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TRAVEL VLOG: What to do in St. Cyprien France

2019-08-16T02:31:00.001+07:00

This was my second time going to St. Cyprien in South of France. This time we experienced a lot more: beautiful foods and places, freshly picked fruits sold right at the farms, boating, etc.

5 French Phrases I Love the Most

2019-08-07T21:46:00.001+07:00

The 5 French phrases I love the most are:

1. C'est mignon
2. C'est pas Versailles ici
3. Je ne parle pas francais
4. J'ai faim
5. Je t'aime

instagram @carlachanliau

how we spend our weekends ( france )

2019-08-07T21:43:00.003+07:00

Spending weekends in France while not exactly on holiday could consist of:

- going to dog school with Beca, Oscar & Naomi,
- eating the super yummy Jamboneau
- going to Alsace to meet other family and friends
- getting invited to BBQ

Follow our instagram at @leschanliaudebali

how we spend our weekends ( france )

2019-08-07T21:43:00.001+07:00

Bastille Day | 14 July | La Fete Nationale

2019-07-23T22:11:00.001+07:00

Back in Bali since I've been with Bibou, we used to celebrate Bastille Day when the French Consulate had an open house. We came mainly for the French food (or maybe I came mainly for the food lol). Now that we happen to be in France during Bastille day, I am sharing with you what we did.

Camera: Sony a5100

Editing software: Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2018

Clean Back Garden

2015-11-15T09:30:00.001+07:00

Okay it is not really a garden. More like a space to hang laundry that has never been used forever.

With the AC dispensing water every night, this small space actually grows more plants during the dry season than my again-not-really main garden in front. We have had problem with the air conditioner upstairs mainly because of the climbing plants reached the AC engine.

There is this teenage boy who doesn't speak much and very shy. He is the son of my masseuse. Iluh, my masseuse, told me if I had a garden job for his son to do, he'd be happy to make extra money from it. I hired him once to move the pots from the top of my gate wall. Now I hired him to clean up this space.

I felt happy with the clean solution; something I will never find myself have time to do, or would be willing to do. He felt happy for the extra pocket money. Iluh told me he also gives some to his younger brother and sister from what he earns.

There is nothing better than giving opportunity for a young person to get a taste of having a job and his own money for the first time. I remember how happy I was to get money other than from the allowance money my parents gave me when I was young.

He is a good boy and he will succeed if he keeps up being hardworking.

Side and Back Pain

2015-11-13T11:06:00.001+07:00

I am rarely sick. But when I do get sick, it's usually the bad kind of sickness.

I have been feeling pain on my side and my back in the past 4 days. I tried to give it time for my body to heal itself before I let chemicals in. This time it got even worse.

I didn't recognise this type of pain. It is not the menstrual pain, not the overtiredness pain, earlier on I thought it was muscle pain due to too much dancing but counterpain didn't fix it this time. In the last 2 nights my stomach started hurting too. It was almost unbearable that I had to order Uber last night to go to BIMC hospital.

The doctor thought it could be kidney stone. I've got to have few tests to make sure of that. My urine test came out negative so he told me to do the ultra sound test this afternoon.

I feel so tired and drained. I hope it is nothing serious and can be fixed with oral medication only....

It rains!!!

2015-11-12T08:45:00.001+07:00

It finally started raining after quite a long drought. I think I could hear my plants dance joyfully as I often didn't water them enough. I generally love sun and brightness. But yesterday's rain really soothed me.

If only I didn't have this excruciating side and back pain!

I don't remember I have ever felt this sort of pain before. Not sure if it was from too much dancing as it first appeared when I was riding my scooter. Could be from wrong sleeping position or something. I tried to put counterpain creme, had a massage, applying heating bandage I got from Fumi, etc. Every morning I felt better but by midday it killed me again. Today is the third day, so I am going to see if it comes back at noon and I'll definitely go to a doctor to consult if it does.

For now, I will just enjoy the grey sky, the muddy smell of the rain, sip my lemon tea, while working on some marketing for the villa I manage.

Cheers!

