This company has some of the most beautiful and simple pieces of design I have seen in a while. Pure and simple. Their design products are sleek... I want the 2UNFOLD bag!
http://shop.hardgraft.com/
Wednesday 13 October 2010
HardGraft
This company has some of the most beautiful and simple pieces of design I have seen in a while. Pure and simple. Their design products are sleek... I want the 2UNFOLD bag!
http://shop.hardgraft.com/
Saturday 2 October 2010
Faust
I went to see "Faust" directed by Silviu Purcarete in Sibiu this summer. I loved everything about it! I hope I will be able to see another play that will be as good. Here's a review I wrote for it for HAUS magazine:
http://hausdigital.com/2010/09/02/faust-hell-and-back/
Monday 27 September 2010
Bali Food. Siam Sally
Siam Sally is the first restaurant we went to in Ubud and we loved it. Its design is amazing and just reading the menu is an instant joy for your taste buds. Siam Sally serves Thai food - as I'm sure you have already guessed from its name. We shared caramelized mushrooms, Pomelo Salad with toasted coconut, peanut and jumbo prawns in roasted chili and Ho Mok Tale, which is New Zealand mussels, squid, prawns and fish with steamed cabbage in a wild ginger and red curry coconut mousse in a steamed banana leaf. The food was delicious and although I was happily full, I squeezed in a coconut ice cream with black sesame seeds and coconut cream as I didn't want to miss out.
Siam Sally doesn't only have brilliant food, its service is also very good and so is the atmosphere. On Saturday nights the restaurant has a jazz band and you can come and have dinner or a drink whilst enjoying the music and looking over the rice paddy fields from across the street.
I'd love to go back again! http://www.baligoodfood.com/siam-sally.asp
As for prices, we ate in two (starter, main, dessert and drinks) for about €25.
Friday 10 September 2010
Sunday 5 September 2010
Ubud
Ubud has been amazing. We were almost about to miss it due to lack of time but I am so happy we did not. We decided to loose one of our flights from Yogya and buy one from Denpasar (Bali) instead. We had a day and a half in Ubud and loved every second of it despite the torrential rain that was hindering us from enjoying it even more.
We walked through the rain to find a hostel and found this place with a magic garden, a forest in itself that was family run. Everyone there directed you to speak to "Mama". Mama is a very nice old lady that takes care of the hostel/B&B and seems to have turned the family into the oppositeof patriarchal. She kindly showed us a room and after a bit of the usual bargaining, we settles for 250000 Rp (25euros) for a triple/night with breakfast, fan and hot water. The bathroom was a bit..say...simplistic but it was quite clean and we enjoyed it there. She did take care of us and bolied Laura rice and served her tea for her upset stomach. Her breakfast was also really good: fruit platter (pinapple, papaya, coconut, melon) and a toastie with egg, peanut butter and chinese cabbage. Strangely enough, the toastie was really good!
Ubud is incredible: it feels stuck in time and at the same time, there are so many things going on. I have never seen as many nice cafes, bars and restaurants as there. I think we could've spent a month just eating and drinking in different places and we would've still found new spots - thought I'd barely eat on the trip, wrong!
I'll later put photos of the food and names of places but till then, a teaser: pomello, chilli and shrimp salad, caramalized mushroom, New Zealad mussles in banana leaf, basil mash, mango mojito....anything you can imagine. For a very good dinner (shared starter, main, drinks and desert) in a gorgeaus place, we payed around 15euros each - just to give you an idea.
There are also a tens (if not hundereds) or art galleries with beautiful Balinese paintings, wood carvings, jewelry... You cannot take your eyes of them! I was dreaming of a house already. You can also visit Monkey Forest which is literally a forest where monkeys freely wonder around. You feel as if civilization has disappeared and monkeys have taken over. I felt as if I was in "Planet of the Apes".
The market was quite disappointing as they were so used to tourists that if you didn't want to buy from them, they'd start yelling at you. However, the shops on Monkey Rd. are very pretty, have a lot of arts and crafts, batik and silk clothing or sarongs, scarfs...You can bargain a lot better there and you know the quality is superior.
The people in Ubud are extremely nice and warm. They are the soul of the place and you can feel it. I would've stayed in Ubud for a lot longer. I would've like to go to the second Jazz concert whilst sipping from a papaya-mango-drink. We were so happy to end our trip in Indonesia with Ubud! It really left us longing for more. We understood the charm of Bali...
