He says: We all have our favorite things. For some it's watching a new episode of "Two and a Half Men", while for others it's a cold beer on a hot day. With this in mind, I decided the day before we hit Lombok to list some of my favorite things to Shauna. Obvious ones included family and friends, however the list also contained Belgian waffles, the cold side of a pillow, and the tone of Stevie Ray Vaughan's guitar. It also got Shauna thinking, and little was I to know that our day in Lombok would include the majority of her favorite things - Monkeys (she was careful!), jewelry, snorkeling, an octopus, a beach, cats, swimming, and delicious new Asian food. I'll let her fill you in on what was officially declared, "the day of Shauna". All I'll say was that Lombok was definitely a highlight of the trip so far. The beaches were still unspoiled and the area remains free of overdevelopment for the moment.

She says: I'm not sure at what point I realized it, but the day in Lombok was truly the "Day of Shauna" and without a doubt, one of my best days ever.

As Matt said, he started our day by listing off his top ten favourite things. It got me thinking about what mine are. Amazingly, the day came together in such a way that I got to experience many of them in a short period.

Lombok, Indonesia was a bonus port on this trip. We hadn't ever thought of visiting there, but would both love to go back. It is an absolutely gorgeous island, and the even smaller island we visited off the coast of Lombok (Gili Tarwanagan) reminded us of our beloved Koh Lanta, Thailand from last summer.

This was a tender port, meaning we had to start off by sitting in one of the ship's dining rooms waiting to be called onto the crowded 150-person lifeboats to get dropped off at the pier.

Before the cruise, I joined "cruisecritic.com" and made a bunch of Internet friends. We had a "meet and greet" with them earlier in the cruise. Matt was wary, but most of the online buddies were really nice. My favourite online friend was a Kiwi named Adrian who used to be a travel agent and gave me TONS of info, including the name of a tour company in Lombok. It is through that company we booked our tour on the Day of Shauna. We sat with Adrian and his aged parents while waiting for our tender and heard about their cruise adventures. His parents have cruised many times before, in fact, several times on this same ship. We asked about power outages and Norwalk virus. They had experienced both. In separate occasions. On this ship. And kept coming back.

As soon as we got off our tender, there was an Indonesian band (all wearing nametags to show they'd been approved to come on the pier) to greet us. There was a dancer who immediately grabbed Matt and he joined her in a dance up the dock.

Our guide, Saiful, was waiting for us with a sign immediately outside the gates, allowing us to buypass the many people trying to get us to buy things (like mini mahogany BMWs and necklaces to ward away mosquitos). We were introduced to our driver, Ding and drove away from our nursing home of the sea. Immediately, we felt like we were back on an adventure.

Saiful was great. He grew up in Lombok and was very knowledgable. I have always wondered about rice harvesting (fascinating, I know) and he explained the process to us, even getting Ding to pull over at a rice paddy and letting us pull open some rice husks to see the grains inside. In Lombok, the men and women work to harvest the rice together which I thought was awesome.

Even cooler, right next to the paddy were these small ferns with purple clover-like flowers. Saiful said these are called "shy flowers" and ran his hand over them. The ferns quickly closed up. It was amazing. I spent a good few minutes playing with these. I looked them up a few days later and it turns out they're called "Mimosa Pudica" (like my favourite pre-flight drink) and have this reaction to stimuli to protect themselves from predators - perhaps animals are less likely to eat "fast moving" plants!

Lombok has a population that is about 70% moderate Muslim, with the remaining 30% identifying as mostly Hindu with some Christians and Buddhists. However, unlike so many places we've been, all the religions live in harmony. Temples are even shared among religions, communities house different religions and there is no problem marrying outside one's own faith. We saw many kids dressed in their traditional religious outfits for their schools on Saturday, and all of them playing together peacefully.

I told Saiful that I love monkeys and he laughed and told Ding to take a route through "Monkey Forest". This was my best monkey time ever.

Monkey Forest is FANTASTIC. We stopped on the way to pick up peanuts, Saiful went over some monkey tips (don't look them in the eye; if you drop something, don't pick it up; make sure to give a peanut to the chief monkey first; don't engage different monkey tribes at once) and we found ourselves at a bend in the road where we were suddenly surrounded by grey macaques. Two different groups of monkeys quickly emerged from the mountain and jungle and congregated. There were mothers with tiny babies clinging to them, larger dudes and little kid monkeys. It was a dream come true. We passed dozens of peanuts to them and they happily snacked away. Matt stood well clear of the monkey onslaught. Several other carloads of people drove up and another troupe of monkeys joined in. Each group had its own place and hierarchy, with the larger monkeys getting first dibs on all snacks.

