nacken fiji experience

2004-08-05T23:25:00.000-07:00

We are moving to nacken.com

In celebration of our son Julius' birth, we are moving all our blog activities to one single location: nacken.com

You will find more recent Fiji information there as well as updates on our baby and our upcoming travels. THIS blog here is still a pretty neat archive, so use the little google window on the side to find what you are looking for.

Thanks for visiting us here, and we see you over there

2004-07-28T07:08:00.000-07:00

nacken.com

Hi, we are over at nacken.com and are playing around there, trying to turn that into the master blog ... so .. hop on over and help me test it out ... it is not super pretty yet .. but i am working on it ...

Big update over there on our Nausori trip .. lots of pictures ...

2004-03-26T17:16:00.000-08:00

just a quick note letting you guys know that we are off to Japan, which means our adventures continue over at the nacken travel blog.

more details later once I get my own computer connected.

2004-03-12T18:49:00.000-08:00

Heya folks ... this will now happen more and more .. instead of double or cross posting ... I will just write a little blurb here and then link to the sub-blog where the real fun is ..

Today so far was shopping and taking care of Ritsu's junk food cravings ...

for more click here

2004-02-09T02:20:00.000-08:00

Rain, Rain ... and then some more ... RAIN

2003-11-20T02:18:00.000-08:00

2 more blasts from the past today. My old NY pal Lucien keeps putting up the bazillion photos he shot at his great Mondo 107 parties back when there were those 2 towers ... well .. i found 2 more that I am on:

This one has again Bebel Gilberto in it .. and i think that girl in that blue fluffy top is also some brazilian singer .. not sure ... and the shirt I am wearing is actually orange, not pink as it looks in that picture.

and this here I do not even have any recollection of ever having posed for :) ... seeing that the lights are on, that must have been at the end of a night ... 2 AM .. so .. i was most likely danced out, tired, ready to go home ... but still posing with a group of people i have never seen before ...

Oh, and Lucien just posted another one. I am only 98% sure that I am that guy in the back, brownish sweater (still have that one) and holding a cigarette (was smoking back then) ... and yes,.. i forgot all about that sirtaki thing ... ocassionally it would make the floor vibrate .. not a good feeling when you are 1000 ft above street level ...

2003-11-19T15:12:00.000-08:00

Today we finally got our typical Suva summer weather back: it is raining, cloudy, humid but not that hot yet ... the rain probably brought the humidity back .. it was only 60% yesterday, and rose to 87% today ... great !!!

2003-11-19T02:28:00.000-08:00

For tonight's dinner I actually ventured out into the neighborhood jungle to find a banana tree and cut a nice big leaf off of it.

I got us some nice Pakapaka (some local fish) and created a paste made of coriander, lemongrass, garlic, ginger, chilli and limejuice and smeared it all over. The banana leaf needs to be cleaned, and to soften it, pour boiling water over it ... then pat dry and wrap the fish in there into a neat little bundle. This now can be baked, or slow-fried in a pan, or I just used my trusty george foreman grill ... important to remember: the banana leaf is for keeping the juices inside the fish and to add flavor, it is not meant to be eaten !!!

With that you can serve rice, stir fry veggies ... I just made a little salad with bok choy, grilled yellow peppers and zuchini, bean sprouts and a dressing including soy sauce, honey, dry sherry and some oil.

2003-11-18T14:59:00.000-08:00

Last week we went to see this japanese all-bamboo instruments group and some people were curious what they sound like ... I found this one mp3 file, the quality is not brilliant, but on the otherhand the filesize is small :) The song is "Shima Uta"which is a very popular okinawa style song.

2003-11-18T02:01:00.000-08:00

2 highlights for today .. but sadly no pictures:

First was my adventure of getting the car through inspection. Unless your car is brand new, you have to see the LTA once a year to make sure your vehicle is still street worthy. For first timers like me it is quite an undertaking. Best to start with calling LTA to make an appointment... that does not really speed up your inspection, but you can line up at the short queue at counter #7, while all the other joe schmoes line up at the long lines on counters 1-6. Inspection fee is a mere 14$ ... after you filled in your application you move your ass and your car over to the inspection garage ... there a huge, loud guy told checked out the car from beneath ... then later he hopped in (no idea how he fit his 450lbs body mass into this car) and drove it around a bit. After that I got some paperwork, returned to counter lady #7 and paid my 75.50$ wheel tax .. and got my sticker ..

there was actually way more detail to it. most of the times i had NO idea where to go or who to ask .. was all not very clear .. but in the end it all worked out and I have peace of mind for another year.

The second highlight was dinner: I had planned to try a certain thai recipe .. and it turned out quite nicely .. pork slices with koriander (Dhania, cillantro, whatever you call it), fresh pinapple ... served with a thai ginger / lemongrass rice (I actually found fresh lemongrass here) .. And here is a scan of that recipe (for you Berna):

This is from one of the nice cookbooks (well, they are actually rather magazine size) I bought in Brisbane: Thai Cooking from the Family Circle cook book collection.

2003-11-16T06:49:00.000-08:00

I made some more panoramic quicktime VR files of Toberua, so you can get an good look around. Click on the picture to get the QT VR file.

First was made standing between the office, bar, restaurant/kitchen and utility bures. This is also the spot to play Petanque and you can see the volley ball court between kitchen and utility.

This one I took in front of 'our' bure #9, "Wakaia", you can see the neighbor bure and the jungle around us.

And here is my first try at a 360 degree picture, so you can keep spinning around if you like. Taken from the deck in front of the bar bure at sunset.

2003-11-16T02:07:00.000-08:00

We just got back from Toberua Island, and instead of repeating all the stuff from our previous 6 visits, I'd like to point out what was new this time: One nice new thing was that Saturday night was not BBQ (which has always been great by the way, but from what I heard, BBQ is now wednesdays) but a Lovo feast. Lovo is the Fjian way of using hot rocks to keep an earth oven running. Basically you make a fire in a sandpit, put rocks in there, once the rocks are all heated through, you start loading your food on top (chicken, pork, lamb, beef, all kinds of potatoes), cover it with banana and coconut leaves (their smoke adds nice flavor), cover it with earth and sand and let sit for an hour ...

Though, that huge Trevaly (Fish) in the above picture was actually NOT in that oven, but it was on the menu from then on every day for every meal (yes, even breakfast).

I also finally found a way to take a good picture of the inside of 'our' bure (we managed to get #9, again), this is stitched together from 8 seperate pics, but i think it gives you a pretty good idea.

Some more write up and panoramic pics are coming up soon.

2003-11-15T00:34:00.000-08:00

We travelled once again to Toberua Island ... and someone put one of those nice chairs out on one of the jetties.

We arrived in time for lunch, which was some pan fried snapper for Ritsu and I had the thai beef salad, both very good. The crab meat / fish leftover with pumpkin croquette which was the appetizer was ok .. but insiders just could make out the recycle-character too easily.

2003-11-13T02:38:00.000-08:00

Long time no cute cat picture :)

Amazing to see how well the two get along now .. most of the nights they both sleep in our bedroom, but Misha is getting antsy around 2 AM and wakes us up by digging her claws or teeth into our feet ... so I either wake up by pain or by Ritsu's screams ... So, the other night I just threw her (Misha, not Ritsu) out of the bedroom. Not that she gets the idea that feet-biting results in getting food or having the door opened. Nietzsche behaves very well and sleeps a lot. He also likes watching movies with me. That they sit on that orange couch is rather rare, but they held that position so I could take pictures ...

For dinner we met with Robert, Hillary, Edo and Marly at Fiji Malthouse and we all had a fun time.

2003-11-12T02:12:00.000-08:00

Today a panoramic picture you would hardly find on a postcard or in a travel guide, but this is the day-b-day Fiji: So, here we have the MH Superfresh Supermarket up in Tamavua. (click for bigger version)

As reported before, MH (Morris Hedstrom) has a bunch of supermarkets and other stores around the islands, probably the biggest store chain in Fiji. Others would be R.B. Patel and NewWorld.

Superfresh is very nice, fairly big and seems to have the best selection of fruit and veggies of all the MHs. On the downside, it has no AC, so you find the chocolate in its own fridge. On the picture, the yellow thing is the actual supermarket, while the mall like structure next to it houses a bakery, an ATM, a liquor store, a video place and some chinese take out place.

As you can see, we do not always have blue skies :)

2003-11-11T02:08:00.000-08:00

I discovered something new to cook with: Oysters. In search for seafood I found that Cost U Less actually has frozen oysters (something that I find a bit weird somehow) ... but having read some interesting recipes, I was intrigued. I love raw oysters and had them in New York, and recently in Australia ... but actually cooking with them??? very new concept. Too bad that Ritsu is allergic to them, so I can only cook them for myself. So today I took 8 of those guys, wrapped them in bacon, stuck them on a scewer, drizzled some tabasco and pepper over them, and baked them till the bacon was crisp. Very tasty indeed. Only that I kept the oyster aftertaste for hours was a bit funny.

So, next I will try deep-fried or an oyster burger :)

2003-11-10T02:04:00.000-08:00

Tonights cultural entertainment was presented by the japanese embassy. A musical group called "Bamboo Symphonia", playing Okinawa style music on all bamboo instruments. It was very beautiful, actually pretty packed, first half was okinawa classics, second half original songs of the group. Very entertaining.

2003-11-09T02:38:00.000-08:00

And how was your weekend? I know that William was taking some trip (i guess to celebrate his birthday), the rest, just like us, seem to have had a nice, quite, lazy weekend ...