We walked through the rain to find a hostel and found this place with a magic garden, a forest in itself that was family run. Everyone there directed you to speak to "Mama". Mama is a very nice old lady that takes care of the hostel/B&B and seems to have turned the family into the oppositeof patriarchal. She kindly showed us a room and after a bit of the usual bargaining, we settles for 250000 Rp (25euros) for a triple/night with breakfast, fan and hot water. The bathroom was a bit..say...simplistic but it was quite clean and we enjoyed it there. She did take care of us and bolied Laura rice and served her tea for her upset stomach. Her breakfast was also really good: fruit platter (pinapple, papaya, coconut, melon) and a toastie with egg, peanut butter and chinese cabbage. Strangely enough, the toastie was really good!
Ubud is incredible: it feels stuck in time and at the same time, there are so many things going on. I have never seen as many nice cafes, bars and restaurants as there. I think we could've spent a month just eating and drinking in different places and we would've still found new spots - thought I'd barely eat on the trip, wrong!
I'll later put photos of the food and names of places but till then, a teaser: pomello, chilli and shrimp salad, caramalized mushroom, New Zealad mussles in banana leaf, basil mash, mango mojito....anything you can imagine. For a very good dinner (shared starter, main, drinks and desert) in a gorgeaus place, we payed around 15euros each - just to give you an idea.
There are also a tens (if not hundereds) or art galleries with beautiful Balinese paintings, wood carvings, jewelry... You cannot take your eyes of them! I was dreaming of a house already. You can also visit Monkey Forest which is literally a forest where monkeys freely wonder around. You feel as if civilization has disappeared and monkeys have taken over. I felt as if I was in "Planet of the Apes".
The market was quite disappointing as they were so used to tourists that if you didn't want to buy from them, they'd start yelling at you. However, the shops on Monkey Rd. are very pretty, have a lot of arts and crafts, batik and silk clothing or sarongs, scarfs...You can bargain a lot better there and you know the quality is superior.
The people in Ubud are extremely nice and warm. They are the soul of the place and you can feel it. I would've stayed in Ubud for a lot longer. I would've like to go to the second Jazz concert whilst sipping from a papaya-mango-drink. We were so happy to end our trip in Indonesia with Ubud! It really left us longing for more. We understood the charm of Bali...
Kuta
Kuta is the party beach in Bali. I imagined it to be exotic, very relaxed, full of surfers, cool cafes and nice restaurants...either chilled or glam. I also thought the nightlife would be amazing. Strangely enough going out felt like going out in Uni. The bad looking clubs with Europe-priced bad cocktails had that top of the charts or worse music and they were the place for drunken Caucasians to mix with local girls who were sadly doing everything they could to get their attention. That aside, Kuta is a nice resort, quite similar to what you'd expect in a very touristy resort - shops with fake bag and wallets, masks and oils, hats, money "changers", nice restaurants (usually about 7-8 euros for dinner). On top of that you get hostels and the people leaving in them and hotels. Also,Bali is known for its Spas and Kuta also has its jewels. We went to one for a really good balinese massage, manicure and pedicure. For the way it looked and the service, half the price in Romania...so a loooot less than in the rest of Europe.
There's not much to say about Kuta. The beach has nothing special about it, except for beginner surfers and Balinese men trying to sell you everything on this Earth. But, there is a tip: Gili's island. We didn't have time to see it but it's supposed to be very nice. A friend who's been going there for 4 years has recommended it.
What's interesting about Bali is the different features they have from Javanese people. They're a lot rounder, softer and have paler skin. They also mostly are Hindu as opposed to mostly Muslim in Java.
Next stop: Ubud. Bali's art city.
There's not much to say about Kuta. The beach has nothing special about it, except for beginner surfers and Balinese men trying to sell you everything on this Earth. But, there is a tip: Gili's island. We didn't have time to see it but it's supposed to be very nice. A friend who's been going there for 4 years has recommended it.
What's interesting about Bali is the different features they have from Javanese people. They're a lot rounder, softer and have paler skin. They also mostly are Hindu as opposed to mostly Muslim in Java.
Next stop: Ubud. Bali's art city.
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