Fiji Honeymoon: Day 10 OR "The Road Home" OR "We're Done Blogging"

Russell writing...

Well, it's finally happened. The honeymoon is over and we're about to re-enter the harshness of reality, trekking across the southern United States to Durham, NC. Before that happens though, there's room for one last blog post. Let's see if we can keep it short!

Our last "day" in Fiji was short but sweet. We were given a late checkout time from LikuLiku and were supposed to depart on the afternoon SouthSea Cruise ferry at 4:00pm. Before then we had grand plans for another big hike, or a snorkel excursion, or something else at least marginally exciting. None of that happened.

In our over-water burre, we sleep every night with all the windows and doors open which lets in a constant cool breeze. And that morning, like those before it, we enjoyed the most perfect sunset right from our bed, watching through the double-doors that open onto our deck/balcony. Following that bit of honeymoon bliss, we packed, headed to breakfast for our morning juice and one last helping of LikuLiku's stupendous cheese souffle.

The rest of the day, despite all our plans, was the perfect day for laziness. We sat around on our deck, in all of our honeymoon-fattened glory, soaking up the rays. Going on a hike would mean back-tracking paths we'd already tried, and snorkeling was out of the question as that morning happened to be a severely low tide. But that wasn't the only reason to stay out of the water.

About midmorning, Katie and I spotted, as we had several times earlier over the previous days, what appeared to be an eel "swimming" in the water around our burre. It was white, a few feet long, and creepy. After a few wikipedia searches, Katie and I unscientifically declared it to be an albino moray eel, which, although having teeth and capable of delivering a nasty bite, are not all that dangerous it would seem. Evidently, eels are nocturnal, and although we spotted this eel swimming around, it appeared to be searching for a suitable rock to call his bed for the day. He finally found one RIGHT NEXT to the ladder where our burre descends into the water.

After all the "nature hiking" we'd done over the week, Katie and I fancied ourselves Animal Planet explorers, and so I went to go get my camera and dropped myself down the ladder next to the eel's rock of choice. The water, being low tide, was only a foot deep, so I stepped out next to the rock with my camera ready to take the shot for the next cover of National Geographic. The dang eel never reemerged! I mean, I sat there with that camera around my neck for about 20 minutes. I suppose I could have just gone to lift the rock up, but I was admittedly still too much of a wuss to risk ticking this thing off. While this was going on, some striped fish, which Katie and I have designated as the neighborhood bullies after plenty of observation and fish-feeding from our deck, started getting a little too "nibbly" for my taste. I'm not sure how much it hurts to have a fish chomp on you, but these particular fish act like little piranas when you toss them some food; I didn't want to become an experiment for them.

After climbing back up to the deck, unsuccessful in photographing the eel, I decided to bang on our ladder. Maybe that would bring the little guy out! Did it work though? Well, let's just say I'm glad Katie didn't bang on the ladder for me while I was still in the water. The eel came out almost immediately, and none too happy looking. Whereas before he seemed pretty harmless, he now was cranky and snappy at all the fish around him. But that wasn't the half of it. Two more eels, longer, crankier, and creepier than the first came out from the hiding places as well. Augh! We'd been snorkeling around our burre with these things hiding under the rocks the whole time? Katie did not like to think about it too much :) The most potentially alarming tidbit of our "eel" discovery, however, was that these eels might not actually be eels at all, but, rather, sea krait. Later in the day, after we had already used wikipedia to help designate these creepy creatures, Katie found an interesting piece of info in the LikuLiku guest guide: apparently, LikuLiku lagoon is home to sea krait, which are described fairly similarly to the "eels" we'd been watching from our burre. But unlike moray eels, sea krait are "highly venemous"...though, the guide goes on to say, human fatalities from sea krait bites are rare. Whew!

The only other thing on the day's agenda was a complimentary honeymoon "Blissful Stone Massage" at the spa. Neither of us has ever had a "Blissful Stone" anything, so we were intrigued. At the spa, we chose our scents we wanted for the oils they would use, changed into our birthday suits, and laid down on the tables ready for what awaited. It turns out that a blissful stone massage is just like a normal full body massage except they intermittently introduce VERY hot stones into the equation. If you're the type who likes your showers close to scalding, like me, you'd like it. The purpose is to help loosen the muscles making them easier for the masseuse to manipulate. Feels awesome! The only thing I hate about massages, having had 4 at this point in my life (all in the last year) is laying on my front with my face stuck awkwardly in that little hole that's cut out in the table for it. How is that possibly comfortable?