For sunday brunch I had prepared 5 days ago an egg recipe which i think is usually an easter or passover dish usually, i know it as "Sol Ei" .. where Sol means a salt water marinade and Ei is egg ... i was trying to find recipes, but the closest I found was "pickled eggs" .. and they all use vinegar ... it is my understanding that vinegar dissolves the eggshell ..

So, how does it work? Well, fairly simple ... hardboil as many eggs as you have space for in some tightly sealing glass jar. Try to move the eggs around while boiling to ensure that the yolk will end up in the middle. after 15 minutes cool down. Then boil water (about 1.5 litres for 10 eggs) adding salt.(and here is where my mom's recipe stops) ... other recipes suggest adding bay leaves, peppercorns, mustard seed, chili slices .. i guess it is up to taste ..

After boiling that and letting it cool down, put the eggs in a glass jar (plastic ok, metal no) and pour the liquid over the eggs until they are all covered ... Now the hard part: store for at least 5 days in a cold, dark place (fridge?) ... It does look pretty pretty ... could be a nice party gift .. :)

Now .. how do we eat those suckers? Cut in half, carefully remove the yolk and pour into the muld any of the following condiments (depending on taste): salt, pepper, oil, vinegar, mustard (these are the basics), advanced: olive oil, balsamic vingar, wostershire sauce, tabasco .. basically whatever you like. Put the egg yolk back on and shove the whole thing into your mouth ... :)

Later we went to cost-u-less for some shopping ... and then to the movie theater to watch "Intolerable Cruelty" .. and it was quite entertaining, and there is a great slapstick moment at the end that had me laugh very hard. I have never been too enticed by films of the Coen brothers .. and the words "romantic comedy" usually specify the worst genre possible (for me) .. but the was actually a non-Coen dark comedy ... it was not a typical 2/14 dating movie .. it had some really mean/funny things in it .. i liked it ... now i need to watch the DVD to understand what Billy Nob Thornton said in his thick texan accent.

Dinner was chinese leftovers, weather was fine again, no rain, cats are ok, sleeping more every day and night, now actually sharing Ritsu's yoga mat under the bed ... as we say in Fiji, "Life Sucks" :)

2003-11-07T02:16:00.000-08:00

Sometimes you don't miss something until you come across it again. Malthouse had live jazz tonight, and it was pretty nice. While it is not really a smokey basement club in New York's Village, it was a pleasant evening and the "Kind of Blue" jazz ensamble played some nice music. Food was our usual Pacific pizza and we tried for the first time a chicken bacon salad which was nice too.

2003-11-06T02:30:00.000-08:00

Today's weather was a bit cooler which was nice. I went to see the first showing of Matrix Revolutions, which I found a bit dissapointing, while offering some nice eye candy ... and I felt it could have been so much better. Ah well.

I then had lunch at Fong Lee with Ritsu and the I ran some errands.

For dinner I tried to recreate one of my favourite McDonalds burgers, the McRib. Its basically a pork burger with BBQ sauce, which I made from scratch ... turned out ok .. some junkfood you just can't copy. The baked potato I had to go with it was also not that great .. baked them for an hour, and they still were hard.

2003-11-05T00:50:00.000-08:00

Today started with rain, and then I let Ritsu's french toast burn ... not the best start ...

Our cleaning lady came on time this time, at 11 some craftsmen came to install our new gate, which took them all day, interestingly enough one of their first things to do was preparing some kava for them to drink while work. Which reminded me how it was very normal in Germany when I was a kid, that people in physical jobs, like construction workers, would very naturally drink beer during work, I even recall my mom telling me "bring these nice men some beer" ... then again, that was 30 years ago ...

Next adventure was bringing our cat Nietzsche to the vet. Both cats hate the trip, but he was so scared this time that he made a mess .. great ... but the vet-lady was very cool about it ("happens all the time") and he got some more shots and he seems to be ok ... he now likes to sleep in my office when I am in here.

I am about to do dinner and I will also try to make homemade ketchup (which then again later i need to make homemade BBQ sauce) .. Kitchen, here I come !!!

several hours later

well .. scratch that ketchup idea ... after using a kilo of tomatoes and 2 hours time, all i got was a small glass of not very flavorful tomatojuice ... now I know why the stuff is so readily available canned.

2003-11-04T02:30:00.000-08:00

And here we have Tuesday night's sunset:

Ritsu took me out to the Holiday Inn hotel bar, which is very nicely located at the waterfront, so we could sip a beer, enjoy the sunset and Ritsu told me all about her day at work. After that we went to Daikoku, where we asked to move tables, as we were initially too close to a big table full of loud and happy Fijians. Glad they were so happy, but way too loud. We had wasabi steak and ginger pork and it was tasty as usual.

2003-11-02T14:13:00.000-08:00

I put up a movieclip from the weekend trip on the movie blog, enjoy, I promise naked pigs!!!

2003-11-01T22:26:00.000-08:00

After we left the resort below, we headed a bit further west to Sigatoka, where Pacific Green had one of their infamous sales .. they call them "annual" but it seems they had one just 6 months ago. Anyways, they make great looking furniture out of palmwood (which is great after Fiji had that sad history of being exploited for her beautiful tropical hardwoods) ... the material is great and the design very nice.

We were immediately trailed by our salesman 'Luke', which at first I found a bit disturbing, but he was not pushy at all, had some nice advice (or just read the numbers on the price tags for us) and supplied us with fresh coconut juice.

We felt safe since we were not really looking for anything in particular .. maybe some small book cases, or taking an informative look at some dining sets for maybe a purchase in a year or so .. but then we saw this bed:

Now, a bed is something that we actually should get new .. the one I brought to Fiji is quite old and has always been cheap (but comfy) .. the price on the price tag was also very fair ... but it was a whole set with stuff we were not interested in ... and so, just for fun, we asked how much it would be without these items, just the bed and 2 nightstands ... we did not even ask for any further discount .. and i also mentioned that we are not really in the market for a bed ... then our sales guy left ... and I thought he may have had lost interest in us ... but then he found us again .. and surprised us with a new price tag which was too good to be true .. after reconfirming .. and some decision making over free hot dogs (i bet they would sell even more if they'd offered free beer) we did the paperwork, and now we are awaiting a great new funky stylish designer bed :)

Kachatta !!!

2003-11-01T02:14:00.000-08:00

We just returned from a 1-night-trip to Crusoe's Retreat, a very nice, small and hidden resort only 70 km/ 45miles from Suva.

We took off around 11 AM and headed towards the coral coast area. After 1 hour we reached a sign pointing to a 4km dirt road, leading us to the resort. This part of the trip is quite exciting as it goes up and down quite steep, and in many cases I had to shift down all the way into 1st gear, but we made it .. and just before you reach the resort, you are rewarded with a fantastic view from the hill over the shoreline.

We were checked in by a pretty bitchy receptionist lady, but then our bure was very nice, we had booked 'seaside' which is very close to the beach and the pool, the 'seaview' bures seem nice too, but involve a lot of staircase walking.

We settled in, the bures are nice and fairly modern, very clean, not very fancy, but nothing to complain. Big fridge, someone should have told me! After that we were hungry and checked out lunch. The lunch menu is very non-thrilling, basics like fish-n-chips, grilled cheese sandwich, tuna or feta salad, burgers (fish or chicken or beef), daily curry, beef stew. We both had the burger .. and this and its fries were very greasy.

Then some walking around, very nice property, garden well kept (as I found later, some little pigs were running around freely) beach is ok, they offer lots of free water based activities. I enjoyed the foot-shaped pool a lot, nice temperature.

Later we got ready for happy hour (Drinks 7.50 F$, which is ok, especially after I told the bar man that I watch them carefully, and in response he put double shots of gin and tequila in my "Red Sea" cocktail .. whoa!) and then dinner ... Ritsu had some chicken paste while I had the 'fillet mignon' ... and it was ok ... nothing to write home about, not bad either ... what worried us a bit was that the menu saying 'saturday' was laminated, which means this is what they have every saturday, and selection was not super big, prices were ok . the lunch burgers were 12F$ each, dinner was 49F$ for the 2 of us excluding drinks.

Entertainment after dinner was a polynesian dance show, 4 girls shaking their hips, very nice, much nicer than traditional fijian meke (song and dance) .. and then some guy played with some fire sticks .. :) We enjoyed it a lot, but were nicely tired, so we retired.

Next morning's breakfast was ok too, eggs made to order, fruit and all kinds of stuff ... We packed up and checked out ...

We liked the location and the place, but we were not very excited about the food and pretty disappointed by the staff. Most of the ladies had a strong attitude problem, worst of all the girl at the reception. Most of them were trotting along in snail's speed, my request of having mustard for my burger took way too long. There were 2 ladies though who were very nice, Ana, who even introduced herself to us with a broad smile, and another one, whose name I forgot.

We plan on coming back, but we will bring lots of food and drink ourself, and just enjoy the lush garden setting and the pool.

2003-10-30T16:37:00.000-08:00

Another nice vista: This time I was up an Edingburogh Rd, which leads to Princess Rd, and there is a nice spot to see the Walu Bay area, which is a big industrial complex close to the harbor area. The city center would be on the left now .. and Lami is on the right side ... click on the pic to get a big version and click here for the QuickTime VR file

Has not rained in quite a while ...

2003-10-30T02:12:00.000-08:00

And this is what happens when once in a blue moon I fall asleep on the couch ...

2003-10-27T21:37:00.002-08:00

Something I wanted to do for a long time: scanning and posting some maps of Suva. While the Fiji Government has a website with some maps, nothing is really in detail, and I have yet to find some maps for areas around Suva (if someone has access to sattelite pics, that would be neat, please email me:). So .. I scanned part of that official map which is available (sometimes, most of the time sold out) and you can get some idea. Click below to see it bigger. If you want to know where specific things are, email me. I will not put any pointers to people's houses on this map.

