Friday, February 20, 2004

 

Super rain again
Incredible how traffic becomes chaos when those sheets of water come pouring down. Summer is in full swing it seems and little lakes seem to appear everywhere.

#posted by Peter 9:21 AM

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Thursday, February 19, 2004

 

Mold, mold, mildew and rot

Remember that great bed we bought just 3 months ago from Pacific Green ??? Well, I had to call them a while ago since I discovered that ours must have been on the assembly line on a monday morning and some fairly important and obvious parts were missing ... gladly customer care responded quite positively ... we also pointed out that some of the wooden planks seem to attract mold way more than others ... seemingly someone forgot to treat them ... but really ... look at the below pic .. and is a brand new piece of furniture supposed to look like that after less than 3 months in a pretty well ventilated place ???



Please no one get me wrong .. a) i LOVE this bed .. though we never even planned on buying a new one b) so far the company had responded fairly well on customer care issues ... i just hope the bed is not falling apart anytime soon :)

So .. the guys from Pacific Green came and exchanged 3 of the planks and added the missing plastic rings ...

#posted by Peter 5:44 PM

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Tuesday, February 17, 2004

 

Rainy Rainy Days !!!!

Good time to watch some movies ... I have noticed recently how asian movies more and more enter mainstream movie watching of the R1 DVD world ... 2 examples:

"Double Vision", which I did not like too much ... Set in rainy Taipei (big hello to William) it tries to be a horror mystery thriller ... it has a token US actor (David Morse) to get into the US market (an extended cameo at best) and .. well .. maybe i am missing something here .. the trailer was selling a very different movie ... still. worth watching ... better than some other crap ...

and then "The Returner" .. besides having a silly title ... some stuff is just wrong here ... the anime like cover pictures make it look like that guy is the main character .. he is not .... some 16 year old chick is ;) ... the movie is pretty cool though .. it does not hide that it takes chunks ("homage") of Terminator, ET, Independence Day and Matrix ... heck, what is new anyway .. all songs have been sung and all keys have been played ... it is how you re-arange them ... and in this case .. a job nicely done ... I enjoyed it quite some .. though the switches between real life scenes and CGI scenes were too seperating .. and the ending I am still mulling over .. not sure if there is a bigger thing i should 'get' (like "who is that kid in the bed in the end scene ??? " )

But hooray for asian cinema

#posted by Peter 6:25 PM

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Sunday, February 15, 2004

 

Happy Valentine's Day

Got back from our romantic Valentines Weekend at Sonaisali Resort over on the west side. Ususally the weather is much nicer on the west side of the island ... but sure enough not this weekend :)

But still we had a GREAT weekend ... I found one of these nice local ads for a nice weekend special, including "a sunset cruise including champagne and canapes - intimate dinner "Under the stars" featuring 5 course menu - Rose for the Lady - upgrade to bure - breakfast included - late check-out ... etc. etc."



After a 175km 3.5h drive we arrived at the resorts parking lot (which turned into a little lake thanks to all the rain we encountered). The resort is on an island only 300 meters away from the main island, so, a boat shuttles over pretty much whenever one wants. When we arrived, there was no welcome or even directions or anyone taking our luggage ... but we found the main reception area. When checking in I asked about the cruise, and, well, the weather made the sunset cruise pretty much impossible. When I asked if that would lower the package price, they just mumbled something about "bottle of champagne for dinner".

We then were shown the basic facilities and our bure (which was like half a kilometer away). The bure was pretty nice, modern style, spacious, TV, phone and AC ... but somehow SO WET that the tile floor was very slippery all the time and the bed felt damp. The best feature was the outdoor Jacuzzi which we would use twice over this one night stay.


The resort itself is pretty nice, feels fairly big and had quite a number of guests (at this off season time-slot). The weather sure made it look a bit sad and though we tried the pool and the pool bar (to get our complementary fruit juice, which they call 'tropical welcome fruit cocktail') it was a bit too cold.



So we did Jacuzzi session #1 and after that we got ready for our romantic dinner "under the stars" ... wondering what the "stars" part would be. I spent some pre-dinner time at the bar, using the 25% off happy hour discount and ordered a Margarita ... not to self, do NOT order a mexican cocktail in Fiji. The guy had no clue (even though they have it in the menu) and so he just mixed some tequila with lemonade ... I kindly asked where the triple sec and the real lemon was ... he was good in doing the salt rim though (which i hate) and he did not notice a tiny insect in his salt :) Ah well .. so I switched to beer. I got to talk to a nice german guy who was exploring Fiji while his wife stayed back in Switzerland.

Once Ritsu came we entered the "Plantation Fine Dining" Restaurant. And indeed, fine it was. While the main restaurant area has a bit of a fast food feel to it, this space was small and intimate, The head waiter was wearing a tux, the wait staff was fantastic and as a compensation for the missed cruise (a 70FJD value) we got a bottle of white wine (a 35FJD value ?!?!)

We first got both a big glass of sparkling wine, then a little 2 piece Sushi appetizer. It was tasty, though not very japanese (smoked salmon, red and yellow capsicum). In between we got a little pineapple sorbet with a squirt of real champagne. We both had chosen the duck/pine nut ravioli as entree and then for the main course RItsu had the slow roasted Chicken and I had the Coconut Surprise :) Actually a really cool presentation, a whole fresh coconut, filled with all kinds of seafood which had simmered in coconut milk. Very nice. Ritsu liked her chicken, but said the sauce was pretty much the same that came with the ravioli.

Desert was some very yummy chocolaty creamy concoction that we both loved.



We slept very well that night as the wind and the waves created a very nice soundscape that just would not let any other sound come through.

After enjoying the american style breakfast (big buffet style ugly-tourist get together) we went for another round of Jacuzzi, wondering at the miracle of just how much bubbly stuff we can make to play with, while wind, waves and rain were doing their freaky ballet around us.



Although we had the option of late check out, we pretty much left at 11AM, weather still not being too inviting ... and where on our way home quickly ... pretty much smack in the middle of the trip is the Warwick Resort where we stopped for lunch ... and it seems to be a very nice place. They also have a "fine dining" restaurant, which is located on a small island just off-shore, and they have a japanese resaturant which claims in its menu that they have quite some stuff I have NOT found yet in Fiji, like Ikura = Salmon Roe ... I need to find out where they get it from.

We had lunch at the lagoon grill. A bit pricey, Ritsu had beef chow mien and I had a basic cheeseburger ... the burger was not that great (I was positively surprised they even asked "well done" ? and I said "medium rare" ... and .. well .. it came 'very well done' ... and not even an onion or a slice of tomato in sight), ketchup was rationed in little plastic containers ... they gave 2 .. needed at least 4 for the fries and 2 for the burger. I wanted to ask for mustard .. but somehow i mouthed the word "mayonnaise" instead ... and what I got was disgusting ... it was warm, yellow .. and looked like it came from someone's nose ... this is the stuff that salmonella spawnes.

Gladly our lunch was also a bit overprized .. but we got really cool music .. a live church choir was singing somewhere and it was very nice indeed.

After that another 1.5 hour ride got us home where our cats where awaiting us. As a new test we kept Misha outside and Nietzsche inside (he is the one getting into catfights whenever he stays outside at night) ... it seems he had no problem at all with staying in all alone that long ... he sleeps all the time anyway.

#posted by Peter 9:58 PM

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