No trip to Bali is complete without a trip to the beach. Or so I say now :D. I was never a fan of the beach, and so even when we go to Bali, I'd avoid the beach. Personal preference really, I think the beach is too hot, the sand gets sticky, the air is too humid, I just feel my skin is melting off of me whenever I go there :D.
Anyways, this trip though, was in December, the weather was nice, the air was cool, the sun was not too strong, which means I did not have any excuse for not going to the beach. But I guess it was a good thing, as my family really loves the beach as it turns out.
Look at them enjoying, with my husband's undies hanging out (he's not gonna be happy with this haha, oh well).
Before this trip, I heard a friend of mine said that she took her kids to the beach in Uluwatu, because it's prettier and cleaner there, not to mention less crowded. But, I wasn't sure which beach she was talking about. So, we just typed in 'Uluwatu Beach' on the GPS, and went wherever the thing took us. We went on a limb thinking that even if we don't find the place we wanted to go to, at least it'll take us to a beach somewhere, any beach will be fine. This is Bali after all.
Well, it did a great job of taking us to Uluwatu, but not the beach itself. So we asked around, and in the end, we accidentally found this small, pristine, charming beach called Padang-Padang beach.
But the walk to get there was quite a son of a hamster though. We had to climb up some flight of stairs, and then climb back down to finally get to the beach (it was all a blur to me somehow). The steps were quite steep, so you have to be mentally prepared and always watch your steps. In Indonesia, the name 'tangga aborsi' (literally means abortion steps, for obvious reasons) would be quite fitting for this place.
I was never a fit person to begin with, so for me this was like the workout of the year. If there's a quota for climbing stairs, it was met right here.
Mid way, I lost my breath, my thighs and head were throbbing, but I was too embarrassed to say truthfully that I needed time out, so I asked Jourdan to take a picture here, at least it gave me time to compose myself, and avoid throwing up my lunch.
As you can see from my strained expression, and the wild glare in my eyes, I was seriously out of breath. Fuuh. But the view was pretty breath taking by itself though.
In the end, it was worth the walk, sweat and tears (and the muscle relaxant afterwards), we all enjoyed our beach time. I didn't swim, but I got to relax and enjoy myself comfortably lying down by the beach, to do some people watching (there were pretty interesting characters to observe), reading the novel I had in my gadget, snoozing lightly, it was a great day.
The beach was clean, different from other well known beaches that I have visited. So it was enjoyable. There were rest rooms where you could take showers in too, but you have to pay around IDR 5,000 (around SGD 0.5), worth it if you're not planning to go straight to your hotel after that.
It was not crowded, maybe because the school holiday had not started yet? I don't know. It was a relaxing experience overall. I'd definitely recommend you come here if you ever find yourself in Bali.
After a visit to the beach, we were feeling refreshed and famished. So, we decided to go to town to find something simple yet delicious to eat. I had my eye on this particular fast food chain called Hoka Hoka Bento. The name sounds Japanese, but this 'Japanese' fast food chain originated in Indonesia, with the entire ownership, and cooks being Indonesian, without any Japanese involvement whatsoever. Started in 1985, Hoka Hoka Bento, or lovingly called Hokben, has blossomed into a thriving business with 141 outlets spanning from Jawa (Java) and Bali. Other than KFC, this is my favorite food chain in Indonesia, I would always find the time to come here.
Hokben serves various typical Japanese fast food (read: deep fried goodies) that are mostly crowd-pleasers like chicken katsu, chicken egg roll, ebi furai, kani roll, shrimp roll, beef teriyaki, chicken yakiniku, etc. They are also halal certified, yeay!
So the way they serve their food is high school cafeteria style, where you move along the line with your tray of food. You select what you want either by pointing at the menu on the boards or pointing directly at the food display right in front of you. They have fantastic selections of set meals too, very economical.
The following are what I ate that night (I didn't take any pictures of what Jourdan and Naylla ate unfortunately):
This one is called spicy chicken, my number one favorite here. It is slightly spicy with the heat coming from dried ground chili I suspect. The cut is made out of chicken chunks that they shape together and cut into uniform pieces, when you bite into it, it tasted juicy, tender and slightly spicy that it was still very enjoyable.
