My Random Life

Greetings from Seminyak, Bali. Another working hard on our online businesses. The weather is rather overcast again today - pretty standard really as it is the rainy season. It is around 31 degrees today with 80% humidity. Still way cooler than Melbourne - who would have thought it? So Peter and I are off to bowling this afternoon at Kuta Paradiso Bowling & Billiard Center . Peter is looking forward to beating me again! Will tell you the scores tomorrow! Peter is going for 150+ today - that was his highest score last time - he aims to improve. Peter keeps on at me to blog about the earthquake tremor we had last week - I keep forgetting. Don't worry mum it was a small tremor only - details were 4.9 mag earthquake strikes South of Bali, 175 km (110 miles) SW of Mataram, Lombok, Indonesia on 20 January 2009. I was working on my computer in the bedroom and my chair started shaking and I thought Peter had crept up behind me and was shaking the chair but it was only an earthquake - th...

Greetings from Seminyak, Bali. Sorry for not blogging for a couple of days - my ankle was playing up after Pilates on Tuesday so Wednesday just couldn't be bothered to blog - oh the tragedy! Yesterday was just too busy - went to Pilates in the morning at 10am - was a super session - only 3 in the class today and boy was it a tough one! For something so low impact it is totally awesome how many muscles you use! I am sure I am using muscles that have not worked for decades - well at least it feels that way today - ha ha. So feeling a little muscle sore today to put it mildly - but fantastic all the same - I love being able to do Pilates 3 times a week and I must say they have turned out to be the best classes I have ever attended. Brooke is my trainer and she is awesome - she is here from Canada for 12 months with her husband - who also happens to be in the fitness area and is working for a gym at a large hotel - cannot remember the name though. She is very very good and so very very...

Greetings from Seminyak, Bali. It is very overcast today, a bit like yesterday. It did rain a little last night but as we expected - it was very very dark clouds and lightening but no real rain. Today is supposed to reach a top of 29degrees with 91% humidity. Yesterday was another slow day just working on our online businesses - things are going well - learning lots of new things and starting to implement these to get up and running. It is great to have the freedom to spend all day researching and creating - without a normal 9 to 5 job getting in the way! Have been reading this book To Hell in High Heels by Helen Firth Powell and just finished it last night. It is quite funny - the tag line of the book is How To Age Gracefully, Disgracefully - Or Not At All! It is basically about her travels over a year to find out the best anti-ageing methods around the world - so you can see why I would be reading it - at age 45 it would be nice to age gracefully but I think I will go for the disgra...

Greetings from Seminyak, Bali. It was funny weatherwise here yesterday, it looked like it was going to rain all day but never did. But it was quite hot. My ankle is still a little swollen so did not get out and about much - just down to the pool and then out to dinner. We finally found that restaurant we were after the other day - Cafe Tahu - it is not a vegetarian restaurant but they make their own tofu and everything has tofu in it. So it was funny when we got there - there were no other westerners there - it is obviously just a local restaurant for Indonesians as the entire menu was in Indonesia and the waiter did not really speak much English - so it was a challenge to make sure we got meals that were vegetarian. One of the meals ended up having some kind of rice cake with prawns in it sitting on top but that was easy to discard. But the food was very very tasty - very Indonesian - so not toned down for Western palates as so much of the food here is. And the best thing was that t...

Greetings from Seminyak, Bali Lovely day today although a bit hazy. It was very very overcast all day yesterday and there was lots of thunder but no storm came - so a bit weird. Today looks nice so far. Yesterday was just another day with my ankle propped up in bed while I worked on my laptop. The swelling has gone down considerably today - so maybe just another couple of ice packs and it should be fine tomorrow. So we watched Frost/Nixon last night - it was an incredible story and the movie was fantastic - who would think they could make such an exciting movie on what is basically a movie about a set of interviews with Nixon. I must admit I did not know too much about the early David Frost and it was quite interesting - had no idea he had a couple of shows in Australia at the time and that he basically paid for the whole Nixon thing because the networks would not have anything to do with it. I would totally recommend it to anybody wanting to watch a film that makes you think but al...

