Anyeong Noona

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Anyeong! It is soon gonna be the day where the attached is busy spending money for the loved one while the single is reminded of their singlehood status, yep, the V-day. If you are not interested in the day itself, how about planning for a trip instead? Noona herself has been wondering if she should go for another short trip (like a week-kind of a trip) but for now, let's just reminisce the good ol' time in Bali while saving up money for the next trip.

If you have the chance to go to Bali, you should never miss out the chance to dine on the beach. Jimbaran beach is famous for this dining experience and once should not go to Bali without experiencing this activity at least once in their trip. The famous restaurant to go to for this kind of activity is usually Menega Cafe but our driver insisted us to try New Moon Cafe. Probably because he earns commission from this cafe instead of Menega.

4D3N Bali Trip: Dining by the sea at New Moon Cafe, Jimbaran

Oh well, anyway all of these cafes/ restaurants are located alongside the same beach, Jimbaran so we decided to go with the driver's wishes and go find our table. There were so many tables available when we came around 5PM-ish. The sun sets around 7PM in Bali so we had so much time to kill while waiting.

The best way to kill time here is by chatting the afternoon away. Since there were 6 of us, the conversation seems to just keep on flowing from the usual family matters to work to life/ worldly affairs. Or anything random under the sun, really.

The sun set at Jimbaran Beach was pretty cloudy back then so we could not really catch a beautiful round sun coming down under the sea kind of sunset. Instead, before we know it, the sun has already went down behind the clouds and disappear right beneath the horizon.

We would not be able to last that long while chatting if we did not order a fresh young coconut. Sweet and refreshing indeed.

Since the sun is setting, it's time to make some orders for dinner. We were too lazy to move to another dining spot anyway. When you are going for this kind of dining activity, be prepared to pay a high price for basically every dishes on the menu. The first dish that we ordered is the veggie, the simple kang kong.

Cah Kangkung from New Moon Cafe Jimbaran

Next is the fried battered squid, which cannot go wrong really.

Fried Calamari from New Moon Cafe Jimbaran Bali

The most expensive of them all is of course, the grilled fish. Not sure what kind of fish is this but Omma was making a fuss over the price tag of the seafood sold by New Moon Cafe. Oh well.

Grilled Fish from New Moon Cafe Jimbaran Bali

Oh wait, turns out Noona was wrong about the most expensive dish. Because apparently Omma has ordered some jumbo prawns (which she ordered by number instead of weight). Taste good thankfully. Hahaha.

Hot Sambal Prawn from New Moon Cafe Jimbaran

The atmosphere is so good when it's completely night time as you can just chill while being blown by the gentle sea breeze.

Dining by the sea at New Moon Cafe Jimbaran Bali

Some buskers came to our table to perform a song (with hope that we pay them money, of course) and since they are able to perform Coldplay's Fix You (despite some key errors), we gave them token of appreciation for their attempt. Kinda make me can't wait about watching Coldplay in this coming April. Yeah!

Restaurants by the sea alongside Jimbaran Beach Bali

New Moon Cafe is located at:

Jalan Pantai Kedonganan, Kuta

Opening hours:

Daily 10AM - 12AM

Anyeong! Noona just had an amazing peking duck dish from the last CNY lunch which was sponsored by big boss, thankfully! Talking about ducks, do you know that Bali has a lot of yummy duck restaurant especially in Ubud area? Ubud is an area in Bali where you can enjoy the view of rice field, which is something different from the usual beach and ocean vibe of Bali island. It's 1.5 hours driving from Kuta but if you love to see a lot of green terraces, you may love Ubud.

Since there are so many rice fields in Ubud, most restaurants in Ubud offer the chance for its diners to have their food while sitting surrounded by the rice field. Natural dining experience? Hahaha. Noona's family chose to have their crispy duck lunch at Bebek Joni since we had never tried the crispy duck from this restaurant before. We could not get the table in the rice field area though and have to settle sitting in the normal area. Oh well.

