Day 16: Singaraja

Today was pretty standard, except that I went to the doctor during lunch! I went because my hearing has been a bit muffled for the last week after that night of intense ear pain, so we thought maybe that’d be something to check out.

I was taken by one of the Balinese teachers who is helping with our class. We went outside, and she told me that we would drive there, when I asked if it was far, she said no, but that we’d take her car anyway. We then drove literally a quarter of a mile? It would be like Dav A to the entrance to the Columbus Garage. This is actually a trend I’ve noticed is quite common here, no one walks anywhere. Now due to the heat I can kind of understand this, but even so just to go around the corner people hop on their motorbikes. This probably doesn’t help us conspicuous Americans blend in, because we are the only ones walking around Singaraja.

Anyway, when the doctor came, he had me lie down, took my temperature under my arm, measured my blood pressure and pulse, asked me if I was allergic to any meds, briefly glanced down my throat and then proclaimed he’d give me some medicine. Didn’t even look in my ear! I was a bit perturbed, but I guess I’ll take the meds and cough syrup he gave me, and hopefully I’ll beat this illness soon, and when it goes the ear troubles will to. We shall see.

After that we had a very brief afternoon class and then were let out early! This was way more exciting than it should be, but Alessia, Nina, Erica and I decided we’d explore Hardy’s, a superstore we’d been hearing good things about. Once we got there we looked around at the food, clothing, kitchenware, etc. that was available and after an hour or so made our purchases and left. I always love looking in superstores in other countries, because the things you see are always interesting. They had a whole sarong section, as well as one for the traditional Batik shirts, and rice cookers made up their own area in kitchenware. All in all my purchases cost $4.22, and that was for some beach food, a container for my Trader Joe’s trail mix that I’m going to break open soon, and a bunch of food for the beach tomorrow. Not too bad, huh?

Tonight I think the Balinese in our group are going to come over so we can go out to eat and hang out. It will be cool to learn from them where the best places in town are, and also I hope we can talk a bit more than we get to in class.

Lessons Learned:

When you choose your fruit they will weigh, bag and price it for you at the fruit section. My apple cost $0.54!

Some things just don’t translate, Erica and I were reading the shirts in Hardy’s and a few of them were in English, yet the English just made no sense. One loudly proclaimed EROTIC! And then had some jumbled sentence I can’t recall around it.