Greetings from Seminyak, Bali. Yesterday was a very hot day here - reached about 31 degrees but the sun was hot I can tell you. Spent a couple of hours by the pool and got a bit of colour. Earlier we went for a coffee - get tired of the instant stuff. So ordered a large flat white and got a cappuccino instead - but hey we're in Bali and it was awesome anyway. Also had a toasted tomato and avocado sandwich and it came with skinny fries - what more can you ask for??? Ha Ha. Peter was being decadent and had banana pancakes WITH icecream - Sharon are you jealous? So it was a very slow relaxing day except last night we decided to go down to the 7-Eleven and get an ice cream to eat while watching a dvd and I fell off the footpath and twisted my ankle quite badly - so had to hobble back to the hotel - luckily on the way back from getting the icecreams - ha ha. So Peter had to run around getting icepacks for me to stop the swelling - so no Pilates for me today unfortunately but hopefully ...

Wow it's Friday - yeaaa. Oh what am I saying every day is like Friday to me - ha ha ha. Pretty slow day yesterday, just went to pilates in the morning and then took a walk down to Marzano's again for dinner. Had the mushroom pizza again but this time with extra mushrooms. How good is that. Watched The Mist last night - what a full on movie! Really good, and creepy! I would recommend it to anyone who likes a creepy horror film that is not silly. Well I am just about to go have a shower then head down to the pool for a while. Take care all. Julie Franke

Hello All Well another lovely day - it is quite hot today - supposed to be 26degrees but feels much hotter. Just got back from pilates - great class - my body is still not sure what is going on - but getting better! ha ha.... Yesterday we decided to try a tiny vegetarian place that specialises in mock meats but it was closed when we got there so decided to look for another vegetarian place down Jalan Laksamana - but we couldn't find it. So we decided to just get out of the taxi and take a walk and see what kind of food took our fancy. We ended up at a place called Gusto Tapas Bar on Jalan Laksamana - Oberoi. It was pretty awesome - really nice decor - quite dark but very open and great music and atmosphere. We had a typical tapas meal - lots of little things - all amazing. They had Crunchy Mushrooms which were really fresh and funnily enough crunchy coating - a real must! Also had Spanish Olives, Manchego Salad, Potato Bravas and something called Crispy Surprise - which was button ...

Hello again Well another day in paradise - never get tired of that line! It was a pretty slow day yesterday. Stayed inside and worked on our internet businesses for most of the day. Had to venture out to take our laundry to get done and then spent a couple of hours down by the pool. It was quite hot yesterday afternoon - so did not spend too much there - don't want to get too sunburnt. At New Year went snorkelling for the day and got quite sunburnt and I am just peeling now - not something I want to repeat. Last night just had a salad for dinner then watched the first three episodes of Extras - that Ricky Gervais series - very very funny in a dark way. Well worth watching for those that like their comedy a little bit left of centre. Take care Julie

Hi All Another day in paradise! Today has been quite beautiful - a nice 28 degrees and very sunny - although a few clouds are passing by my window now. Pilates yesterday was awesome! I book group classes (no more than 4 at a time) and everybody else cancelled so I had my own private class. It was a great workout - my body is going aarghhh today but loving it! After pilates did a bit of online business then went to the pool around 3pm - stayed there until around 5pm then went out to the beach out front and had a few bintangs watching the sunset. As you may know I am not much of a beer drinker so got a sprite and just poured a little beer into it - such a woos I know! Then we came back to the apartment to shower and change before going out to dinner. I noticed a fabulous looking Italian restaurant just down the road coming back from pilates so we decided to give it a try. It was a short 5 minute stroll to get there - it was called Cafe Marzano ( on the corner of Jalan Double 6 and the s...

Hi All It has taken me a while to drag myself away from the pool and relaxing to get my blog up and running but I am up and running now. Today is around 27 degrees but not much of a breeze. I have my laptop set up in the bedroom and we leave the airconditioning off and just open the window - so really rely on the breeze. The view out of the window is of the hotel next door (Kumala Pantai) and a new block of rooms they are building - can be quite amusing listening and watching the local workers. They pretty much work 7 days a week - incredible. Above the new building though we can see palm trees so that is nice. Hard to believe that we left Australia 4 weeks and 2 days ago! Time has gone so quickly. Today I am going to work a bit on my internet businesses then off to Pilates at 11am. It is less than 10 minutes drive away so very easy to get to. It is the only reformer pilates place in Bali that I can tell - it is quite good. They have all the reformer machines and also do mat classes -...