September 2011
Friday 30th.
Day 3.
This day I had hatched a plan where I was going to try and visit a few places that had eluded me in the past and had must do 'stars' next to them in my precious little Bali notebook.
Golden Buffalo, Bagus watches, anywhere else that might look interesting on our travels and some of the Surf wear factory outlets we had missed out on. The boys needed rashies for the water sports day coming up as they are blessed with my befreckled / blister in the sun complexion.
I'd organized Jack for the day and was looking forward to having a catch up with him as my friends (and Bali converts) had, had the pleasure of his company a couple of times already this trip before we had arrived and frankly I was missing him.
Everyone decided to come along on the trip and we started the day with the 16 minute stroll, power walk, window shop :0) from the villa that pagi to have breakfast at one of my favorites. Tra la la, la la la la, la la la,la la la la Lucciola.
This is very high energy and does not depict the atmosphere of La Luc
at all . But I couldn't resist as we had talked about this song that pagi.
This ones more like it
La Lucciola's location on the beachfront is just wonderful and in the morning I find it just absolutely gorgeous sitting back in a comfy chair, the sun isn't too high in the sky yet and the light here seems a little misty. The waves are crashing just beyond the grassy verge that leads to the sand (we even arrived too early as they don't open till 9. No problem we just lingered on the grass under the palm trees, what an inconvenience :0 )
The service is fabulous it's one of those very friendly helpful but unobtrusive places where you are unaware you are being watched but drop a fork on the ground and you have a couple of smiling very helpful waiters making a dive for it whilst another delivers a nice shiny clean one to your clumsy fingers.
I needn't mention the decor really (I've never paid much attention to it) as the location is it. Because it's all very open air and I've really always just focused on the outdoors whilst here...I do much prefer downstairs though as upstairs under the thatched roof I felt a little claustrophobic after experiencing the joys and openness of below.
And then there is the food.... (if you have never rolled your eyes, thrown your head back and been rendered speechless by a delicious morsel you may want to skip this bit).
not normally something I would go for but I have had a thing for chorizo lately
and couldn't help myself...definitely not my usual brekky!
extensive bircher tasting history. The poached tamarillo's were exceptional.
I continued to resist them right up until the last moment.
You see I have a weakness for the potato.
Geez I could live on these things and then they would need a crane
to lift my dead smiling corpse out of my house..........we should move on.
I had particularly been looking forward to this breakfast as a couple of years ago we had eaten dinner at La Lucc but the kids had never had the pleasure in the morning. I knew in particular Luke would be impressed..he's fond of the big breakfast, coffee, juice hit. It's going to be hard to beat!
You know a restaurant is good when everybody at the table is simultaneously lifting their forks/straws and saying "you just have to taste this". We returned the next pagi.
We had organized for Jack to pick us up from La Lucc so I was a little disappointed to see his older brother wander into the restaurant hmmmm it seems Jack was unavailable and had sent Yoga in his place.
I wish he had given us the heads up on these developments but at least we had a driver (seems he wasn't missing my smiling face...bugga). It turned out he had a full on day with a couple from England with 2 young kids that wanted a day trip to Singaraja with a stop at Git Git waterfalls then on to Tanah Lot for sunset. Whoa some people certainly pack it in hey.
Luke had done his research too and was interested in checking out 'Deus' a customized motor bike place in Canggu so we set off for there first. Now when it comes to motorbikes 'P'thu' I'm not overly fond.
My eldest has already put himself and us through some rough times , thanks to these #!%&*ing things but
what can I say. Live and let Live, right. This was a very cool place. It had a restaurant attached that looked good too.
For some reason dragons seemed to be the theme of this trip ( Ganesha had been the flavor of the month last time). We had spotted these on the way to Deus and made a stop off to check them out when we returned.
Loved them..extremely detailed and in 4 parts, they are placed in sections so it appears they are weaving in and out of the ground (sea) I have put them on my wish list. Very friendly , switched on guy here too.
We wandered across the road when this fantastic glass place was spotted. Their prices were just a fraction of what you would expect.
One of the exceptional things I love about these stores in Bali is that you often get to meet the very talented artists and if you're lucky, learn about their influences and often the history of the generations of talent in their families and villages.
We headed off to find Golden Buffalo which I had read about on a forum years ago and had wanted to get to since. It's a brilliant silver and bronze statue wholesale store. I ended up with ....you guessed it, dragons ! Not 1 but 2 wonderful silver dragons! The choice could not be made between the 2 so both were purchased after deciding the return trip with them was doable once Rob (husband) arrived with a couple of near empty bags.
The girl we dealt with is a gem , very helpful and a great smiling sense of humour. Had a good time here and the Hari's bought themselves a nice contemporary silver figure for their hall table too.
and has taken up residence in Luke's apartment now!
The 2nd. in the background is a candelabra and looks great in this spot.
The rashies were purchased and we ended up stuck in traffic more than once on Sunset and Bypass roads They are shockers so we decided to call it a day and do Bagus watches another day instead of getting caught in more traffic in Kuta.
We had booked for dinner at Ultimo's. So got to Mum's and just chilled for awhile.
It looked great back lit at night.
It has become obvious to us that you can do your research but you can't put too much stock in restaurant/accom. reviews. ( ie. you can lead a tourist to a bad restaurant but you can't make her eat :0)
It takes all kinds of course.
Ultimo's is #4 on TA and we were all blown away by how exceedingly bad every single meal that was served to us 5. We all had an appetizer and a main and out of 10 meals you'd expect to get at least 1 good one, nup!
It's not like we can shrug it off as being a bad night either because most meals consisted of bland, canned ingredients. My mushroom soup, sliced butter mushrooms from a can and the same as all the seafood in my pasta dish, canned. A little spice or garlic could of helped matters, maybe.
Talk about the other side of the coin compared to our brekky. We all left chalking this one up to (a bad) experience.
Why so popular? This very large restaurant was packed every night that we walked passed...will leave this puzzler to float around as one of the mysteries of the universe along with why some people don't possess taste buds! Blah not for us.
The guys had split out of there as quickly as possible (very chivalrous) leaving Shell and I to deal with the concerned staff members and their inquiring gazes at the amount of food left on our plates.
Honestly what are you going to say other than get a new chef (we didn't). Tasteless food seems to be working for them though ,Hey go figure!
We did some shopping on the way home some lovely outfits for Shell's niece she had been checking out for days and I came across an excellent handbag that I tried to bargain down as it has a flaw but the boss wouldn't budge so we left, but I was back next morning , thank goodness as it has become my favorite at the moment.
So we pretty much shopped till we dropped or dived into the pool that night.
Coming back to Mum's was always wonderful and the friendly security guard at night somehow always heard us coming down the lane from his post ( a chair on the other side of the gate and next to our entrance where he spent all night bless him ) and he would open the gate and shine his torch to make negotiating the pot holes easier and hopefully those barking dogs stayed in the distance. Malam Made, Matur suksme!
It was to be our last night at Mum's. We were moving just down the road tomorrow.
Sheesh I do miss the place.
Ahhhhh the memories!
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