Saturday, May 19
Farewell and Back to Sanur
Breakfast in the hotel restaurant, saying goodbye to new friends. Met our driver for the hour-and-a-half drive back to Sanur. Couldn’t check into our room for a couple of hours, so went to Bamboo Bar for lunch and drinks, then sat on lounge chairs on the beach, reading, until we thought our room would be ready. The room was one of the renovated rooms, so much better for our needs than the previous room.
At dinnertime, we walked back down to Ari Putri Hotel Restaurant for dinner, but this time got a less-than-stellar waitress. This was our only negative experience in two weeks, so that’s not a bad record!
After dinner, back to the room. We turned on the television for the first time in almost three weeks and watched the royal wedding from London.
Sunday, May 20
Travel to Singapore
Breakfast in the coffee shop again with views of the ocean. Then got our bags, met our driver, and headed to the airport. Two hours of sitting and a two-plus hour flight found us in Singapore again, checking into the beautiful art-centric Rendezvous Hotel Singapore. We got a club-level room and loved every minute of it.
And we loved our dinner with Laura in Trattoria Lafiandra, located in the Singapore Art Museum. I really enjoyed meeting Laura and spending time getting to know her. I hope she’ll let me continue being her honorary auntie anytime I’m lucky enough to visit Singapore again.
Laura walked us the two blocks back to our hotel and we said goodnight, heading up to put the last minute touches on our packing.
Monday, May 21
In the Air Again
We got a great cabbie from the hotel to the Singapore airport. He explained so much to us about the architecture and the fact that there are some roads in Singapore which can act as emergency runways. Love the Singapore cabbies we got!
And so we began our trip home. EVA Airlines, business class, Singapore to Taipei, where we spent two hours in the Alliance lounge; Taipei to San Francisco; pass through immigration, where the agent welcomed us home, and customs, where the agent didn’t charge us for our excess fabric buying. Then we said goodbye as Tina headed to Portland and I went to Chicago and Cleveland. After an interminable drive home with a van driver who refused to exceed the speed limit, I arrived home around noon and took a three-hour nap.
So good to be home after three weeks away!
