Bula, Part 3, About Fiji

We boarded the plane at 5:30 am on Saturday morning in Apia. We arrived at 7:45 am on Sunday morning in Nadi, Fiji two hours later. At the airport the shuttle took us to our swanky hotel, Tanoa International, which was the location of Ephraim's training.


So why did we go to Fiji? Ephraim attended a training on Online Ocean Data Collection. He can tell you more about it. Just ask.

While he was in meetings during the day, I got to explore town.

Some of my first impressions of Fiji:

There were so many things about this place that reminded me and Ephraim of South America: the dusty streets, the smoke chugging busses, the houses with cement and re-bar walls... and this guy pushing around "me and my ice cream" at the bus station.
One of my first stops was the market. It had three huge halls with produce, kava, fish and meat. They had an amazing variety of fruits and vegetables! All the normal produce we have in American Samoa, plus dozens of other things, tomatoes, peppers, watermelon, corn, jackfruit, eggplant, lettuce, etc. Some I had never seen before, like rockfruit.


Because of the large Indian population, Hindi and English are the main languages spoken besides Fijian. It's very curious how Fijian and Indian cultures exist side by side and mix in some ways. For example, there is a strong traditional Fijian village system. The Counsel of Chiefs make up part of the government. But also you see Hindi soap operas on TV with all the Bolleywood glitz, and stores sell gorgeous shimmery saris for Diwali. And you can get divine curry, dhal soup, and roti.

Here's a typical city bus we rode on, "fully air conditioned" ha ha.
We enjoyed British influence in Fiji. Like the funky outlet plugs, the brilliantly efficient dual flushing toilets (you push the little button for little things and big button for big things), Queen Elizabeth on all currency, and of course driving on the left side of the road. This really threw us off at first. Trying to cross the street was tricky. Ephraim got into the drivers seat of taxis on accident. And we were appalled to see little kids driving cars, until we realized they were really on the passengers side. Have you ever experienced this?

This shows the Sleeping Giant mountain between Nadi and Lautoka. Many people are employed by the Sugar Mill in Lautoka, and there were miles of sugar cane fields being harvested and burned, as well as a railway loaded with cane.
I apologize that my photography stinks, but I'm usually shy about appearing the tourist with my camera. And I don't take good pictures.

By the way, their greeting is BULA! or Bula Vinaka! They use Vinaka for Thank you and You're welcome. So when you go, you'll be in the know.

Bula, Part 2

Our adventure began with a little 15-seater airplane taking us to Apia, Samoa (Western). These rides are always fun. They seat you according to body weight, and somehow I got to sit right behind the pilots. I jotted down a few thoughts on the 30 minute ride.

Maybe I prefer to sit in the back where I can't see that our plane is being maneuvered by normal humans using dials and switches... Where I can't see the co-pilot pull out the trusty school-type Casio calculator to plan the flight. (Can you imagine shopping for aviation instruments in the school-supply section?) His hands seem to be shaking. Is it the plane vibration? My hands aren't shaking. Yet.

When he revs the throttle and the pilot releases the brake, we zip forward like a paper wad in a sling shot. I just remembered that we didn't write a will. But I did wash the dishes. What would we include in our will? We have nothing really. The kids split the car? Ella gets the iMac to do her TuxPaint (promising graphic design career), and Isaac gets the surf gear with our hopeful aspirations for him?

Ah, Lalomanu, we're almost there. Maybe we don't need a will yet. Actually we're not almost there; this island Upolu is huge. I forgot all these miles and miles of coconut trees like green icing stars dotting a cake. And large banyans from here are bits of lichen, patches of moss carpeting the mountains and valleys.

There are the tiny cars. Intersections meet with no imposing stop signs, lights or traffic directions. Folks walk side by side down the middle of the road. They feel perfectly safe, and from my view I know they are. On closer look it seems the coconut trees looks sickly on the golf course. And now the banana trees are in sight.

