I'm still going full tilt tourist here and making up for lost time. Yesterday a big group of us (doesn't that always make the tourist thing worse!) drove to Kertha Gosa or the "Floating Palace." It was a total bust. Apparently the Palace hasn't floated in over 40 years! We arrived to find a large-ish hut surrounded by a moat of dead, rotting fish (some sections had a small amount of dirty water). I thought it was actually quite funny.

Of course a tour guide inserted himself into our group and began regaling us with tales of Balinese kingdoms long past - at the end of his mostly incoherent speech he stood waiting to be paid. We all chipped in about 5,000 Rp. ($0.70) and he looked really ticked off. It was rather uncomfortable and I was glad when we finally left the sunken palace.

After the "Palace" we took a beautiful, long drive in the mountains and viewed some spectacular cascading rice terraces. It was my favourite tourist activity to date!

Today I (finally!) went to Denpasar to catch a performance at the Bali Arts Festival (aka PKB). We saw the two teen groups (boys and girls) of Cudamani perform. They did great and it was so much fun to be there as part of the group.

A similar thing happened to us the other night when a group of us went to hear the children's gamelan perform Colin's new piece. We were with Michael so all the Balinese composers and judges at the concert instantly recognized him and the whole group received the royal treatment - priority seating (second row!) and on each chair, a little box of "baked goods" (mostly glutinous rice delicacies) and Aqua - bottled water - for us to snack on during the performance.

Meanwhile the standing room only crowd was packed in so tightly they were practically standing on top of one another. I actually felt kind of bad about having the best seats in the house...I'm sure the villagers and parents of the performers would've preferred to be up close - but then again they've probably been going to all of the rehearsals already!

So I think my tourist times are winding down. I'm going to catch the Cudamani kecak rehearsal after I send this blog into cyberspace. Kecak is a type of vocal gamelan performed by a group of men seated in circle - usually there is some choreography as well. In this case the piece is very modern and they are working with a group of Indian dancers. Very cool...this will be my first time catching the rehearsal with the dancers who just arrived a few days ago.

No rehearsal today!!! And I'm not sick :) Last night's rehearsal went well, though, and we've started learning the second-to-last section of Michael's piece. I can't wait until it is complete and we can get into the 'polishing up' stage of things. Our performance at PKB is July 10th.

Hope you're all well...drop me a line if you've got a spare minute. Ciao, R.

P.S. I've booked myself into a swank new homestay in Pengosekan. I will be closer to everything - rehearsals, restaurants, spas (!), etc. I'm moving in on Thursday - only two more cockroachy sleeps to go!