October 30, 2009 by jcollins.

After spending all day on October 29th in Fiji, we got on a plane at 10:30pm for our flight to Los Angeles. We arrived in LA at about 1pm - get this - on October 29. Weird huh? Well we had to wait until 10:30 still on October 29 to catch our flight from Los Angeles to Tampa. That’s right two red-eye flights on the same night. There is just something not right about that. I guess our bodies agreed with us, because we didn’t sleep a bit on the flight. We arrived in Tampa at 5:55am on Oct. 30. No more Fiji time, no more bula, no more rest; now it’s time to get to work….

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October 29, 2009 by jcollins.

Time has gone by so quickly, I can’t believe it’s almost over. This morning we walked on the beach, saw the last of the beautiful blue starfish.

Joe the taxi driver showed up right on time to pick us up for the 2 hour drive back to the other side of the island. We watched the sugar cane being moved.

Joe wanted to share a couple of special places with us, so he stopped by the Outrigger Hotel to let us enjoy their view.

For lunch he took us to the incredible new Intercontinental Hotel. Their infinity pool looks like an extension of the water from the ocean.

In this photo you can see there really are people sitting on the beach between the pool and the ocean.

We took a quick walk on the beach before lunch. Joe snapped this photo for us.

After lunch it was back to the town of Nadi for some shopping, then a quick stop back by the Westin to enjoy one last sunset. The real question is: Do we look rested and relaxed?

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October 27, 2009 by jcollins.

This morning we visited the Warwick’s sister property 10 minutes down the road in Naviti. We were able to go out bay fishing. I haven’t done alot of fishing in my life, but I’ve certainly never gone “line fishing”. But when in Fiji, do as the Fijians so line fishing it is.

We discovered that if we were Fijians and had to count on our fishing to eat, we would be very skinny. Between the four of us, we caught enough for 3 fish sticks. Oh well, maybe next time we’ll go deep sea fishing.

On our way back to the shore, we saw a sea turtle. When we looked closely we noticed he was tied up. Now in the US, we can’t even turn our lights on at certain times of the year because we might disturb the sea turtles sense of direction. Here if Fiji they don’t have to deal with same environmentalists that we do, so when this turtle kept coming up to the village, they wanted to let him know his home is not on the shore, so they tied him up to keep him in the water.

The time on the water took it’s toll on us, so we visited the small village next to the resort.

The small huts usually contain handicraft for sale, but this village has discovered that people that stay at resorts like to get massages. The price was right so Kristi and I both got an hour long massage.

I’m not sure the American Massage Therapy Association would consider these therapeutic massages, but they sure felt good.

We also played a quick round of putt putt golf at the course right outside of our window.

We spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out in hammocks and by the pool. We sipped our drinks from coconuts that we broke open. We learned that the brown coconuts have very sweet meat too.

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October 26, 2009 by jcollins.

Every morning I wake up at about 3:30, most mornings I go back to sleep, but this morning I rolled out of bed and when the sun came up, I was ready. Here is a Fijian sunrise.

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October 25, 2009 by jcollins.

The beauty of sunsets can be difficult to catch on film, but I think we have done a decent job here. Enjoy the Fijian sunsets:

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October 24, 2009 by jcollins.

Before departing the lovely Westin resort, we stopped to photograph this tree. The root structure was really neat.

We called Joe the Cabbie, a long lost relative of Joe the Plumber, and spent the balance of our day driving across the island to the Warwick Resort. During the course of the 2.5 hour drive we learned all about the history of Fiji, the culture, the politics and the their Christian beliefs.

This is just one view of the country side.

We saw houses that were fit for kings and some that showed much personal expression.

As in most under developed countries, the road is filled with many roadside stands where the farmer’s try to sell their harvest to passerbys.

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October 24, 2009 by jcollins.

At breakfast we decided we would rent a car today and drive up the to capital city of Suva.

We drove up the coast, stopping to visit an art village that was really nothing more than a tourist trap. It was quiet pretty though.

Getting a bit thirsty, we stopped at a roadside stand and picked up a coconut. Kristi loved drinking the coconut water straight from the coconut. We did find out that you don’t eat the meat of the green coconuts though. Yuck!

Rugby is HUGE here. We had no idea their team is the world champions and all the players are all major celebrities here. While it wasn’t the national team playing, there was a match today, so people decorated their vehicles and headed off to watch the match.

The coast line is filled with beautiful views, or as my spanish speaking friends like to say, linda vistas. This is just one of the lagoons that we passed.

We passed alot of various styles of homes.

Yes there are still some homes that have the traditional Fiji roofs:

Lest you think that all of the homes in Fiji are small, this one could in on Clearwater beach in Florida:

When we got downtown, we visited the Fiji Museum. Which told the interesting story of Fiji’s history. We learned about the Christian missionaries who came and how they were accepted. One of the top missionaries was meeting at a village, and he touched the chief’s head - a major taboo - the bodyguards killed the missionary and the village ate him. We saw the bowl and fork they used, along with the missionaries Bible and shoes. So if you ever get to Fiji, don’t touch anyone’s head.

By the time we finished our tour of the museum, the city was pretty well closed down, evidently they close at about 3pm on Saturdays. Who knew?

There was a youth rally going on at a local park. It was neat to see that youth rallies in Fiji aren’t that different from youth rallies in the US.

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October 22, 2009 by jcollins.

Early this morning, we grabbed our swimsuits, sunscreen and wallet and headed for our “own private island.” Yep, that’s right, us and about 50 of our closest friends. We climbed aboard the large catamaran and set sail for South Seas Island, a short 30 minute ride from the marina. When we got close to the island,

the water taxi’s pulled up to take us the rest of the way.