The rice field area belongs to Bebek Joni restaurant is pretty huge. You can walk around on the pathway if you want to see the rice field closer.

Rice field at Bebek Joni Restaurant in Ubud Bali

Do you see the eating area which look like gazebos? That's where the rice field table located. A lot of diners wish to eat there so it is kinda difficult to secure a table there it seems.

Dining beside the rice field at Bebek Joni Restaurant Ubud

Right, enough fuss about the rice field table. After all, we came here to have crispy duck feast. Let's check out the menu and start ordering. Stat!

Our order came pretty slow probably because of the huge lunch crowd. Thankfully, there are some crackers which we could snack on. Noona kinda pitied her cousin who had not eaten anything since she woke up. She looks pretty ravenous and murderous at the same time. LOL.

After 30 minutes of waiting, our crispy duck set is finally here. Nothing fancy about the set to be honest. A piece of crispy duck, some veggie, crackers, the awesome Balinese sauce and a plate of white rice. Bebek Joni's crispy duck has a nice crispy texture to it and it tastes great with the chili sauce although personally Noona prefers the three types of sauces offered by its competitor, Bebek Tepi Sawah. It's a matter of preference really.

One thing that annoyed Noona's omma the most is the fact that we have to use cash to make payment which is kinda ridiculous because a portion of the crispy duck costs pretty expensive around IDR 100,000 (around SGD 11ish) and that's a really huge amount of cash when you pay for the whole family of 6. Thankfully our cash is enough to cover for the rest of the expenses till our last day in Bali. *phew*

Bebek Joni is located at:

Jalan Raya Goa Gajah, Pelitan,

Ubud, Bali

Opening hours:

Daily 8AM - 9PM

"Is it better now that I'm not around?"

The past few days have been so freaking damn annoying. Noona did not have the mood to write about anything (let alone to work) since she was in a...uhm...kinda awkward and annoying situation. She was not even in a official relationship and yet, she's still pissed when someone gave her a mixed signal after so much "investing-in-a-relationship". Uh okay, dunno what she's typing about. So let's just divulge in a travel porn story.

Okay that sounds kinda wrong. There's no porn stuff at all in this travel post.

It has been two months since the last time Noona went for a holiday to Bali. It feels like forever, Noona can tell you. We visited Ubud, 1.5 hours distance away from Kuta. If you are looking for something different from beach and sea, you should make your way to Ubud because Ubud provides you with a chance to chill while enjoying a different view. The greener one.

4D3N Bali Trip: A Cafe with Rice Field View at Bali Pulina, Ubud

This was the first time Noona went to an agro tourism spot in Ubud, Bali Pulina. If you are a local visitor, you will have to pay entrance fee of IDR 100,000. Overseas visitor will have to pay USD 10 if Noona recalls correctly. If she has to comment about Bali Pulina in one sentence, it's a coffee plantation/farm with a rice field view. It's pretty interesting really because for a start, you will have to make your way through the lushes greenery...

...to see the main star of Bali Pulina, the luwak. Luwak is an Asian palm civet who loves to eat coffee cherries and then digests and defecates them. These naturally processed coffee beans are then processed to make one of the most expensive coffee in the world, Luwak Coffee (or also known as Kopi Luwak).

Luwak looks pretty fierce though despite the fact that they eat coffee instead of meat.

Some exhibition where visitors can see the tools and ingredients required to process Kopi Luwak.

Kitchen where Luwak coffee was made at Bali Pulina

It will be great if guides were available to explain to us what are those stuffs (which to Noona looks like some kind of beans and spices) but the guides were all fully occupied as there were many visitors that day. So Noona has to make her own guesses on the coffee making process but looking at her brain capacity, it will be fast before she lost interest in the whole back-office operation stuff.

