Ladies, I have a surfer at home!!! I’m so proud of Sofia. She never stops to amaze me with her adventure spirit, braveness, and strength.
Apparently Bali is famous for surfing which I didn’t know but got to realize once we saw the waves, big, strong, no stop waves. It’s really not a place for snorkeling like the beaches in the Philippines but perfect for surfing. I never tried it myself as I’m not as comfortable as open water. But Sofia is up for the adventure. So on our last day in Seminyak, I booked a surfing lessons for her. It took me a while to find a reliable school, instead of those vendors on the beach. As soon as we got there I felt assured that Sofia will be taken care of. The lesson was 2 hours starting with some theory (15 mins). Then the coach took her to the ocean, and another life guard waiting her by the beach. So much safer this way.
Sofia showed zero anxiety, she leaned in right into it and started to stand up almost from the start. Within 30 min of being in the ocean she was surfing!!!
My favorite part of the entire process was to see her turn around and stand up per coach’s cue. It’s a very narrow window to do that and she never hesitated no matter how big was the wave.
She loved it!!! After the first hour the coach told her to rest 15-20min, she said 10 please! 🙂 she definitely was having fun and wanted to go back to the water.
I can see us coming back for a surfing camp soon. She’s clearly talented, being very objective here hahah, as I saw other students (adults) on their 3rd and 4th lessons and falling right after they stand up.
Surfing is definitely the sport for Sofia as she loves water, action, and unpredictability of it. Paddle boarding to her now is so boring. Heheh. 00
After our surfing adventure we check out the hotel and traveled to Nusa Dua, our last destination of this trip.
As soon as we arrived, I was happy to see q clean, blue, quiet beach, unlike those in seminyak. I immediately felt relaxed.
And monkey visiting our balcony
The check in process was a bit bumpy. We arrived 3pm, time for check in but only one room was ready. After waiting for an hour the other room was still not ready so I went to complain. They moved us to another two rooms. Then husband told me that the new rooms were worse than the original ones, lower floor, worst view and didn’t have bathtub. I went back to the lobby to complain again. This time another manager attended me and offered another two rooms and free dinner. Finally we got our new rooms with ocean view.
We enjoyed our free dinner by the beach.
I booked this hotel as our last one because I wanted to end the trip with total relaxation. So day 7 was spent mostly on the beach with this position, 5 hours to be exact. 🙂 oh… I did venture out for a run outside the hotel before I did this.
Girls played at kids club in the morning and then joined me by the beach.
I mostly planned by goals for 2023, listened to Sarah’s podcast about planning, and reflected how 2022 went. I loved to have little companion by my side, she was looking very chill too.
Dinner time by the beach and pool to end our relaxing day.
Our New Journey 
Ooh, now this hotel looks just perfect!! Beautiful! The pool/beach set up looks great.
SO COOL about the surfing lesson!! I guarantee Asher, my swimmer, would love to try that. Ethan would too- he is not as strong as swimmer though so I’d maybe be more nervous about him, but I mean he does know how to swim so I’m sure he’d be fine. I think they may offer that in Costa Rica- I was thinking about looking into that for our trip coming up. But I also have heard the Pacific coast can be rough with riptides and stuff, so I am not sure. When we were in San Diego this past summer we saw a ton of people surfing! Surfing is huge in California, of course. I saw ads for surfing lessons etc there. She does look like a natural! Is that black shirt her regular rash guard/ swimsuit, or did you buy that special for the surfing?! It looks very “surfer chic”, lol.
LikeLike
It was from the surfing school. Get the boys to try it, it’s super fun according to Sofia
LikeLike
Great, Quality Content for The Ultimate Tour Guide, A lot of thanks for sharing, kindly keep with continue !!
LikeLike
My husband has been surfing for decades and our daughter LOVES it too. I can’t wear my glasses in the water and contacts bother my eyes so much, so I’ve only done it once, but it was a lot of fun. That said – yikes, I don’t think I’ve ever been so sore in my life. It’s very physical and uses so many unique upper-body muscles!!!
LikeLike
Oh I didn’t know it’s physically tiring. Good to know. 🙂
LikeLike
That is awesome that she took to surfing so well! I know my oldest would not be up for this activity. He is our super cautious one. We haven’t even been able to get him in swimming lessons, although he is warming up to the idea. He absolutely needs to learn to swim but we’ve been waiting until he’s a bit more, um, rational? Or easy to convince to do things? So I can’t imagine him being up for surfing but maybe he will surprise me!
I would have been up for trying surfing when we honeymooned in Maui but my husband wasn’t interested which is surprising and he’s an adventurous guy!
LikeLike
It’s always better to start an activity when the kid is ready. Often time parents want the kid to do something so much that could kill the life long long of an activity by starting too early. I try to nudge the girls to do things but if they firmly don’t want to do. I don’t insist. At the end, these are hobbies not must.
LikeLike
Yes I totally agree. Swimming is the one thing we will require him to learn but we have decided to let him take the lead at this age since he’s only 4. He loved swimming lessons as a baby and then we had a 1.5 year gap during the pandemic and going back was brutal. I wish we hadn’t had that gap but it was out of our control. In a year, our youngest can take classes with him so maybe that will go over better? We will see. I didn’t start to learn until I was 5-6 so there is still plenty of time to learn.
LikeLike