Happy New Year
From Fiji...
From Fiji...
Some New Year's entertainment.
December 31, 2006
8:00am
Today is New Year’s Eve. Quite a different New Year’s Eve than I am used to though.
For starters, there is no worrying about what to wear tonight. The options go as far as choosing between a couple of sundresses. And no
primping time is necessary for tonight. I am going to wear make-up tonight but considering I just have a basic travel make-up kit, this will take
no more than three minutes to apply.
In the meantime, it’s time to go about my day. All this requires is throwing on a bathing suit, my hat, sunglasses and sunscreen. I will think about
tonight’s festivities once the sun goes down…
6:00pm
We decided to start our day by walking around the island. This gave us both a new appreciation for this place. The scenery goes far beyond the
pool area. There are boulders on the other side of the island and areas where short hikes can be done. The island is larger than I originally
thought.
In between bouts of laying out, Kat and I went on the daily snorkel trip that the resort offers. This was where Kat would discover that she’s not a
snorkeler. But I was having a nice time roaming around the coral and along the edge where it drops off. The color was absolutely incredible at
the edge. The shade of blue (almost an electric blue) reminded me of when I was in the Red Sea. The major sadness of the excursion came when
I found out a few people saw some reef sharks. Once again, I came up empty-handed.
Oh well. The weather was absolutely picture-perfect today. I can’t even describe the shades of colors in the ocean. There were just so many of
them! Yesterday we didn’t see as many since the clouds had already rolled in by the time we got here. But today we got to see what Fiji was all
about.
Our afternoon entertainment came in the form of the Sunday School from a local village coming over to sing some songs for us. Kat passed on
watching their performance but I wanted to check them out. A bunch of little kiddies ranging in ages from ‘barely potty trained’ to ‘cocky kid
who thinks he is too cool to be doing this’. More than the songs, I was loving watching the dynamic between all of them. Not one of them ever
looked at any of us. They were all watching the bandleader (i.e. the older girl who was front and center that knew all of the words and arm
movements). Every now and then they would turn to each other and giggle a bit. Their encore performance was to a diddy called ‘Jesus Loves
the Little Children of the World’. I even went as far as memorizing this. Here it goes:
Jesus loves the little children of the world.
Jesus loves the little children of the world.
Red and yellow, black and white.
They are all precious in his sight.
Jesus loves the little children of the world.
And on that note, the Sunday School kiddies left.
January 1, 2007
8:00am
Our resort did a big New Year’s Eve dinner seafood buffet last night. I probably didn’t need that much food but it was a nice touch. Plus there
were lots of decorations. Streamers. Balloons. Confetti. Hats. All of the things to help us realize that last night was not just another night.
True to Fijian time, we had Tahitian dancers perform almost an hour and a half after they were supposed to. This left us about seven minutes
until the New Year. I couldn’t help but think ‘Are we going to celebrate the New Year according to ‘Fijian time?’ I seriously thought that the
balloons were going to drop at around 1:45am and they were going to say “Ahhh, we’re on Fijian time.” But shockingly, New Year’s occurred at
12:00am on the dot. Wonders will never cease. And I mean this with the most sincerity as I was truly shocked that they pulled this off on time.
Just after 2007 got underway, a Scottish man…let me rephrase this…a married Scottish man went around giving everybody his ‘Happy New
Year’ hug and kiss on the cheek. He gave me a New Year’s kiss on the mouth. All I could do was look at Kat like ‘What the hell just happened???’
Fireworks were being launched from the beach and people were going into the pool. I told Kat we should go in. How often do we get to go
swimming on New Year’s Eve, after all? I wish I could say that I was carefree enough to just ‘jump in’. But I can’t. We changed into our bathing
suits and spent the final part of our night submerged in water.
Hello, 2007…
7:00pm
Just when you thought ‘Fijian time’ was the most relaxed pace you have ever witnessed…along comes ‘Fijians-with-a-hangover time’.
