Bali Community Choir

The Bali Community Choir has got a concert coming up. Our friend Sylvie Blanchet (from Vermont) is in it. She writes: We're a very diverse collection of people from all over the world who love to sing together.  Our talented and funny choir director. is Brendan O"Donnell from Australia who has led choirs in Australia. The concert is at SMK 3 School, Jl. Tirta Nadi, N Sanur on Saturday Oct 13 at 7 pm. Here's the flier for it.

Crazy Rich Singapore

We're in Singapore for a few days, getting our new residence visas for Indonesia. Walked around town, took the MRT subway (though it's above ground further out), We're staying in Chinatown. Had some great food, cheap there, more on posh Orchard Road, and most by the rockin' river. All food good, very good. The river boat ride at night passes by astounding skylines, architecture, variety, old, new, imaginative, much of it lit like Vegas, and like the vast malls of the city, shouting glamour and glitz. At an Imax saw Crazy Rich Asians which mainly takes place in Singapore - got a lot of good shots of the city too - and focuses not on the obvious and enormous wealth of the exterior, but on that of the super-rich elite and likely in a make-believe way. My favorite line in the film from a parent urging a child to eat all their food with, "Think of the starving children in America!"

Disaster in Sulawesi continued

The Science of Indonesia's Surprise Tsunami

The poor people of Palu had gone to the beach for a ceremony commemorating the city's birthday. Our friend Sarah was here yesterday. She wrote Diving in Indonesia and was at a diving resort on Suluwesi and there was a volcano going off near her triggered by the earthquake and the news made a big deal of that but it's a volcano that goes off once or more every year so it was no factor for the people there - unlike here in Bali 1100 miles away, no one lives under it. And she was far from the earthquake epicenter and tsunami too. This link is on how the tsunami was not expected, unique condition.

Disaster on Sulawesi

Palu Sulawesi which was hard hit by the tsunami, is 1100 miles from Denpasar where we live.

Padang Padang

Continuing from yesterday - We headed off with dogette Bandita to parts unknown consulting with each other and trusty driver Komang. We decided to plunge into the thick of the action braving congested traffic to Padang Padang Beach in Uluwatu. Mertasari Beach which we live near in Sanur is wide and never crowded at all, the water relatively calm due to the reef, good for swimming though most tourists and locals go stand and sit in it. Padang Padang was small and framed in scenic cliffs and rock formations, packed and fun with a younger more vibrant crowd going in and out of the deeper more active water less restrained by a reef, surfers coming and going through the bobbing vacationers, friendly people coming to say hi to Bandita like the owner of a nutrition company in LA. He was staying in a luxury hotel where he had a reservation for a $100 massage, said he knew you could get them for $7 but didn't know where. I urged him to cancel cause the lower price was the norm here and surely not hard to find. We hung out there a few hours. A nice break from our quiet life here in Sanur - sometimes called Snore by those in the more happening parts with a younger crowd.

Unscheduled trip to Pasar Sindhu, morning market

There were cats fighting in the middle of the night. I got up. Kucita, who often opts to stay out at night, was huddled by the cat/dog door not functioning because it's in the screen door but not the regular door which was closed for the night. Normally she'd climb over  and around to come in the back pet door. I saw the young, slender black cat up on the shrine in front dart away. We don't let it come down if we can help it. They relate outside or in the courtyard at night. They'd never fought before. Hope they make up.

Lagu Lagu

A song about - well, it's a song named Lagu Lagu which means songs in Indonesian. From earlier this year. - on the dc music site, defusermusic.com

There's a bemo in the song. That's a bemo in the photo.