HAPPY BELATED NEW YEAR'S! hope that each and everyone of us will have a fruitful year ahead, learning lessons to become a better person.
i went to bali over the xmas hols for 1 week. if i thought shopping in my city was cheap, bali was EVEN cheaper. i got a wonderful beaded bangle for only Rp.5000, not even S$1!!!!! i love my country. haha. got lotsa great and good stuffs there. not only that, i went with my lovely, oh-so-darling cousin who went shopping with me and took great photographs at the same time. i had a lovely time experimenting with the camera and caught a whole lot of amazing nature landscape photos. tried sepia tone at a lake too. it's a wonderful rustic atmosphere for sepia tone.
but going to bali had its depressing moments. the last time i went there, about 5-6 years ago, the coral reef was thriving and i even saw a jellyfish and huge, amazing corals. this time, i took the glass-bottomed boat again. this time, i saw remnants of what used to impress me most. coral skeletons. vast areas of destroyed coral. no jellyfish. mostly starfishes and rainbowfish, the hardy ones. i was indescribably sad and angry at the same time. the amount of thrash thrown into the sea and washed ashore was infinitely greater than that of shells. the beach was full of rotten fish. we could smell the rotting fishes even before we reached the vicinity of the beach. it was terrible, terrible, horrible, incorrigible. i'm ashamed. that i'm part of the species destroying too many of other species. sighs.
the great moments were of course going to Turtle Island where they were carrying out activities to preserve and protect sea turtles. I took picture with the turtles that they bred and other animals they had there. not with the big snake though, but a lot with the Sea Eagle. he's so so so so so so so so handsome!!! the sea eagle, i mean. i can still imagine seeing him, so majestic. one of the best moments were spent in Pura Goa Lawah too, a sacred place of worship for the Hindus that is conjoined with a cave that is filled with the cutest bats i've ever seen. i love the sound of their sonar and have a video recording of them carrying out their activities, for example, fighting. hahaha. the place was really a sight to behold. when sunset descended upon the sky, the rooftops shifted into a gleaming, bright gold. it was a place with few tourists, and wonderfully peaceful. best of all, NO SMOKERS!!!! MUAHAHAHAHA.
will upload pictures when i get back to singapore. like 2 months later.
but i think i like bali less this time, becoz it's too peopled. i like animals. or anywhere with no people. i loved the car trips through the mountainous regions with stretches of forests on either side of the road. it felt like home. haha.one of my cousins offered to help me move into the forest.
new year's was fine. we went out of town (Tuban) and prayed at the temple. nothing much.
no new year's resolutions. i'm getting kind of lazy. stopped (or trying to stop) watching news. i dun like knowing that 400++ people are dead in Palestine. dun like knowing about suicide bombs in Iraq. or how great the government is. or how 'hard' the govmt is fighting corruption. whatever. i dun want to become an adult. i dun want to grow up.