Non Stop Belly Dancing

2015-11-09T08:29:00.001+07:00

Last week has been a non-stop belly dancing week. As soon as I came back from Jakarta for Miss Belly Dance Indonesia on Monday, Hadi held his first class after abstaining for 2 months while he was in Holland, so of course I had to go. Then Wednesday I also had his class PLUS a private class with Hilde Canoodt, a super lovely bellydancer based in London. I died that day. Thursday was another class with Hilde, and Friday and Saturday I had to perform at The Breezes Resort and Shisha Cafe back to back.

Vincent's comment: "So are you gonna be bellydancing every day now?"

It was just the special week where everybody was available in Bali that I had to take my opportunity in learning more about belly dance while I could. I am happy that this week it will be slower though. Hadi is gone to Bandung for a week and Hilde had left Bali.

Now to motivate myself to practise at home. ;-)

I am enjoying the down time. Need to focus on work and family more this week. Maybe bake the cheesecake Vincent has been requesting and take more photos.

Miss Belly Dance Indonesia 2015 - Tribal Fusion

2015-11-05T07:48:00.001+07:00

Guess who is the first ever Miss Belly Dance Indonesia 2015 - Tribal fusion category?

Yes. ME!!!

Yay! Yay! Yay!

All of my hard had paid off and all the dancing in different places helped a lot too! I was so over the moon last weekend when they announced it was me winning the title. Pam took the first runner up, which made both of us the top winners of the prestigious competition! Hadi and Ika must have been proud teachers!

I am so grateful that I took part in this event. Not only did I get to learn from the amazing Hilde Canoodt, Darren Ho and Christine Yaven, I also got to get crowned as 2015 Miss Tribal Belly Dance Indonesia.

Life is good!!!

Restaurant Review: Braga Garden Seminyak Bali

2015-10-15T13:29:00.000+07:00

#41 Meet Themis, Goddess of Justice. #365selfie #365selfies #themis #scale #vintage #vintagecafe

A photo posted by Carla Chanliau (@cbardian) on Oct 13, 2015 at 11:42pm PDT

What makes a girl's day?

When she found a great new restaurant 2 minutes from her workplace that serves the BEST salad she's ever tasted.

This restaurant is called Braga Garden. As its name suggests, it looks like a garden or a forest from the outside. I've been wanting to come there ever since before it was opened. I LOVE the greens and vintage feelings inside with all the antiques they have. I'd go there just for the ambiance. So when I tasted the food, OH. MY. GOD. I fell in love with this place!

I'm not a big salad buyer.
I'll correct that: I am a PICKY salad buyer. I don't like dressing that is too sour, too sweet, too mayonnaise-y, and the list can go on. If I want to eat salad, I'll make the salad on my own to match my taste bud.
However, I wasn't that hungry at the time. I was with a friend who was much less adventurous in trying new restaurants, and she was in only for coffee. So, when she saw me going to the 7th sky for my salad, she gave it a try and immediately ordered another plate of salad of different variant.

You're welcome, Huri!

To top it off, they allowed me to dance my latest choreography in this vintage setting so that I could make a nice video clip of it. Here is a snippet of the dance!

#43 Darbouka part of my latest choreography. #365selfie #365selfies #darbouka #bellydancing #bellydance #tribalfusion #tribalbellydancers

A video posted by Carla Chanliau (@cbardian) on Oct 14, 2015 at 9:55am PDT

To visit:

Braga Garden Restaurant & Lounge

Address: Jalan Kunti II No.99X, Denpasar, Bali 80361, Indonesia

Phone:+62 361 4741717

Hours:

Open today · 12:00 pm – 12:00 am

Jun's Wedding

2015-10-12T14:09:00.001+07:00

Time flew by. The day Jun and Ron had waited had finally come and it was nothing but a huge success! It was one of the most wonderful weddings I have ever attended; partly thanks to the Chinese fun wedding traditions and the hillarious salsa-minded invitees!

It was a small wedding by Chinese Indonesian standard, only 150 guests. But it was beautiful and touching. Most of all, I was so happy to be there, next to my best friend as her maid of honour, witnessing the happiest time of her life.

I wish you a happy marriage life, my Jun. I am positive Ron will take a good care of you until you grow wrinkles together.

Pink Bridesmaid Dress

2015-10-07T08:33:00.000+07:00

What is it with my friends lately? They are all getting married within one month and all having us wear pink dresses. Pink must be the new black!