Ok .. what do we see here ... first map is a close up of the 'downtown' area, second shows a bit more how Suva is a peninsula. Locate Suva Central and move a bit south where it says "Domain", that is the general area where we live in. That road along the water is "Victoria Parade" and is quite nice to drive along at sunsets. The 3rd map pulls even more back, showing that edge of Fiji where Suva is located. You can also see where the airport is (Nausori), which is about a 1 hour cab-ride away.

2003-10-27T02:06:00.000-08:00

So, what is going on with the cats??? They never fail to amaze me .. especially the interaction among the two .. and with us. Nietzsche (the more recent addition, was very feral, now very friendly, still has no clue how to really clean himself, in addition to that he may have taken on a new, territorial habbit known as 'spraying', basically peeing around to mark is territory) keeps imitating Misha, he wants to sit where she sits, he follows her around, I believe this is how he wants to get more attention. Sure enough that turns into some hissing and whacking from time to time. Last night for the first time he not only came up to the bedroom ... but he also slept in our bed when we woke up (while Misha was sleeping under the bed on Ritsu's yoga mat) ... we had to show him that he is not clean enough to sleep in bed .. and so he slept on a towel nearby ... while Misha came back to bed ... till she decided to wake me up around 4 by gently biting my foot again ...

Very cute that the 4 of us sleep so close together ...

For the chef's out there .. last night for dinner we had some nice pakapaka (i bet any fresh fish will do) which I salted, peppered and put some lime juice on, a slice of cheese, then I wrapped that in bok choy leaves (I bet fresh spinach would do the trick too) then wrapped it in several layers of filo (which have been brushed with warm butter and sprinkled with parmesan) and then bake it for 27 minutes at 200 C .. came out very nicely .. serve with some greens of your choice ... I could have used some salad...

2003-10-25T15:11:00.000-07:00

Haven't talked about food in a while, though we had some nice yummy things the last couple of evenings ... first of all lots of salad with everything ... so we had chicken satay skewers and the salad had shredded green papaya in it and a lime/peanut dressing .. next evening a classic salade nicoise with grilled tuna ... and then I was playing with filo dough and created some chicken/mushroom/cheese wrap, while the salad had pieces of pear and a slight bluecheese dressing ...

This morning for breakfast I made French Toast .. and finally found out that there is actually a german version (which I had never heard of before) and it is called "Arme Ritter" ['poor knight'] ... who comes up with those names ... but then again there is a south german desert which losely translates as "nun farts" ... looks nice .. ok .. getting hungry here

2003-10-24T01:38:00.000-07:00

Last night we actually sat down to watch some rugby since Fiji was playing against Japan ... I can't say I understand the game .. nor was it really fun to watch .. they are just running around ... chasing that egg .. kicking it around ... i may be losing some gene to appreciate watching sport ..

In other newsm, happy diwali everyone ... which brings me to another thing ... it has been exactly a year since we arrived in Fiji .. wow .. one year ... and 2 more to go ...

2003-10-23T03:41:00.000-07:00

There are 3 new movie clips over at the nacken movie blog ... from the recent AU trip ... great stuff for boring intervals at the office :)

2003-10-21T22:07:00.001-07:00

I told you about that really freaky rain on monday ... well .. here are some pics .. first, this is the roundabout at MH Premium, in Flagstaff (opposite of Great Wok of China) and as you can see, some of the cars are trying their water ski abilities ... this is middle of the day ... not dusk.

And next is a comparison shot what our drain looks like with and without rain.

2003-10-21T03:51:00.000-07:00

And after a lot of rain we get nice sunsets like this one

I went today to see "Kill Bill" again, I was very surprised that it was already here in Fiji (actually same day as AU) .. and 4FJ$ = 3USD admission is hard to beat ... still a fantastic movie .. what shocked me this time was some stupid mother taking her 5 year old daughter to THIS movie .. what is she thinking ??? I can understand they bring toodlers that do not get whats going on on the screen .. but at 5 .. you know ... and that little girl reacted quite some .. mainly with laughter .. especially when someone got the head chopped of ...

Again I was wondering about the fijian audience and how much they laugh .. about ... well . hmm .. nothing ??? like when the titles ran .. i could not figure out if they actually found the lyrics of the Nancy Sinatra song funny or the japanese names in the titles .. they were laughing their asses off ...

For dinner we went once again to the malt house ... no pizza this time, Ritsu went for the paka paka and I had the Burger ..which is chicken only . why don't they have a beef burger on the menu ???

2003-10-19T15:51:00.000-07:00

Hello and welcome back. We returned last night from our trip to Brisbane and we had a fantastic time. Now back in Suva, things are the same, well, not all, after having had a bit of a dry spell for some weeks, it is now raining like crazy. One of the cats (Nietzsche) is MIA and has not been seen since last thursday .. so .. that is interesting ... other than that, back to normal ...

2003-10-14T08:01:00.000-07:00

There are always fun things to read about Fiji. How about a 136 year old apology for having eaten one of your ancestors???

2003-10-11T23:22:00.000-07:00

The nackenfijiexperience is taking a little break again (to go and have my nose repaired, ok .. kidding)

We are heading over to that other island .. called australia .. and you can follow our adventures there by visiting the nacken travel blog. What am I most looking forward to? Eating good Sushi !!!!

2003-10-11T07:32:00.000-07:00

2003-10-10T05:22:00.000-07:00

You gotta love your cat .. even if she totally whacks your nose

yes .. it was the cat .. NOT my wife ... but of course we have a male to blame ... Nietzsche seems to be in über-fighting mode these days .. and it seems he stressed out Misha .. so .. when I tried to rescue her, she thought it would be a great idea to carve her initials into my nose ...

2003-10-09T10:48:00.000-07:00

Great .. seems the threat of powercuts is over for a bit ... according to the papers, the government has stepped in and provides a gazzilion of Fiji$$$ to have some generators leased and diesel fuel pumped into them. And still no rain, which is weird .. I also heard that Mango is back in season ... will go and raid the market in a bit ...

So last night we were invited short notice to Robert's new place ... and he sure has a nice view ... click on the pic to get a bigger version .. or click here for a Quicktime VR movie.

To the left is downtown Suva, to the right is Lami and the heap there (the brown one, not the green one) is the waste dump. The red thing in the back is the sunset :)

And here a nice night shot of downtown Suva

2003-10-08T20:09:00.000-07:00

Weather has been really weird, actually pretty nice .. but too dry for things like water supply and electricity (which is based on water driven turbines) ... I am revise my initial attitude .,. and recommend October as the best time to visit Fiji .... blue skies, not too humid ... and no rain ...

Not much else to report about .. Diwali is coming up again, which means we are about to have been here for a year .. and stuff starting to repeat ... cool .. Kids are playing with fireworks left and right ...

2003-10-06T18:20:00.000-07:00

Feeling adventurous? Suicidial? Tired of russian roulette ??? try "taking a shower with the dirty cat" ... that sure is tentalizing ...

Last night, Nietzsche was MIA while I heard a lot of cat commotion outside .. sure there was some fighting going on ... seems that Nietzsche as a male cat feels he needs to protect the female and his terratory .. anyways .. i could not get him in ... he came back much later and had tons of scars and blood all over him .. kind of scary .. but he behaved like nothing happened ...

anyways .. i had the great idea to take him into the shower with me .. if it had not been for my tummy, I would have switched on the webcam :)

Our shower is an enclosed cabin, you need to be able to jump 2 meters or 7 feet .. and Nietzsche sure tried that ... and he made it to 1.5 m / 5 ft ... but no way out .. i was able to totally soak him before he was able to put some nice claw marks into my hand ... but he sure smells better now ....

I think I will try that more often with him.

2003-10-05T23:40:00.000-07:00

Gotta love Japan and their love for cameras .. now you can have your picture on a stamp. Why did no one think of that earlier ???

2003-10-05T17:21:00.000-07:00

Had a good weekend ??? we sure had ... nice and lazy ...

Ritsu went on a girlie saturday thing with Kozue ... manicure, pedicure .. stuff like that ... friday we went out with Robert, his wife Hillary and friend 'Nief' .. i have NO idea how to spell that name ...

Sunday we slept in and then went to cost-u-less, where we ran into Bill and Vero ... yep .. Suva is small :) Later we got to see "Down with Love", which was very fluffy, tasty and entertaining ... i love the whole idea of creating a smoothie out of many of the best 60ies-placed-in-manhattan movies .. lots of good ideas in it ... too bad Renee is no Doris Day ... and when she starts her big speech, the movie turns .. hmm .. weird/ugly/dissapointing ... but I still recommend this movie .. it just could have been better ... i wish they would try again ... or make more / different 60ies revivals ...

Thanks to Lucien's Fotolog, I signed up too .. check here http://www.fotolog.net/caipirina/... though I doubt there will be any other pictures than here .. maybe one day i find a special purpose for that fotolog :)

2003-10-02T20:31:00.000-07:00

Blast from the Past

Actually, today I wanted to make another Quicktime VR movie, a view of the Suva Skyline as seen from Lami, and when I was there and finally found a parking spot, that darn battery on the camera went down.

Then I thought I write about the weather, which has been very very nice the last couple of days, if not even weeks, not too humid, not that much rain, very sunny ...

But then an old new york friend Lucien send me this very recent link to his fotolog, where he posted all kinds of old pictures by themes, and this time he was posting some of the parties that we used to have on the 107th floor of the wolrd trade center ... please click on the image below to see a full size version, and read lucien's caption, which among other things finally solves the mystery as to whatever happened to my DJ career.