There was something almost incredible about not only how long it took to get the tea that I ordered at breakfast but also the delay in response I
received when placing such an order. But for some reason, out here it doesn’t bother me. This is just the way it is. All you can really do to make
the time pass in between placing an order and receiving an order is make a game out of it. The game is called ‘How long will it take?’ The results
will always be a win-lose situation. For example, if it only takes ten minutes to receive your tea you win on one level because you received your
tea in a timely manner (yes, ten minutes is very timely out here) but you lose because there was no miraculous record that was made. That being
said, if you order your tea only to find that twenty minutes later you still don’t have your tea and the person who you placed the order with is
clearing just about every table in sight at a snail’s pace and is never looking up making it impossible to make eye contact…well, this is getting on
its way to making a personal record and will therefore earn a tally in the ‘win’ department. It will officially be a personal record once you realize
that she has no recognition of the tea order (was this really that much of a surprise to me when I saw the near-confusion look on her face when I
had originally made the request?) and you place another order that is delivered ten minutes later. Of course with this ‘win’ comes the ‘loss’
…which was having to wait over a half-hour for a cup of tea.
Such is the Fijian life…
Today was nice. Well, at least for me but not so much for Kat. I thought I was doing her a favor when I ordered her breakfast this morning since
she was meeting me at the restaurant. Instead, when her unsolicited omelet arrived she wanted to puke. Oops. She instead opted for a Diet Coke
at 9am in lieu of anything else. She couldn’t even manage to imbibe in the restaurant so she brought herself and the soda back to the room. I
would not see her for the next few hours until I got back from my snorkeling venture. A venture that was not very enjoyable considering I was
given a faulty mask by the ‘Boatshed’ out here. I am sure I am not the first person who has had a mask that decides to intake water from the
ocean and store it inside up against my eyes. I don’t want to sound like a complainer…but it kind of sucked. In addition to water sloshing around,
my eyes were now burning. I tried to clear my mask many times but to no avail. In fact, when I did attempt this, I ingested salty ocean water. I
was not a very happy snorkeler. I knew my limits…actually, I knew my mask’s limits…and I hopped back in the boat. A few minutes later
another girl got in. She ended up lending me her mask and I went back in a had a very pleasurable time. I was excited to find Nemo. And then I
found four of Nemo’s close siblings. This made me think that Disney made the world believe that it was more difficult to find Nemo than it really
should have been.
When I got back, Kat was feeling better. Hallelujah. A sick Kat is not a very happy Kat. And there could only be a happy Kat while in Fiji. It just
wouldn’t be right otherwise.
Later this afternoon we ran into a little snag when she stopped by the room while I was hanging out outside. When she was heading back to the
pool, she dropped the room key at the table I was sitting at so I would have the key. The problem was that she never made an announcement
about this. Silly Kat. She doesn’t know that while it might appear that I see what she is doing, I am actually not paying as much attention as she
thinks. I was about to head to the pool and I looked all over for the room key in the room but then just figured Kat took it with her. It wasn’t
until I asked her for the key that we realized the snag. To make a long story short, we had to get a spare key from the key boy and we were most
likely going to have to pay for the lost key unless it appeared out of thin air. We were both at fault: I was to blame for my cluelessness; Kat was
to blame for not being aware of my cluelessness.
We got ready for dinner and broke open my bottle of Sparkling Shiraz. After all, tonight was not just any night…it was New Year’s Eve in our
respective homes. How could we not celebrate???
9:02pm
Uh oh. I just got sick. I drank too much sparkling red wine while Kathleen didn’t drink much of the sparkling red wine. This means I drank most
of the bottle of sparkling red wine. And I kind of paid the price. All I wanted to do was bring in the New Year in San Francisco in a fun way. It
turned 2007 in San Francisco just two minutes ago according to my clock on my…..HOLY CRAP!!!!.... I just noticed that my clock on my
computer says it’s 1:02 am which means I had it all wrong. I should have been celebrating an hour ago. But I didn’t. In spirit, I did. But not in
actuality. Oh well. In any case, Happy New Year to my peeps at home! And my peeps in the Mountain time zone. And my peeps in the Central
time zone. And we can’t forget my peeps in the Eastern time zone.
Uh oh. Kat just found a wet spot in the bed. I have assured it wasn’t me. She has assured me it wasn’t her. I came to the conclusion that it must
have been the housekeeper. After all, just one little minute she found our missing key (‘missing’ much due to my obliviousness) inside the
sheets. How does this make sense? I don’t know. She doesn’t know. But she just gave her synopsis. Kat’s theory was that the housekeeper and
the key boy had sex in our bed. That being said, Kat’s sleeping in the wet spot. Haha, sucka! Let me just put it out there again…I drank over
three-quarters of a bottle of sparkling wine and I am writing this journal while being intoxicated. Enough said, right?