This is the shrimp roll, the filling is ground shrimp mixed with other ingredients which I have no clue what is included, but who cares, they taste fantastic. The ground shrimp mixture is first rolled in a thin layer of fried egg crepe then wrapped with the spring roll wrap then dipped in batter and then deep fried. Heavenly. This is Jourdan's personal favorite, next to the beef yakiniku.
All dishes come with their side of salad; coleslaw with pickled carrots, which tastes awesome with rice. One thing that I love about eating here is the spicy chili sauce they have, it is only slightly garlicky, with a sweet finish. Yum yum yum! I have not found a chili sauce like it outside Indonesia.
I also ordered shrimp balls soup. Yes yes I ate all this myself. But, they go down so easy you know, it's not my fault that they taste so good.
These shrimp balls, I'm guessing, are made with ground shrimp, ground chicken, garlic and carrots. How do I know this? Because, I've tried making some at home with the above ingredients, and they taste very similar :D. These were juicy, bouncy and tender. My mother's favorite. Hokben is everyone's favorite fast food!
For everything I ordered I spent about SGD 20.00, isn't that fantastic?! One of the beauties of eating in Indonesia haha.
This is the video I made, if you'd care to enjoy, I hope you do :):
Finding halal food in Bali can be a bit tricky, but fast food are mostly a safe bet as most of them are halal certified.
Your other options are places like Warung Ijo which I also visited and discussed here. Another halal eating place is coming up on my next post though, so that's something to look forward to :D.
Well, thanks for tuning in, I hope this has been informative or at least fun to read. See you on my next post!
More information about Padang Padang Beach:
Padang padang beach
Pecatu, South Kuta
Badung Regency
Bali, Indonesia 80361
More information about Hokben:
http://www.hokben.co.id/
Jl. Teuku Umar no. 52
Denpasar, Bali
Operation hour: 10.00 am - 10.00 pm
Anyways, this trip though, was in December, the weather was nice, the air was cool, the sun was not too strong, which means I did not have any excuse for not going to the beach. But I guess it was a good thing, as my family really loves the beach as it turns out.
Look at them enjoying, with my husband's undies hanging out (he's not gonna be happy with this haha, oh well).
Before this trip, I heard a friend of mine said that she took her kids to the beach in Uluwatu, because it's prettier and cleaner there, not to mention less crowded. But, I wasn't sure which beach she was talking about. So, we just typed in 'Uluwatu Beach' on the GPS, and went wherever the thing took us. We went on a limb thinking that even if we don't find the place we wanted to go to, at least it'll take us to a beach somewhere, any beach will be fine. This is Bali after all.
Well, it did a great job of taking us to Uluwatu, but not the beach itself. So we asked around, and in the end, we accidentally found this small, pristine, charming beach called Padang-Padang beach.
But the walk to get there was quite a son of a hamster though. We had to climb up some flight of stairs, and then climb back down to finally get to the beach (it was all a blur to me somehow). The steps were quite steep, so you have to be mentally prepared and always watch your steps. In Indonesia, the name 'tangga aborsi' (literally means abortion steps, for obvious reasons) would be quite fitting for this place.
I was never a fit person to begin with, so for me this was like the workout of the year. If there's a quota for climbing stairs, it was met right here.
Mid way, I lost my breath, my thighs and head were throbbing, but I was too embarrassed to say truthfully that I needed time out, so I asked Jourdan to take a picture here, at least it gave me time to compose myself, and avoid throwing up my lunch.
As you can see from my strained expression, and the wild glare in my eyes, I was seriously out of breath. Fuuh. But the view was pretty breath taking by itself though.
In the end, it was worth the walk, sweat and tears (and the muscle relaxant afterwards), we all enjoyed our beach time. I didn't swim, but I got to relax and enjoy myself comfortably lying down by the beach, to do some people watching (there were pretty interesting characters to observe), reading the novel I had in my gadget, snoozing lightly, it was a great day.
