WANDERLUST & WONTONS
Follow your favorite multicultural couple, Andrew and Sabrina, on their real-life adventures wherever they happen to be! Imagine, you are at party and have just met us for the first time. We are having a chat…a banter of whatever comes to mind that is sexy & cool, hilarious, controversial or just plain entertaining! “Wanderlust and Wontons” serves up spontaneous laughter, friendship & love and curious insights guaranteed to perk up your day!
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WANDERLUST & WONTONS
A Spontaneous Adventure With Our Exchange Students In Bali
Ever wonder how a simple shopping trip can turn into a cultural discovery adventure? Join us as we reunite with our former exchange students from China during an unforgettable vacation in Bali. From our divergent supermarket habits to navigating the lively streets of Canggu and Pererenan, each moment is a delightful reminder of how cultural differences shape our everyday experiences. Between shopping baskets filled with breakfast staples and brimming with snacks and practical items, we share laughs and learnings, all while exploring some of the trendiest spots on this beloved island.
Our Bali journey takes on a new dimension with evenings filled with games and exchanges of cultural insights. Sabrina and I unexpectedly step into the role of tour guides, leading our friends to the popular La Brisa Beach Club, where a minor drone incident provided laughs against a stunning sunset backdrop. Back at the villa, the fun continues with a cultural exchange through games, as we learn an intricate Chinese card game while introducing our friends to the Western classic, Codename. From massages that soothe our senses to the first surfing lesson catching Balinese waves, this episode captures the essence of reconnecting, sharing, and embracing the vibrant tapestry of experiences that Bali has to offer.
Welcome to Wanderlust and Wontons, the real-life adventures of Andrew and Sabrina.
Speaker 2:Imagine you're at a party and you've just met us for the first time and we're having a chat, a banter or whatever comes to mind. That is cool and interesting.
Speaker 1:We've both lived in many countries for good lengths of time. I'm Asian and overall I've lived a third of my life in North America, a third in Europe, a third in Asia-Australia. I've enjoyed my boarding school years in Dublin, ireland. I enjoyed my single and party life in New York City and there isn't a more amazing city beach than Bondi Beach. Australia. And of course, we love Hong Kong and dim sum.
Speaker 2:I was born and raised in Munich, germany, till the age of 21, when I decided it was time to explore the world, and have since been on a crazy adventure all over the world, from South America to New York and Asia. You will learn more about us over many podcast episodes but for now, come along and let's dive straight in.
Speaker 1:So recently, sabrina and I wanted to get away for a couple of days, so we decided we would go to bali, one of our favorite islands in the whole world. So we rented ourselves like a three-bedroom villa and we actually ended up inviting friends we hadn't seen in a while, just out of the blue, just on a whim, and I think we turned out like, yeah, we thought for sure we had way more fun with them joining us than if we had just gone by ourselves, right yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 1:We invited these two students along that used to stay with us as exchange students they're from china and they stayed with us for quite a while actually for like about six years in hong kong while they did their university degree at hong kong university and then after that they went abroad and did their master's. One went to New.
Speaker 2:York, I believe One went to Scotland.
Speaker 1:And then they all came back to Hong Kong and now are kind of well-heeled professionals in their mid to late 20s. So to me they kind of represent, you know, intelligent young Chinese who have traveled the world and now come back and working in Hong Kong.
Speaker 1:Yeah, certainly all grown up now, certainly all grown up right and we thought we'd reconnect with them and invite them along to our little holiday of their time. And great that they say yes, we reconnected with them well and we ended up having some really interesting funny moments, you know, because our cultures at least me and them are similar but different, and for sure for you as a German, and the Chinese quite different as well, completely different.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So let's see where do we start this tale? The first, I think, is the shop up. So when you first arrived in Bali, you know, on any holiday you would typically just do a shop up right At your local supermarket to get simple things. You might need some snacks or drinks for breakfast, or beer or toothpaste, right, but I tell you what a world of difference in what people buy.
Speaker 2:I guess we would just like buy the usual breakfast food.
Speaker 1:Yeah our basket was barely full. We walked up to the counter. Our two besties came as well, and their baskets were full.
Speaker 2:Full to the brim.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you how culture-specific this initial shop-up is. It's unbelievable. So they bought lots of snacks which Sabrina would love.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, definitely a lot of of nuts. They bought a lot of fruits.
Speaker 1:I think the Asians are really into the fruits the seaweed, peanuts, all kinds of different snacks, right, chips, etc. I mean the Asians are just big snackers, which which you become Asian. That way, you're a big snacker yourself actually.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure um.
Speaker 1:But also we saw sensible things like mosquito spray, sunscreens a big tick on those two items. And then we also saw heaps of tissue paper, two large boxes to be exact, one in each of their baskets. And I'm talking like facial tissue paper, like Kleenex, not small packets, right, not pocket tissue size, like two big boxes with, like I don't know, 100, 200 pieces per box.