Shortly after, we cleaned up, gathered our belongings (which the porter THIS TIME was kind enough to come pick up for us) and checked out at the front desk. Now we just had to wait for the ferry. We waited, sipping on mojitos out at the end of the pier where our boat would arrive. Good times.

When the boat FINALLY did arrive, 15 minutes late, we hopped aboard and walked up to the Captain's Lounge. This time, unlike before, it was a pretty crowded hot spot. And whats more, we had to make a few extra stops on our way back to Nadi that put us another 20 minutes behind schedule (at one of the resort pickup stops, the line to get on the ferry appeared to be hundreds of people long!).

Back at the Nadi Port, we were tired and hungry. While we waited for our bags to be brought ashore, we went to order a pizza from one of the port restaurants. Unfortunately, while our pizza was still cooking, our hired driver came and found us, none too pleased about our tardiness. He scooted us into the car sans pizza before we had a chance to protest. Once on the road, we started explaining that the delay was the ferry's fault, and the driver finally took pity on us and dashed us back to the restaurant to pick up our pie. In the interest of time, we had to request it be taken out of the oven about 5 minutes too early; in other words, mediocre pizza.

The airport portion of the trip home was nothing too eventful, other than a 2 hour long line to check in (Air Pacific seems to be consistently miserable) and a "full-service" pat-down station, in addition to the security check-in, that you had to go through before entering our particular gate area.

From there, it's a no-brainer. Pop an ambien or two, sleep for 12 hours, jump on our connecting flight in LAX, sleep for 3 hours, jump on our connecting flight in Dallas-Ft. Worth, sleep for a few more hours, arrive in Little Rock. It was 11:30 pm Thursday as we disembarked from the tiny commuter jet into the Little Rock airport, where Katie's parents waited for us. Our flight leaving Fiji departed at 10:50 pm Thursday. I'm pretty sure that was longest 40 minute flight either of us has ever had.

Oh well. Glad to be home, sad to be home :) Next stop: Durham, North Carolina!

Fiji Honeymoon: Day 9 (Liku Liku) OR "Anchors Away" OR "Did You Get The Memo?""

Russell writing...

We're overdue for a posting on the goings-on in the lives of Russell and Katie Bloodworth. But sadly, this belated post has little to

recount from our last full day in

Fiji. Was there more to do and explore? Absolutely. Could we still stand to make a few

friends with the cool kids? Of course. Were there more strange characters arriving at the resort for us to

make fun of? Definitely.

At this point though, it's necessary to point out that we had already done pretty much

everything that was "worth" doing. Now, "worth" here needs a bit of clarification. There are plenty of other things at the resort that we'd LIKE to do. But LikuLiku, as it turns out, and in direct contrast to Taveuni Palms, is an obscene nickel-and-diming operation. It's hard to justify joining in on the 30-min sunset cruise when it costs you about $80US. This game of monetary comparison could probably take up a page or two of good blogging space, but I'll note a few more. At Tavauni Palms, a load of laundry: $5US. At LikuLiku, a single shirt to be laundered: $5US. At Taveuni Palms, a full-day kayaking and coastal walk to the waterfalls with a private guide and included DELICIOUS lunch: $120US. At LikuLiku, a 2hr sandbar picnic: $125US. At Taveuni Palms, a "total body & soul" 90 minute massage: $25US pp. At LikuLiku: a 60 minute massage: $60US pp. At Taveuni Palms, all non-alcoholic drinks are included in the price...at any time of day. At LikuLiku, no drinks are included in the price with the exception of juices in the morning. And just to clarify, the Taveuni Palms 2-room villa was the same price as the LikuLiku Overwater Burre. Additionally, we actually received FREE spa treatments the entire time we were at Taveuni as a courtesy.

Needless to say, when even going to church costs just under $10pp at LikuLiku, it's not hard to see why we kept our activities a bit more limited.