Ingredients for luwak coffee making at Bali Pulina Ubud

Noona thinks this is where you "cook" the coffee beans before further grinding them into coffee grounds. But she admits she does not have to be Sherlock to come into this conclusion. Hahaha.

Roasting Luwak coffee beans at Bali Pulina Ubud

The next exihibition houses some random farming tools. Farming is such a hard work but without farmers, we will not be able to eat what we love to eat in our daily life. Let's appreciate them more people! #clappingforfarmers

The beautiful part of Bali Pulina appears when you walk further past the cultural exhibition area of farming coffee. You will arrive at the viewing platform where you can enjoy the view of the tegallalang rice field. If you are a fan of the mountain, you may enjoy this kind of peaceful view compared to the ocean therapy.

Tegallalang Rice Field View at Bali Pulina

Your entrance fee of IDR 100k comes with a food and drink voucher which you can use at the cafe here. There is only one cafe at Bali Pulina so you will not miss it. You can choose either to sit at the al fresco area or under the shade of the rooftop.

Cafe with rice field view at Bali Pulina

Each table will be offered a set of coffee tester. All coffees offered here are made from the coffee ground defecated by the luwak. So yeah, this is your chance to try out that expensive Luwak coffee.

From the right side to the left side, here is teh taste offered. If you'd like to taste the original luwak coffee, Noona personally encourages you to go for the pure Bali coffee, which happens to be the strongest and the darkest coffee selection offered.

After we have made our own personal coffee selection (mine's ginger), we also received the complimentary banana fritter which taste great with coffee. The thing is, since both the coffee (unless you opt for the pure Bali coffee) and the banana fritter are both sweet and hence, attracted a lot of unwanted guests, the bees. Noona has mastered the art of eating the fritter, drinking the coffee, taking picture while shooing away the bees. Haiz. What a tiring feat indeed.

Banana fritter and luwak coffee at Bali Pulina Ubud

Once we have finished our meal (and our battle with the bees, yea, we failed to coexist), we decided to move on to our next destination. There is a souvenir shop located right before the exit of Bali Pulina. You can buy souvenir and gift for your loved ones if you'd like to. The souvenir store has a lot of fancy stuff to offer from the handmade handcrafts to soap to of course, coffee grounds.

Balinese handcraft souvenirs at Bali Pulina Ubud

The coffee grounds are packed nicely in a pretty box too so you don't have to do extra and just need to pay and give it to whoever you want to give them to. Fancy, no?

Bali Vanilla Luwak Coffee at Bali Pulina Ubud

Bali Pulina is located at:

Banjar Pujung Kelod, Tegallalang

Sebatu, Gianyar, Kabupaten Gianyar

Bali

Opening hours:

Daily 8AM - 7.30PM

Anyeong! Do you guys feel happy that it's already midweek of January? Noona, for once, feels so excited because she can't wait for January to end, this month feels like a very loooooooooonnnnnnnggggggggg month with all the crazy workload and the expectation to slave in the office. U_U.

Noona just wanted to chill and relax like what she did back then in El Kabron Spanish Restaurant & Beach Club in Uluwatu, Bali. The restaurant/ beach club is built on top of the cliffs facing the ocean. Perfect place to relax indeed even though the sun can be a tad too hot (if you like sun-tanning, that would be no problem at all). Do note that you have to pay something like "entrance fee" (which amount can be used to settle the bill for the food and beverages) if you want to laze at this swimming pool area. More info about the pricing in Noona's previous post on El Kabron.

4D3N Bali Trip: El Kabron Spanish Restaurant & Beach Club, Uluwatu Part 3

We had already lazed around for a good two hours before we started to get bored and feel to refresh ourselves with some cocktails (mocktails for some) and tapas. Since most of them ordered the boring orange color cocktails (the ingredients for the drinks are interesting, it's just that they have the same color which does not help Noona's photographic and showing off habit. LOL). From left to right, here are Banana Squeeze, Blue Ocean, and San Fransisco (orange juice, pineapple juice, lychee juice topped up with soda).