Speaker 2:And bear in mind we were only at that villa for what like three, four nights.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I cheekily said by the way, you know guys, the villa becomes fully loaded with, like beach towels, you know, tissue paper, whatever you need right. And I was trying to figure out whether they understood that, because I figured they would just come back and say, okay, we don't need these two boxes then, but what?
Speaker 2:did they reply? Well, we were actually thinking of getting two more boxes for you guys. I was very considerate of them.
Speaker 1:One box each, one huge box each, by the way. So I was like, wow, okay, no need for us. But out of pure curiosity, what would you use it for? Because we're only here for three nights, as Sabrina just said. And the boy said don't worry, we'll use it up.
Speaker 1:We use it for wiping the mouth after snacking and you know, cleaning table and I don't know a lot of stuff. Essentially right, so nothing wrong with this at all. But amazing how different cultures are, because I clearly see a lot of Asian women in Hong Kong after they eat noodles at lunch what do they do?
Speaker 2:They just wipe their mouth.
Speaker 1:But anyway. So that's a lot of tissue consumption, guys. But that's the way the Germans would say.
Speaker 2:Wieder waskeleand.
Speaker 1:Again, what learnt Already, an interesting start to the holiday with our exchange student friends. So next day we discovered Changgu in Peraranan, which was the surrounding area to Changgu. Peraranan actually had been voted, like CNN's, like one of their top coolest neighborhoods in the world for 2024. And that sounded about right.
Speaker 1:We know Bali pretty well, but we hadn't spent a lot of time in changgu and perenon, but this time we chose it to see what it was like, right, and there were a lot of trendy young couples from all over the world actually, yeah, you know, from europe, from america, from australia lots of single single women around riding the scooters, yeah single men, you know, going for sport, going to the gym. There turned out to be lots of high-quality Western-style gyms in Canggu, and there was even these world-class paddle courts.
Speaker 1:You know, you thought it was pickleball at first, so did I actually, but no, it's actually paddle, which is like a hybrid between tennis and squash Interesting crowd and thankfully we chose the low season season, which was end of September, so there weren't manic amounts of people, which Bali can be a little bit too crowded, and so we had a really great time, you know, discovering these two areas, and we thought the evening will be planned out by the young boys exactly.
Speaker 1:We thought we can just rely on them to take us out on a town yeah, where to go for a cool bar, which were the nice restaurants you know, Figured at the worst they could just like have a look at TripAdvisor. But turned out you know Sabrina and I were the cool ones, so we took them under our wings, right? Yeah, we went that evening to one of the beach clubs. So Bali is pretty famous for its beach clubs, from Kureta in the early days in Sememenya to now in Canggu where there is Finn's Club and La Brisa. And when we went to La Brisa there was already a lineup at around, you know, four or five o'clock.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess most people must just come there for the sunset, get a drink looking over the beach and, yeah, have a good time.
Speaker 1:Have a good time, exactly. So we managed to get ourselves a table, but we had to go through a security everyone did to kind of just check what was in your backpack.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and as you turn from tissue paper, tissue paper exactly.
Speaker 1:But, as it turns out, one of the exchange students had a drone that he had brought for the trip to take, like you know, 360 shots of, like the bali cliffs and beaches, and that wasn't allowed in the club. So, as he had to give it up, he couldn't really understand it or was trying to make a joke, and he said listen, you know I'm gonna take photos. I could take photos of my drone and then, you know, I could help you with your propaganda and I was like immediately cracking up, I think we're just looking at each other.
Speaker 2:I was like this is for real, like propaganda exactly.
Speaker 1:I mean, couldn't have chosen a more interesting word but it will turn out to be a kind of fairly innocent mistake actually. I mean, obviously he was trying to say marketing. You know he could take the photos for their marketing, for their social media, but it turned out in Chinese it's the same word?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it happens to be the same word.
Speaker 1:Marketing and propaganda is the same word. So go figure Again. Something new you learn every day. After our lovely evening on the beach, we decided to head home and we hit the pool. All the Balinese villas have great pools. And then one of the students said hey, why don't we play some card games?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, we're always down for that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it turns out the Chinese love their card games and bring the cards every holiday they go. Sometimes they bring things like mahjong. You've probably seen them on cruises or trips that you've been. As soon as you know, they bring out these big mahjong sets and I think for the Germans. You know you guys play a lot of board games.
Speaker 2:You really like your board games? Yeah, we quite enjoy like getting together families, friends to just have a good all day of board games.
Speaker 1:I've been on a couple of trips with your family and your brothers and sisters.
Speaker 2:There are always board games involved.
Speaker 1:It's almost better if it's drinking board games, but either way it's all good. So we thought we would teach them a board game, a western style board game, and they would teach us a card game. So they went first and they told us their preferred card game of the moment. What was that like?
Speaker 2:Well, it was interesting because they said oh, it's very simple, the rules are very simple, it's like poker, so they always kind of lure you in almost and you think like, yeah, okay, give it a shot, but turns out every time it's your turn. There's an additional rule that just hasn't been mentioned before.
