What Nova Scotians do in Bali this time of the year that their cousins may not be doing and vice versa.

Theresa far left with daughter and husband

This morning I received a message from one of my youngest 1st. cousins who frankly I have not had a lengthy conversation with for perhaps over 50 years. I just noticed the other day that she was on Facebook and made her a Facebook friend the last couple of days.

I remember fondly often staying at their home in Purcell’s Cove (now Halifax), Nova Scotia after my father died in an industrial action when I was five. 

Her family and especially her mother Aunt Shelia and father Uncle Walter treated me very special and I am forever grateful to them. Bless their souls.

My dear mother Elsie Purcell wrote a book about Purcell’s cove

“Purcell's Cove: The little place that helped build Halifax City”

I have few memories of Theresa who was the youngest of her family as I was a little older and was playing wit her older brothers Patrick and Vincent plus her older sister Brenda.

More the personal plan Summer 2016 with wife Aziza and son Darius

Theresa this morning asked, “What kinds of things do you do in Bali that we don't do here?” Here is where I was born and lived until age 13.  

I am asked this question often when I travel so I thought I would share my on my blog, so readers understand the difference between living in Canada and Bali.

_____________

Hi Theresa,

In answer to your question “What kinds of things do you do in Bali that we don't do here?”

Well this is a typical Saturday I just woke up at 5 AM after having a restful sleep.

Last night we went out to see the latest transformer movie Bumblebee which I fell asleep in, but my younger wife and two boys aged 14 and 10 enjoyed.

After the movie my family preferred to enjoy the food court instead of going to the Japanese or Chinese restaurant in the modern mall that is right on the beach called Beach Walk.

The meal for four of us including Roast Duck for myself, Sushi for my son, a Noodle Dish for the other son and a soup for my wife cost only a total of 300,000 rupiah or roughly $20 including fresh sugarcane drinks with no refined sugar. That is probably substantially different from Nova Scotia prices.

I’m sure if I offered my family an alternative meal of Nova Scotia lobster and clam chowder, they would’ve all voted yes. I know I would have.

After dinner our driver Gusti drove us home, approximately one hour away, on the East Coast of Bali. It's easy to afford a driver in Bali since it can cost as little as $150 a month although I pay substantially more. And he keeps up two cars clean as well so we save money there.

Just a footnote is nice not have not to have to wash the salt off our vehicles which would be normal at this time of the year in Nova Scotia.

We all were playing with our phones with reliable Internet. I am sure this is what happens to families across Nova Scotia. I call it the scourge of the mobile phone.

Theresa's Aunt Elsie my mom Author of
“Purcell's Cove: 
The little place that helped build Halifax City”

Now at 5:22 AM I am sitting in my former mother's your Aunt Elsie’s La-Z-Boy chair dictating this reply to you.

Mom being interviewed by Canadian television station overlooking Brussels Cove 2014

In about 30 minutes the sun will come up over the horizon on the channel in front of my home which faces the Lombok channel separating us from the Channel Islands of Nusa Lembongan and Nusa Penida. They are about the same distance from your childhood home in Purcell’s Cove to McCabe’s island in the middle of Halifax Harbor.

Summarizing on Lombok channel from my home with Eastern exposure

Point Pleasant Park Halifax Harbor

  

Personal's Cove

I’m Sure you remember the family outings when the entire Purcell’s Cove plan would sail on an armada of small fishing boats and go across Halifax Harbor to where the late summer salt water tidal pools provided a natural swimming pool and hours of fun for us youngsters. I also remember watching the wild horses run by as we walked from the pier to the beach.

I’m coming back there for my birthday on July 27, 2020 and will be putting together a similar venture. I hope you and your family will be able to join us for a barbecue on McCabe’s Island.

Halifax Harbor with McNabb's Island

Like Purcell’s Cove I have an Eastern exposure and receive the early morning sun, which I prefer.

The visibility here, like Purcell’s Cove, is virtually perfect with very little pollution the Trade Winds flow from the east most of the year and the closest polluted area to us would be Los Angeles, 12,000 km away.

Excellent visibility of Mount Rinjani 140 km away

I'll walk out the front gate onto a volcanic black sand beach with waves breaking on the ocean which may have come for 3,000 km from the Antarctic.

Most of the time the sun rises are magical and often I can see towering 3,200 m mount Agung volcano on Bali and often Mount Rinjani which is even taller on our neighbour island of Lombok 110 km away.