Mocktail party at El Kabron Spanish Restaurant & Beach Club

Noona's order, the bluish mocktail named Blue Ocean is actually composed of fresh lychee, fresh orange, lime juice, blue curacao syrup topped up with Sprite. It basically a drink full of sugar but it tastes refreshing under the hot sun.

Blue Ocean mocktail from El Kabron Spanish Restaurant

Dongsaeng's drink, the Banana Squeeze, looks healthier in a glance because it's supposedly made from fresh banana, ginger and fresh orange. Noona was quite surprised dongsaeng did not go for another alcoholic beverages after the champagne.

Banana Squeeze mocktail from El Kabron Spanish Restaurant

Omma's choice of drink, the San Fransisco, looks so fancy in presentation. It is made from orange juice, pineapple juice, lychee juice topped up with soda.

San Fransisco mocktail from El Kabron Spanish Restaurant

After a few sips of our mocktails, the weather turned for the worst and the rain chased all of us to the restaurant because the swimming pool area is not sheltered. Since we were already sitting inside the restaurant, we decided to use the remaining value left in our entrance voucher to order some food. In fact, we just had enough value to order two dishes, first is the grilled squid, which taste pretty awesome both in taste and in presentation.

Grilled squid from El Kabron Spanish Restaurant

Since there are a number of us, we ordered a big plate of Spanish paella. The funny thing is that was the first time some of us tried paella, the Spanish version of fried rice. Turns out Noona's two aunts are not used to the texture of rice used for paella which Noona believes supposed to be a tad gooey compared to Indonesian version of fried rice. They even said something along the line that the rice was not cooked very well. LOL. Hope the chef never heard that.

Seafood paella from El Kabron Spanish Restaurant

El Kabron Spanish Restaurant & Beach Club is located at:

Jl. Pantai Cemongkak, Pecatu, Kuta Selatan

Badung, Bali

Opening hours:

Daily 11.30AM - 11.30PM

Anyeong! Noona was so FULL as she just came back from TGIF dinner with one of her gym-buddy. All her colleagues were still working at the office when she left but oh well, it's Friday people! Whee~~~

Life has been pretty tough especially on Wednesday and Thursday as Noona has to show her ass in the office until late to avoid scorn from fellow colleagues. Tough days make you thinking back to the last holiday that you just went. U_U. Back when Noona could walk alongside the beach in Bali. Well, other than beaches, you can also visit a lot of other unique attractions in Bali just like this special temple located on an island named Pura Tanah Lot. Just from the entrance gate alone, you can feel that this place is somewhat spiritual.

This has been Noona's 4th time coming to Pura Tanah Lot and it seems that there is religious ceremony at Pura Tanah Lot held everyday here. The area where the ceremony is performed is off limit for tourists but you are welcomed to watch from afar.

Holy ritual at Pura Tanah Lot Bali Indonesia

You can, however, walk around on the seashore area right outside the ceremonial stage. That day was pretty cloudy and hence, a good day to play at the seashore without getting burned.

The main highlight at Pura Tanah Lot is, however, the temple located on top of the island which seems to be located opposite the seashore. 4th time coming and Noona has never been able to walk across to that island because it is always tide time when Noona visits this place. When it is not tide, you can walk over to the island which have temple on it.

Despite the tide, the view from the seashore is pretty good enough. That's all that we got for our 4th time here. Better luck next time. Hahaha.

The tide at Pura Tanah Lot Bali Indonesia

If you have time to kill, there are so many neighbourhood shop selling sandals, arts, food, swimsuits, Balinese t-shirts, shorts, sunglasses, ice cream, or anything that you can think of. You may want to spend at least half an hour to browse through the stores.

Pura Tanah Lot is located at Desa Beraban, Bali.

