Friday, November 29, 2002

 
Oh .. happy Thanksgiving afterwards ... Turkey Day is strongly ignored here ... and it results in having the whole Xmas decoration and music just 2 weeks earlier ...

I just got back from the Fintel Internet Kiosk ... allegedly the fastest connection on the island ... what a joke .. they charge 9F$ (about 5US$) per hour and the best I got was 8K download speed ... also .. I cannot use my own laptop there .. so I am forced to use the PCs they have there ... so I wasted part of the time just to download all the software apps I needed. In the end I was quite dissapointed with the speed. I really hope something better will appear here some day ... some satellite solution ...

For lunch we went to "the other" japanese place in town .. called "Zen" ... and .. well. it was pretty pretty bad ... the rice "bowl" dish was served on a plate .. topped by some either pork or beef in some goopy sauce which obviously has never been close to any soy sauce .. the heart and soul of japanese cooking ... actually .. i ordered initially one of the more expensive sashimi dishes .. but got some non-audible answer followed by shaking head which prompted me to better not ask for sashimi ... The fact that they have a very nice space (with a nice, albeit to warm, outdoor terrace) makes that even more tragic ...

Later we had our office xmas party (click for bigger picture)




which was pretty much fun ... we had a silly "secret santa" set up .. and one of the best toys I have seen was a purpose-less plastic glass ornament, which with a switch would blink, rotate and play a snippet of a Venga Boy song ... I was trying to imagine that somewhere in the world some quality assurance guy must have lost his marbles testing each and every one of those ... We had some nice pizza, drink and fun ... and later we went to "Traps" which was ok .. but i feel that with age I cannot take that smoke smell anymore .

#posted by Peter 1:06 PM

Comments-[ comments.]

Thursday, November 28, 2002

 
Thursday's lunch was at "The Edge" .. Ritsu had their "Mezze of 8" .. 8 different little appetizer things from humus to eggplant to some fish and stuff .. quite nice .. I had the Fish and Chips and it was very nice .. though way too much for "just lunch" ...

After work we met at the japanese embassy. They show a movie there every month, and so we wanted to try that out. We had no idea if it was going to be on TV or screen, what movie (the title i read was "the time traveler" ... and the IMDB did not come up with anything) and who would come watch ...

The idea that this would be a gathering point for japanese expats was quickly shattered ... I'd say 20 people came .. 2 of them probably japanese .. the rest fijian...

Before we could see the movie we had (on full screen) some japan travel propaganda .. which lasted about 30 minutes .. then, a sound I have not really heard in years, a projector came on and the movie started ... turned out the projector could not be any farther from the screen .. so the projected image only covered 1/4 of it ... i am talking about a 4x6 feet visable image here ...

The movie was The girl who cut through time and it was indeed a pretty cheesy high school romance with a dash of sci fi and musical flick ... but it had some surrealism that made it quite interesting ..

It sported some very early 80ies special effects (looked like "made for TV" at times) but then again some great camera work ... so .. all in all , it was a bit confusing .. but entertaining ..

The movie hit its cheese high when in the end credits the protagonist girl just woke and disney like burst out into a song .. Ritsu told me later that this girl was a famous singer chick in her time ..


For dinner we stayed at the hotel .. the kokoda was a bit weird this time .. the fish was somewhat chewy .. and Ritsu had braised chicken again ... I ended up chatting with David a bit again and I had some Kava ..

#posted by Peter 11:42 PM

Comments-[ comments.]

 
I spent most of yesterday (wednesday) going through the newspaper / being on the phone trying to find a car ... but it was not very successful ... Why do some people put up and ad and then do not answer the phone ? Or do not reply voice messages ? Hmmm

Dinner was Great Wok again. And again it was very nice ... by now we are known to the wait stuff and they treat us like family :)

#posted by Peter 2:00 PM

Comments-[ comments.]

Wednesday, November 27, 2002

 
Ok .. the fun facts about Tuesday:

Light rain in the morning (and pretty much all day)

and we got invited to the japanese embassy .. to celebrate the Emperor's Birthday ..






well . his B'day is 12/23 .. so it is basically a different and very PC way of calling for an Xmas party :)

of those parties I feel there will be quite a lot coming up .. yeah

Later I watched Tonari No Totoro a very cute movie by Miyazaki .. not that it really has any plot or moral story .. it is just fantastic to look at and enjoy . ...

For Dinner we decided to have yummy indian food at Ashiyana ... their Lamb Samosas and Lamb Vindaloo are fantastic.

another movie i started later I can hear the sea (pretty silly amercian title) was very interesting too ... very "japanese high school life" kind of study piece ...

#posted by Peter 2:11 PM

Comments-[ comments.]

