volcom fiji pro and puppies

The Volcom Fiji Pro surf competition is going on right now at Cloudbreak (last I checked they had 3 days of events so far – the whole competition has a waiting period of over 10 days but they only surf on the first 4 days with good waves) – if I budgeted it in better I would’ve gone to watch but alas not this time… A bunch of international students went and this is Milou’s photo! WOW!

And for anyone that stayed at my apartment in the past 5 months, you will appreciate this sign that is on our lawn:

We still haven’t figured out who put up the sign.. whether it was the owners of the puppies or someone who has finally had enough of the puppies….

 

vatu-i-ra passage and many suva adventures

It is the beginning of the 2 exam weeks, but I don’t have any exams until the 2nd week. Two and a half week long study break? Fine by me! A lot of USP students get really fuffed about exams here but they don’t bother me at all.

This past week, I went up to Safari Lodge (3rd time is the charm) to hang out/snorkel/possibly do some diving. 9 of us went up and it was lots of fun! I got to snorkel a ton where I saw coral and coral and more coral. Acropora party! Butterflyfish mayhem! I felt nerdy.

Ever since I did my dive course I really wanted to do dive the Vatu-I-Ra passage. The dive instructors at Safari Lodge have been travelling the world for the past 7 years and diving at pretty much every dive site known to man. They said that these sites were the best BY FAR, so we did it!

Patrick, Chris and I did a two tank dive at Half-Vatu at a dive site called Malaise. It was incredible. The only way I can really describe it is imagine the best coral picture you’ve seen in National Geographic and then imagine better! We got to go through a huge number of coral tunnels and we saw an unbelievable amount of giant coral fans. Everything was just massive and with such beautiful colour. Sometimes we could look up through a few holes and you could see the surface with red fish floating through and 20 kinds of coral at different depths – absolutely stunning. There is no way that I can describe it to you to do it justice.

Lauren went snorkelling at the same spot at the same time and he thought it was phenominal as well. This trip was his first time snorkelling – he is spoiled (as am I!!). Chris took a camera down so I will hopefully post some photos or videos at some point, but the colours don’t really come through.

We also went to Colo-I-Suva this week, which is always a blast. Yesterday a few of us went to my friend Tui’s farm and it was really great. His family owns a great piece of land in Nausori (about 25 minutes away) and we made a lovo from scratch. We made palusami (dalo leaves with onions, fresh coconut cream that we squeezed and either corned beef or tuna), yams, cassava, dalo, and chicken. It was delicious and I really appreciated him inviting us up there. It was incredibly fun and Tui and his father are two really great people.

Credit: Evan

Lauren and I are on a ‘strict’ get-back-into-shape-regime involving pull-ups and ab exercises. I did about 3 sit-ups two days ago and my abs still hurt. Our diet has also changed to bagels and bagels alone because Lauren has mastered the art of bagel-making. YES.

I finally got my netbook in the mail (took 7 weeks when Canada Post says it will take 5-10 business days even to Fiji) and have been installing Lubuntu on it and getting it up to snuff. It’s nice finally have a reliable computer again.

The other day Liz, Lauren and I saw a Hindi movie called Yamla Ragla Deewana 2. I can honestly say that, to me, it was one of the worst $6.50s I’ve ever spent and 3 hours long gone. The plot was typical… two con-men want to marry a girl with money but accidentally gets engaged to the wrong girl, but add in sumo wrestlers that literally fall from the sky, an orangutan that paints and likes to hang out with lady orangutans, an evil person whose ‘lab’ is in the space exhibit of a science museum and a Super Sheik that can blow people away using his mind. Wow.

There are a billion movies coming out that everyone wants to see in the next 2 weeks: Great Gatsby, The Internship, Man of Steel (all this week), and Monsters University and World War Z (next week).

And yes, through the movies and having fun I will be studying. I am at a pretty good place right now with classes which is good because they are all at the same time. I already finished Health Psychology (final mark: A!), and I am going into all my exams with good marks (A+ in Marketing, and B+ in Marine Biology – WHAT!!!). I still need to check my Ethics mark, but I’ll do that today.

I’m also getting ready for New Zealand more and more.. seeing if I can get more job bites and deciding where I want to fly to at first. I also need to figure out how I am going to pack and where I will stay.. all depends on everything really. Lots of options so hopefully narrow that down a bit more before I have to leave. It’s looking like I will try to start work as soon as possible…. I am hoping for some relevant experience but I might do some odd jobs until I can find a job like that.

