Grace & I are at Bulaccino, a Fijian chain coffee shop in Nadi. They have affordable internet and we decided to take advantage of some time to post about our trip so far. I attempted to upload some photos I have taken, but did not have much success in reading my card at this internet spot. Watch for more posts and hopefully photos of our exploits.
So here we are in Fiji on our second day. It's been an interesting ride starting with a 2.5 hour plane ride from Seattle to Los Angeles, then a 4 hour layover. We did not know that the LAX airport was under construction and the selection of food, etc was extremely limited. We ended up with some chicken teriyaki which could at best be called so so. Good thing the folks at Air Pacific served dinner as well as a nice breakfast on the 9.5 hour flight to Nadi, Fiji. I can only say good things about this airline. Everything was perfect, from the in-seat TV with audio, video and even game selections. You can play your seat mate at Tic Tac Toe and believe me Grace took advantage of this and whooped our butts a few times.
We arrived in Fiji at 4:30 AM on Thursday, two days after departing Bellingham on Tuesday morning. It was a little strange to hire a taxi to take us to our hotel in the dark. We didn't get to see any of the countryside as we were whisked away to the Radisson. The hotel is on Denarau Island which is a total tourist area, but it's a very nice hotel with a wonderful pool supposedly the nicest on the island. We took a little nap and after freshening up we headed into town to explore. It's very hot & humid here and we walked around town from one end to the other. Having read in the in flight magazine that the local restaurant "TaTa's" was supposed to be a very good place for lunch we stopped in there. it was quite the experience let me tell you. We ordered a variety of curries. Adam had chicken, Martin had shrimp and I ordered a Lamb dish requesting it to be mild as we were all not accustomed to curry. Wow, what an adventure. My mouth burned pretty bad and needless to say most of my meal stayed behind there. Martin & Adam seemed to suffer through it and mostly enjoyed their lunch.
We had stopped at a grocery store and attempted to pick up some snacks. However we're dismayed to find that prices for anything healthy were astronomical. Yogurt, fresh fruit and such were really expensive and we left just purchasing a pack of bottled water. After some more explorations we visited a local coffee shop since my caffeine withdrawal headache was getting to be too much. One of the employees directed us to a locally owned shop for a truly local experience. We participated in some local rites and a kava ceremony. It was quite interesting to talk to some locals from a nearby village in the mountains. It looks like we may head back there today to purchase some local art stuff. Everything they sell is handmade in the village and profits go towards education for the village children, or so they tell us around here. LOL
Then we headed back to the hotel for some swimming in the fabulous pools.
We had dinner at a local spot around the marina in the complex where our hotel is. It was quite good, martin & I shared a seafood platter, and Adam went all exotic with a Hawaiian Pizza.
We hit the hay around 9:30 PM since we are all tired and jet lag wasn't quite overcome.
Today we hit Nadi again for breakfast at Bulaccino here...next on our agenda massages by locals at the spa here in town. It's amazing how cheap things are, like a 1.5 hour massage for $60 Fijian, which is about $40 US, I think...
Anyway, our 30 minutes are almost up so I better finish off this post. Its beautiful here and we are definitely thinking about a return visit. The most striking thing about Fiji is how friendly and helpful the locals are.
This is Melanie & Gracie sigining out.