Oh the landing! How many prayers have been most sincerely offered on this runway? We all become earnestly though temporarily pious Christians for these moments. Until we land safely and enter the slow lines of customs, immigration, inspections, and then face hounding taxis outside. Where did our piety go?

Here's our bungalow at Aggie Grey's where we only spent about 5 hours due to our 2:30 am checkout when we had to leave for the airport again. A short but very sweet beginning to our week.

Bula, Part 1

Remember how awesome Ephraim's birthday was this year? Well, for my birthday he took me to Fiji. It was pretty awesome. And I felt overwhelmingly spoiled.

Thank you to our amazing friends who watched the kids and made it possible for me sit through a whole meal, relax for hours, and not answer to "Mama" for an entire week.

It may take a couple posts to cover our trip, so you'll feel like you're traveling right along with us...without the luggage and fatigue. I hope it's not too dull for you, but the main mission of this blog was to keep family and friends informed on what we're doing while we're so far away. So that's what you're gettin' with these posts. As always feel free to skip, skim for pictures, or "mark all as read" at your pleasure.

Bula Vinaka!

Quite a Catch

Ever since we brought back a spear gun from Pa in June, Ephraim's been wanting to try out his spearing skills. He's finally gone out a few times with his friend Ian, and although he's not so hot with his long spear yet, he did catch these guys with Ian's short range spear.

If you want to know what kind of fish these are (besides my answer "red") or how they tasted, you'll have to ask him.

He's hopeful that someday he'll be as good as Ian who's provided us with huge dogtooth tuna from these trips. I'm impressed with Ian's policy, keep everything you catch because someone will eat it. It's true, Samoans eat basically every sea creature out there. Mmmmm...

More Waves

Steve and I got some fun waves in Taputimu the day before my birthday. This spot has major potential and a lot of the old timers talk of epic sessions. I have yet to have one there but can kind of see what they are referring too as I watch waves dredge the water off the reef and slab up. On this day the barrels weren't staying open and the whole wave was pretty pinchy with a fat shoulder. Most waves were just a drop and a few would close out the whole cove. I caught one of those closeouts and almost got dragged across the rocks you can see in the foreground of some of the pictures. It turned out to be a pretty fun session because of the swell size. The reefs here can't really handle anything over 6-8 ft (double overhead) and usually anything over head high is too messy to ride. So on this day we got to ride some overhead, somewhat clean waves. They were really hard to get into and I had some fun air drops.




I went for this tiny one (below) and backed out, then got slammed by the next wave (following two). I ended up being right in the impact zone and tried to dive under but got sucked over the falls and hit the reef feet first and was held there for a while.


Here I am with Steve getting a little breather after getting pounded inside.

Steve was making some fun drops but was really wishing for more of a wall or at least something to turn against afterward.

Here's one of those air drops I mentioned (the second picture).

Thanks to Lauren for taking these pictures of us. I think before this day I'd only had about 5 pictures taken of me surfing in my life. For days after I couldn't get over myself and had to look at these over and over. I always was one of the vainer guys I've known.

Ella's Comforter

Ella has sucked her fingers since she was 1 month old. I'm not worried about it quite yet, but I do think it's funny she found a way to draw her comfort habit.

We have a home video of me at age 5 sucking my fingers too. My dad was cue-ing me to say, "I was going to stop sucking my fingers, but I haven't yet." To which i dutifully repeated, "I was going to stop sucking my fingers, but I HAVEN'T YET !!!!"

It's one of those classic lines your family never lets you live down.
So we'll see what happens with our little dear.

O le Uila (The Bike)

Lately you can find us outside working on our bike-riding skills, thanks to the acquisition of new/used bikes for the kids.

Ella's doing really well, but after her first accident, she gets off the bike to turn it around.

Isaac mostly rides backwards still. But that's fun, too.

And I just take pictures, watch for cars, and kiss boo-boos.