Anyway, for our last full Fijian day we spent most of our time eating (for breakfast I had the crepes one last time) or lazing about our over-water room, which as we've already said is absolutely awesome! And that room is probably the best thing bout our time at LikuLiku (although there are plenty of other things to write home about from there). After breakfast, Katie and I tried our hand once more at some snorkeling around our burre. Unfortunately, the water this day was a bit rougher and murkier, which left us both a little underwhelmed as it almost impossible to see anything without it being obscured in swirling sand. So...back to our lounge chairs we went. Life is tough.

Lunch arrived before we knew it, and the day's menu called for a whole lot of pork options. Pork belly is the most memorable thing I recall. It was our appetizer, and it was...fat. Nice chunky pig fat. My mom would not approve! For the main course, I believe katie ordered some tuna, which they serve quite a bit at LikuLiku; but it's always good so you can't really complain. I enjoyed a yummy, scrummy Fijian prawn pizza. Delicious! And although a bit different, was actually comparably enjoyable to the pizza I had at Taveuni. A little less greasy too, which in my book is a plus. Dessert was a simply fabulous coconut bread pudding.

For the afternoon, Katie made the executive decision that we would NOT be joining in again on any of the communal LikuLiku activities. Our volleyball venturing the day before had been only marginally received by our fellow resorters, and we weren't sure that a second try was the right move since we only had one day left for our stay anyway. So instead, we thought we'd try a bit of sailing on one of the resort's little sailing skiffs.

Let me point out that: 1) I used to sail a little at camp...over a decade ago; 2) Katie has never sailed; 3) I don't remember anything from my previous sailing days that would actually be helpful. We walked up to the "activities burre" to ask the employee there if we could take one of the boats out on the water. He mumbled a bit in Fijian and seemed to be preoccupied with something entirely other than us. It turned out he had heard our request however, and he soon retreated into the back of the burre to gather us some life jackets. Next we followed him to the beach where he began setting up the sail on the nearest boat. As he was completing the job, he paused and asked "either of you sailed before?" I told about our limited to nill experience, which didn't seem to bother him. Did I know how to steer? Yep. And that was good enough "experience" for him, although I assume that anyone who's ever driven a car even once would probably feel confident enough to sail if all that was involved was steering. As we set off from the beach, the man let us know, seemingly arbitrarily, that we should be back in 30 minutes.

Katie and I made our way slowly out of the little alcove where the boats were, and as soon as we ventured beyond the resort's pier the wind picked up and we were on our way...to nowhere in particular. The boat had a mesh-like underside fixed between two pontoons, and so with every wave we crossed we (primarily Katie) were splashed to the point of soaking within a minute. The sun was out though and, without too many obstacles to have to steer around, sailing was a breeze so to speak :)

After around 30 minutes we started heading back to shore until the activities guy yelled at us to keep sailing. We weren't sure exactly what was going on, but as we turned back around towards open water we noticed that this guy went and jumped in a motor boat, speeding off around the side of the island for some unknown prior obligation. Ummmm.... so again, here Katie and I, with no experience, are sailing very far out in open ocean. Nobody's watching us. We have no walkie-talkie to communicate with the shore. We've been given no boundaries to stay within. This place is a lawsuit waiting to happen, but Katie and I could care less (typical resort uptightness is a turnoff anyway). We're having the time of our lives while marveling at the hands-off approach to safety.

No telling what time we finally returned to shore; neither of us had brought a watch! But we definitely stayed out long enough to be deliciously lobster-looking. Even so, we grabbed an hour or so of more sun at our burre before a porter arrived to bring us our afternoon snack: today a thai-inspired assembly of "stuff" in rice wraps. Then, some wine, showering, and heading to dinner.

Again, sadly, dinner is a little fuzzy. I know Katie had some tuna again while I enjoyed a steak fillet, which was VERY chewy. But good flavor I guess. Other than that, neither of can remember distinctly what else was a part of the four course meal. One thing we can both remember though is the overpriced and, well, interesting tasting pina colada I got. Since our time at LikuLiku the only drink we've bought being here is the Coconut Mojito...which is awesome!! Pina Coladas just seem like such an island-ish staple though, so I gave into temptation. They should leave the coladas to the Caribbean. It tasted like a whole lot of rum and some funky cream. Probably one of the more expensive things purchased while we were there, but I have no shame in saying we didn't finish drinking it!