The beach was clean, different from other well known beaches that I have visited. So it was enjoyable. There were rest rooms where you could take showers in too, but you have to pay around IDR 5,000 (around SGD 0.5), worth it if you're not planning to go straight to your hotel after that.
It was not crowded, maybe because the school holiday had not started yet? I don't know. It was a relaxing experience overall. I'd definitely recommend you come here if you ever find yourself in Bali.
After a visit to the beach, we were feeling refreshed and famished. So, we decided to go to town to find something simple yet delicious to eat. I had my eye on this particular fast food chain called Hoka Hoka Bento. The name sounds Japanese, but this 'Japanese' fast food chain originated in Indonesia, with the entire ownership, and cooks being Indonesian, without any Japanese involvement whatsoever. Started in 1985, Hoka Hoka Bento, or lovingly called Hokben, has blossomed into a thriving business with 141 outlets spanning from Jawa (Java) and Bali. Other than KFC, this is my favorite food chain in Indonesia, I would always find the time to come here.
Hokben serves various typical Japanese fast food (read: deep fried goodies) that are mostly crowd-pleasers like chicken katsu, chicken egg roll, ebi furai, kani roll, shrimp roll, beef teriyaki, chicken yakiniku, etc. They are also halal certified, yeay!
So the way they serve their food is high school cafeteria style, where you move along the line with your tray of food. You select what you want either by pointing at the menu on the boards or pointing directly at the food display right in front of you. They have fantastic selections of set meals too, very economical.
The following are what I ate that night (I didn't take any pictures of what Jourdan and Naylla ate unfortunately):
This one is called spicy chicken, my number one favorite here. It is slightly spicy with the heat coming from dried ground chili I suspect. The cut is made out of chicken chunks that they shape together and cut into uniform pieces, when you bite into it, it tasted juicy, tender and slightly spicy that it was still very enjoyable.
This is chicken egg roll, Naylla's favorite. It contains ground chicken mixed with spices and other ingredients wrapped in a spring roll like wrapping. The outside is soft with crispy edges and the taste is similar to that of chicken meatloaf, full of flavor and very savory. Yumm.
All dishes come with their side of salad; coleslaw with pickled carrots, which tastes awesome with rice. One thing that I love about eating here is the spicy chili sauce they have, it is only slightly garlicky, with a sweet finish. Yum yum yum! I have not found a chili sauce like it outside Indonesia.
I also ordered shrimp balls soup. Yes yes I ate all this myself. But, they go down so easy you know, it's not my fault that they taste so good.
These shrimp balls, I'm guessing, are made with ground shrimp, ground chicken, garlic and carrots. How do I know this? Because, I've tried making some at home with the above ingredients, and they taste very similar :D. These were juicy, bouncy and tender. My mother's favorite. Hokben is everyone's favorite fast food!
For everything I ordered I spent about SGD 20.00, isn't that fantastic?! One of the beauties of eating in Indonesia haha.
This is the video I made, if you'd care to enjoy, I hope you do :):
Finding halal food in Bali can be a bit tricky, but fast food are mostly a safe bet as most of them are halal certified.
Your other options are places like Warung Ijo which I also visited and discussed here. Another halal eating place is coming up on my next post though, so that's something to look forward to :D.
Well, thanks for tuning in, I hope this has been informative or at least fun to read. See you on my next post!
More information about Padang Padang Beach:
Padang padang beach
Pecatu, South Kuta
Badung Regency
Bali, Indonesia 80361
More information about Hokben:
http://www.hokben.co.id/
Jl. Teuku Umar no. 52
Denpasar, Bali
Operation hour: 10.00 am - 10.00 pm
Wah aku baru baca nih kak.. Pantai Uluwatu itu kalo ga salah namanya Suluban atau Blue Point beach. Jadi pengen balik ke bali lagi hehee
ReplyDeleteIya kita ada ke blue point beach, tapi kata mas parkirnya itu lebih cocok bagi yang suka surfing, jadilah kita balik arah hehehe. Bareng doong kalau kesana ya :)
Delete