Saturday, January 24, 2004

 
Busy day today. First a visit to the private hospital to do some routine check up ... great place, fast service and very nice and understanding staff. Then Ritsu cooked us some kick us japanese curry.




While I schnippled the veggies, she managed the main event ... great flavour ... with some rice and some japanese pickles Kozue brought us last night.

Then we followed an invitation of Jon and went up to Tamavua to take adventage of their pool. Long time since I have actually gotten a sunburn. But hanging out in the water and playing with the kids was sure fun.



When the sun set we all drove down to the Fiji Malt House for some nice hot cob bread (great thing to have if you only come for drinks, comes with 3 dips: Basil Pesto, Hummus and Tamarind Chutney), Pizza and beers.

#posted by Peter 10:19 PM

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Here some fun newspaper clippings from this weekend's issue of the Fiji Times. Makes you wonder just what ends up as news worthy and what the heck is wrong with people?



And here is a "letter to the editor" about that porn topic which I posted a bit ago (I hope the word porn will raise the number of accidential visitors:)



I am not sure where Allen Lockington is going with his joke there, but the general questions he raises I agree with. Next time he is online (looking for porn?) and puts his name in google, he may end up here and sees that his letter got brief internet fame:)

#posted by Peter 9:39 AM

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Friday, January 23, 2004

 
Yeah party!!! We had guests over tonight and I had made some food ... those german meatballs in caper sauce again (Ritsu loves them), parsley potatoes and salad. But who would have thought that we would get the old Dance Dance Revolution game out, and not only the kids, everybody got into it and we had a lot of fun.



#posted by Peter 11:08 PM

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Thursday, January 22, 2004

 
How close are we to the next Coup?

As many know, Fiji had already 2 coups in its recent history, one in 1987 and then in 2000 (really neat article about the aftermath). Very sweet that the parliament building is really just a coconut throw away from our house... so, if something like that happens again, I will have to decide between immediate evacuation and getting my camera and get some exclusive shots :) .... though, with shots i could mean pictures or bullets ...

Anyways, why do I bring that up? There has obviously been some recent tension between certain army people and one government ministry ... some papers called it a "Stand Off" ... but very quickly everyone who had to say something (Like the police commisionar or the prime minister) declared there is no danger, everything is fine, we all need to stick together to build a united fiji and so on and so on ...

The second wave of newspaper articles all dealt with how much damage a little shake up like this can already do to the tourism industry, as tourists already begin asking their embassies if there has been a change in the security rating for Fiji (AU and US stated a big "no")

From my point of view, there is a bit more activity and tension around this area ... I see more police patrol cars ... and one gets more receptive to all kinds of weird noises around ... well ... let's see.

Oh .. dinner tonight was a cream of fresh broccoli soup. Sometimes we get really nice broccoli for a reasonable price and so this was our main veggie the last couple of weeks ... and so yesterday I made a soup, pretty much following this recipe. It appealed to me as it is very simple ... and instead of cream it uses a blend of cheese and milk. If i had only known that Cost-U-Less actually has Ricotta Cheese.

#posted by Peter 9:40 PM

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Wednesday, January 21, 2004

 
Tonight, for the first time in months, we returned to the Suva Motor Inn for dinner. I think it has been over 6 months since the last time, but we were very happily surprised that most people remembered us, my engraved beer mug was still there, and food, while it took a bit long, was nice. Ritsu had her usual braised chicken, and I tried the seafood kebab.

For those who don't know: The Suva Motor Inn was our first home in Fiji for 6 weeks after we arrived and while we were looking around for a house.

#posted by Peter 11:13 PM

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Tuesday, January 20, 2004

 
Fantastic weather today (again) ... I really wonder when the rainy season will start this year. Humidity was down to 53% at some point today.

And some fun from today's newspaper ... seems this is the Fijian Paris Hilton Video case:




So, ok, i heard that before, porn is seemingly ilegal in fiji ... why and on what grounds and what is defined as porn this article does not say .... instead it repeats like 3 times: private porn ok, selling porn bad. Hillarious is also the line "please don't watch porn as it is immoral" .. uh huh .... But humping your 13 old daughter is ok? (just 5 pages further, every day something like that).

Well, but this marks actually the first time I read something like this in the papers .. Now I am just curious what is on that video tape:)

#posted by Peter 10:27 PM

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Sunday, January 18, 2004

 
Sunday, funday .. it actually rained a bit today .. that was pretty refreshing ...

Today was RoC market .. RoC is "Republic of Cappuchino" .. fiji's version of star bucks :) there are 2 places in Suva and one would guess they may have more ... I would not know as I do not drink coffee ...




anyways, its a bit like a flea market. Usual regulars are a guy who makes smooties, another guy abuses his computer to make VCD copies of current movies and sells them for 7FJD ... lots of shirts, used books .. kinda fun ... but it sure was smaller this time .. but Ritsu got some nice ear thingies.

#posted by Peter 3:23 PM

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