(c) of this photo byLucien

The girl on the picture I am dancing with is Bebel Gilberto, 1 or 2 years before her debut album went gold ...

2003-10-01T22:46:00.000-07:00

The looming power shortage seems to become more and more concrete ... every day now the newspaper has an article on the situation, basically trying to emotionally prepare the people for what is to come ...

Interesting is the claim of the landowners, who say they did not get the promised money for having their land used for the dam. And that is the reason why some 'higher power' is sending the draught.

2003-09-30T08:06:00.000-07:00

And then there are some newspaper articles that just leave you head scratching:

What kind of future are kids about to have by ignoring / avoiding the internet?

2003-09-30T01:40:00.000-07:00

My brush with royalty :)

Big news these days was that Japanese Prince and Princess Akishino were in Fiji on official business, and we were invited to a reception at the Ambassadors Residence tonight.

This event had less people than last years december reception, mainly Japanese, some Fijian, some Indo-Fijian .. and I sure was the only Caucasian person around.

We were a bit late. It was very nice that Lady Ambassador remebered us ("that weird mixed couple") and complemented us for wearing matching bula shirts). Very shortly after we arrived we saw a police car coming with lights on. And then the Prince and Princess came in, he quite casual in bula shirt, she had more of a Grace Kelly thing going on. Too bad I have no pictures but the invite clearly said "don't bring any cameras" (wonder how that works if you have one of those mobile phones with digicam implant)...

Then the couple made the round and was introduced to pretty much everyone ... and interestingly enough .. with Japanese people there was only bowing ... non Japanese, there was handshaking ... so when it was out turn, they looked a bit puzzled and asked if we are a couple (like what? I am the body guard?) and they were very nice and switched quickly from Japanese to English and had some nice words for everyone ... very nice people. Who would have ever thought I will shake hands with members of the Japanese royal family ... and in Fiji ... life is fun ... and strange .. but we all know that :)

More surprising later was a Fijian guy who talked to us, and it turned out that he was pretty fluent in Japanese .. was fun to see him talking to Ritsu ... and reminded me that I need to get better at Japanese ...

Here at least a newspaper clipping:

2003-09-29T03:27:00.000-07:00

And a voice said "smile, because it could be bad" ... and so I smiled ... and then it got worse

The next nice little crisis to expect are planned power outtages ... seems that the Monasavu Dam, which is providing 72% of all electricity, has not enough water, and thus the FEA (power provider) thinks about implementing ratio-measures ... which could be as bad as 3 years ago when the last coup happened or just a general warning to people to conserve energy.

But the idea of living with power on/off every 2 hours is terrible ... I mean what am I supposed to do without power ??? During the 2 hours off it means basically "no one touches that fridge" ... laptops will run a bit ... no TV, DVD, Video ... phone - i don't know yet ... as our phones go through the ISDN Terminal Adapter, which needs juice ... yippieh !!!!

I bet there will be a run for candles and batteries ... I wonder how great that is for the island environment when people use more batteries which they have to throw away after each use.

2003-09-28T00:28:00.000-07:00

We spent another great weekend at Toberua Island Resort to celebrate Ritsu's Birthday. For the sixth time we managed to score our favourite Bure and we had great food, one dive (it was SO windy) and all in all a very relaxed time.

We tried out the kayaks for the first time .. and another first time was that Ritsu did not puke on the boatride to or from the divesite, though it was the roughest ride we ever had ..

a bit later I put up another quicktime VR file, though I doubt anyone is actually viewing them ...

please prove me wrong in the comment field below :)

Here it is ... click on the pic below and have your Quicktime 6 ready

2003-09-25T08:13:00.000-07:00

Today is Ritsu's Birthday!!! Finally she is 21 and can buy booze ... well .. yeah .. close to that :)

Anyways .. feel free to use the comment feature to send greetings ... I will not post her email address of phone # here :)

2003-09-24T18:40:00.000-07:00

And a new panorama picture ... this is a view from the Princess Road area (high up, lots of diplomats, ambassadors and high commisionars live there) over to Beqa Island (that gray blob in the distance. Left is basically Suva and to the right it goes to Lami and further on to Pacific Harbour. In the middle is the garbage dump which is located between Suva and Lami and from what I read, it is getting full there ... another story I heard is that some people actually try to scavange old restaurant food there. Yummy ...

anyways .. click on the picture below to get a big version

OR .. something very new: I created a Quicktime VR file, this you can open in Quicktime and then you can wander around in the picture, zoom in an out ... check it out !!!

2003-09-24T04:02:00.000-07:00

Haven't talked about food in a while ... so tonight we went to Daikoku and I found this interesting link, someone else's perspective .. we had spicy chicken and fillet steak and it was very good. For the first time we saw that there was actually one female teppan-yaki chef. After having seen only men performing the table cooking style, I was surprised that we had not seen any girls doing it before.

2003-09-23T17:03:00.000-07:00

Busted! My wife cought me sleeping with the cat :)

2003-09-22T15:09:00.001-07:00

How about some animated cats for today's blog entry ??

I brought Nietzsche (the new, male, dirty) cat to the vet since he was due for shots and also had a bad limp on one leg ... he is still full of scars, but seems to get better ... The vet says that she is happy to see a cat developing from feral (30 days ago) to semi-pet cat .. sure he was mad at me for sticking him in a box again and drive him around town ... but he seems ok now ... and the leg is getting better ...

2003-09-21T11:50:00.000-07:00

I finally want to tell the tale of my latest videostore membership.

There are a bunch of video places here in Suva, most of them have a colorful mix of english and hindi titles, DVDs are replacing VHS tapes left and right. In many places you also find a mix of different region codes and the staff usually has no idea what that means. Most places also ask for a non-refundable membership fee (20 - 30$).

Now, then there is this place called IMDVD. I had not joined so far because it is a 12 km / 8 mile car ride from home, and they are also a bit more pricy than others. (ususally you pay 3$ for a DVD rental, but this place, cheapest overnight(new title) is 4$. The membership fee is a steep 100$ BUT is refundable).

But, this place is special! The guy behind it has taken organization of the DVD rental business to another level ... in fact there are so many rules, guidelines, incentive schemes that I bet some people have given up on fully understanding the whole thing.

First there is the great credit system, which educates the customers to return DVDs in time or even earlier ... e.g. you pay 5$ for the rental, but if you run home, watch the movie and return before 5 PM, you get 2 or 3$ credits. (next day is 1 or 2$ and so on)

Second there is the penalty scheme for improper disc handling. This shop has a disc doctor DVD repair machine (actually it looks like they have 2), which pretty much guarantees that all discs are scratch free. If you return a disc with a fingerprint, a smudge or dare say even a scratch, you have to pay for having it 'un-scratched' and if it happens to often, you are "locked" and can only rent 2 DVDs at once ... so, customer education on disc handling ... believe me, I treat those DVDs better than my own and more carefully than a raw egg.

I have yet to understand the pre-booking a reconfirmation thing ... but there is a 1$ fee if they have to call you on your mobile (cellphone) to reconfirm that you will actually pick up the DVD that you have booked.

There is also a "check out procedure" ... you first show your card (if you do not have that, its 1$ fee to look you up in the computer, customer education on not annoying the counter staff), then present the DVD covers of the titles you wish to rent, with their inventory numbers in descending order !!! (if not you probably get shot, I have not tried that yet)

What is pretty niffty is that there is a pretty well done database system implemented, and 5 or so macintosh computers are connected via airport so that customers can check availability, movie info, their account on one of the 2 'kiosks' (so far I have only spotted one) and even make reservations. This database also shows the nice "DVDs for sale" list ... after 4 or 6 months the titles become available for sale and I guess the price is based on how old it is, how popular it still is, things like that. I have seen titles as low as 10$ and up to 85$. And I am pretty sure that these discs are in fantastic condition. What just puzzled me is that this practice also weeds out the collection ... I was surprised that I could find neither "The Matrix" nor the more recent "The Animatrix" in the database. I still keep looking for the old Jack Nicholson version of "The Shining" ...

All in all, great collection, lots of new stuff and US TV shows, DVDs are in top quality. On the other hand, this perfectionism is sometimes a bit overwhelming and I know people have cancelled their membership because they found the whole thing too "nazi-esque", they did not feel being treated as customers, but rather as beggars asking "please please let me rent your DVDs".

I am just having a good chuckle about that "over the top" way, I think that places like blockbuster could learn one or two things from IMDVD and I am just going to sit back, relax and enjoy the DVDs.

2003-09-20T23:38:00.000-07:00

Today we went up to Tamavula and had BBQ lunch with Jon and Kozue and the kids ... it was fun. Their landlord bought them a new "outdoor cooking applience" and Jon seemed to still seek its "personality".

Burgers, blackened chicken (which was not meant to be that black, but still very yummy), corn cob pieces and all kids of condiments were available to fill tummys. Yep ... summer is on its way back, but there is also the fun part to it.

2003-09-20T02:51:00.000-07:00

seems I am having some trouble with posts showing up twice .. please bear with me while I try to fix that .. I am AWARE the situation ..

2003-09-19T02:23:00.000-07:00

I finally managed to take a good picture of our resident St. Andrews Cross Spider, who we dubbed "Spider Girl" ... since she is in the 5 cm/2 inch category, she just has to be female .. she is pretty cool and her web is just amazing ... I even told the gardener to not touch it ... it seems that once in a while she has so rebuild the web, the wind movement makes it a bit weak. And she is reallt great at it .. and she is a beauty.

2003-09-17T21:39:00.000-07:00

Last night we had the great experience of the private hospital in Suva. No, really, that place is great, I wish more hospitals were like that!

