Bali

Over Thanksgiving weekend last week I took a trip with my girlfriend, Meg, to Bali, Indonesia. We originally had planned to make a shorter trip to Shanghai or to Okinawa, but everything was very expensive and there were not many flights because it was over a Japan national holiday (Labour Thanksgiving Day, similar to Labor Day). We began searching for other destinations like Vietnam, Taiwan, etc., but then came across a deal for Bali. The only catch is that we wouldn't know our flight schedule until 10-12 days before the trip. We were thinking sunshine, beaches, a place we both had never been to...ok we'll try it. Eventually we lucked out and got direct flights both ways from Tokyo to Denpasar, the main city on Bali island. Some friends were going to join us, too, but the travel agency wouldn't give them the same package deal because neither of them were Japanese. They said in case there was trouble they would need someone who spoke Japanese in order to communicate with them. Anyway, my friend ended up not being able to go, for work reasons.
The flight from Tokyo is about 7 hours there and 6 hours back. We arrived late Tuesday night and made our way to the hotel. The first thing we realized we didn't really think about was the currency. It took us a while to figure out that 10,000 Indonesian Rupiah is equal to about 125 Japanese Yen is equal to about $1.10 US. So it kind of suprises you when you hear a taxi ride is 80,000 or that dinner is 200,000, but eventually you figure out that mostly everything is cheap.
We did not do much at all in Bali other than wake up and have breakfast at the hotel, go to the beach/pool all day, have dinner, and then go back to the hotel. Two nights in a row we had dinner in Jimbaran at the string of seafood restaurants on the beach. The tables are out in the sand facing the water and looking out toward the sunset. Our dinner consisted of barracuda soup, tomato/cucumber/onion salad, rice, potatoes, prawns, clams, crab, choice of fish, and four sauces. The first night we had barracuda, the second night we had grouper. All that plus drinks came to about $20 total. Not for one person, but for two. Not bad.
After four days, we returned back to Tokyo and wintertime has finally hit. On Wednesday night I went to see U2 in concert in Saitama with about 20 people from work. That was the first time for to see them in concert. They played all their hits, except for New Year's Day. There were only a couple songs that I'd never heard.
Cool, I found the set list online (www.u2setlists.com):

11/29/2006 Saitama Super Arena - Saitama, Japan
City Of Blinding Lights, Vertigo / She Loves You (snippet), Elevation, I Will Follow, I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For / In A Little While (snippet), Beautiful Day / Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (snippet) / Blackbird (snippet), Window In The Skies, Walk On / You'll Never Walk Alone (snippet), Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own, Bad / 40 (snippet), Sunday Bloody Sunday / Rock The Casbah (snippet), Bullet The Blue Sky / When Johnny Comes Marching Home (snippet) / The Hands That Built America (snippet), Miss Sarajevo, Pride (In The Name Of Love), Where The Streets Have No Name, One
Encores: The Fly / (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction (snippet), Mysterious Ways, With Or Without You, The Saints Are Coming, Angel Of Harlem, One Tree Hill
Comment: Live debut of Window In The Skies. This is one of three shows scheduled to make up for the postponed show that was planned to take place on 4 April 2006 at Yokohama's Nissan Stadium.

There are a lot of holiday parties in the next few weeks and then I'll be in Texas for Christmas and New Year. Those who are in Houston or Austin, I look forward to seeing you over the holidays.