Ok that's it. Tomorrow we're outta here!!

P.S.-a little anecdote from our time here. Yep, it's another one about the staff. So kind and friendly at times, yet so laughably disorganized the rest. A few days ago, when we were still at our burre on the beach, I was reading out on the day bed beside our deck. Every day, so we later discovered, LikuLiku is sprayed for bugs using a gas-powered blower that sprays a heavy mist. As I read, soaking up the sun, I noticed a humming mechanical noise coming within earshot. I turned my head to look down the length of the beach only to see a LikuLiku staff member walking along spraying the bug blower. He was equipped with a little gas/medical mask and everything. Anyway, as he started to approach our burre, I started thinking about what my options might be to avoid getting sprayed with something that even the guy spraying it had no interest in inhaling. Go inside? Move to a different part of the beach? Stay put? I ended up simply signaling the guy when he was still 20 ft or so away with a wave to let me know I was there. He waved happily back. And then, quite undeterred, he continued his walk past our burre and sprayed me right in the face. From about 7 ft away. I covered my head as fast as I could with one of the day-bed's pillows and sat there thinking to myself...."You. Have. Got. To. Be. Kidding. Me."

P.P.S.-another staff anecdote. 2 days ago, we were walking back to our burre and ran into one of the staff members. "Bula," she said, and we entered into a brief dialogue about how we were enjoying our time. As we chatted, a porter drove by in golf cart. The person we were talking with flagged him down, pointed to us, and started talking quickly in Fijian. From the context and hand gestures, ANYone could tell that she was telling him to give us a ride, and so we quickly said, "No, that's ok. We like the walk." Extremely surprised, the woman looked at as and asked, "you understand?" Not knowing the correct response, we both replied "yes." Since that moment, we remain convinced that a memo has been sent out to all the staff members letting them know that the Americans in burre #1 speak Fijian. And, correlatively, we're pretty sure folks have been even more accommodating than before (and it seems they're speaking less Fijian around us as well; afraid we'll catch on to their gossip!). Should have tried that earlier :)

Fiji Honeymoon: Day 8 (Liku Liku) OR "Making Friends" OR "Get the Starfish"

Katie Writing...

Today has been another wonderful day in the life of the Bloodworths. We started off the day waking up to the sunrise. I assure you, Russell was not as excited about this as I. I went to bed thinking about the sunrise and woke up twice making sure not to miss it. When I opened my eyes, the sun was just coming up on the horizon, so in sweet wifey fashion I yell "Look! Look! Wake up and look!" So Russell jumps up saying "Wha, Wha, What's going on?" and I smile and say "The sunrise. Take a picture. Hurry! Oh, and good morning." So I sat quietly after that, satisfied to see the sun come up and watch the sky turn all sorts of beautiful.

Since we were up, I finished the previous day's blog posting and we fed fish with leftover cookies. Then it was off to breakfast where once more, I made a bad choice. Russell ordered the cheese souffle which we already knew was awesome. I ordered it before I entered my streak of mediocre food choices. It's made with gruyere cheese, onions, hot red peppers and green peas. I know, green peas sounds like an odd choice, but it's REALLY good. I, in my adventurous nature, chose the mud crab omelette. Could be good right? Nope! It was very bland and crabby tasting. Did I eat it anyway? Yep...and followed it up with a full bowl of granola complete with yogurt and berries. That's my kind of breakfast.

And now a note about service. On par with previous dining experiences, breakfast came with it's glitches. Nothing terrible, but still noteworthy. We were seated in a lovely spot facing the ocean and the pier and given menus. Catch one: one of the menus had no actual menu inside, it was just a folder. Catch two: our waitress seats us and asks us if we would like water. We reply "Yes". The question was followed with "Would you like tea or coffee." We go against our routine of just water and add in a request for tea. Away she goes. Eight minutes later, no tea, no water and no order taken another waitress approaches the table. She asks for our room number (of course, however we still haven't figured out why everyone wants to know our room number), asks us if we'd like something to drink and we give the same order of tea and water. She then takes our food order. She repeats the order "Souffle, omelette, and coffee." She is corrected, "we'd actually like to have tea, not coffee." and off she goes. Five minutes more pass. Tea arrives from the initial waitress and she does not take our order. Five minutes after that, the second waitress brings tea. Oops! Lack of communication...who would've thought?!

