Monkey Forest Sanctuary

Today we walked down to a place called the "Monkey Forest Sanctuary", where there are over 700 Balinese long-tailed monkeys. After paying 30,000 Indonesian Rupiah (about three Australian dollars) for admission, we were able to walk around and interact with the monkeys... which was interesting, frightening at times (let's just say I witnessed a monkey, probably the "alpha male", try to seduce a Japanese girl by laying on its back with its arms spread, its legs up in the air, and a big 'ol monkey erection pointed in her direction. Yikes!!), yet extremely hilarious at other times. Let this day go down in history as THE day when my boyfriend got pissed on by a monkey. And, just for clarification, this was no small amount of urine...

If you can picture this situation, please try. It's hilarious. Okay, so Josh was trying to feed a monkey by holding out his hand full of corn kernels. His hand was high above his head, so that a monkey would eventually jump onto him and perch for the quintessential Monkey Forest snapshot (which one did). However, once the kernels were gone, the monkey decided that he had to pee, and it absolutely could not wait. Believe you me, I will upload photos as soon as I can!

Indonesia

Wow, so we are in INDONESIA! I have hardly had time to update my blog to include my crazy Australia adventures, let alone this newfound Indonesian adventure. Today we went trekking through some rice paddies in a tropical rainstorm, and then visited some beautiful temples and sampled some delicious coffee and kombucha. Ubud, Bali, is truly a wonderful place! Here are a few pictures (until I have more time and bandwidth to upload more). Love you all!! x

Perth to Bali, Indo

Nothing beats trying to get some shut-eye awaiting an early-morning flight. Countdown 'til a proper night's rest in Bali!

Happy Christmas!

I've been traveling all over Australia and haven't had a chance to update this blog... So here are a few pictures from my travels so far. I hope you're all having a wonderful Christmas with family and friends. :)

x

^ Great Ocean Road, Victoria Australia

Welcome to SYDNEY, Australia!

I have just spent three weeks in one of the world's best cities... and here are some of my pictures thus far. (Technically it's been two weeks, since I traveled to the highlands to volunteer on an organic farm for 8 days). There are so many interesting things about this city- from the harbours and beaches and neighbourhoods... and the overwhelming public transit options ranging from light rail to subway trains to buses and ferries. I can honestly say that even on the days when I have 8 hours to explore by myself, I have yet to run out of something new to do/see, and I've met fellow travellers and locals along the way. I managed to get myself lost in a nearby beach town and hitchhiked twice to get back to where I needed to go. Haha! Although I must say that it's freaking expensive here. Yikes. It costs me about a dollar per banana at the grocer, which is how I gauge cost of living while traveling. I'd say most things are at least 2-3x more expensive here than in North America. (Except petrol, which is about the same as in the Toronto area). Let's just say I wish I applied for a working visa, even for the brief time I'll be here. It would've been nice to have subsidised my city stay a bit. Yikes!!

My favourite places so far?

• Royal Botanical Gardens- a huge, free park right beside the Opera House and Harbour Bridge with tons of walking trails and interesting things to see. I like the rose garden and the Government House, although I almost got arrested at the latter. Not even joking- I was with two other travellers I met while walking and we supposedly crossed a "no entry" boundary. Let's just say the officer was not a happy camper.
• The Bondi to Coogee Walk- which is a 5km trail on the rugged cliffs along the ocean from Bondi Beach (one of Sydney's main beaches) south to Coogee Beach. What a beautiful walk... Here is a picture of Bondi Beach from along the pathway:

• Newtown (neighbourhood)- full of interesting and eclectic restaurants, bars, shoppes, and graffiti... this district is super bohemian and forward-thinking (aka anti-capitalist and pretty hippie). Always great festivals and shows here. 

^ Hyde Park

^ Harbour Bridge

 ^ Sydney Fish Market and some Graffiti near Darling Harbour

^ beautiful purple trees everywhere!  ^ Chinese Friendship Garden 

^ Moustache Cafe in Manly  ^ Manly Wharf at sunset

 

^ Aboriginal-style art graffiti in Newtown  ^ more street art in Newtown 

^ graffiti somewhere in the CBD :)  Love this.

^ Bird of Paradise flower at the farm  ^ The other farm volunteers from Europe

^ Volunteering at Peppercorn Creek Farm just south of Sydney

This Week

The ladies of 427

From Emily's wedding on August 2nd... Roomies reunited! :)

Thoughts on true love

I have been reading loads and loads of articles on life, love, heartbreak, wholeness, etc (you get the drift). Here is an excerpt from an article I really enjoyed, and wanted to share:

When you understand and celebrate independence and individuality, but come together as a couple and make the most out of the time you do spend with one another. After all, love is what’s supposed to last forever. So why push everything to move so quickly? It’s understandably exciting, when you find the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible. But it is starting. Love isn’t lust. It doesn’t happen fast. It comes over time, as days pass and you constantly find reasons why you want to spend the rest of your life with this person. When you find this person...Work for it. Because true love is much more difficult to find than lust. It’s real, and it lasts forever.

I can't believe how fast time goes by. It seems like, on one hand, I feel so young still... and despite the multitudes of life experiences I've been able to have (the good and the bad ones!) I still feel like the potential for what's ahead is HUGE.

At the same time, though, my friends are slowly getting engaged, married, and some of them even have, gasp, babies on the way. Yikes. I know everyone does life at their own pace, but it's still a bit frightening to think that in five years my life could be drastically different.

I have so much to say on the topic of how fleeting life is, but until next time, here's a photo of my mum and I hiking in the Appalachian Mountains. :)

I found this cute little blog and wanted to share this picture. Check out www.chibird.com for more adorable sketches and quotes. :)

50th Anniversary Party

I love my family. This was such a wonderful evening... I am so thankful to have been a part of this celebration of 50 years of marriage, family, and God's provision.

It was also my parents' 28th anniversary that night... so we had a dual celebration.