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 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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