Oh and lastly, here is a picture of Christine after her Diablo act at the USP Talent Show. She won second place and won $600! We were all very proud of her. Also, she is awesome. She has inspired me to take some circus lessons at Circus West in Vancouver (where she goes too). Hopefully I will have enough money to do this because I think I would really like to enjoy it. I would love to do the main-en-main course, or a silks course. But main-en-main would be awesome! PS: Diablos are really fun

And a Stomp-esque group:

sending parcels in the mail & another awesome video

Attention Harry Potter fans: Do you remember when Ron sends a package to Harry and he isn’t sure how many stamps to put on the box? So he decides to cover the parcel in stamps and write the address in a square that is one inch by one inch?

This happened in real life! A couple of the girls from the US were sending a package back home that cost $150 to send. I am not sure why, but for some reason they were given the whole stamp value in 40 cent stamps! (I sent some stuff for a friend from last semester and they gave me $5 stamps, which was quite a bit more reasonable)

This would seriously be the best package to send home ever.

In other random news, I’d like to share with you another video that Evan made this semester. This is from a time we went to the Colo-I-Suva forest park earlier this semester (he also made the Sovi Basin video in Lauren’s post). He’s talented!

Mad dogs and Englishmen

Well Rose has asked me to post on this here blog (not quite sure why, as she knows full well the limitations of my written word)  So i shall endeavor to do my best to convey my thoughts and feelings of the last week of here in Fiji.

Through the fresh eyes of a man who has never been to a tropical country in his lifetime.  With the closest equivalent of a sunny beach with palm trees being the dark, damp, rugged coastline of northern Scotland (with it often raining sideways or snowing….sometimes switching between the two every 5mins)

Ah and yes for those who are currently wondering who i am, i’m Lauren.

So Fiji….. Hot, hot and humid.  As i stepped off the plane onto the tarmac.  Feeling my t shirt slowly soak with sweat from just lazing around.  And the sudden need for water.

Fiji customs seemed quite happy to see me (compared to US customs when i put my occupation as a pirate…from that i gathered they lack a funny bone which they possibly have to have removed as part of the job)  Walking out of border control, I was looking forward to seeing Rose and this country which she has raved about for the last few months.

Having eventually found Rose (i lacking any organisational skills had just assumed Rose would prob meet me at the airport….which she did but just a wee bit late.)  We waited for minibus to take us to Suva.  There i learned that a broken branch can be used to swat mosquitoes when lacking in bug spray.

Here was my first example of island time.   As i found out that they just leave whenever the minibus is full……which could take 2mins or 2hours.

After a unspecified amount of time we left Nadi for Suva, in a interesting looking van with pop tunes (played to a strong reggae beat) blasting out of the open windows.

We then trekked through the Sovi basin meeting locals and generally getting very wet in a river.  (video is attached so you can see for yourselves)

Later on in the week we went to a wine tasting evening.  Which both me and rose thoroughly enjoyed.  Having very little working knowledge of wine (The sum of which is “oh thats nice” to “blegh….. Nasty”)  It was quite hard to follow what the guy was saying about each wine.  Especially after the sixth glass or so. All i learnt about rose that evening was she doesn’t like Chardonnays, but having also had the sixth glass or so she was unable to comment on the Merlots.

Well i have done allot more besides but i’m getting the impression Rose is wishing to use this computer.   So time for me to go.

To sum up.

Fiji=Humid+hot+very helpful smiley people+CURRY!!!!!!

Therefore Fiji=AWESOME!

Also snapshots of awesomeness,

beautiful cycling and walking around sigatoka

Liz and I were trying to figure out a trip to do this past weekend and because are both ‘go-with-the-flow’ people, lots of ideas were tossed around many times. When should we leave? Where should we go? Should we cycle? Should we visit a village? Should we go to Ovalau? Should we hike into an inactive crater? We ended up settling on cycling near Sigatoka with a person from the Rucksack Club (who is also a lecturer at USP!).

I usually try to limit the pictures in my post to around 10, but I couldn’t this time. The pictures from this weekend are absolutely STUNNING!! We had glorious weather all 3 days.

On Friday, we drove to Sigatoka and decided to walk through the Sand Dunes. I was blown away by how beautiful it was. We caught the most amazing sunset I have seen so far (that unfortunately I didn’t capture well on my camera). Fiji DOES have such a varied landscape for being a little island!

Saturday we biked from Korotogo to Sigatoka to the Loma Primary School. Our attempt was to cross the river at Loma and come back on the other side of the river. Unfortunately the road on the other side of the river was too rough so we just swam in the river instead. I was getting my butt kicked by Dom and Liz up the hills so I ended up taking a carrier of shame back to Sigatoka, and then biked the 7 km back to Korotogo with them. I did just over 30 km that day and they did about 50 km.

Credit: Dominique

Credit: Dominique

Credit: Dominique

And the beautiful beach in Korotogo…

Sunday we decided to cycle to the Tavuni Hill Fort in Naroro Village. Despite having an extremely sore bum, I was happy I could cycle all 20 km with them.

