotel’s forex services was at rip-off rates. By some happy happenstance, we happened upon Liang Seah Street, which is an entire row of restored shophouses (converted into restos, residences, and retail establishments), painted in what seemed to me hyper-real three-strip Technicolor.

But first, a giant poster beckoned. We had been meaning to eat at MOS Japanese Fine Burger and Coffee (MOS is short for "Mountain Ocean Sun"), but never quite managed to do so. They serve, among other funtabulous items, unagi (eel) burgers. Check out this menu. My dress, bought two days ago at BySi, felt uncomfortably like a homage to MOS.

After the most inefficient check-in process, huffingandpuffing (and cursing a blue streak) through a walk that led us through mazy hithers and yons (when we could have lined up just once!), we found ourselves in the lounge of NAIA Terminal 3, waiting to plane off.

I promised Annsley I’d commit to writing the 206 bones I had to pick with that Cebu Pacific flight, but I do not want to nitpick (oh yes, I do). Suffice it to say that the plane was newish but offered little else apart from flight attendants with messy hair, wrinkled shirts and a general air of unkemptness. To Cebu Pacific’s (only) credit, we arrived on time.

This is the bird’s eye view of the surprisingly green lung (hazy gray was all that my trusty cam could manage) that is Singapore.

Armed with maps and guides and the sheer ignorance of first-time visitors, we almost hired-- at a heart attack price-- limo services to the hotel, but found a queue of cabs just a ways off. The cabbie seemed intent on thwarting my plans to take any decent photo, so I only managed these

The trip to the hotel gave me the impression that the city-state was fairly anodyne. It was a noticeably quiet, clinically clean, and superbly shipshape city. There was no traffic, no pollution, no litter, no loiterers, no ambulant vendors, no jaywalkers, no suicidal motorists. To one used to the carnival that is home, everything was in unnerving order and seemed strangely lifeless.

I realized soon enough that I had no reason to worry. The city center was a thrumming difference… And one that looked set to keep me occupied for the next few days.

I wanted to do a proper Part II, but my muse has declined to oblige. Said muse is keeping an eye on this Dearest Darlingest Convalescent and is not set to return until April, when ward is ready to take to the pitch again.

In some alphabet, I am certain that "V" means "Cynch"

It's Show (and Tell) Time

Annsley with Barca ball, Cynch with Fab4 jersey; Miko with RvP11 kit

Here is why we are fans of these talents

Because they play as fabulously as they look.