Kuta and Ubud

My stay in Kuta was a hectic mess for the most part and Ubud wasn't a whole lot better. I'm not saying it was bad, it was just very chaotic. When we arrived in Kuta at around noon we hunted out a hotel without too much difficulty.
After we got kinda settled we headed over to Water Bom. Water Bom is a nice water park in Kuta- about a 15 minute walk from our hotel off of Legian Street. It is one of the best in Southeast Asia anyways. There were plenty of water slides there, my favourite being the drop-floor-slide and the runner up being the very-steep-almost-straight-down-slide. The drop-floor-slide had a capsule that you stand in, 3-2-1 and there goes the floor from underneath you. You get sent down a very steep chute and then whirled around in an upside-down-loop-thingy. You have to be a certain weight to go on this slide or else you will get stuck in the loop. I was just over the required weight so both times I did the slide I could feel myself slow down and nearly get stuck. The very-steep-almost-straight-down-slide was also fun but not nearly as fun as the one I just described. It was pretty much just a slide that went straight down(not literally).
After a good few hours at Water Bom we left and wandered around Kuta looking for a cheap bathing suit, because my old one was thrashed. Easier said than done, it ended up using most of our time in Kuta! At the end of all our shopping in Kuta I came out with 2 bathing suits and a really nice Surfer Girl backpack. Surfer Girl is a cool girls surf shop with nice apparel and accessories. I don't surf at all but some of the stuff is purdy and not too surf related. The backpack cost me $40 (haha I'm going to run out of money!) but I'm glad I bought it.

For dinner we looked and looked for an old restaurant we had been at 3 years ago in Kuta and we finally found it! Wow it sure paid off, we got AMAZING thin crust pizza. I think it was one of the best meals of this trip so far!
We only stayed in Kuta for one night but that was definitely good enough for me. Boy, it was loud that night. We stayed on a side-road off of Legian Street but that wasn't really far enough away for a quiet night. Legian Street has good shopping but also has plenty of noisy night clubs that keep the music pounding all night. Wouldn't recommend staying there if you have to get up early the next morning!
We took the 1:30pm Perama shuttle up to Ubud the next day to meet some friends and do some shopping. On our day of arrival we checked in to the hotel, wandered around, checked out the market and ate at the amazing Dewa Warung. First of all we dropped our packs and checked into the same hotel we stayed at when we were in Ubud 3 years ago. Then we went and grabbed a quick bite from our favourite restaurant in Ubud, Dewa Warung. Mmmmmmmm, it was so tasty! Potato cakes were ordered all round and not a crumb was left from any of us. The potato cake consisted of grated potato fried up and served with tomato and cucumber on top. It is really nice to be able to go back to some places a few years later and see that they haven't changed for the worse.
I remember the market being big but it is HUGE now! It seems to have sprawled out even further than before. It is jammed full of the usual souvenir vendors selling pretty much the same thing at every stall. I bought a sarong, a Bintang singlet, an oil burner and a ceramic happy face.

We mailed a parcel, met Scott and Donna (my Dad's friend from school and his wife) at Dewa Warung and did a bit more shopping before heading to the airport and flying to Alor via Kupang.