Shoe's Design Enhancement!!

People who know me will know that I’m a shoes’ lover. Sometime I will just buy shoes for no reason, and keep it in rack then never wear it for years.

Last week while I shopping at Sg Wang, I suddenly recall one of my high heel that I bought from Nine West last year. I keep thinking of the shoes, and suddenly I got an idea to enhance its look.

The shoes’ design is very simple, and, too simple. I then went into a fashion accessories shop, and start looking at those I could use for my DIY project. Lastly and luckily, I found one pair of brooch, which is simple, nice and cheap!! One for RM3.90, total is only RM7.80.

Immediately I took out the shoes when I reached home, and started my project.
This is how the shoes look like before my enhancement.

After I put on the brooch, it looks more elegant now.

Thinking to wear this shoe to match my white color dinner dress, I should add some white color on it too…. I look around in my room, and I got the lace which I bought to decorate my room during my wedding day in year 2007.

OK, so I use it to tie a ribbon on the side of the shoes. It looks nice also.

So, this is the result of my DIY project!!

Day 3 - Goa Gajah, Kintamani and Ubud Palace

We checked out from the Puri Dibia hotel on the 3rd day, heading towards to Ubud. Our 1st stop is the Batik Village.

We are served by a lady, good in tying batik,turning it to nice dress. She designed different style for each of us. This is the way they promote their goods. We are allowed to have a group photo after that.

Even though, the batik really looks nice on me (many says so), but it costs too much. USD100 for one piece!!! So, forget it..

Again it’s lunch time. We requested Jone to bring us for the famous Balinese crispy duck. Instead of Bebek Bengil (Dirty Duck Restaurant), the most popular Crispy duck restaurant at Bali, Jone led us to Panorama Hotel and Restaurant for the crispy duck.

Panorama Hotel and Restaurant is located in the heart of Ubud, the restaurant is surrounded by garden, lotus ponds and pool. Our seats were just in between the pool, lotus pond and padi field, the nice scene bring us good appetite for lunch.


We ordered 2 sets of crispy duck set and some other local rice set.

I still think our roasted duck taste nicer than the crispy duck. I wonder why it’s called crispy duck as it is not crispy at all. Scratch head…

However, the other food is quite nice, especially this yellow rice.

After lunch, we stopped by Goa Gajah for a visit before headed to Kintamani.

We need to wear sarong here too. And this time, there were several colors for choice. I chose yellow color to match my green color dress. Nice?

"Goa Gajah (the Elephant Cave), is located in a steep valley just outside of Ubud near the town of Bedulu. Built at least 700 years ago, the cave was rediscovered in the 1920s and fully excavated 30 years later ."

The famous cave entrance is elaborately carved. The carving looks like an elephant if you look at the face's hair; the elephant's trunk is hanging over its ear to the right. Inside the cave is a statue of the Hindu character Ganesh (Ganesa) - half elephant, half boy - from which the temple gets its name. People can pray for getting baby at here.

We headed to Kintamani for Lake Batur and Mountain View after Goa Gajah. It took around 1 hour drive from Ubud. We took a nap in the car, but woke up seeing the rainy and hazy sky. Bad luck!! It’s rained, and we could not see the nice lake and mountain view.. so sad…
We should see this ..

But we saw this…

It’s ok, things never perfect. So means that I can visit Bali again for this active Volcano!!!

Not being defeat by this disappointment, we go for the next stop, Ubud palace.
"Puri Saren Ubud (Ubud Palace) is an Ubud Kingdom Palace with beautiful Balinese traditional houses as a residence of Ubud King." It is set in the center of Ubud, just opposite the Ubud Market. You may read through the link for the history of this palace:

http://www.ubudpalace.com/



As we visited during Bali New Year season, we werelucky enough to see their traditional Barong Dance.


I can’t wait to have a look on the Ubud Market; someone told me there were a lot of things for shopping. However, it’s about dinner time, my father in law can’t wait for dinner either. So, I just dropped by the Ubud market for short while, to do some basic “analysis” on it before I come again the next day.
Yes!! I'll be back!!!

Jimbaran Beach Sunset & Dinner

After visiting Uluwatu, we headed towards Jimbaran for dinner. As this is a “must have” itenary for all Bali tourists, we decided to experience on dining on the beach, even though I read from Shelyn’s blog that the foods there is quite expensive.

Hoping to save more, we consulted Jone on the price he can offer us for the seafood BBQ dinner at Jimbaran. He offered us set of Rp250,000 per pax, which contains crabs, prawn, fish, squid, veggie and drinks.. We decided to order 3 sets to share among six of us, by considering on our budget and also 3 ladies among us is actually small eater.

We reached Jimbaran beach quite early, while waiting for the sunset, we go walk around at the beach and photo taking.