Credit: Dominique

may

I have less than two weeks of classes left and I am almost done this semester! The past while has been filled with everything! I’ve finished up the course work in two of my classes, Marketing (going into the final with an A+!) and Ethics & Professionalism in the Public Sector (just submitted my final project, but I think I will have an A going into the final!). I have work left to do in Marine Biology and in Health Psychology. Luckily I will only have 3 finals this semester, because Psychology is all course work and smaller tests.

Last week, Safron hosted a fried chicken night/pot luck at her place, and it was delicious and awesome. I brought over cookies (which had about a 50% burnt rate, so my tutorial the next morning was happy too).

Credit: Saf

The upstairs neighbours got broken into as well unfortunately so now we have a security guard man and we have heavy duty doors being installed. It is a bit of a hassle, I am glad I am leaving soon just so I don’t have to deal with it anymore. They’ve caught one person though, the robber’s associate unless he is a robber as well. They’ve recovered Katelin’s iPod and iPhone, but no luck on my end so far.

We had a bbq with all our neighbours and they are all so lovely. The upstairs neighbour (Ralph) said I could borrow his bicycle whenever I’d like, so I used it this past weekend. They are really nice.

Katelin made pumpkin curry for the dinner (for anyone that has been to our house, this is a staple food) and I dissected some prawns. It involved a lot of screaming but I peeled and deveined all of them! YAY!

Each Tuesday I’ve been hanging out with Jonah & his floor and having cheapo pizza and seeing movies. Last last week I saw Pain & Gain, which was pretty dumb.

We also had a huge scavenger hunt on Friday night where you had to run around and take photos of your team. That was very silly and very fun. I was on a team with Liz, my friend Ryan from my Marine Bio class, and Benedict and T who we got to meet!

The Coke Games were last week, which I basically can describe as the Olympics of Fiji. It was a high school track and field meet, and they just opened the new stadium and EVERYONE was there! I got to see some heats and the 400m finals and the 100m finals. It was a lot of fun and Ryan gave me lots of insight. I was very impressed by the students that were running without shoes. (ow)

They gave out paper hats and they are awesome! When he first handed it to us, I wondered why he was handing us a piece of paper…. I thought the hat was silly at first but the sun was so hot that I ended up wearing it almost the whole time.

Also last week was the USP Got Talent Semi-Finals and Christine (from SFU) has made it through to the finals (this week!). She does a circus act with the big yo yo.

I did some research and helped out with the Management & Public Administration debate team and our team won the first round! The argument was “China is not a threat to Pacific Island Countries Self-Determination” and we were against the motion. This was the quarterfinals, and they go against Accounting & Finance next.

Last week I went to the fish store “1 kg of tuna please!”, but then once I got home and made some sushi I realized that I bought one of the worst probably-going-to-be-extinct-soon tunas to buy. Now I feel like a terrible person. And the worst Marine Bio student.

There are A LOT of exciting things coming up:

- Lauren gets here in two days!!

- only 1.5 weeks of school left!!

- Fiji vs New Zealand All Blacks rugby game!!

- my first ever wine tasting!!

- Fijian river rafting trip

- Volcom Fiji surf competition!!

tea steepers, inflatable giraffes and floating tables

A Tuesday night with shin splints = I have a handful of super great things to show you:

(who runs anyway? every part of my body hurts)

1. My inflatable giraffe, Ferris

I got this inflatable giraffe last year as a gift at the Hibiscus Festival and named it Ferris after the death/vomit-inducing ferris wheels. He has been with me through thick and thin (mostly because I can deflate him and blow him up wherever I go!). Last week when the upstairs people got robbed we decided to legitimately use him as our watch-giraffe. Our upstairs neighbours laughed a lot when they came down to use our computers. That was embarassing.

2. Climbing Mugs

I found one of those wrist strengthening rotate-y balls (that you pull the string to start) in Lauren’s van but with a climbing hold epoxy’d to it. It took me a while to figure out what it was but you can use it to increase your crimp strength. His friend Jack made it. These mugs are similar, with these, you can start training as soon as you wake up!

These mugs are so 2010:

3. Space efficient van table

On Facebook I just saw that someone is selling a climbing/backpacker van, and it is the nicest van I have ever seen. Their bouldering pad doubles as a bed. I really liked their table, it’s so space efficient. And look at that view! I have some climbing trips brewing for post-graduation and I hope they are as awesome as this looks.

4. Tea steepers

I have always been in love with the Tea-Rex for many reasons: I love puns, dinosaurs are cool, and tea is yummy.

But I’m sorry Mr Rex… because I just found THE best tea steeper in the entire world. I present to you Cliff the Climber:

5. Mountain Decorations

These are all awesome: (from a compilation of mountain crafts)