Last night I told my family to have clothes close to the bed in case we must evacuate if we get a strong shake from an earthquake on our neighbour Island of Lombok because before we went to bed, they had a 5.5 earthquake 120 km from my home.

August 2018

For the first time in the 22 years that I have lived here there has been substantial activity on Lombok. Since the horrific earthquake that they had back in August of 6.9-magnitude quake  which displaced more than 154,000 people we have been on edge.

Being a former yacht charter Capt. I always follow the saying “better safe than sorry” although the worst that any quake as done so far is a few cracks in the plaster on our wall.

So, while you may be getting horrific snow storms and sometimes windchill factors of -40 F when the North Easter’s blow all we must be concerned about is a few cracks in our wall.

But we don’t have to be concerned about shoveling our way out of our house some mornings or not being able to drive on the roads especially on the hill in Purcell’s Cove. Of course, you folks will be taking advantage of the cold weather and going for a lovely skate or play some hockey on the bog close to Aunt Doris’s home.

Getting back to my morning walk that I will be doing shortly about halfway down the beach I may stop take off my shirt and jump in the warm Indian Ocean and play in the waves.

Later I will continue to walk until I reach the large Saba river which is virtually still untouched from its original setting.

There may be some families who live in the rice paddies bathing and enjoying the fresh water with the Oceanview. Last time I saw families bathing their I reminded my sons that they should be thankful for their nice hot showers and a swimming pool plus Jacuzzi. But in fact, perhaps the fresh river water would be more fun.

Later I will return to my beachfront Jacuzzi and my maid again which cost only about $150 per month will serve me fresh coffee with a beautiful smile.

I will then jump into our beachfront swimming pool which is naturally heated to body temperature and do 10 laps around the 14 m pool for upper body strength.

Around 7 o’clock when the sun starts to get a little intense, I will retreat to what I call my palace.

It cost me a fraction to buy the land and build of what it would cost to buy the equivalent of what we call the ARM when they grew up next to the Nova Scotia yacht club.

As a boy my cousins and I would walk up there pass the the multimillion beachfront  homes and made a goal that someday I would own something like that. 

After a lifetime of trials and tribulations coming from a modest Nova Scotia home, not being able to finish college because I didn't have the money some day has finally come.

 Unfortunately when I was young, we didn’t know about sunscreen. We were suckered into buying Hawaiian coconut oil and splashing it all over our body in Hawaii for 18 years and now in Bali for 22 years.

Now I jokingly call my self  Dracula because I must avoid the sun. A lesson to be learned here for your grandchildren.

 

Soon thereafter our maid will serve up a fresh omelette without carbs and fresh fruit, much of which is off the banana, pineapple, and papaya trees in our garden.

Later we will pack our suitcases for our short 2 ½ hour trip to Perth Australia on Christmas Day.

There I have two home exchanges and two cars for free in exchange for my second home in Bali.

Most of the time including when I went home to Canada the last several years I never pay for hotels and transport. All I must pay for is the airfare.

Fortunately, airfare from here to Australia is only around $700 for the four of us.

We are going to Perth specifically to see the Hoffman Cup tennis tournament, a year-end fun tournament featuring top professional men and women representing their countries from around the world.

My specific reason for going to this Hoffman cup is that although I’ve been to three grand Slam tennis tournaments including Wimbledon, Roland Carlos, and the Australian open I have yet failed to see Roger Federer play live.

So, I am fulfilling a bucket list dream to see my tennis hero, arguably the best tennis player that ever lived, and perhaps will ever live play a fun game with his partner. They should win the tournament as they did last year.

One bonus that I did not anticipate is that on January 1st Roger for the first time in history will be across the net against Serena Williams representing America. Roger of course represents Switzerland.

So, my goal is that my two sons, my lovely wife Azizah and I will be able to tell our grandchildren that we watched the greatest woman and greatest man tennis players that ever-lived play against each before they retired.

What we will be missing that you ill be enjoying is probably a white Christmas in Nova Scotia with all my cousins. I’ve just made that one of my bucket lists for the next 10 years.

Theresa, I’ve offered to all our family who shared their homes me when I was growing up that you are welcome to come over here and stay in my second home anytime you wish.

Ask Rod McLean what it’s like. Couldn’t get rid of him. LOL

Wishing you and all my relatives in Nova Scotia and throughout Canada a wonderful, warm Christmas and Happy, Prosperous New Year.

