The first post!

Alright.
So we are here... been in Bali one week.

And finally getting the blog started.

I'm going to start where we are today, and then
work backwards a bit, to cover the last two weeks.
Starting with China, and then with our arrival here last Friday.

Many of you have asked about our film we shot in China...
"Digging." It will soon be out. Hope to have a link to
it in the next post... maybe by Monday or Tuesday.
Might be our best film yet (certainly the longest)...

But let's start with today.
I'm sitting in our amazing house just outside of Ubud, in
South Central Bali. The internet connection is a bit
wonky, hoping to upgrade soon, but not bad.
Here's a google maps link to where we live.
The blue dot is our yard.


Here's what the house looks like.

Our house in Bali.

Click on the picture to go to a Web Album with more pictures.

The house belongs to Lawrence Blair, who has
lived in Bali for about 35 years. Here's a link to him. Very interesting guy.


The good:
the house is beautiful, all made of wood, which
is unusual here. The wood is 150 years old and was brought
from Java about 15 years ago... it was a rice granary.
Anyways, there's lots of space,
there is a huge yard, an amazing pool,
super comfortable beds, a nice kitchen...
basically the kids couldn't believe their luck
when we arrived. We couldn't either.
It's also right next to about 2 km's of never
ending rice paddies which are fun to walk in.
Right out the back door.

The strange:
We have staff. A lot of staff.
There's Nyoman, who, well, you pretty much have to call a maid.
She's worked here since the house was built 15 years ago, and knows it inside out.
There's a head gardener and an assistant. Both called Wayan.
One of them comes everyday.
There is a pool guy - Agun Alit - who comes and cleans the pool every morning.
And... there are two guys from Java who built the house
and also did the renovations the past year to get the house
ready for us... Johnny and Tukur, and they right now are living
in the small staff quarters in a corner of the property. Crazy.

(We're trying to figure out what to do about driving...
looks like we'll have a plan soon, but the driving is another
entry in and of itself and we'll get to that soon).

The not so good:
Rats. They come at night.
Janet's seen a few in the kitchen.
Everyone has them in Bali.
We make sure we put all
our food away... they are a bit
smaller than the sewer rats you
might come across in Canada. We
try to think of them as large mice.
Oh well.

The traffic... challenging to get around
Ubud right now because it's high season
for tourism. So lots of traffic. We are told it
will calm down in September. Looking
forward to that.

Okay so that's enough for now...
upcoming entries will cover:
Our one week stop in Beijing (and a film we finished there).
A film we made on Savary Island, BC.
The kids school here (pretty cool)
Our new dog Bene.
Driving in Bali.

If you find any of these topics uninteresting,
let me know and I won't write about them.

All for now.

P