Ok, that's all for meal bloopers, at least for now.

We finish breakfast and head back to the room for a little snorkel. One of the perks of these over water burres is that you have a ladder off the side of your porch that goes right down into the water. We don't even have to go anywhere to see the beauty of the coral reef! Down we go to see what there is to see. The fish here are beautiful! We see fish that you've only ever seen in Finding Nemo. Clown fish, Parrot fish, fish that look like leopards, clear fish, fish you can't even describe. My favorite thing and what I'm most fascinated by are the bright blue starfish. My mission for the day- hold one.

The first step of my mission is to figure out if the blue beauty I've admired from afar is actually a starfish and not a piece of coral (which is what Russell believed). I dive in and take time to enjoy the view. Rainbows of color everywhere you look. Even the nasty sea cucumbers are cool. Now I know the general population's fascination with neon, everyone wants to have a piece of this beauty below the ocean. My opinion, keep the neon on the fish...it does not look good on humans. Anyway, I find the bright blue object about six feet down. As I've discussed in a previous post, I have become a floater and not a sinker so getting below the surface of the water proves to be a challenge. I swim down just long enough to poke it. Hmm, it's rigid. It does not seem to budge when I touch it, maybe it is coral. I swim on to shallower water to see if I can find another one. I find one on a big piece of coral. I pull, it doesn't budge. However, I've decided it definitely IS a starfish, each one I see has five arms; some of them are hiding halfway in the sand or in the holes of other coral. I continue the mission. I swim over a shallow bit of sand and spot one, it's not too deep for me to grab and there's no coral for it to attach itself. I pick it up, it doesn't squirm like the other starfish I've held on this trip. I get really excited, this may be the most beautiful thing I've held in my hand yet. We must take a picture. Somehow, Russell isn't quite as excited as I am about my discovery. I get him to hold it and he does so like he's found a dirty sock- far away from his body with just his thumb and forefinger. I laugh and take it back into my possession. When we get back to our dock, I place the starfish carefully on the ladder so as not to drop it or harm it in any way. Now is when he decides to use his tentacles. They're tiny, and strong! The starfish is stuck to the ladder! I pull and push and try to slide him off, I mean, he's got to come off sooner or later or he'll dry out! I feel terrible when I pull him from the stair and he leaves a few tentacles behind. Starfish have the uncanny ability to regrow missing parts, right? It's just a few tentacles right? Either way, I apologize profusely, we take it's photo and I swim him back down to the bottom of the ocean. (Thank you for reading this part...I'm sure I've enjoyed writing it much more than anyone will enjoy reading this play by play).

We end our bit of snorkeling and do a bit of lounging and cookie eating (might I add that one of the room service men called us the cookie monsters today). After that, we packed our bag and headed to lunch with the expectation of spending time at the pool and making some friends.

Lunch: Russell scores, I fail...surprise! Russell gets the pesto risotto with squid and I order the chicken ramen in honor of my sister. Russell's lunch was rich and flavorful, mine fell flat- watery broth, unidentifiable chicken pieces, bitter mushrooms, soggy tofu. These aren't your average ramen noodles and ( I can't believe I'm saying this) I think Manchu Wok is better. Please, write that down. Lunch brings the crazy bad service once again with an empty drink menu and no water or any sort of service past the part of being seated for 15 minutes. Several waiters look at our table and a few even ask if we've been helped, but to no avail. Finally water comes followed by appetizers and food and even mojitos that we ordered after Russell goes to the hostess desks and requests it. The rest of lunch is uneventful.

And we're off to the pool for some friend-making. Have we mentioned that we aren't good at this? We met some people who arrived two days ago that have become best friends with every American couple in the resort in less than 48 hours. Russell and I feel like we're back in elementary school trying to break into the "cool group". We're sissies. At the pool, we eaves drop on a few conversations, watch people making friends and take some paparazzi pics of the guy who is in his late fifties and vacationing with his mother.

