FAQ
HOME
ARCHIVES
BABYBLOG
ARTICLES
FIJISUN
FIJITIMES
MOVIES
WEBCAM
RSS FEED
EMAIL
WILLIAM
PATRICK
JEAN
SCEMO
TED
AARON
New Feature: Use the search box below to find stuff in this blog!
HOME
ARCHIVES
BABYBLOG
ARTICLES
FIJISUN
FIJITIMES
MOVIES
WEBCAM
RSS FEED
WILLIAM
PATRICK
JEAN
SCEMO
TED
AARON
New Feature: Use the search box below to find stuff in this blog!
Saturday, November 29, 2003
Saturday ... sleeping long, Ritsu had an appointment at the hair place, then we shopped around a bit and ended up having lunch at a chinese place I had never been too called "chopsticks" .. we had the chili squid and a sizzling seafood platter and both was fairly nice and generous and we had plenty left over to bring back home.
Later we went to the movie theater to watch "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", which was quite entertaining and actually beautifully shot at times ... for those wondering .. no .. it is NOT a true story ... as far as the tag line "inspired by a true story" goes, the director of the original movie back in 1974 based his screenplay on the evil deeds of a guy named Ed Gein .. and it also seems that he has been the inspiration for other movies, like silence of the lambs ...
After that we went to Daikoku and had Ginger Pork and Fillet Steak .. very nice, but as usual, we smelled all greasy afterwards ...
Friday, November 28, 2003
It was raining like crazy today and the humidity went up to 90% ... ouch ... very nice, if you like saunas .. at times the rain was even unbearably LOUD !
Dinner was at Great Wok ... although we looked at a different place first. I picked Ritsu up from work and we went to flagstaff .. there is a place called "Taste of Asia" and we heard they have thai food (that must have been on the specials menu a while ago) ... well .. maybe we have been too early .. but the manager was still watching TV, the waitress were standing downstairs watching the streets and people .. the AC was not on yet ...
But the menu looked interesting and they really seem to try to sample recipes from many different asian regions ... so, we may actually go back some time to try it ... we left mainly because it was too warm and very empty.
Thursday, November 27, 2003
HAPPY THANKSGIVING to all you americans. This is they day when Indians ate the Pilgrams by stuffing them into oversized chickens ... or something like that.
Well, while you are still getting ready for it, we have our feast behind us and the tummies are full. A while ago, our friend Kozue asked around if there was any interest in a thanksgiving get toghether and who would want to help planning it .. so .. a number of chats and meetings took place .. and we had great ideas (like doing the turkey lovo style) ... but turkey is hard to find .. the few I found at MH came attached with the rumor that they are over 18 months old, no thanks then.
So, Kozue created a nice feast with a great chicken and a brisket. There was also salad which Bill and Vero brought, tofu with bonito flakes (the japanese influence) and some cheesecake, which I had baked, to finish it off.
That sure was a nice thanksgiving in the south pacific.
Wednesday, November 26, 2003
Seems the recent sunset became quite popular and I have to admit, it was pretty cool, I wish I had done a time laps movie of that (still planning on doing one) .. so, by popular demand, some more pics of that beauty:
Above, people waiting to take pics of themselves against the great sunset.
This is a very nice panoramic shot a bit later .. click in the pic to get a really big version.
Forget power-outage, water-cuts, hurricanes, political coups ... it seems we are facing a real crisis !!!
The island is running out of Diet Coke !!!!
I am a caffeine addict, but I hate drinking coffee ... so, yes, in the morning I drink diet coke. And I cannot stand the flavour of non-diet coke (or even worse, diet Pepsi) ... Diet coke is actually the only diet soda available here, and from what I understand, it has not been around that long actually ..
So, I noticed some weeks ago that there was no diet coke at cost-u-less and at MH Premium I must have grabbed the last bottle ... but I got really alarmed last Saturday when we were at McDonalds and even they did not have diet coke in their fountain ... Later we talked to people and some confirmed that the downtown fast food places also are dry ... and i checked some more places today ... nada ..
The french revolution started because the prior year's potato harvest was very very bad ... it is little thing that can cause chaos ... give the people their diet coke .. I think I will actually call the filling plant (yes, fiji has its own coca cola filling plant) tomorrow and ask what is up.