We had an awesome bachelorette party for my friend, Eleonore, a few weeks back. The dress code was pink. So a lot of us had to go shopping beforehand for pink dresses! Here was what I picked for that party.

#22 Goofy goofy #365selfies #365selfie #bellydance #pink #pinkgirls #naughty #bachelorette

A photo posted by Carla Chanliau (@cbardian) on Sep 19, 2015 at 5:36am PDT

I will be the maid of honour at my BFF's wedding this coming Saturday. She had her sister send me this hot pink fabric. I got the design consulted with Jun a few weeks before. She said her husband-to-be's family is rather conservative so nothing transparent or open. So I sent it to my tailor and here goes the result:

#31 Bridesmaid's dress is done. I look strange in #pink #365selfies #365selfie #bridesmaid #maidofhonor #baliwedding #leschanliaudebali

A photo posted by Carla Chanliau (@cbardian) on Sep 29, 2015 at 10:22pm PDT

And then few days ago I saw the other bridesmaid's dress and it was pretty open. Hahahaha...

I'm Back!

2015-10-02T08:38:00.000+07:00

It's been a really LONG while since I last blogged. Obviously my 365 grateful days project didn't work when life actually happens. I've been busy with many things, work and play both. But here I am back blogging. Trying to put good 15 minutes or so to write or upload something.

If you wish to know what I have been up to the past couple of years, you can check out my Instagram account. I actually found it easier to just post photos and write short captions there.

The photo above is of Nicola, my neighbour kid who constantly calls me as her second mom. I've been making photos for her real mom's fashion brand, Anila Tails. Check my photography facebook page for more photos.

Adios for now!

Grateful for the First Rain

2014-11-25T07:30:00.001+07:00

Day 87 of 365 grateful days project:

"I'm grateful for the rain that poured today."

After 2 months drought, the rain felt wonderful! Of course we had to get that while in Gili when we were supposed to have sun all day long. But it was all good. I loved this first rain, how the water splashed my face while I was paddling my bike to get to the nearest restaurant for shade, how the wind frantically moved the hanging cygogne-lookalike decoration, how the island boys got super happy and just jumped to the sea to have fun with the rain, and how my husband got really sleepy due to the breezy moment. I felt sleepy too but I decided to treasure this moment and kept it in my memory for the next months and maybe years to come.

I am so lucky. We are so lucky.

Grateful to Be Spending the Most Amazing First Year of Marriage with Bibou

2014-11-16T08:41:00.000+07:00

Day 86 of 365 grateful days project.

"I am grateful to have spent the most amazing first year of marriage with the most wonderful man in my life."

I can't say enough how blessed I am and how perfectly content I have been in the past 12 months. After 6 years relationship one must think that nothing changes when you decide to seal it in a marriage. In a way it feels like that, but in a way we also know that it doesn't exactly feel like that. There are many little things that I treasure in the life post-wedding. Little things that make everything matter.

I really enjoy marriage life. And there is no righter guy to spend it with than my hubby bibou.

Grateful to Have Real Breezy Clean Air at Gili Air

2014-11-15T15:36:00.000+07:00

Day 85 of the 365 grateful days project:

"I'm grateful to have an amazing breezy clean air in Gili Air all alone with hubby."

It just feels different.

When you live in Bali, you don't even dare to think of it as a holiday place. Every morning I anticipate the traffic jam, the people shouting at each other on the street, the road blocks, etc. Of course if I were a tourist, I wouldn't see Bali that way. Compared to many cities in and out of Indonesia, Bali is still a cool destination to go to with a lot of interesting places to discover. However, when you feel that you have discovered everything... it's time to see other islands.

And Gili Air was such a perfect place to cool off. No motor-anything, just dirt roads, bicycles, (almost) virgin beaches, and the smell of the sea mixed with fresh grass mixed with horsepoo (whaaat...). :)

But it's nature. And nature is a lot better than carbondioxided air.

I've been dozing off on a bale of Warung Santay while hubby is busy with his book (HE IS REALLY READING A BOOK! How vacation makes you do abnormal things).

The holiday starts out great. And it will be better tomorrow.