As we drove away, we saw dozens of other monkeys on the sides of the road, relaxing and grooming one another. I was squealing like a little kid.

We had a wonderful view from the top of the mountain of the beautiful blue water (I think it's called the Bali Strait) where we were headed. Saiful had set up a power boat to take us from the private pier (VIP treatment!) and we had about a 20 minute ride to beautiful Gili (small island) Tarwanagan. On this island, there are no cars or motorcycles. People get around on foot, "push bike" (bicycle) or pony cart.

Our time on this island was positively heavenly. We got set up on a stilted shack and ordered a delicious Indonesian lunch (super fresh, spicy, flavourful food). The weather was perfect and the beach was about as beautiful as you can imagine. It was quite busy, but it didn't even matter, we had plenty of space to ourselves.

The super friendly locals call the island "Cat Island" because of all the stray cats. Another of my favourite things. A momma cat joined us for lunch. We snuck her a *few* (OK, maybe more than a few) table scraps and she snuggled up and purred. We really miss Ap and Trixie.

A guy named Herman came along with a case of beautiful pearl jewellery. I have a bit of a thing for necklaces and had so much fun going through his wares. I ended up with 2 beautiful necklaces, earrings and a bracelet for Matt for an embarrassingly good deal. Lombok is known for pearls and the deal I got on my pearl necklace and earrings was a little like robbery. I'm *pretty* sure they're real!

After we'd eaten, we got geared up with snorkels and fins and headed down to the beach. The water was super shallow, but clear as day. As soon as you put your face down, it was like being in Matt and Sonia's aquarium. The fish and coral were amazing. I've never seen anything like it. I got pretty scratched up on coral, because the water was so shallow. After a few minutes, I figured out that I had to expend no effort at all and just float. The current brought you on a wonderful tour of the reef. We came up underneath a dive boat and had to swim against the current to get the heck out of the way of the motor. We hadn't even realized how far we'd drifted. After about 20 minutes, Matt headed back up to shore, and I did the tour again.

I put my face into the water as soon as I could, still out of breath from the excitement of the first exploration. I had only floated for a few moments when I spotted, right below my mask and literally inches below my face, a red octopus. I'm a little obsessed with octopuses and it was a complete dream to see one in the wild. However, faced with one, I completely FREAKED out. I panicked worse than meeting a celebrity. I did not come CLOSE to playing it cool. I saw the amazing little creature, peacefully lying there and I flipped out. I worried I was going to touch it with my face or put a hand on it or hurt it and I started sucking in water and trying to paddle away. I forgot how to swim and didn't know how to stand up. I was in about knee height water. I didn't want to stand on the little guy and squash it. I half dog paddled, half rolled away, probably terrifying the octopus half to death. By the time I gathered my wits, I was out of breath, heart hammering, nearly in tears and desperate to find the octopus again and take a real look at it. Not surprisingly, despite a thorough search, it was long gone. Dejected, I followed the current and looked at some amazing fish. At the other end of the beach, still shaky, I removed my fins and went back up to Matt. Immediately he could tell something was wrong, I felt so ashamed at missing my opportunity to enjoy watching an octopus in the wild I could barely tell him the story. He just looked at my mask creased face and barely suppressed a laugh. He reminded me what good luck it was to see an octopus at all and says he wishes he'd seen me flopping about after my sighting.

Even as I write this, nearly a week later, I feel sick to my stomach. I don't think I'll ever be so close to a wild octopus again. I can't believe how badly I blew it.

Oh well, Matt's right...just seeing one up close and personal adds to the Day of Shauna.

I was able to relax a bit, as a woman came along and offered a 30 minute massage right on the beach. It was more like a sand exfoliation, and along with my coral scratches, I'm sure I have all new skin now.

All too quickly, our time was up and we had to head back to the ship. We drove back a different way to get a beautiful panoramic view of the coast. More monkeys came to see us and I played with some more shy flowers.

By the time we returned to the ship, I was exhausted, I couldn't wipe the smile off my face and when the ship's captain got on the loudspeaker and said "I hope you had an *interesting* day", I realized that mine couldn't have been much more interesting. Or better.

I just wish I would have been ready for that octopus. We could have been friends.