Snorkeling

Nana came for a visit. Really, what else is a person going to do when they are recently retired but fly half-way around the world?

Well, school started on the first day of Ramadan. That means that there is a somewhat reasonable excuse for the renovations at the school to not get done. There will be another week of uselessness due to everyone recovering from Idul Fitri break. After that, everyone will simply be lazy.

Seems how our nannies had the week off we figured we would get out of town. No sense doing our own laundry and cooking when we should have someone do that for us. Off we went to Bali.

Our first experience of Bali, although wonderful, was a little underwhelming. It is hard to get around without a car and the sights are very spread out. We were encouraged to try another part of the island. In this case, we went to Seminyak.

T'was a beautiful place except for the abnormally high proportion of gay men (not that there is anything wrong with it). Many 'Sugar Daddies', too many Speedos and a lot of ass-grabbing. None of the ass-grabbing was done to me and I am still wondering if I should be offended or not.

A couple of highlights- Nana got a little teary-eyed when she saw these beautiful Macaws flying around in the bird park. They are truly wonderful and I think could only be appreciated when they are in full flight. Caden and Zoe got to feed some pelicans and Caden learned not to tease pelicans with food and that pelicans do not have teeth. He learned this when his arm was halfway in the male pelicans pouch.

With Nana fretting about getting into the ocean to do some snorkeling we was quite a trooper and jumped right in. I am scarred by the vision of her in a wetsuit but like a good son-in-law I stayed with her in the water while everyone else took off in other directions. Unfortunately, the buoyancy of the salt water was too much to overcome while pushing her head underwater.

There were a large variety of fish- fish that if you coloured them like they were no one would believe that actually exist. We did see some large Parrot fish, a Moray Eel and a Peacock shrimp. The Peacock shrimp will snap at you so fast that it can break your finger. I learned that after our guide pointed it out to us. Caden and Nana did see a big starfish, too. Marni and Nana successfully fed the fish after a bout of seasickness. All wonderful memories!?

Back to work on Monday. Time to think about what to do during our next break. We are thinking of heading to Krakatoa for some hiking.