Monday, November 25, 2002

 
Wow .. today was actually sunny .. and no rain at all. This is what we call a blue sky and a clear day here in Suva





Great News, we signed our lease today !!! yes, we found a very nice house in the lovely neighborhood called "domain" which has a lot of green and trees and is supposed to be quite secure ... one reason being that quite a bunch of politicians (the minister of finance is one of our neighbors) and diplomats live there and thus the police is controlling the area around the clock.

After signing we had the fun pleasure of going to the bank to do the money transfer ... oh my .. long wait, lots of paper stuff to fill out, minimal automation or use of computer, many chances for errors ... the banking system is a tad behind I guess ... but they are good at charging fees ... 5F$ for a transfer, 3F$ for every transaction ... wow ..

For dinner and to celebrate a bit, we went to Daikoku (again) and had fish and wasabi steak (again) ... but this time also assorted Sashimi and a Tuna roll ... which was all pretty nice ... the worst thing (and a possible reason for me to not go there for the next 4 weeks) was that the wait stuff and the chefs were 'forced' to wear santa hats ... I really should have taken a picture ..

But the picture of the day was taken by Ritsu ... she caught me in the bathtub washing our sandals :)









We are quite happy ... now we just have to find a car.

#posted by Peter 6:22 PM

Comments-[ comments.]

 


Sunday: we slept about 12 hours after that strenuous dive day and I after making breakfast I did a quick supermarket shopping spree. (we ran out of fruit and eggs) ... we then did a long walk again and ended up at JJ's for lunch ... a place located in a very very ugly YWCA building .. but the inside is really nice .. and the menu is quite interesting (also a big plus that they are open on sunday) ... While the hamburger is, as promised, HUGE .. and when I asked for mustard, I got a selection of 3 different ones ... the "fiery hot" chicken wings were probably the smallest I have ever seen and they were merely drenched in honey ... they were sweet and had NOTHING fiery on them (or nearly no meat on them, too)




It was already late afternoon when we got back and I finished (finally) reading "Lord of the Rings" while Ritsu was napping and then I went to the bar for a beer, where I ended up talking to some middle aged italian business man who had some very weird opinions about working on computers .. sounded like he was mistaking them for TVs (by saying 'oh .. the guys today cannot work anymore .. all they do is playing on their computers') or typewriters (by saying 'i never had to bother with computers, i had employees do that') ... ahhh .. ignorance is bliss !!!

Anyways .. Ritsu joined me and we had dinner (wow .. there are still items of that hotel restaurant menu we had not have yet .. so I had the pepper steak) and then a bit later David showed up and we had some more nice chatting.

Oh, and NO RAIN all sunday ! yeah !

#posted by Peter 6:52 AM

Comments-[ comments.]

Sunday, November 24, 2002

 

Saturday we actually went diving, I got a phonecall friday evening that they were going out and that a "David" would pick us up ... turned out that David is a regular here at the hotel bar, in fact, he was the first to ever do that "Beer around the world" tour, some 7 years ago, and we had talked before ...

So he was already at the bar (having coffee) at 7:15 AM when we came out to meet him .. the trip to Pacific Harbor was very nice again and we had enough time to have some Breakfast at Lagoon Resort. A very nice resort complex, lacking a lot of business .. way to quite these days it seems ... but the place is kept spotless and the service was very nice ... 5F$ for a heap of toast and all kinds of jam and peanut butter and vegemite and coffee (though that looked more like coffee flavored tea).



Some 10 minutes later Jim, the owner of that place joined us and we had a nice chat (about how other hotels and golf courses around the area are closing down)

Back to the boat, everything was ready. We had again Jay as the dive guide, and the same deckhand and gally-gal, but a different skipper ...

amazing was that they were going out for only 4 locals (who do not pay full price) ... so we were very lucky to have that size boat for only 4 people.



The first dive site was called "Shark Fin Reef" and it was fun .. we actually ran into a couple of sharks .. some saw a huge 14 ft tiger shark .. but I only saw a very large tail fin.

The trip to the next dive site was pretty long and choppy ... But it was worth it. "Garden Eel Patch" was a collection of coral heads (so big that it was like several small wall dives) and a bunch of things to see .. mainly many big lion fish. A very nice "sight seeing" dive.

The return trip was even worse in terms of the boat rocking and rolling ... Ritsu had lots of fun with that (not) ... everybody was holding on and we were wondering if someone may fall off the roof or their respective sleeping positions.







We returned around 3:30 and made our way back to Suva ... Ritsu fell happily asleep in the back of the car while David and I chatted, though I believe I nodded off a bit myself.

Once we got back I had a beer with David to say thank you for the driving and though we were very tired, we went out for dinner. Dinner was at Great Wok where we ran into Marlee and Edo (small island) and afterwards we went home and to bed very early.


#posted by Peter 4:38 AM

Comments-[ comments.]