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Friday, January 30, 2004
BREAKING NEWS
Ok, so most of you know it already, but I bet we forgot some people (others have gotten the good news several times:). It is true, another Nacken is on the way and so far everything is fine ... what only bugs me is that I as the expecting Dad am getting morning sickness too!
Since this has not much to do with Fiji, we created a seperate blog (link can also be found on the left!
It seems the comment function is not working anymore .. so feel free to drop us an email.
Last night we were invited to Rob's Birthday BBQ, the initial plan of doing a Lovo was changed into grilled Tuna chunks, since Rob had just caught a huge yellow fin tuna over the weekend.
I love the view he has from his house
His landlord also finally finished the outdoor pool, which we used afterwards to chill out.
Last night was fairly hot an humid, so we decided to sleep downstairs, in my office (where we moved our old futon and where I got the kick ass new AC unit) ... since this thing is newer and the room is smaller, we figured it will use less electricity. I also found out that for some weird reason the roosters (yes, both of them still seem to be alive) are less audible downstairs. The only wake up call was Nietzsche who happily slept with us again, but seems he needed to use the bathroom ... good cat!
Following our monday idea we managed again to get each other out of bed around 6 (though I felt dead tired) and did our morning walk towards the water ... beautiful sunshine, no rain ... super low tide ... we actually walked a bit on the 'beach' (that dirt and trash encrusted soil which only shows it's ugly face during low tide) and on the way back we got the newspapers ... and these 2 pics here .. these are our 2 neighborhood places ... first the Tim Lee Supermarket .. a cramped little store full of stuff .. and then the Nasese Bakery ... really good bakery ... I hear people travel quite some to get their bread ... Ritsu loves their creamed buns
Did not rain this time, but it sure started a bit later, after 8 AM .
Looking for a house in Fiji? One reader came across this blog in search for more info regarding his possible move to Fiji ... and, best thing to get even more info is to email me. So, for fun and the general interest of people who really like to surf weird stuff, like exotic newspapers, I scanned in the one page of "To Let" ads that our Saturday paper had to offer. Its 740KB , click and enjoy
Music Another reader showed interest in fijian music ... I think we had that topic before, but not sure if I ever uploaded some tunes. Fijian music is a bit similar to hawaiian, usually cheerful, themes ususally cover love and goodbye songs. Interestingly enough I never really hear women singing ... this seems to be in church only. So, most of the time you have an all boy band, several guitars, one ukulele, and at least one of the guys sings as if recently a coconut landed on one of his testicles. Here are 3 examples:
Winetasting Victoria Wines' wine club had its monthly winetasting again, topic was Chardonnay and Shiraz .. and it was fun as before (not totally sold out this time) .. the ususal po quiz that turned more into a guessing game with lots of glass swirling, knowingly nodding, gargling and eating those fantastic cheese platters which can be had for 10FJD (wait a bit longer and get some free bread)
Well, the fuzziness and over contrasting of the photos actually captures the athmosphere of the evening quite well.
We had this thought over the weekend that it would be really cool to get up 1 hour early and do some walking, picking up some freshly baked bread and the newspaper on the way. And surprise, surprise, we actually DID wake up at 6 and got up right away and went out and started our energetic day ... and this is when the rainy season started ...
I have posted here again and again how weird the weather has been so far, way to dry for this time of year ... 2 of the 3 newspapers we bought even brought up the drought topic ... but sure, while we were walking, we were hit by a rainshower of epic proportions ... bravely we kept moving .. got bread and papers ... it looked like it is lightening up ... and then again ... tons of water right onto us ... i tried to save my phone and the newspapers as much as possible ... we were drenched to the undies when we returned ...
Big Fish So today we went to the movies (sunday is a great day for that) and watched Tim Burton's "Big Fish".
What can I say? We both loved the movie, but it is really tricky to describe it and really analyze as to WHY it is so darn good... but it strums all the emotional strings at the right time, it makes you laugh, cry, wonder (that one a LOT) ... at some point you give up trying to explain things, finding allegories ... and that is the moment the movie totally sucks you in ... not a movie for everyone, no big style action, no spaceships, a little nudity (if you ever wanted to see Danny DeVito's rear end, this is the movie for you). I was a bit bored in the beginning ... but rewarded greatly in the end ... fantastic movie! If you hear someone compare it to "Forrest Gump" don't give a damn, the similarities are very accidential and they are 2 very different movies (oh, they both have a "Jenny" :) But both movies will make you shed a tear i bet.
Afterwards we had some craving for junk food and steered towards the downtown McDonalds ... on the way I saw something really strange:
The KFCcarhop ... I always considered a carhop one of these waiters in old style american drive-in (NOT drive-thru) fast food places, often on rollerskates, they come to your car, have these attachable trays, take your order, bring food and drink, and you never even have to get out, unless you need to use the bathroom. So, it seems the Fiji version of KFC is that they block off 4 parking spaces, give it a red carpet and some nice signs, and then you drive up, some uniformed people (sans rollerskates, that would be too funny) come up, take your order and bring back food .... kind of bizzare .. it also looked like it is a bit of a traffic hazard ...
Well, we were still going for McD food, but opted to move on to the 'other' McD in Suva, the one close to cost-u-less, which is a bit bigger and nicer ... and Ritsu had a big mac and I had a quarter pounder (that's still only 125 gramms!), which seems to be a current "only for a short time" item ... after 2 bites we were reminded again that this food is just way too greasy and our junk food craving has been satisfied for the next couple of weeks.