I picked up Ritsu from work at 5:30 and she felt really sick and I could feel that she had a fever. So we skipped our plans of going to a concert and brought her to bed instead. She kept feeling worse and after a while it dawned on us that she could have Dengue ... so around 10 PM we drove up to the private hospital, where we were met by a nice, young indo-fijian doctor, who gave Ritsu some painkillers and anit-biotics and sent us home again (we had the overnight bag packed already) ... he was fairly certain it was not Dengue ...

After her medication she felt sleepy but around 6 AM she woke up again, this time with stomach pain. We had an appoinment at 8:30 AM anyway, and the doctor again confirmed that it seems to be a bacterial infection and just sent us back home.

Fortunatelly now after having anti-biotics in her system for 24 h, she feels better, albeit weak, but I am very glad it is nothing more serious.

2003-09-16T14:32:00.000-07:00

9 AM = 32C/90F @ 78% now that is fun ... let's see how high it will get.

Oh, want to see today's Fiji Times front page ?

Click to enlarge ... that photo is from last night's Tadra Kahani event

2003-09-16T03:37:00.001-07:00

Yeps ... 31C/87F @81% ... it IS getting warmer ...

Tonight's highlight was a song and dance show at the Multi Purpose Hall (they are really using that thing well) called Tadra Kahani. Basically performances from schools .. quite impressive ... follow the above link for a much better description and details. (There is only one BIG mean typo on the website, MDG #4 is NOT "Reduce child morality" ... there is nothing wrong with the children's moral. It should read "child mortality" !!!!! )

The actual show was pretty good, albeit riddled with technical problems (light's went out twice, last dance number seemed to have ended up with a premix of their music, the disgarded version). But since there is not much entertainment in the musical section around here, it was a very welcome change.

2003-09-16T03:37:00.000-07:00

2003-09-14T20:20:00.000-07:00

Seems that summer is coming back already .... the day you turn the fans on seems to be the day to acknowlegde that winter is over. 26C in the morning with 86% humidity ... nice .. and rain in the afternoon ... the good news is that Mangos are coming back in style .. can't wait !!!

2003-09-13T18:47:00.000-07:00

Last night we went to have dinner at the Fiji Malthouse again, we shared a Pizza and had 2 side salads. The salads are big, with very nice lettuce (other stuff than iceberg), but the dressing was too much oil and not enough vinegar ... that would be nice if they's offer different dressings.

As for the pizza we did a half half again, half "Pacific" (which is basically a "Hawaii" with ham and pineapple, but has some onions too) and half BBQ prawn / seafood. The Pacific was great, the BBQ prawns were a bit funny, first they used what I usually call salad shrimp, tiny critters they probably get frozen from Const-U-Less, not sure what so BBQ is on them. But again, the crust is fantastic, the staff was very nice, the beer was great. Really nice place, finally we found good pizza (now we just have to find out which toping we like best)

Then this morning, instead of going to church (yeah, right) we went to the movie theater to watch a movie that we had NO clue about, other than the title is "romance", the ad depicts a half naked lady and it is rated R18. With a title like that I could not find any info on the IMDB, but later I found out that it was this French movie from 1999. Why they would show that one in Fiji is still a riddle to me ... as is the whole movie ... weird, strange, totally unsexy, lots of bla bla bla. Some obvious / silly cuts (hiding a felatio, but later giving a full frontal detail view of a woman giving birth!). I am still not sure if the movie had a plot, a point or a deeper meaning.

But hey, the trailer for Jeepers Creepers 2 looked nice.

2003-09-12T21:50:00.000-07:00

We just returned from a fun trip organized by the Rucksack Club. First was a visit to a local potter and learn about fijian pottery. The drive to the place was an adventure already (thanks to the fantastic road conditions and funny directions, but we found it.) The potters, Paula & Onarina Nawalu were very welcoming, we all got some flower thingies to wear, some kava to drink (that actually took half of the time) and then they showed us how they turn clay into beautiful vases or other vessels. People could participate and Ritsu got her hands dirty by creating a cute little piggy.

That took all in all 2.5 hours and then we headed to a landing at the Rewa River and hopped in boats that would take us down to the delta, a region called Matai-I-Suva, a beautiful, deserted beach (so THIS is where the beach is!) and we spent 2 hours enjoying. The boat trip was about 30 minutes, and in both cases we managed to pick the boat that would leave first, but arrive last. One amazing sight along the river was a stone cathedral somewhere in the middle of knowhere, and as we heard, it was built 150 years ago by french missionaries (no wonder it reminded me of Notre Dame in Paris.
Click on any of the thumbnails below to get a nice slideshow (1.9 MB, Quicktime required.

For those wanting a more standard website with thumbnails and pictures .. please click here

Most people were way better prepared for the picnic lunch, including bottles of wine and nice things, but we had nice sandwiches and skickers. We took a long stroll along that empty beach and it was wonderful.

2003-09-11T03:12:00.000-07:00

And here shall be the entry for the Malthouse Experience a bit later ... new restaurant, ownded by a nice guy named paul, GREAT pizza ... more later

Ok, here now: We heard about this place for the first time a few days ago at the wine tasting (see below) and were surprised that we had never heard about it yet. It is not in the heart of Suva, it is actually a bit off, on the way to Nausori Airport, i'd say a 10 - 15 minute drive from our house.

It does not look like a restaurant from the outside, but inside it great. One half is a bar / bistro area, and the other half is the restaurant. There was a private function just finishing so was spent some time at the bar. They brew 3 different beers themselves, and after indicating that we have never been there, we both got 3 shot glasses to taste the 3 kinds, #1 is a very blonde, pale beer, which I liked best, #3 is on the other end of the spectrum, it is dark and not my flavor, and #2 is somewhat in the middle and Ritsu liked that one best.

Soon we sat down and only 10 minutes later we spotted Wade, Araly and friends walking in, and we all sat together on one table and had dinner together. This restaurant has a great pizza oven and they are now my favourites for pizza in Suva. I still need to do some more taste rounds ... but the crust is great and they are quite fancy with their toppings creations ... but that is also maybe the only (totally fixable) drawback. Some are too fancy and some seems a bit overloaded. I wish they would also offer a classic "tomato, basil, mozzarella" pizza. Also, they offer only one size, which could be changed easily. What is great is that they give you the option to say "i want half this and half that" ... so that may have created some confusion.

Anyways, we enjoyed the pizza, beer and surprise company a lot. We are planning on going there very soon.

2003-09-10T02:37:00.000-07:00

Cats are getting used now to eating together ... on this pic Nietzsche is still using an old ashtray ... we bought him now his own nice bowl ... how do other people with 2 cats do it? Not sure if they would eat from one bowl.

2003-09-09T01:35:00.000-07:00

We just got back from a wine tasting at Victoria Wines and it was a fun time.

The tasting is held at a restaurant space adjacent to the store (Kakana Talei, which was supposed to have been a great fijian restaurant, but it has closed, and now the space is used for functions like this tasting). 10FJ$ gets you in, reservation is highly recommended, as the place filled up quickly and I would estimate 50-60 happy wine people were there. The crowd is dominated by expats (in fact, I cannot recall having seen any fijian or indo-fijian) and we saw many familiar faces. The 10$ gets you lots of wine, 12 tasting wines (6 white / 6 red) 2 'mystery' wines for a guessing game and a glass of wine just as a happy starter. They also offer some nice platters, we had one cheese and then one anti-pasto platter, which for 10 / 8.50 $ were very nice, and they had nice cheeses on the cheese platter, together with fruit and bread.

The 'show' started with owner Liam presenting the 2 mystery wines. After tasting the first, we were all to stand up and he would ask questions (like "is that a 'new world' or 'old world' wine?", which was a term I had never heard before), and if you are wrong, you sit down, if right you remain standing. So, the winner is the last person standing and gets a bottle of wine.
I somehow got that wrong initially, i though the last person standing did it all wrong.

The actual tasting comes in 3s. You have 3 glasses which you assign letters too ... and again, they play it as a guessing game. You have the list of wines in front of you and now you can try if you can taste which of the 3 is which (of the 3 first ones, not out of all 12). Liam gives some clues and the sheet reveals information as to region, price, alcohol content and name of course. (Yesterday was all chardonnays and merlots). And then the revelation and again you can see how close you got and I think only one person got all 12 right.

I was totally confused when it came to redwine, I think I burnt my pallet with those spicy olives from our anti-pasto platter. And after all that wine (and helping Ritsu with hers) it was getting harder to taste the differences. But it was a fun time, it was also great that Brian and Sue (a british couple, we had met her before at that fijian cooking workshop) asked us to join them on their table, so we had someone to enlighten us as to how to play the game and don't mix up our glasses.

We sure want to go again next time.

2003-09-07T03:07:00.000-07:00

Still want to explain the below picture and recap the weekend:

Friday was graduation of the USP at the new multi-purpose hall. It was quite interesting, a nice mix between the conventional / expected .. peppered with south pacific flavor ... Our friend Marly was one of the graduants and got us tickets for the 'show', but only I could make it timewise. Afterwards we went to JJ's for some snack and drinks.

Saturday was shopping day, we found some new great brand of instant noodles which became our new favourite in an instant (pun intended) ...

Sunday was even more mellow, more noodles, and dinner at Great Wok .. what a great lazy weekend. Nietzsche was MIA for 2 days, but showed up again.

