Ballin' time

Sanur
We landed mid-day in Bali, Indonesia, after a tiresome 24 hours of bussing and lay overs. Indonesia, is the fifth most populated country in the world. It is comprised of about 17,000+ different islands that are all south of the equator (yes the toilet water does spin the other way when you flush). Indonesia has the highest Muslim population. We stayed mostly on Bali island where the main religions are Hindu and surfing.
We exchanged some of our Renminbi (Chinese money) to Indonesia's Rupiah which has a comically high number of zeros following each denomination. 1 Us dollar = 12,000 rupiah. It takes about five minutes each time your at an ATM to figure out how much money you're trying to take out, especially when they don't have the commas after every three numbers. If you want to feel real good about your financial standing, you check out your balance inquiry which is given to you using exponential numbers. Upon leaving the airport, we paid the price for ignorance by paying double the fare for our taxi ride to our hostel in Sanur.
For the most part, Adam and I's first three months teaching in China were devoid of other foreigners. Our first interaction with the other guests at our hostel was unpleasant. 35% of tourists that visit Bali are Australian and they are hard to miss (they are remarkably tall) and even harder to ignore (they are hands down the loudest). Bali to Australians is what Cancun is to Americans, it's where they go to party, and in general, be obnoxious. Within ten minutes of walking into our hostel we had an Aussie overload. As we were waiting to check in, a gang of four hooligans (right out a Mad Max movie set) stood shirtless around the common room table, beating their chests at one another and bragging about various indecencies they've done on the trip at megaphone decibel levels. I won't condemn the entire nation/continent based off my skewed and narrow sample I've encountered, so I'll bite my tongue (maybe my thumb) and continue on.
Adam and I stashed our bags and got immediately down to the beach. The Sanur beach is beautiful. No waves for surfing, but clean white sandy shorelines. That night, I got a red snapper off a seaside grill that I'm still licking my lips over. The food can be incredibly cheap and super delicious if you eat a warung, the restaurants where most the locals eat. Beer on the other hand is a bit pricey seeing as how most of Indonesia is Muslim. Cost aside, it sure is nice to have a real beer (Chinese beer is a bit on the watered down side) while residing in a real Shoreview. After a few ice cold Bintangs (the local beer) and several congratulatory slaps on the back for discovering how to live the perfect life, we sprawled out on the beach and got our first real look at stars in five months.
The "hostile" guests ended up checking out the next day and the environment improved considerably. We meet two other English teachers from Wisconsin who just got done in South Korea. Together we watched the Pack fall once again to the 49ers, the only football game I watched of the season. Afterwards, we exchanged some of the drinking games and customs we had learned. The evening ended up going into extra innings as people from other countries joined in and added some of their games to the mix. The next day, we checked out and hopped (more of a crawled really) into a taxi, to Kuta to meet our friend Matt who fortunately had the foresight to bring a camera.