The Trip

Bula bula!

h_s33 — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 08:41:00 GMT

I am in love with Fiji. It is quite possibly the friendliest and most beautiful place in the world. The locals are happy to talk for hours about life in Fiji and the Fijian's we met of our own age had a thousand questions for us about life in England - mostly about the London Underground bizzarely!! The idea of so many people living in such a small place fascinates them, the 2 Figians I met who were going to visit friends in England we both wide eyed and quite scared about the whole thing. I think it will be a bit of a culture shock!

We spent a very happy and relaxing week on the Yasawa islands. If a film is made of a desert island they use these islands - Castaway, The Blue Lagoon etc. The water really is that colour and the sand really is that perfectly white! We spent the time lounging in hammocks, reading, swimming, sunbathing (until we both got burnt and retreated back to our hammocks!) and snorkling. We walked over one island to get to the beach where they filmed the blue lagoon, it was a blistering hot day and quite a walk but totally worth it. I took a snorkle and walked from the beach into the warm sea, there was live coral right there so close to shore and I saw fish that normally you could only see if you were scuba diving. I watched one big fish eat a hermit crab and then a large fish with a long spike protruding from it's 'nose' came straight for me - I made a hasty exit and decided that was enough snorkling for a while!!

We stayed at 'eco-resorts' on three different islands. We drank rainwater they caught in a water butt and there was only electricity for about 4 hours each evening. The second resort we stayed at didn't have any electricity and we were given a lantern to share between the two of us at dusk.

We arrived by small boat to the third island and were greeted by Bula dancing and singing on the sand, as we came ashore we were handed coconut water to drink with hibiscus flowers in. We attempted to bula dance that night, it didn't look quite the same when we did it!

We went on a day trip to some locals caves. The legend is that the spirits of the cave manifest themselves as a giant eel and a red fish and can been seen by the first visitors to the cave each day. Ben, a local guy, told us in all the visits he'd made there he'd never seen them. As we arrived we saw a huge eel in the water, apparently we are privileged, although I didn't really feel it when I was told to 'jump in'! Jo took some coaxing off the rocks into to water - she didn't fancy either the jump in over rocks or the eel round her legs! We swam underwater into the next cave, which was pitch black. Our guide 'Queen' had the only torch. There are a lot of men like Queen in Fiji, extremely effeminate men, openly gay. We asked Ben about how the locals viewed this, and apparently in the villages such men were revered as having the best qualities of both sexes, they could build houses and also look after children. Anyway, going into that cave took all my courage and I waited in the first cave after that, refusing to go into the third cave.

My bus is about to arrive and so I'd better leave this for now. I'll add more later!

Gallery: New Zealand - South Island

h_s33 — Sun, 9 Dec 2007 15:01:00 GMT

Gallery: New Zealand - North Island

h_s33 — Thu, 6 Dec 2007 12:36:00 GMT

Gallery: Aloha!

h_s33 — Thu, 6 Dec 2007 12:07:00 GMT

Hawaii

Gallery: Fiji

h_s33 — Thu, 6 Dec 2007 00:18:00 GMT

Tropical paradise

h_s33 — Thu, 1 Nov 2007 16:58:00 GMT

Neither of us was particularly impressed by Hawaii, due to the time restrictions we stayed in a hostel near Waikiki beach. The hostel was good, homely and clean, although all the staff were a little 'quirky'!! We had a great night out dancing with some people we met there - an Alaskan firefighter, an American lifeguard/mortgage lender, a guy from peru and a girl from Sweden. That's the great thing about hostels, you meet people from all over the world with all sorts of reasons for choosing budget accommodation. The streets of Waikiki are actually washed and polished every night, the beaches are all combed and most people spend the day on the beach and the evenings shopping at Gucci/Prada etc etc. It's very much like an upmarket costa del sol! Obviously it is a beautiful place and the constant breeze was very welcome to take the edge of the heat for Jo and I. Image is everything in Waikiki though, which got a bit draining (having only about 2 outfits to wear and being frankly too pale to be there!!) and we weren't too sad to leave. Mostly because we were flying straight to Fiji! Although had we known we'd land at Christmas Island for refuelling we'd have arranged a stopover...cest la vie. I'm in an internet cafe in Nadi waiting for a travel agent to finish sorting out our trip around the islands. We plan to spend a week relaxing on the islands and then a week exploring the main island, including going into the highlands to see the villages and possibly white water rafting - budget permitting!