2003-09-05T20:50:00.000-07:00

2003-09-03T16:09:00.000-07:00

Itsy Bitsy Spider ...

there is always something new in the Zoo that is the house of Nacken in Fiji ... now it seems we have 2 resident spiders. I spotted the first a while ago, because her net in the bushes just off the veranda was an architectual marvel .. not the plane spider version we all know for a web, but more of a 3 dimensional 'insect processing plant'. To bigger surprise, only 2 days later, we found a new, bigger web, even more impressive, and a bigger spider in it ... i'd say it could be 5 cm / 2 inches from front toe to back toe ... it is slighty red-ish with white spekles .. and has the 4 hind legs spread out, while the 4 front are paired up on each side ... very intriguing. I took some shots and some video .. but I am waiting for the sun to come around to create better light. I'd love to find out more about the species ... but googling for "spiders in Fiji" did not turn up much .. but there was this one fun article, which I am still reading.

Seems this is her. Though ours is not that good in doing that cross thing. Thanks to SPM and Jon for helping finding a good link. Here is another one on the St. Andrews Cross Spider. Good news, non poisonous, no threat to humans or cats. But maybe we can get it to kill the rooster?

2003-09-02T23:16:00.000-07:00

Anyone else's cat sleeps like that?

2003-09-02T17:25:00.000-07:00

What a slacker I am. Anyways .. weather back to the humid side with 71% and also getting hotter .... but it has not rained in a while.

The cat situation is fun ... the new stray cat shows up daily now .. and when I sat him next to Misha on the sofa, Misha had nothing better to do then whack at him full force, several times ... In return we saw later how Nietzsche stalked Misha and tried to pounce on her. Looked very much like he wanted to mate ... well, seems he has not gotten the news yet.

I want to write up later what monday dinner was, or rather how to make it. Seems I am following my german roots a lot these days when it comes to digging up recipes I have not done in a while .. or in this case never .. well .. it used to be available in the freezer section, so why make it ... :) Huehner Frikassee ! (Chicken-torn-to-pieces) ... no idea if there is an english name ... This time I even cooked a whole chicken and made the broth from scratch .. fun .. and turned out pretty yummy.

2003-08-31T05:32:00.000-07:00

And I thought 56% humidity was low ... but Sunday we recorded with 46% an all time low .. i feel like I need hand lotion and my chapstick ... Sunday was a gorgous day with sun, warm / dry air and no rain ...

over the weekend we got to watch 2 movies ... #1 being Shallow Hal, a fairly decent love story / comedy ... it had great elements .. but too often I wondered "why" and i think they just gave too much away in the trailers ... the "revelations" later came across very "DUH" .. or as Hal would say "coockoo, coockoo" .. Jack Black, who I like a lot, was not even that funny in this movie .. and G. Paltrow (get a name I can spell) was not as pretty as in like "Shakespeare in Love" .. but then again, she showed her boobies in the latter one :) Wonder if that helped the oscar ratings ..

anyhoo.. the second movie was Lilo and Stitch, maybe the best non-CGI, non-japanese animated movie in years .. and hard to believe it came from Disney ... it is weird, sarcastic, relativaly violent (though it does not look that way, no blood, no gore) .. sub plot way over the top for little tykes .. no sudden song and dance numbers .. no cute-sy animal side kicks .. but a beautiful 'moral of the story' and Stitch is just "cute and fluffy"

Foodwise: Saturday night, lots of great things at "great wok of china", prawn, pork, veggies and the crispy skin fish dish special .. and it was great again ... we have not been there in a while .. and I am not really sure why .. Fong Lee is better? But a very different style ... but it was nice that we were still recognized and that the shark fin soup was still great.

Sunday I made 2 different kinds of garlic bread and pasta with alfredo sauce.

2003-08-30T08:58:00.000-07:00

Now, the cats are getting really cute ... we decided to have Nietzsche sleep inside as well, at least for a bit, and first he did his usual loud meowing ... but when he got silent, I was very curious where he might have found a sleeping place that he likes .. and I found him on the sofa with Misha. She seemed to not be bothered at all ... and they looked very nice together.

And a little update on the weather: I think 56% humidity is the lowest I have ever seen here .. and together with 21.8C / 71.2F it feels cold, I am wearing an extra t-shirt under the PJ and socks. Well, this is winter, soon enough we will be sweating again.

2003-08-30T03:26:00.000-07:00

Good News on the cat side: After we released Nietzsche, the recent stray cat addition, outside of thursday, we had no idea where he was for 48 hours ... he may have been traumatized by the whole experience .... But we were very happy to see him again tonight. He was his old, shy self, but when he saw food, he came closer, I could touch him again, and grabbed him to check him out inside. He objected only a little, was happy about the amount of food we gave him. His fur seems much better now, but he also had a new scar/wound on one cheek, we are still wondering how that happened.

We let him out again, but he enjoyed being on my lap for quite a while, so he did not jump and run while he actually had a chance. We saw then later both cats hanging out together, Nietze pretty much following Misha around, and Misha just ignoring him. Very cute.

2003-08-28T15:37:00.000-07:00

Little know facts about Fiji: Went to the butcher today, casually talked with him, and asked if he ever has any veal. And he first said something like "not often" and then "veal is banned in Fiji, they think killing little cows is cruel" ... hmm .. i did not know that ... I found it interesting though that he had that face like "bring your own, we cut it for you" or "if you want, I can arrange" kinda look ... well, sorry, no authentic Wiener Schnitzel here.

I have something else in mind anyway for dinner tonight!

2003-08-26T20:24:00.000-07:00

Last night's dinner was poached Bedford with drunken shrimp/dill sauce and wild rice.

Since you need to start with the sauce, this comes first ... take a good handfull of frozen mini / salad shrimp and drown them in white wine for some hours, they will soak up the flavour (or just drink it) ... make a roux in a pot buy melting 2 spoons of butter and adding 2 spoons on flour ... cool it a bit and add cream, the intoxicated shrimp with the wine/brine and some instant chicken broth for flavour ... then a handfull of fresh dill, some fresh pepper ... I even put a bit of ground parmesan in there, and a squeeze of tomato paste to get a very pale pinkish color. Season to taste.

Poaching fish is a tricky business ... first of all you need a pretty firm fish, or you end up with a mousse ... so .. Bedford (some kind of Snapper i think) was a good idea .. .. in a large pan bring enough water to boil while adding some vinegar, sliced onions, parsley, peppercorns and salt (making a broth here) and once it boils, back with the heat and gently add the fish ... turn as little as possible (but DO turn at least once) and it should be done in like 5 minutes ... if it bubbles, it is too hot (and the movement of the water may tear the fish appart) ... serve with wild rice (which usually is a mix on 98% white and 2% black rice) and some veggie (we had broccoli) and top the fish with the sauce ... bon appetite

2003-08-26T03:39:00.000-07:00

So i got the new cat 'Nietzsche' to the vet today. Turned out he was indeed male, as we thought all the time ... they fixed him (bye bye sexlife) and bathed him and gave him all kinds of shots ... when I came to pick him up at 4:30, he was actually more awake than Misha when we got her after surgery. I brought him home, into his new nice and clean room ... left the door open for him to stroll around (which he can amazingly silently) and what is his "thank you for taking my manlyness"??? He finds the least accessible place and pees! Right behind the TV, tons of cables around, he could have easily electrocute himself ... and take some expensive equipment with him ..

Well, I caught him redhanded, but not sure if it was the drugs or some little known cat mechanism .. he just could not stop peeing .. so .. well .. i kept holding him and try to create only one puddle in an easy to clean area ... oh, the fun of having really crazy cats!

He was looking for a way out very quickly .. i wonder if he will ever get used to us / being close to us ...

2003-08-25T15:07:00.000-07:00

We went last night to see if we can catch a look at Mars ... but it was pretty cloudy and the people at USP who set up a telescope seemed to wanna hog it for themselves ... well .. thanks to the internet we can watch it right here :) Thanks to Jon for the link.

2003-08-24T21:47:00.000-07:00

Why not share the real time experience? Since the pic is up online anyway .. Nietzsche is copying Misha's behaviour and is now sleeping on one of the dinner chairs .. and Misha keeps being close by ... so things are going well

2003-08-24T19:43:00.000-07:00

Taming a new feral cat is just so interesting .... and you just never know how high they can jump

2003-08-23T21:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's food: Ok .. so what did we have last night for the party:

Chicken Satay skewers:

South Sea Chicken

ThIS

Parsley Potatoes

A very simple, but very yummy dish .. cook the potatoes until they have passed the 'al dente' point a bit ... cut into 'bit bigger than bite size' and sprinkle with lots of fresh parsley, salt and fresh pepper.German style meat balls

If I tell you that recipe, the german mafia will come after me and kill me ... all I can say that ketchup and mustard is already in the meat mix. Also some soaked bread. You may find more by asking google.de for "Frikadelle Rezept"Kokoda

Fijian style fish dish. Take some nice white fish, as fresh as you woul dare to eat it raw, cut into cubes and marinade in lime juice over night (or at least 2 hours) ... schnippel onions, chillies, a bit of green capsicum, maybe some spring onions and some nice ripe tomatoes (de-seed them .. otherwise it may turn to mushy.) Drain the fish, but keep the marinade, mix fish with chopped stuff, add some coconut milk, add some of the marinade for taste ... let sit for a bit, do not refrigerate too much, as coconut milk parts may get solid. Eat cold, yes, there is no cooking involved. Some freshly chopped cilantro never hurts. Fumi Salad

google

Vegetarian Pasta Salad

Cook some bow tie and spiral pasta just al dente, shock in cool water to stop cooking (unless you prefer your pasta salad to be a mousse). Dressing is a mix of Mayo, sugar and vinager with some salt and pepper added. For flavor I chopped some green bell pepper, sundried tomatoes, and sweet basil .. then added some toasted pine nuts and parmesan. Give it time for the flavors to mingle Desert: Peach Melba:

This version is fairly easy to make ... blend some canned peaches (we can hardly get fresh ones here, the few you see look old and are pricey). Add some vanilla extract, maybe some nutmeg .... If you want it a bit more viscose, heat the mix and add some gelatine powder. Keep cold after that ... Make a simple sauce by heating frozen raspberries (another thing we cannot get fresh here) add sugar. maybe some dark rum ... For serving, scoop some of the peach stuff into a class or bowl, add some vanilla icecream and top with the hot raspberry sauce.