Grateful to be going to Gili Air Tomorrow

2014-11-14T17:21:00.000+07:00

Day 84 of 365 grateful days:

"I am grateful to be going to Gili Air tomorrow for our first wedding anniversary weekend."

We need holiday, period. Both of us worked hard and I spent most of my time working and belly dancing, which lately felt like keeping us apart in a way.

After such an amazing 1920's wedding last year, this cannot happen! We need to bond even stronger than before! So I'm glad we decided to go for this short weekend getaway.

We are so looking forward to Saturday morning!

Grateful to Have a Cute Little Kitten

2014-09-09T16:13:00.000+07:00

Day 83 of 365 grateful days:

"I am grateful to have a cute little kitten named Boulette."

After losing Nene, our gorgeous white cat, when we were away in France, we decided to wait for her to come back home. But 2 months have passed and we are quite sure someone stole her. We are just left hoping that whoever adopted Nene has a loving heart and takes a good care of her.

Moving on, my friend's cat just delivered cute baby kittens one month ago. I was supposed to wait until it's 2 months old, but the mother cat didn't want to feed them anymore. We had to take one of the cats now.

It's a little baby ball. So we call it(her/him) Boulette. Such a joy!

Grateful to be Back in France for Another Wedding

2014-06-04T13:39:00.001+07:00

Day 82 of 365 grateful days:

"I'm grateful to be back in France for yet another wedding."

Okay another wedding is a little too much. But this time I didn't have to take care of anything; for the obvious reasons that I do not live here and my French sucks. Still looking forward to meeting his extended family and friends though. We've been staying Paris until today and we'll take a TGV train to Strasbourg in a couple of hours.

Yay!

Grateful to be Madame Chanliau :)

2013-11-18T08:54:00.000+07:00

Day 81 of 365 grateful days project:

"I am grateful that I am now a Madame Chanliau and that the wedding madness is over."

The great thing about getting married is the first 6 months after the engagement/proposal. Everything was bright and positive and we were back madly in love like the first time we met.

However, reality stroke 2 months before the wedding and the stress escalated bit by bit until the last minute of the act of "walking down the aisle." And all this was because I planned and organised my own wedding with 120 invitees.

Now I fully grasp the term Bridezilla and why it was invented at all. It was so easy to choke on someone during these crazy times when nothing seemed to go right on track. I would proudly say I was not one, though. I was impatient at times, yes, but I was so far from being a bridezilla.

BUT, all the little details that seemed so important before became nothing when my husband to be fell sick only 3 days before the wedding. The visits to wedding vendors and venue were changed to clinic, lab and hospital. Fortunately he is a strong man. He could stand still at the end of the aisle while I was walking nervously to him to see if he would faint at all. He looked white and thin and sick and he trembled a little bit; but he managed to declare the wedding vow.

After the ceremony, everyone relaxed, including us, and we started to believe that everything was going well. Very well, even. I have to correct it once again, it was the coolest wedding I've ever attended! And it was ours! VICTORY!!!

To make me stop blahblah-ing, here is a video to the wedding. :)

Grateful to Get Married in Two Weeks

2013-11-04T07:41:00.000+07:00

Day 80 of 365 grateful days project:

"I am grateful that I am getting married in two weeks."

Okay, in my last blog post, I was writing about Marie's wedding in France. I also wrote in the end of the post, that my boyfriend of 5 years proposed me during the reception. I wasn't prepared for that, nor did I hope that it would actually happen; so I flipped and I didn't quite give a satisfying response. When I was back in Bali in October 2012, I got caught up in so much work that I completely forgot the proposal did happen and perhaps needed some follow up.

In one of our rare girls' day out, Pam and Ingrid asked how the France trip was. And then I started telling them what happened at the wedding.

They literally danced on their seat at the Japanese restaurant when they heard about the proposal but soon froze when I said that I didn't say yes, yet. The next conversation could be easily predicted - Pam and Ingrid's attack on how stupid I was. :P

Anyway, inspired by Sex and the City, Ingrid started pushing me to ask him to repeat the question. But how could I do that? It's all different situation then, different mood, different everything. So I thought to wait for another 2 months and see if he'd do something. If he didn't, then I would make the move.

He didn't.

