EAST COAST OF AUSTRALIA ROAD TRIP

After flying cross country from Perth, we landed in Brisbane! We stayed a few days in the Gold Coast and then took a road trip down to Newcastle, stopping along the way in Burleigh Heads, Nimbin and Byron Bay.

A surf at Burleigh Heads. Note Surfers Paradise (all those tall buildings) in the background. 

The beach at Burleigh Heads.

We of course made sure to hit all of the important cultural landmarks... including this giant shrimp and a big banana.

White girls can't jump. 

We also had a pit stop in Nimbin, an ultra-hippie little village.

Byron Bay was as stunning as I remembered it. Though the main things I remember from my time there (when I was 22) was an outstanding chai latte I drank and coming THISCLOSE to winning a limbo contest at a bar called Cheeky Monkeys. Which just goes to show you that memory is a strange thing and it's important to take photos. 

If you squint here, you can see a dolphin jumping out of the water. (!!!)

The local flora, which appears to be exotic pinecones. 

Along with pods of dolphins, I also saw lone lurking sharks so Byron Bay was a mix of magical and terrifying. 

FREMANTLE, AUSTRALIA

It's nice to return a place that you were enamored with when you were 20 and realize that it wasn't just youthful foolishness that had you swooning. Fremantle is a hippie port city that I frequented when I studied abroad then later moved to when the travel bug hit hard, post-college. I'm happy to report that with it's Victorian architecture, eclectic markets and eccentric residents... it's still as delightful as ever. 

I visited my old place of an employment: Little Creatures Brewery. Still has the best pale ales and frites (friench fries) + aoli in the world. 

We spent a couple of afternoons poking our heads into artists studios and eating our way through the Freo markets. Fremantle seemed slightly smaller than I remembered (I've covered far more ground now then I had back then) but even more charming.

If you ever find yourself in Perth (fun fact: it's the most isolated city in the world!) make sure you take the train down to the wonderful little gem that is Fremantle.  

PERTH, AUSTRALIA

After Bali, we flew to Australia!

We landed in Perth and stayed with Scott's sister in her stunning new house. We washed the Bali off us and spent 10 days enjoying the noticeably fresher air, authentic Aussie BBQ's and bike riding all around the spotless city streets. 

LAST OF BALI

Low tide on the reef. 

Coconut cemetery. 

Vito getting barrelled. 

Uluwatu cove. 

Family scooter ride. 

After a final shopping trip in Kuta. 

Bali was full of crystal clear water and dirt, coconuts and exhaust fumes, sunshine and sweat.  If you want to live like a Queen on the budget of a freelance producer trying to bootstrap a new business: go to Bali. If you want to expedite a 6 month relationship: travel together in Bali. 

It didn't feel like real life but it made "real life" at home feel even less "real". And it was a real good time.

It was a successful 3 months on the incredibly photogenic island of Bali. 

WHAT I LEARNED IN BALI

4. How to build a website. Example: EditMate. 

3. Anything is possible in the sense that everything is negotiable and anything can be arranged. 

2. Things are only worth the value assigned to them.

1. A big wide smile makes anyone beautiful. A rotten toothed, one eyed, wrinkly old woman becomes absolutely adorable when she sports a giant smile. 5 purchased bracelets later, her sales approach cat call of "Helloooo sexy sexy lady look at your sexy sexy bum" was effective as well, further proving point #2. 

BIRTHDAY IN BALI

I made a little Balinese friend in the water. We didn't speak the same language so I didn't catch his name but we can safely assume it's either Wayan, Made, Nyoman or Ketut. 

Scott turned 32 and we celebrated at Bingin Beach with lots of Bintangs. 

A VISA JUMP TO SINGAPORE

To extend our time in Indonesia, we did a visa jump and spent a weekend in Singapore! After being in Bali for 2 months, Singapore felt like THE FUTURE. It's so clean and efficient. It felt wild to ride in squeaky clean public transportation, see people in suits and ties and be amongst massive sky scrapers. It was like we were on another planet.

We booked a hotel in the Joo Chiat district in East Singapore. It's known as a multi-cultural area, with Chinese, Indian and Malay roots. It's full of colorful, pre-war shophouses and quaint eateries... a stark contrast from the uber-modern downtown Singapore. Our favorite meal was at an old school coffee shop called Chin Mee Chin Confectionary where we ate sugary coffee and cakes and slurped very soft boiled eggs. 

We rented bikes and rode all through the parks and gardens, stopping at the Cloud Forest and Flower Dome which was reminiscent of Pauly Shore's 1996 film "Bio-Dome". There's a 114 foot mountain and the worlds largest indoor waterfall. It was insane. 