2003-08-23T05:36:00.000-07:00

YES .. finally!!! .. no .. we did not kill the rooster .. but we caught that stray cat which was around the house, meowing, harrasing our adorable cat Misha .... and it was fun how it happened .. we had people over for a small after b'day get together (they actually sang happy birthday, which was very moving) and Misha was MIA .. but that other cat, which we call "chickenshit" (as he runs away as soon as he sees us) showed up from time to time .. and at some point I saw that this cat ventured very much inside .. and in great teamwork, Ritsu covered the front door and I the veranda doors .. and we had him trapped inside ..

Once he realized that there was no way out .. it was easy to pick him up and put him into our small bathroom ...

well .. so far we let him out again, checked him out, gave him food .. but the night he is staying in that bathroom again .. wonder how loud he may get ... Monday we will take him to the vet .. and will take it from there ..

Oh .. party pics :) I will write about what kind of food I made later.

2003-08-22T15:48:00.000-07:00

Last night, our current house guest Robert, treated us to a steak dinner at Aberdeen Grill. And while the steak was better than the last 2 times, I am not sure if we can recommend that place any longer. First of all it seems the staff has been exchanged. That nice fijian guy who remembered us every time is now replaced by some young indian guys who seem to have no idea what is actually on the menu. We heard earlier that the head chef had left and is now sizzling meat chunks at Metal Ox. The very sad looking salad bar (one bowl with actual salat, while the rest looked more like opened cans of corn, mini cobs and chick peas) was also occupied by 3 mini roaches. We pointed them out but the staff seemed a bit oblivious.

But, the steak arrived nicely hot and as ordered, medium rare, the creamy mushroom sauce I do recall as being a bit better before. Ah well, things change, maybe we should try the steak at metal ox next time.

2003-08-21T02:08:00.000-07:00

I just posted another small videoclip over on the movieblog, from last weekends hiking trip .. go take a look ...

other than that .. weather is ok .. gloomy, a bit more humid (88%) but not that hot yet ... but summer is sure coming.

2003-08-19T09:39:00.000-07:00

I want to do this "newspaper headlines" post again ... one from yesterday that is just too strange to forget is "Boy, 15, rapes girl, 3" ... and that is no typo! ... How .. i mean just HOW ???

ok others are

"Britain keeps ban on kava" (Kava is a drink made from a root which is supposed to have all kinds of effects, from healthy to just sleepy, but a 30 million export industry), "Driver mows teacher dead"... Lawnmower? "Ship to Rotuma breaks down, again". it is the "again" that puzzles me. Rotuma is the farthest of the fijian islands."Villagers demand film payout". This is related to the filming of Anaconda 2 here. Local people trying to get money out of it (while saying that no one else has the right to ask for money)

2003-08-18T15:41:00.000-07:00

You will never guess what the cat brought in last night .. and no, it was NOT the rooster ... too bad

Around 4 AM she made the usual "look I found something" sound. And you can imagine how freaked out I was seeing something that looks like a SCORPION running towards my leg. I think I was about to shriek .. but very soon I identified that it was a freshwater shrimp, very similar to what we bought 2 weeks ago and smothered in garlic and white wine ... Now .. where the heck did it come from .. most likely the drain, I think Misha caught it there and brought it in ... no way a shrimp decides to walk into our house or hops out of the toilet ..

Anyways .. I returned it to the drain .. though it could have been the freshest ebi-sashimi ever.

2003-08-17T17:22:00.000-07:00

We just returned from Taveuni, where we spent the long weekend in the Maravu Plantation Resort. Taveuni is one of the fijian islands in the north, and one of the few pieces of land which is crossed by the 180 Meridian, meaning technically one half of the island has monday, while the other is still sunday ... gladly at some point the world calendar people decided that the "dateline" does not have to be a straight line (beware, that link really goes into detail), and so it makes a slight curve around Taveuni ... but it still is the closest you can get to a time-jump (or just a smoking head thinking too much about it)

Will write more later, plus pictures and the usual stuff (2 nice video clips ! )

Pictures are now here

Ok, I am tring to get my collective thoughts together about our long weekend stay in Taveuni, at the Maravu Plantation Resort. Not going to be easy as there are just SO many impressions I still have in my mind, and the mix of fantastic to not so great is a colorful one.

After a nice 50 minute flight from Nausori we arrived at Matei airport. Technically we have crossed the 180 Meridian and thus were back in yesterday. The expected pick up was not there, but the nice people at the tiny Air Fiji counter called and a taxi-van came in no time and a 3 minute ride from the airport later we were greeted by guitar strumming people and a cool green coconut drink, while we sat down to fill out our registrations. Our bure (hut/cottage) was not ready yet, but it was soon time for lunch: Pepper Mussles and Pistacchio crumbed fish with kasava and very yummy cabbage. Desert was "Peach Melba". Very nice version, basically a can of peach smoothed in a blender and served with vanilla ice. Somehow missing the raspberry sauce of any classic peach melba recipe, but very tasty.

The first bure we got was very nice, but since it was one of the few "2 bures under one roof", we opted to move the next day to a single bure. This bure #9 was very nice though, and since there was no neighbour in #10, it felt like ours alone. Too bad that after one time locking the door the lock failed to work. We had several staff members try and they all agree that it does not work anymore .. the immediate fix was a bit surprising ... the mosquito guard next to the door can very easily be removed by hand .. and then you can reach inside and open the door ... so much for the purpose of the lock (oh .. having to have a key is something we were not used in a while...)

The rest of the afternoon we explored the beach and checked out the 2 dive operators close by. We were booked with Aquaventure for sunday since they were fully booked saturday. They also said they cannot do the "white wall", one of a few famous dive sites in that region, they claimed the tides were not good. It turns out that Aquaventure is actually not the closest to Maravu. Oh, need to explain. Maravu is a garden resort and has no direct beach. Which is not a biggie, as they DO have their own beach, it is just a 3 minute walk away from the resort (on the other side of the main road). Right there is "Swiss Divers Fiji", which looks way more professional, has a bigger boat, and it equally in price compared to Aquaventure ... they are a bit more pricey even ... but we found out why and it was good. First of all they are very concerned about safety. They would not let us dive sunday, as our flight back to Suva would have been 22 hours later (it needs to be 24 hours according to the textbook, but some sources say 12 is enough ... ) . Then, their boat is bigger, looks more stable, probably faster and has a head and a shower, a dry area and other nice creature features ... while I have not tried Aquaventure, I can very much recommend Swiss Fiji Divers ... and if it is not just for the much smaller distance you have to carry your dive gear .. but more about diving later ...

And soon it was time for dinner. The way you select food is very similar to the way we got used to at Toberua: There is a menu with several items to select at some time of the day ... Dinner for friday was either Pumpkin Soup or Cucumber Mousse (which was overly salty. I asked the waitress to ask the chef if this is meant this way or if he is madly in love [old german proverb, if the food is too salty, the chef must be in love], but all I got was a giggle, no real answer to the question) as appetizer. Then a veal dish in a very ginger-y sauce with pumpkin and very tasty potato. And desert was amaretto parfeit, which was great. The open air style restaurant is very comfy and creates a nice atmosphere. Their dinner chairs are great! They too have a band of 4 or 5 guys serenading each table once. They even have a CD of those boys for sale, and one in each bure with a CD player to listen to it.

Tired from all the travelling we spent some time looking at the stars through the palm trees and went too bed very soon.

Saturday we had to get up early to get ready for diving ... There was some confusion about moving from one bure to the other, some lady told us the night before we need to have all our stuff packed and cannot get into the new bure before 3 PM, other staff members again said it was no problem to go back to the first bure to take a shower and wait till next bure is ready. Anyways .. off to the diveboat we went. I think we were around 7 paying guests and 4 staff divers .. and YES, we went to the great white wall, a fantastic dive, leading you first though a nice tunnel and you come out at 90 feet at a wall full of white corals.

After a lazy afternoon, we went to the bar for cocktail hour. Somehow, among all the other things we have been told at check in, about all the complementary things being offered (like Kayaking, mountainbiking, horseback riding) they failed to mention that this saturday they had a complementary cocktail gathering at the beach with free maitais !!! That's when we realized why the bar is so empty.

Dinner was nice, a hot&sour soup for Ritsu and a brushcetta for me ... I may be wrong, but I always thought a bruschetta was a mix of tomato, garlic, olive oil and herbs roasted in some bread ... guess how nicely I was surprised to find a yummy slice of salmon on it. The main course was a rolled slice of walu, filled with rou rou (dalo leaves, some people may refer to it as fijian spinach). Very nice ... desert was Crepes Suzette (even though the menu spelt it "Grapes Suzette").

Again we were nicely tired and went to bed right away ... must be the nice air ...

Sunday morning we went of a hike to the Tavoro Falls in the Buomo national park. The van took us 40 minutes to the east side of the island, passing many villages. Once at the entrance to the walkway to the park, we had to pay 8F$ entrance fee per person (Filo, our hike guide, reminded us of that just in time before we left, none of the other publications ever mentioned that). That hike was a lot of fun. The first waterfall is just 10 minutes walk on easy / same level ... after that it gets a bit more hairy, up a hill, down again, then up again .. along the way beautiful flowers, lots of green stuff and banana spiders, also known as orb web spiders. The trip to the second fall is about 40 minutes from the first .. and pretty steep and you need to cross a river ... fun stuff .. we took a break there .. returned, and watched as our hike buddies Ryan and Karen jumped into the first fall's pool together with Filo ... it looked fun .. but also looked very cold ..