I guess I should confess to the most stupid thing I've done so far this trip - I padlocked myself out of my backpack last night and had to get a guy from the hotel to saw the padlock off for me this morning! That's what's going through so many time zones does to your brain!! Luckily I could get my hand in my bag enough to find my pyjamas (staying in a 32 bed dorm it was pretty important!!). Anyway, only a temporary drama, although it'll be a while before Jo stops laughing at me!

Think we're about ready for the hot countries now!

h_s33 — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 22:33:00 GMT

I've got so much to write on this entry - I wrote a whole load at the weekend but managed to delete it and lost all enthusiasm after that!

We left Victoria by ferry last Monday and arrived at the harbour front of Seattle that evening, once again in pouring rain! It's an exciting way to arrive in a new city, and country, though. Our overriding first impression of the city was that it's entirely populated by insane people. Don't wander between 1st and 4th streets near Union after dark, unless you really like meeting odd people. After discovering this we spent Tuesday trying to get a broader, sunnier, view of the city. As I don't have forever in this internet cafe I'll summarise our week in Seattle - explored Pike Place Market, went to the theatre to see 'To Kill a Mockingbird', did the underground tour of the city, spent a day embarrassing ourselves in a karaoke booth at the Experience Music Project (very fun!!), saw an amazing vaudiville show including a belly dancer, contortionist and various acrobats in a little, slightly seedy bar near the hostel, saw a live band, sat in a box at the symphony, went out drinking with some Australian guys who had been on the underground tour, blew our budget in Macy's, tried on ball dresses and lamented our lack of high heels (very girly day that one!), eventually in a bid to save money I taught Jo how to play scrabble! We ended up really enjoying the city, it's just such an interesting place, utterly mad - the city was even built in a mad way, but it grows on you. We met up with Giles, Shannon, the girls and Angie and went to the Aquarium and then headed to Bellingham. Had a lovely weekend with Giles, Shannon et al - the girls are so entertaining! Really sweet kids. Giles drove us up to Vancouver on Monday and we went to the Science Project (with Emily in tow we could play on the machines safe in the knowledge 'it's ok as long as there's a child with you'!!). We are now in a downtown hostel. We had a fantastic evening up grouse mountain with Angie last night, we saw grizzly bears, deer and mountain wolves and had dinner watching the sunset over the city - truly beautful and our cameras couldn't do it justice. It was a lovely sunny and clear day, we spent the afternoon relaxing in the chinese gardens. Today we saw the Georgia O'Keefe exhibition at the art gallery and went our for sushi and to see a play called 'Hanna's Suitcase' with Angie, about a victim of the holocaust. It was a really moving performance and brought my English Lit studies rushing back to me! (I studied holocaust literature and film). We are setting off early tomorrow to see the capilano suspension bridge, and possibly even walk across it if we're brave enough! It's a really long bridge across a canyon - I'm just hoping it's not a windy day!

I popped into a shop today and have somehow ended up with 2 hats and 2 new bikinis (I'm now carrying 5 bikinis in my backpack) not at all sure how I'll pack the hats. Travelling lightly is clearly not going well.

We fly to Hawaii on Friday, to Oahu (honolulu). I really wanted to go up the volcano but it's on Big Island and we haven't really got the time to go there. We've decided to cut down our stay in Hawaii and head to Fiji sooner as it's a fair bit cheaper! Having got a little sunburnt yesterday, in Vancouver, in October I think I'll be very glad of my hats soon!!

Gallery: Victoria to Seattle

h_s33 — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 21:32:00 GMT

in no particular order unfortunately!!