The Supertree Grove has man-made trees that harvest solar energy during the day to use at night for light shows. The light shows are choreographed to music from movies like "Aladdin" and "Star Wars" which I know sounds super cheeseball but was actually kind of magical. 

We were surprised by how tame and quiet it was at 11 PM on a Saturday night in Singapore, but we eventually found the lively area: Haji Lane. During the day, it was filled with hipster boutiques but at night the bars fill up and the crowd pours out onto the street, with tipsy drinkers twirling around to live bands. 

Inside the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. 

Back To The Future bike. 

Scott at BigMama Korean Restaurant

Left: multi-lingual danger sign. Right: Sign on the subway banning durians, which are extremely smelly fruits. For real.  

The sign literally stopped me dead in my tracks at the airport. How great is this? A MAN asking himself these questions. Complete gender reversal to what you usually see. 

Singapore was a fascinating island city-state to visit. 

It's main principles are meritocracy, multiculturalism and secularism and apparently it has outstanding social policies. It's a secular immigrant nation that emphasizes living harmoniously with others. The city's attitude is to be "neat and clean and responsible for ones actions", which makes for extremely pleasant subway ride. There's adorable cartoon character signs all over the city reminding you of that... just to be considerate of those around you. It almost feels like an imaginary place a budding city-planner would design for a thesis project, it doesn't seem entirely real. Even when you're standing smack in the middle of it. In fact, Singapore was developed so aggressively as a business and finance hub that it's often criticized for forgetting to grow a soul in the process. And there's a weird truth in that.

One thing Singapore definitely does have though: super sick malls. Malls that are glorious, air conditioned and luxurious retail meccas. I tried on about 15 winter coats that I have absolutely no need for. 

MOUNTAIN BIKING IN UBUD

Our friends Vito + Maria were in Ubud on a workaway gig (the great site I used to work in Naples) and Adri, the owner of Black Rose (you become quite good friends with restaurant owners when you constantly eat at their establishment) moonlights as a mountain bike tour leader, so a bunch of us from DiKubu visited Ubud for a little mountain biking adventure. 

Julian, George, Chris, Pauline, Vito, Maria, myself and Adri halfway through our ride. 

The view from the hostel. 

Maria

George

Adri, our fearless leader. 

Vito and Pauline in the background, Adri cheering them on. 

We rode up steep hills and through peaceful rice paddies, ate at Clear Cafe and stayed at Hostel Rama Sita where Vito and Maria were working (the very talented Vito is also the newest editor at EditMate!). I was a little nervous beforehand as I'm pretty useless on a bike but I whizzed around without much trouble while Scott showed off with his jumps and tricks. It was sunny and hot and sweaty and a great couple of days in Ubud. 

AROUND ULUWATU

Balinese dancers at the Cultural Park. I swear the one in the front was giving me the eye the whole time, but then everyone in our group said the same thing so I think she just knew how to work a crowd. 

Vito after the show. 

Vito + Garuda. The cultural park is built around the construction of a massive sculpture which, when complete, will be 390 feet tall (for comparison, the Statue of Liberty is 305 feet) and feature the Hindu God Vishnu riding his bird friend Garuda. The statue is very controversial as religious authorities say it will disrupt the spiritual balance of the land, it's 11 story entertainment complex's commercial nature is inappropriate and it's insanely expensive. It sounds like a pretty bad idea to me, but hey, you do you Bali. 

Maria during a Blue Crush Crew spa day at DiKubu. 

I like dogs and whatever but I don't go crazy over them like some people.... but I absolutely lost my mind over this one. I found her in a new litter of puppies outside a convenient store. I went so far as to name her ("Ulu"), went back to visit her 4 times, bartered with the owners (got him down to $21!), and researched ways to bring her out of Bali with me (basically impossible). I felt heartbroken and betrayed when I returned one day and she was gone ("Where is black and white dog? You know which dog! Where is my dog?") but hopefully she is in a happy home somewhere in Uluwatu. 

THE SHANNARA CHRONICLES PREMIERE

The TV show The Shannara Chronicles that I worked on in NZ last year just premiered tonight! It was wild to watch the full show, how they combined real New Zealand landscape with CGI for the scenery, the special effects and how everything was cut together.

The behind the scenes content that I worked on is now up on the MTV website here and here is a few of my favorite videos we did, if you'd like to see...

See more of the videos here or here (if you're watching from outside the USA). 

More info on my experience working there here too. 

