Lovina to Ubud

We were so sad to leave our villa. The staff was amazing, the view was amazing, we had an amazing time!  Jon, our savior, brought us to Ubud, with a few stops first.

When we drove to Lovina, after the water temple, there were these lookouts, way above the second and third lakes we passed that I wanted to stop at. Since Jon used the shortcuts, they were on our way!  We did a selfie spot first. I don't know fully that I would have chosen this on my own, but it was cute and fun. Then we had some coffee/tea at one of the lookouts and chilled out.  That was nice.

We then stopped for some more babi guling. Both times we paid for our driver as well!  Our other stops were kind of out of the way, which we didnt know; one for gold/silver and the other for painting. The driver was pretty convinced we should stop. I imagine it's a kick back situation, but we don't really do fine art and I happened to find a pendant of a lotus at the silver shop.

We got to the hotel, after a mixup in directions(hotels.com listed it as the street name and not number so it just sent us to the middle of the street)!  It was super nice. We had the welcome drink and started to relax.

Too much. We knew that our plans in Ubud would include Mozaic, a 6 or 8 course french dining that would normally be so out of our price range if in the US. This type of place in Bali still way out of the norm, but will not literally break the bank.  And it's our honeymoon? 

So our logic was, we will book it the first night we are there so that we have a place to go to. Tons of logic. But, as our transport to the hotel was much longer than we predicted and we didnt know how to get there(it was like 1 mile away on the map but wound up being 20 minutes with the way the roads are and traffic) we wound up being a little tight with time. We needed transport. We tried the local Uber, which we had tried out earlier and even though it allowed us to order, it then popped up that they were too busy. So, scrambling, we hit up the transit through the hotel, doubling the price. They are able to get someone and we arrive with seconds to spare.

We are brought past a dining room, and a garden into a workshop. There is one other table filled and 9 tables total. I start to feel overwhelmed. Than i look into all that we are ordering and stupidly do the conversion. I knew it would be more than we had been eating and more than a normal meal in the states but I wasnt quite prepared for it.  I fell silent, needed to gain my bearings better. It felt stuffy, pretentious. The french manager announced it was open concept and that we could go up to the chefs at any time. What if the food wasn't the quality they were saying it was?  What if it was all bullshit?  So many questions, so uncomfortable.

I calmed down around course 3 or 4. It was super interesting, I will give them that. And nothing was bad. The worst things were still just ok. And Joe was in heaven. Overall, I'm super glad we did it and hope we don't do something lile that, especially in the rushed manner in which we did, for a very long time.