Upon arrival we were briefed about the days agenda, a dive trip was offered to see a sunken Viking ship, too good to pass up. We spent the next 30 minutes getting geared up to go see the ancient boat. We boarded another water taxi for the two minute ride out. Hopped off the side of the boat and started our descent. Kristi’s ears bothered her, so she had to return to the surface and take the boat back to shore. I continued the dive and saw the boat along with lots of beautiful fish.

After the dive, we relaxed on the island for a while before lunch and the Meke Show.

The show was part song

and part warrior dances. The Fijians were fierce cannibalistic warriors and they love to dance and show off the weapons of yesteryear.

When the show completed we boarded another catamaran to tour several islands. Pretty much we were playing taxi to the passengers heading to other islands, but it gave us a close up view of beautiful scenery. Enjoy!
Fiji Waters:

$2350 per night huts over the water

Very friendly people here in Fiji, they always great you with a song and a cheerful BULA!:

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October 20, 2009 by jcollins.

Last night we booked a tour to South Seas Island for a half day of private island fun and a cruise to several other islands, but this morning we were too tired to take the trip, so we postponed our excursion and planned a relaxing day at the Westin.

After a breakfast feast we spent some lounging by the pool, not so much in the pool, as the water is very cold. But we enjoyed our time laying in the sun and watching the local ladies make crafts out of the palm tree clippings.

During the afternoon we went into Nadi, a small 3 street area that makes up the “downtown” of this region of the island. Our cab driver Josiah, or Joe as he preferred to be called, told us to make sure we stay only on the main street. Of course we heard, visit all three streets. I’m very glad that we didn’t listen, as we enjoyed our time on the “backroads” of town, more than the main road. The main road has plenty of tourist trap stores
and some high fashion stores for the locals.

We saw school children on their way home all dressed up in their uniforms.

It is rather refreshing to see how modestly dressed everyone in town is, but especially the school the children.

On the backroads we discovered a local farmer’s market, where hundreds of farmers bring their goods to sell “at a very good price”.

There were peppers, chili’s, spices of all types and varieties, melons, pumpkins, paw paws, a lots of kava roots.

Some things we had to ask what they were.

We discovered a local hot bread store that filled our bellies just a bit. The hot buns with cream were to delicious. No wonder they had a line coming out the door. We also found a little restaurant that served a fried fish and chips meal for $2.60FJ, about $1.50US. It certainly wasn’t the Westin meal like before, but was every bit as good as anything Long John Silver’s serves.

Our trek through town ended at the Hindu Temple. We asked permission and were allowed to enter the grounds. However we didn’t enter from the main entrance, so we didn’t know the rules. We weren’t suppose to take the photos,

we were suppose to take our shoes off and spoke.

It was interesting to see the priest preparing for some type of ritual with his face painted up. When we got to the front we noticed the sign with all of the rules posted. Oops! Blame it on the foreigners.

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October 20, 2009 by jcollins.

Bula!
When our flight left Los Angeles, it was already 2:30AM EST. So we were a bit tired. Happily we found that our seats were exit row seats with plenty of leg room, however the width of the seats were a bit smaller than the seats on typical domestic flights. As we settled in for our 10 ½ hour flight, we noticed that the crew, made up of all Fijians was delightful. Everyone really seemed to enjoy their job.

Right after takeoff they served us a snack that consisted of a sandwich, chips, fruit and orange juice. Since we weren’t really hungry yet, we set our snacks on the tray of the empty seat next to us and dozed off to sleep. A few minutes later one of the flight attendants tapped on my leg to ask permission to clear away the snacks. I asked him to leave them, and attempted to get back to sleep. This time it took me a probably an hour to get back to sleep, I looked at the entertainment center and saw that there were a couple of movies I might watch, but they had already been playing for over an hour. Luckily I was able to get back to sleep. A few minutes into my nap, I felt someone bump my leg and awoke to find another flight attendant trying to clear the snacks away. I asked her to leave them and closed my eyes. It dawned on me that the snack still being out must be an issue for them, so I removed the sandwich and drink and allowed them to take the tray. This time I was up for a couple of hours before getting back to sleep.

After a couple of short naps, breakfast, and partial movies, we landed in Fiji. It was still pitch black outside, on Monday morning. Since we crossed the international dateline, we lost a day during our travels. By the time we got through immigration and customs, the sun was up and our new day had begun.

We arrived at the lush Westin Resort,

checked into our ocean view room

went for a walk along the beach, enjoyed our breakfast buffett, took a nap and showered all before 11:45 AM. During our walk, we were discussing how our children would enjoy the black sand beach here, when we stumbled upon this….

How is it that SAM made it across the ocean, wrote his name in the sand, and travel back to America before we arrived on the beach? There must be another SAM somewhere on this island.

We visited the pool, but evidently they don’t have heater here, as the water temperature was probably about 68 degrees, just a bit too chilly for us Floridians. As it was approaching lunch time we decided to head down to their marina area to find a restaurant, we ended up at the Fiji Hard Rock Café.

Picked up a few supplies at the local grocery store and then headed back to the hotel.

Our evening consisted of a visit to the pool


(a view from the pool)

followed by a sunset dinner at a table on the beach. It was delightful experience until the sand fleas set in and started biting us. At the end of a very long day(s), we headed to bed at about 8:30pm. Tomorrow begins a new adventure.

This is an unretouched photo from our seaside table at dinner.

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