Speaker 1:It's complicated, like even to me. I play poker and I play it pretty well and I will say I like my card games. But the Chinese had taken some version of poker, some elements of Jin Rummy, and then sat down and think how do I make this game even more complicated with another hundred kinds of different rules In their minds. More complication, more difficulty equals more fun Equals, more fun for sure.
Speaker 2:And just when you think you got, it turns out the joker card. That's like a specific card. Each game changes, so as soon as you got it, play the next round.
Speaker 1:And he's still telling you the next rule right, yeah, you're playing three rounds into it every round. He still had new rules to tell us so like clearly there was like a pretty complex, complex game essentially, but anyway, we had fun and I think you know we learned to game from them and I think he even won like I didn't win.
Speaker 2:I think you won by sheer luck, or they would let me win, I don't know. I think you won fair and square. I have a suspicion they let me win Just so.
Speaker 1:I don't feel too defeated, so you played with them again the next night right, exactly. That was the trick. So we taught them a Western game. So Sabrina wanted to play Codename, which you may know. It's a guessing game based on various words and played in a team format. So Sabrina and I one team and the other two exchange students were their own team.
Speaker 2:Yeah, did it very well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, considering English wasn't their native language.
Speaker 2:they figured it out pretty quickly. Yeah, they beat us a bunch of times, so there you go.
Speaker 1:The next day, next day, sabrina wanted to chill out, and so we wanted to go for a massage, and so we we bought the boys a surfing lesson trip. So off they went to to kuta for their first surfing lesson. Neither had surfed before, and had a great time actually they were pretty much out the whole day. So I said next time you guys come to sydney we'll take you out for surfing here on bondi beach yeah, so when they returned they were like happy sun kissed and in a really good mood absolutely.
Speaker 1:And that night, after dinner again, we said, okay, let's do a repeat, let's, let's give these the card game another. Go right, yeah. And before all that happened, you know, they decided to bring out, um, the mosquito spray that they had bought from the first night of the shop up. So I took the bottle, as you usually would. You would spray your ankles, you'd spray it behind your knees, and then they went on to do, you know, pass it to them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you pass on the bottle and hand it over to these guys. And I guess they did their thing, sprayed themselves, started off at the ankles and worked their way up.
Speaker 1:Their version of spraying was pretty liberal, so they sprayed entire legs, entire hands, neck face. So I was like, guys, I'm not sure you should be spraying mosquito spray on your face. Right, it's got chemicals and stuff. And they said no, no, no, no, we have to spray the face, otherwise the mosquitoes are going to bite the face. I was like, okay, that's cool with me, as you like. And then what did they do? Did they pass it back to?
Speaker 2:you, yeah. So they asked me whether I would want to have the mosquito spray. My assumption was they would just hand over the bottle, but turns out they're actually a very kind and they start spraying you. So it's like their duty to apply it for you. So they start spraying your ankle, your thighs, your arms. So interesting experience.
Speaker 1:Liberally as well. So clearly, by the end of the whole mosquito spray session, sabrina and I were fully covered with bio-level hazard 3, as if we just came out of a lab, but the interesting thing was that they actually sprayed it for me, although I'm perfectly capable of applying it myself.
Speaker 2:I know Very considerate.
Speaker 1:Very considerate, absolutely. So that was interesting. Again, same goal, but different execution.
Speaker 2:Now, before we played our card game.
Speaker 1:as we were just about to start, one of them gets up and says oh, we forgot our masks and I was like what masks?
Speaker 2:So, as it turns out, I guess they got a little bit sunburnt, although they didn't look like they were. I don't think they were sunburnt at all.
Speaker 1:Let's say they were two guys with fairly fair skin, like normal Chinese fair skin, and they were looking at each other and they were like oh, my skin on my face feels hot, right. And I was like they looked like the same the first day before they even went surfing and they know no, it's hot for sure.
Speaker 2:So they went to the rooms very quickly and then they took out their face masks so they have bought some aloe vera face masks and before they came out to play the games the board game they just slapped on these face masks. I mean, I get it right. I like a self-care sunday, but I usually do it in the comfort of my home, but nobody sees me. But they feel perfectly comfortable putting on this face mask, sitting across from us and just handing out a deck of cards so you might just picture the situation.
Speaker 1:So me and sabrina are there, we already already fully lathered up in mosquito spray, and then the two guys are there slapping on the face masks on the dealing out cards for the game, and then asian snacks and beer on the table. I mean really again, not something you would see in germany around your family. Like I can't imagine your mother wearing a face mask, let alone my brother or my dad.
Speaker 2:You wouldn't necessarily wear it out in public for others to be seen that's true.
Speaker 1:I mean, I know the Chinese women really look after their skin. They want to be fair and soft and they use all the relevant cosmetics. I must say I didn't expect two guys in their mid to late 20s to do that after just like a few hours of surfing. But you know what do I know? As long as they're happy, that's all good, and if you're looking after the skin, surely that's a good thing and maybe the joke's on us.
Speaker 2:Sabrina, right, yeah, you know they're on to something. I hope you enjoyed the banter and being lost in conversation with us. Do subscribe to our podcast. See you again soon you.