DIKUBU HOMESTAY + THE BEST FOOD IN ULUWATU

After venturing North, it was decided that Uluwatu was our favorite spot in Bali. We headed back and booked the DiKubu Homestay on Airbnb (the photos don't do it justice) and were delighted to find that it included Wayan + Ketut as friendly hosts, cute grandparents, grandkids and dogs running around, a great group of friends to hang out with AND air conditioning. It was the ultimate find in $15 a night accommodation. 

The steps up to our room. 

I'm told there is mail in Bali but I can't say I ever saw a mailman. 

Ketut and Wayan, our lovely hosts at DiKubu. 

This time around, we got into the habit of daily yoga at Morning Light. Scott can touch his toes now and I can do a range of headstands that will certainly make for great party tricks. I also finally had a few girls to surf with. Our surf gang is named the Blue Crush Crew, in case you were wondering.

Wayan and Papa extracting honey from the honeycomb of a fallen bees nest. 

Truly fresh honeycomb. 

Our new friends were  a United Nations of sorts, folks from: Spain, Columbia, Sweden, France, Germany, England and South Africa. 

Vito + Maria. 

View from Single Fin when you're eating a Nalu Bowl. 

We discovered the best food in Uluwatu too:

BLACK ROSE: Outstandingly fresh, delicious and cheap Vietnamese food. Go for the chicken salad ($2.50 USD), stay for the incredibly nice owners. And they serve tiny Dutch pancakes! We went almost every other day. I feel so strongly about this place that I did a (glowing) Trip Advisor review. And I don't do Trip Advisor reviews. 

THE CASHEW TREE: Killer Pitaya bowls. Perfect smoothies. Massive salads. Gorgeous open air set-up. Fast wifi. 

NALU BOWLS: Nalu bowls (smoothie bowls topped with fruit and granola) were my favorite discovery in all of Bali. Get one from the little hut outside Single Fin then enjoy the view over Uluwatu reef. Nothing beats a sunset Nalu bowl. Nothing. 

BUKIT CAFE: Cool (both aesthetically and temperature wise) interior (most places in Bali don't actually have an actual interior -- you're always just entirely or partially outside being baked by the sun) with delicious chia seed puddings. 

LANDS END CAFE: Conveniently situated down the road from Morning Light Yoga and serves French Press coffee which is the closest thing you can get to a good old fashioned, filtered American coffee.  

AYU'S: Giant classic breakfasts (eggs, bacon, toast, fruit bowl) in a brightly colored cafe run by a darling Balinese couple. 

The Cashew Tree.

Breakfast at Ayu's. 

If you visit any of my above recommendations, you'll be eating a lot of fresh, natural good-for-your-body fruits and veggies. If you'd like to undo any of that health... scooter up to the main road and get a sweet MARTABAK (a.k.a. martabak manis or terang bulan). 

Street vendor preparing a Martabak. There's also a fried banana cart nearby, which makes for a perfect amuse-bouche while you're waiting. 

Originating from Yemen, the martabak spread to India and Southeast Asia. It's a doughy, pancake-like cake, made with: butter, sugar, crushed peanuts, condensed milk, chocolate sprinkles and cheese. It sounds wrong but it's so right. AND a dude in a push cart makes them right on the side of the road.

Bali may not have have their infrastructure sorted out quite yet but their epic desserts are on point. 

INTRODUCING: EDITMATE

I'll be back to posting on the regular soon BUT I wanted to tell you that there's been a good reason for the recent radio silence: the launching of EditMate.

The REAL reason why I went to Bali (besides sunshine) was to be able to hunker down and live cheap while Scott and I built an online video editing + post-production service. With his online marketing experience and my video production background, we came up with the concept for EditMate having seen firsthand that growing brands (start-ups, small businesses) have more and more of a need for web and social video but don't have the budgets to hire a traditional production company. That's where EditMate comes in. (You can read the long winded version here.)

In between surfing and eating fried rice we spent 3 months figuring out the workflow, designing the branding, building the website, attempting to translate emails in Japanese from the company that owns editmate.COM (we're settling for the .co in the meantime) and learning lots of other less fun things like SEO, short code and what a dedicated server is. And of course, I edited some videos. 

Bali: Because if you need to stare at computer screen most days you might as well be somewhere that you'll be served dragonfruit chia seed pudding for breakfast...

...and have this as your view during your commute home. All while living on about $1K a month.  

We've officially launched in beta mode here in New Zealand (I'm in New Zealand now! I was also in Australia but more on that later!).  It's an online company, so of course, we can accept a project from anywhere in the world and our Editors are located all over the globe but we're starting to market on the ground here in NZ to test the market. I'm excited. And it's summer here, so that's a plus. 

