Getting over the pond

Hello Friends and Family!

Our trek over to Bali meant stopovers in San Fransisco, Tokyo, and Singapore, amounting to about 40 hours of travel time. We decided to skip the few days visiting in Singapore because our connection there was unavailable for hosting and we wanted to get all the travelling done at once.

Bathrooms turned out to be a highlight in the airports, as in Japan, Emily was able to check in and choose what meal she wanted from her bathroom console (not really). But just look at the controls from the picture she took! In Singapore, the urinals had little flys to aim at which is pretty cool too... maybe even cooler. Speaking of Singapore, that's where I got busted for carrying a butterfly knife in my luggage! Fun times getting detained and questioned at 2 in the morning. Good thing Em and I are awesome negatiators and managed to convince our Singaporean friends that we are in fact not butterfly knife wielding Canadian Gangsters, but travellers who didnt check the side compartment where my brother Matt stashed his camping knives. (We got to keep the fishing knife!)
Below is a picture of us still looking good before boarding our final flight.

So I am typing this in Ubud, a town in central Bali, which will be our base of operations for the most part. Our friends Denton and Megan live here, and it is also where we will volunteer at a local school. The place we are staying at is amazing. Called Villa Mantra, it is off the main road, has a kitchen and pool, and surrounded by coconut and banana trees. From our bathroom we can see many rice paddies and the farmers collecting from them. While watching them collect, I got a wave from one of them, and after covering up I waved back :))

Monkey Forest today!












Paddies!












Bugnet Bed!