The Terrific3 travel blog

Today, we took a painting class sponsored by Toya Salts. (Cost $99 for all 3 of us). We arrived at the store, and waited a few minutes for the owner (Toya) to drive us to the studio. This woman is amazing—she is Indonesian and told me she was a single mom in NYC from the time her one son was 4. She raised him in the US and now he is in college in Boston, but is visiting Bali for the summer. She moved back to Bali about a decade ago. She has multiple businesses—nickel mining (apparently Indonesia is the world’s biggest nickel mining area), the salt store, multiple villas she rents out, 3 restaurants and some art studios. I love amazing self made women.

The art teacher at the studio was a character, to say the least. Originally from L.A., in Bali for over 20 years, a Jewish-Indian man named Ram who was 68 year old, has 7 children and 3 grandchildren, was told he was autistic growing up, is dyslexic, was homeschooled by his grandma and had little contact with his father growing up. In terms of the art, he was great with the kids and led them through painting with acrylic on canvas and painting t-shirts. His side commentary, though, was sometimes amusing and sometimes very inappropriate, commenting on things like how school is not a good place to learn (S doesn’t need to hear this), doctors are just pill pushers (he didn’t know my profession), how meat is better than sugar and vegetarians get more worms, and commentary on how my kids could use some male direction in their lives (this was the most inappropriate but I put him in his place). I really wanted him to just shut up and help us paint—is that so hard? This guy has a doctorate in art therapy and teaches art therapy to expats who move to Bali when they lost their jobs in the corporate world. To his credit, he also does a lot of charity teaching of art for free to Balinese kids.

After our art adventure, we were fed a delicious lunch (from one of Toya’s restaurants), and then she drove us back to her store where I bought some bath salts. On the walk home, the kids and o decided to get 1 hour foot massages (this may be what I miss the most when I leave, haha!) and then the kids came home for pool time and we are off to dinner soon.

Tomorrow is our last full day in Ubud, and we are taking a cooking class in the morning. I love having only one big activity a day—it’s a very chill way to travel, and the kids are happy!