Okay, I am officially upset with Kathleen. She is outwardly dissing my itunes library. I am appalled by her lack of enthusiasm for the Annie
soundtrack. She literally turned her nose up at ‘You’re Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile’. What a great song about the greatness of smiling.
Heck, it makes me want to smile right now just thinking about it. But not her. She even went so far as to just say that my ipod is rebelling against
me and this is why it’s not updating any of my recently purchased songs (a problem I told her that I have been having for the past four months
or so). A person’s music collection is a reflection of a person. If she doesn’t like my music, she doesn’t like me. How not-nice of her…
January 2, 2006
7:00am
Lovely. I just read my journal entry from last night. Where do I come up with half the stuff that crosses my mind when I’m drunk???
The one thing I can be thankful for this morning is that my head feels no repercussions of last night. In fact, I feel great. Truly great. Somebody
told me that you take much more of a toll after a night of drinking once you turn 30. Let me debunk this myth. I feel like I could do anything this
morning. Anything at all.
That being said, I think I’m going to take an early morning nap…
10:00pm
Talk about taking advantage of my last day of being on this island. And by ‘taking advantage’ I mean that I did absolutely nothing. Well,
‘absolutely nothing’ is a bit of an exaggeration (or maybe an under-exaggeration?). I did read one of Kat’s books from cover to cover. It has
been so long since I’ve read an easy-reading chick book that it was nice and refreshing. From the get-go I couldn’t stop wondering if Rachel was
going to get caught for sleeping with her best friend’s fiancé. So I really only had one option – finish the book. I never have this luxury – of just
finishing a book the same day I start it – with books where I pay deep attention to every detail.
And that wasn’t all I did today. Kat and I also rode kayaks around the island. Who cares that this only took thirty minutes? The point is that we
rode around the entire island. Kudos to us.
It is just about time to say good-bye to this island. On one level, this is sad. I’m having a hard time thinking of the next time I will be on a tropical
island.
But at the same time, after reading Kat’s New Zealand book, I am now really pumped up for New Zealand. I had no idea of all of the things it has
to offer. I literally read nothing about it before arriving. I had no time. Well, I think I chose to make no time. After all, I have found that I love
places so much more when I don’t have tons of expectations. I definitely think New Zealand will fall into this category.
Tomorrow morning our helicopter comes to pick us up to take us to the airport where we will fly back to Auckland…
8:00am
Today is New Year’s Eve. Quite a different New Year’s Eve than I am used to though.
For starters, there is no worrying about what to wear tonight. The options go as far as choosing between a couple of sundresses. And no
primping time is necessary for tonight. I am going to wear make-up tonight but considering I just have a basic travel make-up kit, this will take
no more than three minutes to apply.
In the meantime, it’s time to go about my day. All this requires is throwing on a bathing suit, my hat, sunglasses and sunscreen. I will think about
tonight’s festivities once the sun goes down…
6:00pm
We decided to start our day by walking around the island. This gave us both a new appreciation for this place. The scenery goes far beyond the
pool area. There are boulders on the other side of the island and areas where short hikes can be done. The island is larger than I originally
thought.
In between bouts of laying out, Kat and I went on the daily snorkel trip that the resort offers. This was where Kat would discover that she’s not a
snorkeler. But I was having a nice time roaming around the coral and along the edge where it drops off. The color was absolutely incredible at
the edge. The shade of blue (almost an electric blue) reminded me of when I was in the Red Sea. The major sadness of the excursion came when
I found out a few people saw some reef sharks. Once again, I came up empty-handed.
Oh well. The weather was absolutely picture-perfect today. I can’t even describe the shades of colors in the ocean. There were just so many of
them! Yesterday we didn’t see as many since the clouds had already rolled in by the time we got here. But today we got to see what Fiji was all
about.
Our afternoon entertainment came in the form of the Sunday School from a local village coming over to sing some songs for us. Kat passed on
watching their performance but I wanted to check them out. A bunch of little kiddies ranging in ages from ‘barely potty trained’ to ‘cocky kid
who thinks he is too cool to be doing this’. More than the songs, I was loving watching the dynamic between all of them. Not one of them ever
looked at any of us. They were all watching the bandleader (i.e. the older girl who was front and center that knew all of the words and arm
movements). Every now and then they would turn to each other and giggle a bit. Their encore performance was to a diddy called ‘Jesus Loves
the Little Children of the World’. I even went as far as memorizing this. Here it goes:
Jesus loves the little children of the world.
Jesus loves the little children of the world.
Red and yellow, black and white.
They are all precious in his sight.