So in January 2013, I started making plans. Basically I wanted to propose him back. I tried at the New Year's Eve dinner, but do you have any idea how hard it was to get the words out of your mouth??? You had so many What If questions in your head and your head was so heavy and your cheeks felt so hot and your mouth dry. Nope, I couldn't do this.

But whenever I am determined to do something, I will find one way or another to make it happen. So I came up with a creative marriage proposal: making a video of family and friends proposing him for ME. I sent them emails and Facebook messages that I needed them to make a photo having one specific word that I assigned them to do. And since everyone was so excited about the prospect of us getting married, it took reasonably fast to collect all the photos! I was so smart!!! :D

Ingrid holding the word "Marry"

I am not a videographer or video editor, or anybody related to video production. But I wanted to do everything myself since the hardest part is done by people around the world. So for 2 weeks I woke up earlier than normal to put the photos together into a presentable video. To be honest, choosing the songs are the harder part. :P

The video was ready just after Valentine's day. But we were throwing a house warming party on the 23rd of February so I waited to play the video in this occasion. Despite the hard rain and the fact that half of the guests had gone home (better I guess so it wasn't too embarrassing), my trembling finger pressed Play on the TV remote control. Then this video was playing...

Vincent's reaction was..... overwhelming. I'm not even sure if that was even the right word. But hey, from the title of this blog you should have already known that he said yes. :)

I'm such a lucky girl. And he is one damn lucky guy.

Grateful to Be Back Blogging

2013-11-03T07:40:00.001+07:00

Day 79 of 365 grateful days project:

"I'm grateful to be back blogging after hardly ever touching it for over a year."

I must be one of the worst bloggers ever. I saw that my Google rank dropped to 1... But hey, life happens. And it never happened the way it has been the past year.

By now you must have thought that something terrible had happened.

It hadn't, fortunately.
In fact, a lot of good things had happened. So good that I chose to live it more than write it here - which I now regret. It would have been nice to reread all the wonderful things that I'd experienced so far. But anyway, here I am back. And I'll try to be more consistent this time. *fingers crossed*

Grateful to Be in the First French Wedding I've Ever Attended

2012-09-15T11:58:00.000+07:00

Day 78 of 365 grateful days project:

"I'm grateful to be in the first French wedding I've ever Attended."

Along with Marie's sister, I'm the photographer of the wedding. It started with the legal ceremony at the City Hall which is just 5 minute walk away from Marie's grandparents' house. I felt the priviledge of coming into the City Hall for the first time and could have the access in front to shoot the beautiful wedding. :)

Marie and Cedric at the City Hall

Greeted by sprays of lavender seeds once outside

Then we moved to Marie's grandparents' beautiful house for l'apero at their amazing garden.

I was especially fascinated by the idea of simply dipping the wine bottles in the garden stream to keep them cool.

And then we went to the Parc de Villeroy for some photoshoots. Obviously I'm not in most of the photos, but I'll post those which I was. :)

Marie & Cedric's wedding

Romeo - Marie's youngest son

With the grand Rolls Royce

In the evening we had dinner at a cool restaurant where Vincent -- out of the blue -- said to me: "Will you marry me?"

Whhaaaaaaa....???

Grateful to Be in Paris for Marie's Wedding

2012-09-14T11:22:00.000+07:00

Day 77 of 365 grateful days project:

"I'm grateful to be in Paris today for Marie's wedding."

In 2001 I might have said that I'd never come back to Paris again ever. But that was the dark time when nobody understood one word I said and food always came to me wrong. Now the hunger days are over and this Paris experience is ought to be a lot better one.

It was a 6-hour journey, more or less - by car from Strasbourg. And I spent most of the time sleeping on the back seat while Vincent was driving (and smoking and smoking again). We arrived at Vero's before sunset and had lovely homecooked dinner. I didn't know that I had to sleep at Marie's tonight, though; while Vincent went with the boys. Wedding is tomorrow and it seems that they have to keep it traditional by sleeping separately until the big day comes. Ha!

Anyway, I will have to sleep at Romeo's bed -- Marie's youngest son -- and I already banged my forehead onto the bunkbed.

Not sure what was so special about the jacket, but everyone seemed excited.