June 2009 - Nadi, Fiji
BULA!
Going to Fiji was also a part of my study abroad trip. We came here after Australia…we spent a week here and I wish it could have been a lifetime (yes, I never wanted to leave- seriously). Okay, so here are some highlights of my trip… I remember we flew from Brisbane, Australia to Nadi (pronounced NANDI), Fiji and that took about 2 hrs.
We stayed at a Novatel resort for the first part of the week…and it was really nice and so was the breakfast every morning.
Oh- BTW-Everything in Fiji is half off (.50 USD equaled $1 FJD), so that was cool everything was supperrrr cheap!!!
During our couple of days in Nadi-We went to this cultural center … I LOVE, LOVE LOVE cultural centers! Here we were first serenaded by the workers- pretty nice! And there was a boat tour at the cultural center that allowed us to see how Fijians lived 100 years ago… they lived preeetty rough lol but it was cool to see someone make baskets and a fire from scratch! We also learned that Fijians were cannibals back in the day –EW. LOL. After the guided tour we watched this performance of a ancient Fijian dance done by the women who worked there and watched the men walk on the fire stones-I bet the bottom of their feet is hit as many times as they had to do this working there lol. OH! One more thing I did at the cultural center- I opened my BIG MOUTH and said I wanted to be the master of the village and so I had to drink the Kava (I’m thinking this is make believe n it’s just going to be water) no- this was not water it tasted like clay dirt water and it made my tongue numb. EEK. Why did I say anything! LOL. I think we had lunch here too and they gave us some green chicken or potatoes I can’t remember but something on my plate was green and they said they cooked n the ground- yeah- I passed on that LOL.
I remember on the ride back to the resort, I saw ladies walking on the sides of the street with water baskets on their heads (like you would see in Africa) and no shoes on and huts and villages… this was so sad.. I just wish I could have given them all money even though I didn’t have much at the time. Apparently the tour guide said the people who live in that village are so happy and they don’t even have electricity- wow.
One night I remember us talking a cab over to the westin to watch a fire dance show ( you know like how the guys/gals dance with the torches in Hawaii?!?!). That was cool- I had never seen this before and that was amazing! Oh – this Westin was much nicer then where we stayed – at least from what we could see LOL it had these giant life size chess pieces, hammocks, a cool bar (I got a drink called ‘Tropical Itch’ and it came with a BACK SCRATCHER in the cocktail!
The last activity I remember us doing while on this island was going ZIP-LININGGGGGGGGG!!!! This was soooooo freaking cool! As usual I was scared to DEATH but I got over it and had a ball- I even got stuck once because the guy had told me to put my hand behind me on the line and I didn’t know that didn’t mean not to hold the line (I was wondering why my gloves was getting hot) LOL but amazingly he came and dragged me back to the next canopy LOL He had to be strong for that – oops, sorry guy! Lol Oh- let me tell you- I forgot to mention this at the beginning so- we get picked up by this cab driver and we are driving for about an hour (I didn’t know how far this was going to be from the hotel) and I look at my friend and I look back at the door and just keep pressing the lock button and she was like “ why are you doing that” and I’m like “dude we’ve been driving for an hour now, where the hell is this place? I saw on Nat geo that in the Philippines the cab drivers take tourist and sell them” and she starts rapidly locking her door too LOL tooo funny… anyway an hour out we pull up to this other resort to pick up another couple and guess what- THEY ARE FROM MICHIGAN too FROM Detroit too and the guy was a Detroit firefighter- so I felt safe at this point because the cab driver was a scrawny old man LOL…. TURNS OUT this zip line adventure is 3 Hours away alllllll the wayyy on the other side of the island-Sigatoga (I think this is the name of the city) WTF why didn’t the brochure notify us of this? So cray! But the tour guide ended up being cool and I tipped him like $50 FJD because he had told me that he only makes $25 a week (now I don’t know if that’s a scam or not) but $50 FJD = $25 USD so whatever! LOL. The rest of my classmates didn’t go zip lining only two of us did… I think they went to villages which I wish I coulda went there too but we only had so much time n we really wanted to do zip lining so we did.
The next day we headed to Beachcomber island- this was a complete chill spot and party spot for the college kids at night loll. I was lucky enough to stay in the bure with only two other classmates while everrrryyone else had to stay in the dorm part. We were a chill group of girls so that’s probably why the professors chose us! J yay! It was so quite and quaint where we were… right when you walked out of the bure you saw white sand and clear water. In beachcomber I went parasailing for the first time and tubing for the first time. Parasailing was really relaxing I liked it a lot. And tubing… oh em gee… I held on for dear life because there was nooo way I was falling off that tube lol. He was going fast over those waves but that was cool and fun. I remember when it was over my arms were like stuck in that position of me holding on to the tube for quite sometime lol.
The next day I TRIED to do the kayak thing. Our goal was to kayak all the way to the next island and explore it and kayak back annnd we got about 10 min out and said ugh my arms hurt and we just sat there slowly kayaking back LOL.
So since we were sore- we decided to go get a full body massage on the beach- yessss amazinggggg!!! It was like a 2 hour massage for $60 FJD = $30 USD HELLO DEAL!!!! And that was my first ever massage experience and I loved it and it was very relaxing, having it on the beach and all.
Andddd that’s how I spent my week in the beautiful country of Fiji. All I can say is that I love it 10000000% Fiji is one of my top ten places to visit and I will be back ahgain and ahgain and ahgain!
BULA!