Monday March 23

As I had hoped, we did not need to spend much time in the office to complete our paperwork. This gave us an opportunity to visit our new house. They were in process of cleaning the house when we arrived, and some of the furniture had already arrived. After a quick walk-through of the house that allowed my daughter to find her new hiding space, we took a quick tour of the grounds. My daughter found her new favorite swing at the playground.




The grounds of our complex are much nicer than I had remembered. Two olympic size swimming pools - one with a spa, one with a kiddie pool. Several tennis courts, squash courts and a soccer field. The club house has a fitness center and a spa where a one hour massage will run you $14. Sounds to me like we'll all get a massage each week.

The trip has not been all positives, so far. My daughter is definitely a little out of sorts. I think it really started the day the movers came and packed up her rooms. We wanted to minimize the impact of the move on her, so we decided we would bring everything of hers with us - toys, furniture, everything she recognizes as hers. My wife and I really only brough our clothes, a few pictures, and my golf clubs. When my daughter came home from school to find both of her rooms empty, she didn't quite know how to take it. We told her everything was moved to Jakarta. When we arrived at the new house, the first thing she wanted to see was her toy room. When I showed her what room would be her toy room, she wanted to know where her toys were. She is being quite the trooper with all of the travelling, plane flights, etc and we can tell the time changes, the constant travelling and the strangeness of everything has had its toll. She is, however, seeming to enjoy the hotels and restaurants.

After touring the complex and lunching at Amigos - the Mexican restaurant by our new house - we return to the hotel and all take a nap...for about 3 hours. I am the first to awaken and rouse everyone else to prepare for dinner. We dine at Bunga Rampai. I don't remember the names of the food we ate on my last visit that I enjoyed so much, and our waiter doesn't understand based on my description, so I guess. I order the three things I thought we ate, and get two of them correct. The third dish turns out to be what I can only describe as a meat mud pie. My daughter was cranky the whole time and started to fall asleep at the table - which, as it turns out, started a theme (see future posts). We'll see how often it happens.

As expected, we all fall asleep shortly after arriving back at the hotel. Exhaustion from jet lag knocks us all out by 8:30 in the evening. Bali is one hour ahead of Jakarta, so hopefully we will be better on their timezone - staying up to 10 PM, maybe! Starting to sound like my father on New Year's...