______________________________________

Epilogue:

Now I can hear my lovely wife chastising me already about several things in this blog. She, with her modest upbringing and Indonesian Culture of not boasting will be all over me. The first thing she will say is I should not have mentioned how much our Indonesian staff makes. 

In my defence I will answer "my cousin asked me what's different from Nova Scotia" One of the largest differences is the cost-of-living 60 to 70% less. 

To illustrate that I had to give examples. Almost anybody with even a modest income can afford a maid and a driver in Bali.

This is the absolute main reason why I am starting to market our Bali Luxury Retirement Villas which consists of two bedroom luxury villas with private swimming pool with an 80 year lease for less than $249,000. The price of a small luxury studio apartment in Halifax.

Bali Luxury retirement villa starting at $249,000 with 80 year lease

Then she's going to say sounds like you're boasting when you talk about our home etc.

In a way yes I am. 

I've been through hell and back in my lifetime, several failed businesses, several failed relationships.

But through all that I maintained the philosophy "grow rich with peace of mind" knowing that I never intentionally cause any harm to anybody my entire life.

I don't know about life after death but what I am convinced of is Karma while we are alive. 
I believe that during our lifetime that if you do right you will be rewarded and if you do wrong you will receive negative returns.
Look today at Donald Trump as an example of negative karma coming back at you for all the people he exploited in his lifetime.

I am now rewarded with the perfect family at home and a family of over 100 employees and their families who rely on my wife and I and who have satisfied Tens of thousands of satisfied buyers and renters of our real estate and hotel over the pasty 14 years in Bali.


I want to boast about this because I want to help many of you are ending this year on a negative note with crashing Stock and real estate markets in Australia and even my home country of Canada. The year is not ending on a good note! 

If there's one thing I'm proud of is my Nova Scotia tenacity. I repeat, I  am from an extremely modest family where my mother. god bless her, and I had to make it without the help of my father who passed when I was five in an accident. 

As I said to my sons the other day after I insisted they work in our restaurant to learn what it was like " when I was their age I was washing dishes in a restaurant at the age of 13".
If I wanted something I had to work for it.

Nova Scotians are a hardy breed indeed. Most of my cousins have become successful in their own right. Not through inheritance or trusts but through hard work and endurance.

 Twelve years  I was sitting on Dundee beach Outside of Darwin Australia watching my beautiful 17 m yacht being torn apart by waves crashing on it  after we almost lost our lives in a class four Cyclone. I realized my life savings was disappearing before my eyes without insurance.

I remember saying over and over again in my head, "how are you going to get out of this one, you only have $2,500 to your name". "You don't have enough for you and your wife to fly back to Canada".

Then I remembered the famous words of one of my mentors, Napoleon Hill, one of the  best-selling authors of all time in America who wrote "Think and Grow Rich" and " Grow rich with Peace of Mind" . 

One of his most famous sayings was "Every adversity has within it the seed of a equal or greater benefit".

"Every adversity has within it the seed of a equal or greater benefit".

While watching my yacht crash part on the beach, realizing I lost everything and that I was over 50 years old living in a foreign country I wondered "how the hell can this adversity provide a benefit".

Then it dawned on me like a stroke of lightning, for years yacht passengers  had been asking me about buying real estate in Bali.

At the time we had a dictatorship and I told them quote "Bali is the next Hawaii". "It is like Hawaii 30 years ago when tourists started buying properties instead of just vacationing there". 

I realized that somehow Karma had taken away my yacht so that I lost my comfort zone and went out and marketed Bali real estate.

The first property I sold to an American couple was $1,000 per 100 m² for beachfront. Now the same property is $20,000 per hundred square metres. 

Over the years my client base built quickly and now we have over 100 staff and tens of thousands of satisfied clients who have either purchased or rented from us.

So any of you reading this must realize that often in life our comfort zone has to be taken away from us which may be happening to you now during the stock and real estate crash. 

Only then are we forced to leave our comfort zone and explore bigger, better and most importantly more rewarding and satisfying careers.

So if I improve the life of only one person who reads this today I am willing to take the wrath of my wife for appearing to be boasting.

The other  famous saying from Napoleon Hill is, "What the mind can conceive and believe the mind can achieve".

"What the mind can conceive and believe the mind can achieve".

Instead of just sitting around moaning and groaning about how everything  is negative in your life sit down and conceive a plan that you can believe and you can achieve to change your life for you, your family and the world.

Now I have to go hide from Azizah my darling, beautiful intelligent wife who I adore. 

A Very Happy Holiday and Prosperous New Year to you all.