Jesus loves the little children of the world.
And on that note, the Sunday School kiddies left.
January 1, 2007
8:00am
Our resort did a big New Year’s Eve dinner seafood buffet last night. I probably didn’t need that much food but it was a nice touch. Plus there
were lots of decorations. Streamers. Balloons. Confetti. Hats. All of the things to help us realize that last night was not just another night.
True to Fijian time, we had Tahitian dancers perform almost an hour and a half after they were supposed to. This left us about seven minutes
until the New Year. I couldn’t help but think ‘Are we going to celebrate the New Year according to ‘Fijian time?’ I seriously thought that the
balloons were going to drop at around 1:45am and they were going to say “Ahhh, we’re on Fijian time.” But shockingly, New Year’s occurred at
12:00am on the dot. Wonders will never cease. And I mean this with the most sincerity as I was truly shocked that they pulled this off on time.
Just after 2007 got underway, a Scottish man…let me rephrase this…a married Scottish man went around giving everybody his ‘Happy New
Year’ hug and kiss on the cheek. He gave me a New Year’s kiss on the mouth. All I could do was look at Kat like ‘What the hell just happened???’
Fireworks were being launched from the beach and people were going into the pool. I told Kat we should go in. How often do we get to go
swimming on New Year’s Eve, after all? I wish I could say that I was carefree enough to just ‘jump in’. But I can’t. We changed into our bathing
suits and spent the final part of our night submerged in water.
Hello, 2007…
7:00pm
Just when you thought ‘Fijian time’ was the most relaxed pace you have ever witnessed…along comes ‘Fijians-with-a-hangover time’.
There was something almost incredible about not only how long it took to get the tea that I ordered at breakfast but also the delay in response I
received when placing such an order. But for some reason, out here it doesn’t bother me. This is just the way it is. All you can really do to make
the time pass in between placing an order and receiving an order is make a game out of it. The game is called ‘How long will it take?’ The results
will always be a win-lose situation. For example, if it only takes ten minutes to receive your tea you win on one level because you received your
tea in a timely manner (yes, ten minutes is very timely out here) but you lose because there was no miraculous record that was made. That being
said, if you order your tea only to find that twenty minutes later you still don’t have your tea and the person who you placed the order with is
clearing just about every table in sight at a snail’s pace and is never looking up making it impossible to make eye contact…well, this is getting on
its way to making a personal record and will therefore earn a tally in the ‘win’ department. It will officially be a personal record once you realize
that she has no recognition of the tea order (was this really that much of a surprise to me when I saw the near-confusion look on her face when I
had originally made the request?) and you place another order that is delivered ten minutes later. Of course with this ‘win’ comes the ‘loss’
…which was having to wait over a half-hour for a cup of tea.
Such is the Fijian life…
Today was nice. Well, at least for me but not so much for Kat. I thought I was doing her a favor when I ordered her breakfast this morning since
she was meeting me at the restaurant. Instead, when her unsolicited omelet arrived she wanted to puke. Oops. She instead opted for a Diet Coke
at 9am in lieu of anything else. She couldn’t even manage to imbibe in the restaurant so she brought herself and the soda back to the room. I
would not see her for the next few hours until I got back from my snorkeling venture. A venture that was not very enjoyable considering I was
given a faulty mask by the ‘Boatshed’ out here. I am sure I am not the first person who has had a mask that decides to intake water from the
ocean and store it inside up against my eyes. I don’t want to sound like a complainer…but it kind of sucked. In addition to water sloshing around,
my eyes were now burning. I tried to clear my mask many times but to no avail. In fact, when I did attempt this, I ingested salty ocean water. I
was not a very happy snorkeler. I knew my limits…actually, I knew my mask’s limits…and I hopped back in the boat. A few minutes later
another girl got in. She ended up lending me her mask and I went back in a had a very pleasurable time. I was excited to find Nemo. And then I
found four of Nemo’s close siblings. This made me think that Disney made the world believe that it was more difficult to find Nemo than it really
should have been.
When I got back, Kat was feeling better. Hallelujah. A sick Kat is not a very happy Kat. And there could only be a happy Kat while in Fiji. It just
wouldn’t be right otherwise.
