The journey has begun! our flight to Fiji was a breeze, we departed pretty late so shortly after take off I was a snoozin' pup. Dad found a poker game on the individual TV screens we each had and was content for the duration of the flight. He also told me each time he "whooped ass" on the game, which was nothing shy of every 30 minutes. As the lights trickled on in the main cabin and we had been traveling for almost 11 hours, breakfast was being served ,and we were minutes from landing.

........


BULAAAA! First word Dad and I heard as we exited the plane, entering the wonderful island of Fiji. At first I was convinced they said Ebola and started to panic. Not to mention the Ebola form we had to fill out on the plane a few minutes prior. They smiled when they said BULA and never said it quietly so I had mixed emotions. Ebola or are they greeting us? Soon learned it was simply them greeting us. Essentially hello and farewell. We quickly fetched our rental car and were soon on our way. First impression I was reminded of Sri Lanka welcoming folks, humid as hell, and the tropical blue within sight.

In fact this country was a lot like Sri Lanka actually, minus the language barrier and the strict dress code that Sri Lanka has, so the memories began to fill my mind. It was relaxing and made me happy.
Fiji is poor, very poor, everyone runs around without shoes and lives in shacks some with electricity some do without. The average wage is 4 Fiji dollars an hour/aka 2 american dollars. PER HOUR. nuts.Makes you think. The people were happy, so damn happy it made me sulk in the numerous pity parties we americans have weekly, hell daily.

Children always catching my eye, here had me hooked. The family dynamic/parenting of the kiddos was one for the books.Children 3 or 4 years of age (shoeless) running around their village waving to us white folk like we were celebrities. I was really on the edge of my seat when we drove past this river bank, black as mud and these tiny humans again nothing shy of 4, cannon balling off the 15 foot bridge. No parents, no shoes, no swimsuits. The kids run around like monkeys so wild and free made me feel like I was living the life of the Jungle Book right before my eyes. Kinda loved it, was so stress free.

We stayed two nights in local hotels, nothing fancy and that was okay. The second night we travelled to the other side of the island were we spent new year and had a great firework show literally above our heads. As we drove through all the villages, my favorite part was when we stopped at a coconut hut and each got a coconut and chatted with the locals for a few minutes. So enlightening, such good english, and such hard workers. They shared with us about their families, their many kids, which coconut trees they prefer to climb and so on. I was avoiding questions about myself, what was I going to say "oh yea just some american girl traveling the world, thanks for your coconut that I'm sure took you a great deal of time to climb up a 30 foot tree and fetch for me", then to only gather cents for this coconut. man. Spoiled at its finest. I enjoyed the heck out of that coconut and Dad gave the men all his American change he had on him. They beamed with joy and we carried on.

The last two nights we stayed at an over the top holy moly exquisite resort beach front, yet spoiled again, but the fare was too good and having air condition was a huge plus. But the resort was seriously too nice.  We enjoyed live entertainment, lots of wine, and excellent food.
The last evening we took a small adventure, Dad drove around and we explored. We found this gravel road that took us past a cremation venue and we had the oh so pleasant joy seeing a cremation take place, mind you its nothing like the states, very visual, but thats what we get for exploring....not but a few feet ahead we found this oasis of a place that was just magical. This local resort that wasnt high class and just lovely. Ocean front and cheap messages, we helped ourself to an hour long message for 20 bucks. score! The best part was the lil hut for the message was literally feet away from the ocean and the misuse had me strip down and had no problem helping, slightly odd considering there was no privacy, and everyone staying at that resort had a great view of my transparent bod,  but I got over it and was knocked out minute 3.

Woke up this morning, packed up, and ready to head out. Dad had a little stomach episode this morning that had me freaking out so was it Ebola or Bula, now was the question.


Luckily it past quickly and now we are an hour away from landing in New Zealand.

Oh and Dad is at it again ''whoopin ass" at that poker game.

till we meet again.
ps having trouble uploading photos,bare with me