Monday, May 26, 2014

Everyday life in Suva

After looking over my blog, I realize that not only have I been pretty bad about updating it regularly, but I also only seem to update after adventures to exotic, exciting places. Most of my time is spent here in Suva, and I haven't even put my city in the spotlight yet. Granted, Suva is easily the dirtiest part of Fiji and not somewhere I would recommend staying more than a day or two to the average tourist, but it's still my home in this foreign land.

Today is a pretty good example of an average day that I don't have classes. I woke up, made some eggs, sat on the balcony drinking coffee and reading a book, went for a run (okay maybe that part isn't average for me, but I was feeling motivated today), then met up with Sami and Josh to take a bus into the city. I went to the post office to pick up a package, finally got the Easter package my mama sent godonlyknows how long ago. But hey, new underwear and candy still made me pretty happy a month and a half later! Not being in much of a hurry, we wandered around town for a while and of course hit up the market. I'm going to miss the fresh market so much back in America. So much fresh food that's so cheap. I've made myself learn to cook more dishes over the last few months because it's cheaper and healthier to make meals with food the veggies I pick up there. I would still kill for some Domino's delivered to me though.

I miss real coffee, but the instant stuff is good when I have it on a sunny balcony


Tried taking a pano of Little India, ended up smooshing the cars

Some of the signs in stores make me giggle


Pineapples are gloriously abundant

Cream buns are also an obsession of mine. SO GOOD.

This is only the outside part of the market. The whole thing is huge.



Shipping area on Suva Harbor.
I don't know how to make this not sideways on here.

Sweet chili sauce makes most things better

My homemade veggie sauce is way better than the stuff in jars

Sunday, May 25, 2014

Sand and sun to soothe the soul

Bula! So it's been a while... again.... so I'm just gonna skip over the crappy parts and get to the good stuff.

I'M FINALLY 21! Very exciting, and I can't think of a better way to have spent the day. Me and a handful of friends who didn't mind missing some Tuesday classes headed out to Uprising mid-morning to spend a couple hours lounging, swimming, and sipping some drinks on the beach. Nothing else really noteworthy about the trip - just a relaxing afternoon with good company. That alone was exactly what I wanted.


 After getting home to get ready to go to dinner, my roommates surprised me with some lovely gifts. One was a box of good beers from New Zealand and Mexico from Rowan (I actually received this in the morning)

The future English teacher in me really loved the alliteration

Then Sam and the girls gave me this outfit and tried to get me to wear it downtown. Note the pointy Madonna boobs.

And I got a ukulele! Further proof that my friends are awesome.

Dinner turned out really good too. We went to Bad Dog for half price pizza and sangria (their Tuesday special). There were three pizzas though that took nearly an hour to come out, mine included, and even though we didn't even say anything to the wait staff about it, they felt bad and told us that they wouldn't charge us for the late pizzas and brought us out another jug of sangria for free too. And cake! They gave me cake! And it was delicious!
And they wrote my name in strawberry sauce. So cute.

Being a Tuesday night, the bars were pretty dead and a lot of people didn't really want to stay out super late. I was still happy that people came out though, and we still had a great night. I did anyway. And I did not throw up once that night or the morning after, so heck yeah.

This weekend was so cool too. A decent sized group of us headed out to Sigatoka yesterday morning for a camping trip. Sigatoka's main claim to fame is the sand dunes, the same ones Kyle took the UWP group to during our first week. Because Sigatoka is like 2 1/2 hours away, we only had a couple hours of daylight left when we got there, but that was okay because the weather cooperated and it was so much fun out there playing on the giant dunes and in the ocean while we could. Once the sun went down, we built up a giant campfire with driftwood and bamboo that were scattered all over the beach and cooked hobo meals in tin foil in it. Being a remote area, the stars were incredible and it was the beginning (or end?) of a meteor shower too. It was seriously an all around perfect evening. Sleeping on the beach is something everyone should do at least once too. It was sandy and cold (yes, I was cold. It's winter here now - nothing remotely like Wisconsin winters, but it does get kinda chilly at night), but falling asleep looking at the stars and listening to the waves crashing is the most serene thing. Plus, seeing the ocean first thing when you wake up is pretty darn cool. We spent the morning today frolicking in the waves again and just hanging out until it was time to hike out to catch the minibus back.





Our home for the night

Taken from our campsite, dunes in the distance

Beach sleeping: thumbs up

You can run, jump, tumble, whatever down the dunes and not get hurt.
It's a workout getting back up, though.

Friday, May 9, 2014

Loving life

Bula, blog readers.

Today was a beautiful day. An email went out last week about a trip to St. Christopher's orphanage, and at the last minute, I decided to sign up. I'm so happy I did. This wasn't a volunteer trip or anything, it was simply to see the orphanage and spend the morning playing with the kids. There were somewhere between 20 and 30 kids housed at St. Christopher's ranging in age from toddlers to 18, and every one of them was beautiful. They loved singing and a few could play guitar, so they greeted and entertained us with songs. They then introduced themselves and each said what they want to be when they grow up. Despite being orphaned, those kids were so happy and full of life with big dreams for their futures. It was very humbling and inspiring to observe and talk to them, and they brought genuine smiles to my face.




This girl right here is my new friend, Mary. She's 13 years old and will some day be one of the best teachers in Fiji.


Going back a bit, last weekend was also fantastic. On Thursday, I finally put my scuba certification to good use and went diving. Some people found a deal for $70 FJD for a one tank dive, which is about the cheapest I've heard of here. The diving conditions weren't fantastic; the water was a bit stormy and visibility wasn't at its best, but I still loved every minute of it and thought it was incredible. I'll post pictures/videos as soon as Rowan or Sam sends them to me. We dove down along an enormous coral wall that went down about 100 meters. We only went down about 25-30 meters, but that's still pretty deep. Swimming with all the colorful, strange looking fish was so cool, as well as being able to look up and realize how far in the ocean I was.
    


We did the dive in a spot that was a 15 minute boat ride out of Suva Harbor, and the dive shop was based at the yacht club. That weekend happened to be the Suva Jazz and Blues Festival, and the yacht club was one of the three venues around the city that was hosting it. So, when we got back from the dive and got everything put away, we stuck around and got some food while they set up. This means that we effectively skirted the $30 entrance fee and got to enjoy a gorgeous sunset and some really good music from some folksy New Zealand band. 


Two days later, I went with 6 friends to stay at Mango Bay, a backpacker resort about an hour and a half away on the coral coast. It was pretty much like most of the other backpacker places we've been, but it's always good to get out of Suva every now and then, and of course it was gorgeous and so nice to be at the beach. Aside from lounging and swimming, I went kayaking and snorkeling too. It wasn't the most impressive snorkeling I've done, but it was still, as always, a great time. Plus, I saw a sting ray while kayaking! I got way more excited about it than a normal person probably would. I don't know what I'm going to do back home when I can't just get away to gorgeous beaches on the weekends by taking an hour long bus ride.