Opening hours:

Daily 7AM to 7PM

Anyeong! Wishing you all a happy 2017. How have the first two days of the year 2017 for you? Noona started the year by worrying about the future because oh well, the last day of the years is always filled with self reflection of what you have achieved and have not achieved in the year 2016. And you cannot help but feeling dejected for those unachieved goals, even thinking if these goals are ever gonna be achieved in this lifetime. In time of emo-ing like this, it's best to listen to the words of God and oh boy, we are not alone in this world since a lot of great characters in the Bible have experienced the same thing. Words of encouragement can be found in Hebrews 6: 9-15:

Better Things For You

"But, beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you, and things that accompany salvation, though we are speaking in this way. For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward His name, in having ministered and in still ministering to the saints. And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you will not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. For when God made the promise to Abraham, since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, saying, "I WILL SURELY BLESS YOU AND I WILL SURELY MULTIPLY YOU." And so, having patiently waited, he obtained the promise."

If you want to listen to the sermon that Noona listened to get the above encouragement, you can go to this link:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=prMSlPaeEEc

Woots, long start but since we are going into faith and patience mode to see good things happen in our life in 2017, how about started with some travel stories? Haha. Continuing on Noona's post about the awesome beach club named El Kabron in Uluwatu, Noona and her family had finally decided that they slacked long enough without doing anything so they started rumbling for the...MENU.

4D3N Bali Trip: El Kabron Spanish Restaurant & Cliff Club, Uluwatu Part 2

The menu at El Kabron is divided into two kind of menu, the Pool Side and the Restaurant menu. After flipping the Pool Side menu for a few minutes, the pool side menu consists mostly Spanish tapas while the main dishes are included in the Restaurant menu. Do note that the dishes shown under Restaurant menu can only be consumed inside the Restaurant not at the pool side.

Pool side menu at El Kabron Spanish Restaurant & Cliff Club

Noona's cousin decided to pick the first tapas of the day and it came on the table like this. Hmm...after showing a totally clueless look to cousin, she bravely ate this piece of toasted tomato bread with a piece of seasoned anchovy. Erm, taste salty with a tangy taste of tomato but since this tapas is served cold, Noona was not really a fan of it to be honest. Next tapas, please!

Anchovies on tomato toasted bread from El Kabron

The next two tapas are served hot and Noona was pretty excited about these dishes because Omma's friend has been recommending these tapas to her before the trip. The first one is simpler to understand and eat as they are meat and potato meatballs. Taste wise not bad but not really out of the world either. Quite enjoyable for nibbling while waiting for sunset.

Meat and potato fried balls from El Kabron

The second hot tapas is the best so far in terms of presentation and taste. These fried yellow things are fried potato which are filled with cheese and topped with caviar. The tapas looks so posh and pretty and taste savoury without being too salty. Noona's favourite dish for the day so far (because yeah, we're gonna order some more to fully utilise the IDR 300,000/ SGD 30ish food voucher per pax).

Spanish fried potato with caviar cheese from El Kabron

To end our pool side slackness on a sweet note (rain came shortly after we finished the dessert), we ordered almond sponge cake with cinnamon ice cream. The cake taste so good and moist, Noona could feel the taste of almond too (which usually only exists in name for most desserts).

Almond sponge cake with cinnamon ice cream from El Kabron

El Kabron Spanish Restaurant is located at:

Jln Pantai Cemongkak, Pecatu, Kuta Selatan

Opening hours:

11.30AM - 11.30PM Daily

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Anyeong Noona

4D3N Bali Trip: Dining by the sea at New Moon Cafe, Jimbaran

4D3N Bali Trip: Crispy Duck Love at Bebek Joni, Ubud

4D3N Bali Trip: A Cafe with Rice Field View at Bali Pulina, Ubud

4D3N Bali Trip: El Kabron Spanish Restaurant & Beach Club, Uluwatu Part 3

4D3N Bali Trip: Pura Tanah Lot, Bali

4D3N Bali Trip: El Kabron Spanish Restaurant & Cliff Club, Uluwatu Part 2