Check out editmate.co if you're into video or just want to learn how to shoot better video on your phone, DSLR or GoPro. Any spreading of the word will be enormously appreciated. And as it's 2016 (Happy New Year!) we'd adore any likes/follows on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram too. 

I hope your 2016 is off to a marvelous start and expect photos of the rest of Bali, Australia and New Zealand soon. Also thank you (really and truly) for reading my tiny corner of this massive internet. 

THE MOUNTAINS OF NORTHERN BALI

Scootering back down (and up and down, and up and down again) through the mountains of North Bali was a bit of adventure. Google Maps led us up a road that quickly turned into a narrow, rocky, dirt path vertical incline UP the mountain. When our motorbike was unable to make the climb, we got off and pushed. It's tough enough to lug my giant backpack from baggage claim to the taxi curb, so successfully slogging it up the mountain felt like my greatest physical feat to date. And I've run two marathons and attended a Cross Fit class once.  We finally made it to the top and reached the views of the crater lakes. I've never been so relieved to know it was all downhill from there. 

HEADING NORTH TO LOVINA, BALI

After Ubud, we hit the road for a big trip up to the North of Bali.

Within 10 minutes we got a flat tire. Luckily, Bali is the kind of place where you can walk your scooter down the road, mime to the nearest local that you got a flat and for the equivalent of $4 USD he'll whip off his shirt and change it, right then and there. 

After a few hours of driving we got to the top of a mountain and encountered a make-shift strawberry field with a road stop restaurant that only sold all things strawberry. We got a strawberry pizza which sounds wrong but may actually have been the best things I ate in Bali. 

Loaded up with our bags and surfboards, we looked very out of place driving through the (green, lush and chilly!) mountains of northern Bali. Winding through tiny mountain villages (where I'm pretty sure they don't see many tourists), the locals wave from their windows and little kids run outside yelling "Hallo!" excited to see gringos. It was very much like that scene in Beauty and the Beast ("Bonjour! Bonjour!") but with chicken satay instead of baguettes. 

Around Danau Bratan Lake we haggled for beetroot chips at the road side markets and atop the Buyan and Tamblingan crater lakes we dodged road side monkeys. 

Road side monkeys. The one on the left looks like a cute old man while the one on the right is less adorable: showing it's teeth, showing me who's boss.

Global Citizen's Kafe in Lovina. 

View from the deck at Tepe Villa Lux

Once we arrived, we learned Lovina sounds much lovelier than it actually is. However, it was worth it just for the trip through the mountains. And the strawberry pizza. 

AROUND THE INTERNET

An Ubud home temple, all dressed up for a ceremony. 

For me, working on a computer leads to the inevitable: screwing around online. If you happen to run out of internet and need new distractions, here's a few:

If you like Chance the Rapper (you should), Busta Rhymes (he produced it!) or just good music that makes you think of your Grandma while wanting to dance at the same time, you ought to check out this album by Donnie Trumpet. Specifically this song. 

I can't wait to see this and this and this as soon as I'm back in a place that has a proper movie theater or fast enough internet that I can watch them on Popcorn Time, which is like a free version of Netflix. And an absolute god send. 

A video that utilizes video footage, photo stills and sound effects in THE most perfect way. Plus, this dude -- "Somehow we walk through life intellectually knowing the vastness and uselessness of existence... and on a micro-scale, really giving a shit about tiny small things."  The video was created by the fellow who runs Like Knows Like, which is rarely updated anymore but is still one of my favorites. 

After the Paris attacks, the coverage about of ISIS/Daesh seemed a little too black and white, good vs. archaic religious nuts. This article added more context and is worth a read. 

I loved this interview. 

My work-life balance has been in a risky and experimental state of flux for over a year now (more life, less work) so this article was particularly interesting: "Once upon a time, it was taken for granted that the wealthier classes enjoyed a life of leisure on the backs of the proletariat. Today it is people in skilled trades who can most find reasonable hours coupled with good pay; the American professional is among those subject to humiliation and driven like a beast of burden."

Piecaken. WHY IS THIS BEING UNVEILED WHILE I'M ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD. And where are these "underground dessert eating circles"? How does one get involved in such circles?

Yoga in Bali incorporated a little more meditation than usual. I downloaded the Headspace App to keep it up outside of class and it's great. It has beautiful animations and is narrated with a charming British accent. 

My homegirl Jenny started a darling global goods online shop, called Pip's Marche. It's worth checking out for the product descriptions alone and also may be perfect for your holiday shopping list. 

Lastly! I hope everyone had a lovely and piecaken filled Thanksgiving.