There’s are rows of restaurants at Jimbaran Beach, the one Jone recommended is Menega Cafe

Rows of wooden tables and chair on beach…

Before sun set…

Amanda pose with the Jagung stall..funny..

While we taking photo, we saw sexy ladies posing at the beach with the sunset, which attract most of the tourist’s attention J

Beautiful Jimbaran’s sunset..


With my sis-in-law, the 3 sweeties…

We waited a while and our foods served. Wow, set for 3 persons is really a lot.. I think it can’t finish by only 3 big eaters though. We all feel lucky as we made a right decision – save money and save our stomach J

Raymond, my father-in-law happily enjoyed the seafood, with the nice ambience, breeze, wave, and romantic candlelight. The foods taste nice also!! Believe it or not, 6 of us with the 3 big eater (me, my hubby and my father in law) can’t really finish the foods for set of 3!!




OK, time for bill.. Overall it costs us around Rp800,000 add up with beers. I think it’s quite reasonable as it was around RM47 per person., and we enjoyed the ambience around there!!

Cheers and end the 2nd day at Bali...

Uluwatu Cliff - Amazing Ocean view

Our next stop after lunch and site seeing at GWK was Uluwatu Cliff Temple. We are requested to put on a sarong before we can go in.



See, Amanda’s clothes matched the sarong color!! It’s nice!! Other than sarong, we need to put on a yellow ribbon around waist too.. This to show respect to the temple...I guess…

On the way we walk, we can see monkeys everywhere. Jone warned us not to wear sunglasses, because here with the most naughtiest monkeys in Bali.. They will snatch your sunglasses away.. just like the snatch thief in Malaysia… shame..



After around 20 minutes tiring walk, we finally reach.. I felt all worth after seeing the breath taking Uluwatu cliff view… it’s amazing!!! The breeze and the waves sounds so perfect. Let’s take some photo ..





The ocean and cliff view grabbed away my attention. After a while only I recall we should also get some photo for the little Pura (Temple), perched on a cliff right at the waters edge. It looks like it will soon drop into the sea.



It's really a nice experience, as we couldn't get the same view at Malaysia.

Bali, GWK (Garuda Wisnu Kencana)

Fine, I would blog on my trip to GWK Culture Park, as a kick start blog for my Bali trip.

We visited GWK on our 2nd day in Bali (1st day used up traveling from KL to Bali). After water sport activities at Nusa Dua Beach, my father in law felt hungry and can’t wait to have lunch. Our tour guide, Jone then recommends us to have buffet lunch at GWK, since it will be our next stop to visit.

After 10 minutes ride, we reach the entrance of GWK Culture Park. We are impressed by the surrounding limestone rock hill, which looks like abandoned construction. Jone explained to us it was built by a king secretively, yet aborted after his death and no one actually know what he actually wanted to build for.



Since my father in law is urging for lunch, Jone lead us to the restaurant before site seeing. However, the restaurant is so nice and beautiful, force us stopped by few times to take photo.

However, there’s disappointment awaiting us. The waiter told us that no buffer lunch for that day!!! Ok, fine, then we can go for ala-carte. It is quite a tough job to order food there, my father in law want only rice with dish, and I have to make decision for them since the menu is in English. I then order a few dishes, which I think should be fine to eat with rice.

Overall the food there is okay. The fried chicken is quite nice, and the rice taste extra good maybe because it was wrapped by banana leave. And one more special dish is Gado-gado, it is something like salad, with eggs, vege, tofu and crispy keropok.

I do a search on it and there’s definition for it from Wikipedia:

“Gado-gado is a traditional dish in Indonesian cuisine, and comprises a vegetable salad served with a peanut sauce dressing. “



After lunch, we went site-seeing around GWK. GWK is the short name of “Garuda Wisnu Kencana” . Garuda Wisnu Kencana statue was designed and built by Nyoman Nuarta, one of Indonesia’s foremost modern sculptors.

On the way we met a tall Barong. I say "Hi" to him but he didn’t reply me and keep chasing after me, scary…



We first visited The statue of Wisnu, which picturing Lord Wisnu, the Hindu God who is the protector (part of the Hindu trinity Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver and Shiva the Destroyer). The 20 meter tall copper statue of the Lord Wisnu has been placed on the highest hill of Ungasan where visitors can enjoy sunset or sunrise over the magnificent view of Kuta, Benoa and Sanur.





Right behind the Plaza Wisnu is the Plaza Garuda where the 18 meters tall statue of Garuda. The mythical bird (Half man half bird) Garuda is the ride of Lord Wisnu.

GWK is also conceived to be a cultural center. There is an art museum with free admission and kecak dance is performed on Tuesdays and Thursdays admission $5. We didn’t stay for the kecak dance because we are going to visit Uluwatu Cliff and Jimbaran beach in the evening.