Day with Friends and Orthodontist (Feb. 22, 23, 2015)

Feb. 22, 2015

Today I spent the day hanging out with Reza and Yulia. We went for lunch after Yulia finished church, to a yummy restaurant that Yulia knew of. We had initially wanted to go to one that we had been to before, but it was closed, so instead we went to a this one. 

The food was excellent, it was that Chinese Indonesian restaurant that Yulia took me to before. I don’t think that Reza had been there previously, but I had, and knew it was great. We had a huge fish between the three of us, with delicious sauce, and some Cap Cie mixed vegetables in the traditional Chinese style, cooked just a little, still crunchy with great sauce.

After that, we took a ride to see some notebooks that Reza wanted to price, then stopped and bought 7 new DVD movies off this guy selling them in the parking lot of a restaurant. The 7 movies cost $5 CAD and were of decent quality with fancy jackets. We went back to Reza’s place to watch movies, eat popcorn, and have ice cream. Yulia is an ice cream freak, so she and Reza stopped to buy a little carton for the movies.

I am much more attracted to the popcorn and started to munch out on that. Well, lo and behold, as I was enjoying all my popcorn, I hit a kernel right on my ortho wire and it broke the glue that was holding it. The wire was sharp and right away, I felt my teeth ache as they did when they moved with the braces. I thought, ‘Oh no, what am I going to do here?’. I searched Orthodontists in Denpasar, found a clinic that looked half decent and searched out the location to visit there tomorrow.

As luck would have it, I also had to go to Immigration tomorrow to get my photo and finger prints taken for my Visa Extension. I was planning on visiting Lombok and Gili Islands on Wednesday, but luckily, the ticket didn’t process properly and I wasn’t confirmed so I didn’t receive a ticket for Wednesday. 

Anyway, that stuff was for tomorrow. Today, for the rest of the evening, I stopped eating popcorn, put in my night retainer, and finished watching two of the seven movies we got. Then Yulia went home as she starts her new job tomorrow and needed to be organized and fresh. I had the two errands on my mind, plus getting into the hostel tomorrow as Reza’s company from Iran arrives tomorrow too.

Feb. 23, 2015

Today was a fast and furious day. I got up at 6 am to do yoga, and prepare myself for a potential day of being lost, running into issues, and completing all of my chores. Well, really, I had no major problems to speak of. I went to that Ortho at 10 am as their website indicated. The sweet girl at reception spoke a bit of English and told me that the Ortho guy only works from 5-9 pm as he teaches dentistry during the day. Ok, so I took an appointment for 8 pm, a little disappointed that I had to return at night, as it’s really far from the hostel. Probably an hour or so, if I’m not wrong. I took the receptionists info for texting and told her I was going to see if I could find someone closer, and if I did, that I would text to cancel. She was fine with that.

Then I made my way to the Immigration Office which was swarming with foreigners and locals, doing their paperwork, photos and associated business. Reza processed my Visa Extension through his office, which costs a bit more, but is much less of a headache, and in the end usually costs less because of all the mishaps most people encounter dealing with the Indonesian system and corruption. Anyway, I met Agus, a nice young guy, who was taking care of my case. He invited me to sit down and wait until they called my name, which they did soon afterwards, for photo and prints. While I was speaking to him, I noticed that he had braces, and asked him about his Orthodontist. I told him what had happened and that the office I had found was in Ronan, and I was staying in Seminyak. He said that his ortho was very close to Seminyak and excellent. He offered to help me, by calling the office, finding out the times she worked, and giving me the address. It was such a stroke of luck, because later on, after getting my backpack and checking into the hostel, I made my way there and met with the Orthodontist and her assistant.

Luckily, with the help of the GPS, and the Google Translator, as well as the assistant speaking a bit of English, they were able to see the problem, and fix it in about 10 minutes. The other office that I originally went to quoted me about $50 CAD to fix it, which I didn’t think was too bad. Well, after they fixed it at this local office, I paid $30 and was home by 8:30 pm. I was a bit concerned about the quality of the work before going in because the office was a very plain, kind of run down place with plastic chairs filling the waiting room and a TV. Yet, the place was packed with people. The way it works it whoever comes in first, gets seen, in that order. So, when I arrived, there were about 5 or 6 people ahead of me which made my wait about an hour. Not too bad, considering I just showed up. I guess that’s what everyone does here, though it is quite foreign to me.

Anyway, they did a really great job, and I was happily surprised at the quality of work. Both the Orthodontist and the assistant were really thorough, seemed to know exactly what was needed and completed it in record time. I was really relieved and that can be a real pain……..literally and otherwise. A lucky day for me, getting my passport processed, as well as meeting Agus, who happened to have braces. You sure don’t see a lot of people here wearing glasses or braces. I imagine that both are too prohibitive cost wise, for most people to consider.

When I was finished, I made my way back to the hostel and relaxed, processing my crazy, yet wonderfully productive day. A nice Dutch girl is my room mate tonight. We lucked out and they were full in the large mixed dorms, so they put just her and I together in a four bed dorm on a sunny, lovely floor, upstairs. A fantastic end to my great day.