My first footstep in Bali.....

The workshop started at 3pm, and I had nothing much to do in the hotel. The hotel was kinda empty and I was no where near a beach. Hence, no hot babes to see.... *ahem*

Well, there is a village nearby the resort, and there is a nice paddy field just outside the resort. Why not I just took a "morning" walk to refresh myself after soooo many days sitting in the office without any exercise; I need to stretch my body, and I regretted doing that. LOL. Why ? Well, wait till the end of this post lar. LOL

It was the harvesting session. The villagers were busying harvesting the paddy and they don't seem to camera and tourist shy. Everyone smiled to me and said :"Jalan-jalan ?" And I just smiled back said:"Ya, jalan-jalan."

Sound nice, right?

Of course I did not "jalan - jalan" in the paddy field only. From the brochure of the hotel, there is a temple somewhere further into the village after the paddy field, and it is a 5km walk. I saw I still had time, so, I just walked lar. It was 9.30am in the morning, and the weather was nice and cooling. Before departed to the village, a friendly resort PR advised me to apply some sunscreen lotion so not to get myself burned up. Well, it's 9.30am in the morning, do I need one ?

Yes, I did. LOL. The sun was super friendly to me and I regretted not to apply the sunscreen. And by the time I regretted, I was almost half way to the temple. Going back empty handed was not my type, so I continue my journey lar.

Along the way there were the locals minding their own business. The girls were preparing to go to school, and one of their younger brother (I think) was bathing in the man-made channel just on the camera right, out of the frame. Simple life and happy life...... The girls thought I am a Japanese. *fainted* Hmm... do I look like a Japanese ?

Then I came to a dam made to irrigate the paddy field. What I saw shocked me: a man was squatting in the water doing his "business"!! And the water flows to the same channel as the bathing boy I mentioned earlier.....

After the dam, turned left to a small path, and I reached this temple.

It was a 30 minutes walk from the resort. I entered my very first Balinese temple. It's the Empul Kuning temple if I recalled the name correctly. I had read much about Balinese religion, and I do understand Balinese practices Hindusm. But what I saw in front of me is not a typical Hindu temple as I see in Malaysia. I started to question myself: am I sure I'm entering a temple ?

It's so "un-Hindu" so to put. Nothing look familiar to my eyes, and I was kinda lost in the house of Gods.....

And I do not recognise the feature of this statue. It doesn't look "Hindu" to me. Only after 2 days trip in Bali, I understand that the Balinese has assimilated the Hindusm religion into their culture.

Kite flying ! I never had a chance to fly a kite. Shame of me......
Indeed the life in Bali is relaxing.

I didn't stay long. I left the temple so to catch the bus that would bring us to our lunch in the town. And yes, it's a 30 minutes walk again.

After the lunch, our workshop started 3 pm sharp in the resort. A round table introduction was carried out, and I'm the one who has the least photographic experience. LOL.

Then a short introduction from Abbas, and he shared with us some of his experience on making a story from a series of photos.

Sneak peek workshop in progress.

Yup, that's my super old laptop in the foreground of the pic above. And I was installing the Sony software. LOL. We needed to shoot our photos in RAW format, and I didn't install the software in my laptop. And I was worry; my old laptop may not able process the raw files fast enough for the workshop. I prayed hard hard hope everything will be ok.....

Then we need to show our portfolio. Spontanously, I quickly downloaded some of my photos from my blog as portfolio lah.

And Abbas comment was: everyone takes nice pictures, and all of us are photographers. LOL. Well, quite a diplomatic comment I would say.

Then followed by a Q&A session before our dinner.





A cultural show entertained us while we were having our dinner. Nice dinner, nice show, happy day, although I sweated like hell in the morning..... LOL