finally. but not really.

selamat pagi! (good morning!)

so folks, I’m finally setting up the blog after 4 weeks (to the day) of being in Bali. I have to say, I honestly had no real plans of starting one since nowadays, it seems the internet is saturated with folks telling their stories about traveling the world and living abroad… 

but then I kept receiving messages and emails from all of you. those who love, miss and support me in your own ways and I realized, those other blogs really don’t matter since you guys all know ME. and reading about this ‘foreign’ land carries far more interest from someone you’re connected to rather than a complete stranger. 

so here we go…I’ll try to update weekly, but as most of you know, I hate making promises especially when it comes to my time ;) 

here’s what’s happened since I landed on Tuesday, May 19th at 10:53pm (+8:00 Singapore time)

• on the way to #bali, I stopped in Abu Dhabi and went to the Grand Mosque. it looks like aladdin’s house. that was cool and it’s so true, everything in the UAE seems so fancy and the heat is amazing…dry and completely tolerable. I kept my airplane (Nomadness Tribe) sweatshirt on UNDER the robe they let me loan to tour the mosque and was completely fine. I took a city tour for a couple hours during my layover… that was interesting. the entire city is pretty much built for tourism. water parks, ferrari world (yes, ferrari) and a bunch of malls. I think people only work, shop and party there. glad I was only in and out…but I was also hella tired, so maybe that wasn’t the reality of the city. 

• when I arrived, I started the process on making my villa home, which is still underway… 
• I rented a motorbike for $46/month and loaded it up after a trip to Depo Bangunan (home depot)…it was a challenging ride to say the least, but I was very proud of my abilities to adapt like the locals. they ride these motorbikes with FIVE people, a dog and cargoon it like it’s nobody’s business. 

• I’ve been working and training the last 2 weeks so no new news to share besides me wondering how the heck a girl who loves the big picture get a job managing all the details for others on the other side of the world!?!? stay tuned for more on this in my coming posts… 
• I’ve had more visitors and seen more familiar faces in these 4 weeks in #bali than I have in an entire summer in chicago (no offense yall). go figures. don’t know if it’s the flight deals or everyone’s getting the courage to visit #bali again, but shout out to Christina (and her new hubby) from NYC who visited me my first week, Justin who’s backpacking for a year (that’s my place in the background…), and these lovely siStars who are members of the same international travel group I’m in and invited me out to dinner. love seeing brown people abroad. 

xx

ashe