Little Britain

h_s33 — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 16:47:00 GMT

We are now in Victoria, the capital of British Columbia but a pretty small city. In case we were getting homesick already there is no shortage of fish and chips, cream teas, croquet and even Yorkshire pudding here should we want it! The city has a lovely relaxed atmosphere though, as does the hostel we are staying at, we've been invited to a 'bring a pot' dinner at the hostel tonight followed by a singer songwriter acoustic show which sounds fun. We leave for Seattle tomorrow, arriving in the evening by boat which sets us down downtown a couple of streets away from our hostel. We said goodbye to Gill and Murray yesterday after a really lovely week with them. They drove us to Victoria and we all went to the Titanic exhibition at the museum yesterday. You are given a boarding card with a passengers details on and at the end you find out if you survived or not. I was a woman on honeymoon with her husband, neither of us survivied - pretty depressing!! A very interesting exhibition though. We've decided not to visit the Butchart gardens here as it's not really our cup of tea and isn't the cheapest thing to do. We're enjoying being lazy tourists for now!

Gallery: Vancouver

h_s33 — Tue, 9 Oct 2007 19:30:00 GMT

Vancouver and Vancouver Island

Vancouver Island

h_s33 — Sun, 7 Oct 2007 18:20:00 GMT

The rain persisted until Friday so we found lots of indoor things to do including visiting the Museum of Anthropology and an art exhibition at the Chinese Cultural Centre (both are free on a Tuesday). We saw a play about recent politics in the Phillipines called Dogeaters, which was put on by local students and was really well acted. After exhausting all the cheap indoor touristy things (including playing pool at a seedy downtown pool hall) we donned our anoraks and walked around downtown to get a better idea of the city. My anorak is from the Salvation Army, I'm convinced an old woman died wearing it, however it was in budget and fit quite well...! on Thursday we stayed in a downtown hostel and went out to some bars and ended up at the cinema at a comedy where we laughed at all the opposite things to everyone else in the cinema - humour is clearly influenced by nationality!

I got my hair cut and found myself sat next to a hunter discussing how he'd caught and quartered a bear the day before. I also learned it takes a whole round of ammunition to 'bring down a Grizzly'.

On Friday it stopped raining!! We hired bikes and cycled around Stanley Park and had lunch at the top of a hill overlooking Lions Gate Bridge. Jo had a fancy mountain bike, I got one with a nice basket on the front but next to no suspension - I also managed to fall off it 15 minutes after setting off by not changing gears when going uphill. This meant I fell off backwards downhill, bruising my pride more than myself. I'm clearly not cut out to be the outdoorsy type!

That night we went to watch an ice hockey game and got quite caught up in it - our guys (the Thunderbirds) won in extra time. Jo refused to have her photo taken with the mascot.

We are now on Vancouver Island with Angie, Murray and Gillie about to sit down to Thanksgiving dinner (different to American Thanksgiving, more like English harvest festival). The sun came out today and we can see the mountains and a glacier from Gillie's house.

Today is the first day since we arrived that we haven't been asked if we are Canadian. We've also been stopped and asked directions a lot - we think it's the anoraks making us look like locals.

Also - don't ask for a cagoule here, they don't know what it means and it's a word very similar to something here that you wouldn't ask for...

Arriving in Vancouver

h_s33 — Mon, 1 Oct 2007 16:10:00 GMT

It was a bit of a long day of travelling on Saturday, but luckily pretty uneventful. Angie met us at the airport and drove us back to her apartment, which is a gorgeous flat right next to the centre of Vancouver. It rained non-stop from the time we arrived until this morning and so yesterday was mostly spent in the car driving round to get a feel for the place. We had fish and chips in a nearby fishing village though, nothing like hunting out all the English activities as soon as we arrive!The city is exactly how I imagined, wooden slat houses and bohemian coffee houses in the suburbs and sky rise blocks of flats downtown. Everyone seems to live in anoraks and every other shop sells wet weather gear and outdoorsey stuff. Today has been much nicer and we went for a walk by the coastline, posed next to totem poles (photos on their way), and spent a long time exploring Granville Island market and eating crepes.

We're heading to Gillies for Thanksgiving at the weekend and then staying on Vancouver Island before heading down to Seattle. For now I'm going to head downtown and attempt to hunt out an anorak that costs less than $100!

I've been told we are surrounded by mountains but due to the weather I'm yet to see one - am not yet convinced they're really there.