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
The last 2 days i have been pretty busy and frustrated with getting stuff on ebay. I think people living in Europe or the US can hardly fathom the trouble ... well .. actually I think the way ebay work in US and EU are already very different ...
The big issue here (and don't even ask, there is no ebay.com.fj) is a) shipping and b) money transaction. Both these things make is basically impossible for people in Fiji to use any of the auction services ... most probably don't even know it or only associate it with some evil fraud headlines they may have read in the paper.
Anyways, I thought I was ok, having a US credit card, an address in the US to send to, no criminal history, great feedback rating on ebay, account set up with paypal ... and years of experience in sniping a bid.
But it was not supposed to be easy. First bid I tried, my connection went slow, and I missed the end of auction by some seconds .... then, all the other auctions I came accross demanded to only send to a paypal confirmed address. Which basically means the address you receive your credit card statements ... this is great for people who live in one place .. but if you are all over the planet, lucky enough to stay in one place long enough to have a 3 day window for mail delivery, then it really sucks that you cannot get the item ... I had several emails with sellers and they would just stick to their rules (i understand that they want to be protected from fraud) .. in the end I even considered sending a friend out to deliver cash ...
In the end I had to use bidpay.com, very similar to paypal, but in this case the buyer (me) has to cover the charges of payment (which is not little) ...
Now i just hope the rest goes well and soon I should have a cool new cellphone, which will hopefully work in Fiji and the US (and AU and EU and NZ and many other places .. only Japan seems to be a bit weird about cell phone standards ... )
P.S. Thursday, 11/27 7:18 AM
The nightmare is not over yet. Just got an email from bidpay.com that they cancelled my money order for reasons they would not tell me. Screw them !!! I am talking now to a friend in Philly who may bring cash to the seller. And this in times of the internet. Yeah!
P.S. Friday, 11/28 8:12 AM
I just got a message from my old travelbuddy Don, with who I travelled to Japan 3 years ago, that he made the drop. Meaning that he drove to Philadelphia and handed over the cash for the phone ... so, if all goes well now, the phone should be in the mail on monday and waiting for me in CA when I get there.
Monday, November 24, 2003
So .. today I went to this MAFF place, which is a bit weird, but they had no cat cage, they actually told me about the pet store I found last week, so I went there and got a new nice cage ... and imagine how happy the cats were to see that ...
I had several tries with Nietzsche .. and he was a very hard fighter ..after a while I gave up and changed to putting food in there ....
Misha was at first a bit easier, since she had not seen the cage right away .. but once I had her in .. wow .. i thought she will break the cage from the inside ... so i let her out quickly ...
Nietzsche later fell for the food trap .. and he too put up a fight .. but not as hard as Misha ...
Later that evening I joined Ritsu for her "final french class" get together dinner at Pizza Hut (which is not affiliated with the other well known Pizza Hut chain)
The evening was pretty fun and some of the pizzas were reall nice ...
Sunday, November 23, 2003
Today was so dark and rainy that we celebrated "Lazy Sunday" ... first we both spent some time online doing all kinds of research, keeping up with friends and such. Then we watched a japanese horror movie "Dark Water", which is to be from the same director who made "Ringu", which we loved back then (and it was so successful that it was remade for the US marked, starring Naomi Watts). We enjoyed Dark Water a lot, it has some creepy moments, but it was in no way as scary as Ringu. Maybe watching it by daylight on TV with little breaks just takes from the overall atmosphere.
Later in the afternoon it cleared up and we decided to go to the Holiday Inn hotel for some light dinner and watching the sunset, which after all those clouds just looked gorgous. This picture cannot even really capture it ...
Some people asked me about the above picture. No, I did not use any filters, but I used a tad of photoshop, as the camera was not able to capture the blue as it really was ... I still could not totally fix it. That white patch in the middle was a very strong light blue. Want a bigger version to use as a screensaver? Here it is (397KB). This is the full size, you may need to crop and resize it to use on your screen.
Dinner was a chicken burger, which someone said would be the best (it was not, the bread was weirdly dry and the chicken could have used some sauce) and chicken wings, which were surprisingly good. After all those experiences with super sweet, honey glazed, tiny mini wings ... those were spicy and the size was almost ok.