We returned to the resort at 1:40 PM, lunch is supposed to be from 12:30 to 2:30 ... so ..and that day lunch was BBQ ... well .. coming that late, it looked like we got leftovers ... from the appetizer salads only the noodle variety was still there ... we got a nice medley of beef, fish and chicken bbq'ed .. but basically served as a pile on one plate .. no sauce or anything ... it was ok .. but nothing special. Desert was "scoop your own" fruit salad.

We spent a lazy afternoon again, enjoying a nice shower (the nicer bures have outside showers, which are great) and read and having a beer in the sun. We also walked down to the dive shop again (to pick up our gear) and I had a nice chat with the owners. Later we returned to watch the sunset on the beach.

Dinner was a mushy pumpkin ravioli (pastry pouch) and then some fish with veggies in aluminum foil .. that was actually very nice ... too bad the outside veggies (kasava, pumpkin and culliflower) were cold .. and the dinner rolls came late and were burnt black on the under side .. What was very nice was that the music guys came over to sing "happy birthday" and I got a cake ... very nice ...

That pretty much sums up the Taveuni experience .. I am looking forward to come back again, so much to do there, so many other resorts to try!

2003-08-14T10:09:00.000-07:00

One of these days I will go out there and get an audio recording of those darn roosters ... for you to 'enjoy' !

I should come up with a top 10 list of how to get rid of them ...

10. chickensoup
9. Napalm
8. Relocation
7. Free merry-go-round ride in either the microwave or the dryer
6. quick larynx removal
5. freeze 'em
4. Train the cat to go after poultry that size
3. Where is my bee bee gun?
2. Call KFC

Ok .. and use the comment feature down there to submit your suggestion for #1

2003-08-14T08:04:00.000-07:00

We will be gone for a few days :)

2003-08-13T22:13:00.000-07:00

Big thing here since last weekend is the Fiji Showcase 2003, happening in the new multi purpose hall, which was built for the South Pacific Games (which are gladly over by now). It is like a little fair, where lots of local businesses and organizations have a booth and can show off their stuff.... In many cases that means just another outlet to sell stuff. But it was quite interesting. Outside was a "foodcourt" where Ritsu had some Roti for lunch.

And on the cat front: stray cat "chickenshit" is coming closer and closer and seems to feel more and more at home. We still cannot figure out how Misha thinks about it .. sometimes they seem curious about each other, then again they seem to be fighting any second .. but their favourite posture is "ignoring each other" ... I managed to snap that pic below ... I can get closer to chickenshit these days ... and I can see that he has lots of battle scars (maybe from Misha? Don't dare messing with our super cat!). His fur looks pretty dirty and he is very skinny ... one of these days I will lure him inside, put him in a box and bring him to the SPCA, where they may take care of him, make him healthy and maybe find a place for him to stay. I doubt Misha would tolerate a second cat in the house.

On the weekly internet rant news .. the new ISDN modem they brought me just went kaputt as well ... what kind of crap do they give us?

2003-08-12T16:48:00.000-07:00

This link about the commercial past of the potential future governor of California makes me laugh! ... Well, from what I understand a lot of US stars did hush hush silly commercials in Japan, hoping they will never be seen back home ... they had no idea that they will spread over a thing called the internet one day ... some TV soap stars even made records, Alissa Mylano comes to mind ... funny ....

Anyways, later I will quote some Newspaper headlines (the FijiTimes still has a 'coming soon' website only) .. maybe I make that a weekly feature ... I was just stunned by a news story about filming equipment (for Anaconda 2) being stolen by the security guards who have been hired to guard it ....

Ok, while I am at it ... "Poverty rises to 30%" "Woman, 98, missing" "Angry Husband burns home" "Consultant loses Computers" (Now THAT is scary!) "Rooftop robbers strike" and "Police on horseback" .. Interestingly no story of some uncle molesting a 10 year old niece, nephew or the neighbor's goat ...
BUT, Intel has a little note that they reserve the centrino trademark here ... ha ha ha .. as if we get a star bucks or mcdonalds with wireless lan anytime soon .... which reminds me that Dunkin Donuts had a similar blurb in the papers a while ago .. and we still have no dunkin donuts here ... hmmm

2003-08-11T19:58:00.000-07:00

What is going on? Yesterday first parking ticket, today my very first ever flat tire.

I was on my way to Cakaudrove, the fish place (yes, we have now a substance abuse problem with fresh fish), when i suddenly felt that something was not right and very quickly I realized it must be a flat tire. Gladly there was like parking booth right next to me and I could pull in. I looked at the damage and got the tools ready to put that mini spare thingie on ... only that I had never done that before. So, I hailed a cab and offered the driver some money to fix that for me. I bet it would have taken me an hour, he did it in 10 minutes, and both of us were happy.

I drove straight to the car shop and they fixed me up with 2 new front tires .. and I was glad to hear that it was not as expensive as I feard .. 1 tire was 83F$ (45US) which was ok i think, including putting it on. If we had a Pajero, those tires are closer to 300F$ (165US$) ... yieehaaaw ... I was surprised to learn that with the quality of the roads here I will need to exchange tires every year ... interesting to know ...

Anyways, all is fixed, I am glad it did not happen on a trip to Nadi, of to the airport to catch a plane. I ended up going to the fish shop, got 2 nice pieces of bedford (cannot find any link for that, but some white meat fish, supposed to be very nice) and those are now marinating japanese style, in a mix of sake, soy sauce, garlic, ginger, miso paste and spring onions ... will let you know how it turns out.

2003-08-11T03:21:00.000-07:00

Got my first parking ticket today. After I dropped Ritsu at her office, I went up to that fish store again (I think they start remembering me) and got some super fresh pieces of Pakapaka, I mean, I was watching as they cut the fillets out of the fish.

I then went downtown to sign up with another video place, SPR, and i had trouble finding parking, but finally I did, and believing it will only take a minute, I did not feed the meter.

Well, that SPR place is worse than a loan institute (but they have a better selection of movies). On Saturday I had already tried to 'apply' but they wanted 2 passport pics (huh?) This time I came prepared, only that besides my fijian drivers license, they would have loved to had seen my passport, too. They also asked if I was a fijian citizen, and how long I am going to stay in the country. The application form of course wanted to know my employer, and two references: people other than family who can confirm I exist? Once I filled that all out, they had to bring it to some office for approval! And then getting the card done (That lady looked at my passport pics and seriously asked if that was a drawing!!! Hello???) ..well did I mention a 30$ membership fee?.. the whole thing took way longer than planned ... and when I returned to the car ... I found this love letter from the LTA:

Now I just have to figure out where to pay. Notice that up there "Land Transport Office" is crossed out and something like "B.C.C." is scribbled on top? I have NO idea what that is supposed to mean.

Anyhow, since I was in the lucky position of having both: fresh basil AND pine nuts, I made pesto for the fish and marinaded the pakapaka in garlic, lemon, olive oil and some of the basil. Only getting fresh parmesan here is tricky, so I had to use canned ... but the fish turned out very nice again, on fettucine with some tomatoes and olive slices. For desert we watched a weird romance-horror movie called May, which is indeed very creepy, mainly because of the protagonist who just creeps you out in a way that is hard to describe. It is not the typical hollywood slasher movie, no way. I understand that this never got a broad release in the US. Joe Sixpack would probably not get the movie (no one dies until like 60 minutes into the movie ... ). I would not call it one of the best movies I have ever seen, but it sure is above average!

2003-08-09T21:21:00.000-07:00

Fishy weekend. On Saturday we made our way again to the best seafood market in Suva that we know off, Cakaudrove and got some nice MahiMahi and fresh Prawns (Shrimps) ... We were too late to get some nice Tuna (only frozen).

The MahiMahi we made last night, we had Edo and Marly over for dinner. I used the same marinade as from the Tuna recipes earlier, only that this time I had the chillies the recipe was suggesting. Turned out nice again. Desert was cheesecake.

I just finished peeling the prawns and will later do them with garlic and white wine.

Weather is pretty much the same, raining from time to time, nicely "cold".

2003-08-07T15:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning it was raining, but the sun was shining ... thus we got a nice rainbow!

2003-08-05T19:23:00.000-07:00

so .. how is the online crisis going on? Well .. I got my ISDN back! Yesterday Rakesh from connect came (though it is actually Telecom's responsibility. Great initiative on connect's part) to try out a different modem, and tadaaa, it worked, so .. Modem kaputt. I called telecom for a new modem, took the till today 1:30 PM to get it here.

Last night we watched Das Experiment. I sure was surprised to find a german movie at the video place here (and with chinese subtitles :) . The movie is losely based on the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment and it was quite a gripping movie.

Food was not that great, I tried a lemon pepper chicken with fries .. and .. well, Ritsu liked it, I was not that happy about it.

2003-08-03T19:28:00.000-07:00

And when you think it can hardly get any worse, you receive an email, well, basically an email you sent is bouncing back with that charming link in it, which basically says "as long as we do not know your ISP, you cannot send any emails anymore to our customers" ... is that great or what ... I wonder how long that takes until it is resolved ... if the ISP here knows what to do about it.

ON A VERY POSITIVE NOTE !!!! I just got a call from telecom, and they are crediting me for all 'internet' calls I have done so far which has been overcharged as 'local' calls .... now, that went great ... so, it seems I stick with ISDN for now.