Later this afternoon we ran into a little snag when she stopped by the room while I was hanging out outside. When she was heading back to the
pool, she dropped the room key at the table I was sitting at so I would have the key. The problem was that she never made an announcement
about this. Silly Kat. She doesn’t know that while it might appear that I see what she is doing, I am actually not paying as much attention as she
thinks. I was about to head to the pool and I looked all over for the room key in the room but then just figured Kat took it with her. It wasn’t
until I asked her for the key that we realized the snag. To make a long story short, we had to get a spare key from the key boy and we were most
likely going to have to pay for the lost key unless it appeared out of thin air. We were both at fault: I was to blame for my cluelessness; Kat was
to blame for not being aware of my cluelessness.
We got ready for dinner and broke open my bottle of Sparkling Shiraz. After all, tonight was not just any night…it was New Year’s Eve in our
respective homes. How could we not celebrate???
9:02pm
Uh oh. I just got sick. I drank too much sparkling red wine while Kathleen didn’t drink much of the sparkling red wine. This means I drank most
of the bottle of sparkling red wine. And I kind of paid the price. All I wanted to do was bring in the New Year in San Francisco in a fun way. It
turned 2007 in San Francisco just two minutes ago according to my clock on my…..HOLY CRAP!!!!.... I just noticed that my clock on my
computer says it’s 1:02 am which means I had it all wrong. I should have been celebrating an hour ago. But I didn’t. In spirit, I did. But not in
actuality. Oh well. In any case, Happy New Year to my peeps at home! And my peeps in the Mountain time zone. And my peeps in the Central
time zone. And we can’t forget my peeps in the Eastern time zone.
Uh oh. Kat just found a wet spot in the bed. I have assured it wasn’t me. She has assured me it wasn’t her. I came to the conclusion that it must
have been the housekeeper. After all, just one little minute she found our missing key (‘missing’ much due to my obliviousness) inside the
sheets. How does this make sense? I don’t know. She doesn’t know. But she just gave her synopsis. Kat’s theory was that the housekeeper and
the key boy had sex in our bed. That being said, Kat’s sleeping in the wet spot. Haha, sucka! Let me just put it out there again…I drank over
three-quarters of a bottle of sparkling wine and I am writing this journal while being intoxicated. Enough said, right?
Okay, I am officially upset with Kathleen. She is outwardly dissing my itunes library. I am appalled by her lack of enthusiasm for the Annie
soundtrack. She literally turned her nose up at ‘You’re Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile’. What a great song about the greatness of smiling.
Heck, it makes me want to smile right now just thinking about it. But not her. She even went so far as to just say that my ipod is rebelling against
me and this is why it’s not updating any of my recently purchased songs (a problem I told her that I have been having for the past four months
or so). A person’s music collection is a reflection of a person. If she doesn’t like my music, she doesn’t like me. How not-nice of her…
January 2, 2006
7:00am
Lovely. I just read my journal entry from last night. Where do I come up with half the stuff that crosses my mind when I’m drunk???
The one thing I can be thankful for this morning is that my head feels no repercussions of last night. In fact, I feel great. Truly great. Somebody
told me that you take much more of a toll after a night of drinking once you turn 30. Let me debunk this myth. I feel like I could do anything this
morning. Anything at all.
That being said, I think I’m going to take an early morning nap…
10:00pm
Talk about taking advantage of my last day of being on this island. And by ‘taking advantage’ I mean that I did absolutely nothing. Well,
‘absolutely nothing’ is a bit of an exaggeration (or maybe an under-exaggeration?). I did read one of Kat’s books from cover to cover. It has
been so long since I’ve read an easy-reading chick book that it was nice and refreshing. From the get-go I couldn’t stop wondering if Rachel was
going to get caught for sleeping with her best friend’s fiancé. So I really only had one option – finish the book. I never have this luxury – of just
finishing a book the same day I start it – with books where I pay deep attention to every detail.
And that wasn’t all I did today. Kat and I also rode kayaks around the island. Who cares that this only took thirty minutes? The point is that we
rode around the entire island. Kudos to us.
It is just about time to say good-bye to this island. On one level, this is sad. I’m having a hard time thinking of the next time I will be on a tropical
island.
But at the same time, after reading Kat’s New Zealand book, I am now really pumped up for New Zealand. I had no idea of all of the things it has
to offer. I literally read nothing about it before arriving. I had no time. Well, I think I chose to make no time. After all, I have found that I love
places so much more when I don’t have tons of expectations. I definitely think New Zealand will fall into this category.
Tomorrow morning our helicopter comes to pick us up to take us to the airport where we will fly back to Auckland…
Me and Kat.
On a pleasant morning walk.