Let me introduce you- He drinks wine straight from the bottle and balances a CD Walkman with really nice Bose headphones. He does a little dance that he thinks no one can see. I can only imagine that he's rocking out to some vintage hip hop from the 80s. He comes complete with a gold chain and a plumber's crack. It's possible that he shaves his chest. This is the same guy who wears sunglasses to dinner. Don't worry, he changes them up, sometimes he wears reflective lenses ( you know, the ones that look like rainbows) and sometimes, on special evenings he brings out the yellow lenses. Russell says he looks like Jeff Bridges, from the Big Lebowski. He wears his house shoes as flip flops and has taken special care to get some frosted tips in his shaggy brown hair. His outfits are an endless array of ridiculousness from white steel toed boots to button downs replete with images of skulls and lightning bolts . This man scares me to death. Every time he walks past me, I envision him slugging me in the face and laughing as he continues on.

Russell writing...

Anyway, back to us being the peripheral outcasts of our age group at the resort. We've tried to break the ice with a few different couples, but they in turn just decide to hang out with each other. We are indeed, as Katie put it, wusses.

As we sat by the pool people-watching, we saw a small opportunity. "Jeff Bridges" was in some sort of intense conversation with a staff member (we've no idea what it was about). In addition to wanting to get some good gossip on the resort's resident weirdo, we also noticed that another couple between us and "Jeff" was watching the argument. We figured that, assuming the argument ever drew to a close, we could approach the young couple and ask about what happened. Perfect ice breaker! What's more, the guy in this couple was wearing some Duke shorts, so there was another in (of course, he was also wearing a Clemson shirt, and a Notre Dame hat, but that's neither here nor there). As we plotted our introduction, we were soon thwarted by the old Anglo couple we'd seen at dinner the previous night singing along with the Fijian church choir from their table. They came over to our young couple and made some sort of small talk remark about...something or other. And before you know it, the old couple and young couple are soon best friends, with us, once again, the lonely onlookers as they walked away from the pool. Ah well.

We weren't totally defeated yet though. More opportunity was there. A resort volleyball game was scheduled for that afternoon, and Katie and I figured that we might finally have an "in" with the cool kids. First though, we decided to go back to our burre and drop off our stuff.

At the burre, we lounged a bit to cool off from the sun, and we were soon greeted by a knock on the door. Any time staff comes to visit us they're either bringing us cookies or someone's coming by to, for reasons unknown, ask us some ridiculous question that has nothing to do with anything. And even though our burre number is written on the outside of our hut, it wouldn't surprise me if they ever came by to confirm it. I think Katie has said enough about the staff though to give you a sense of the craziness we've experienced!

It turned out that this house call was actually just a staff member dropping by to replenish our cookie supply and bring us an afternoon snack (snacks are apparently only reserved for folks in the over-water burres; why's this? no idea). After noting that our cookie jar was completely empty, he felt compelled to nickname us the resort cookie monsters. We already know we're fat, pal. Thanks though. With that playful jab at our rapidly expanding bellies, we now had further reason beyond making friends to join in the volleyball game that afternoon. Modest exercise.

Before we could depart for the game, there was another knock on the door. This time though, something rather remarkable happened. I opened the door to greet whoever it might be, and two staff members walked in carrying an ice bucket with a bottle of champagne....and a letter. They left as quickly as they entered, leaving us to figure out what was going on. The letter enclosed a general apology from the staff for all of our difficulties from transferring rooms the previous day. It didn't specify WHICH of the difficulties it was apologizing for, but we were still appreciative of the gesture. However, despite the letter's insistence that yesterday's service snafus were an abnormal occurrence, it's going to take more than a bottle of champagne for Katie and I to believe that. At the very least you'd think someone would have apologized verbally when, you know, all those "difficulties" were actually occurring! Meh... free champagne.

(Katie Writing)

On our way to the game, we plotted our friendship-making plan. What we'll do is invite everyone over to our burre for some champagne, boxed wine, and the best views on the resort. That'll win us some "cool" points for sure...

(Russell writing)

Back at the resort lodge, the volleyball game was already in progress between the "cool kids," as well as a few others. Sake, a staff member and actually a relative of Sara from Taveuni Palms; "Jeff Bridges" with his 80 year old mother looking on from a chair at the lodge; a mousy-looking French Canadian couple; a middle aged American couple. And then of course the "cool kids," comprised of three couples all around our age who had decided over the past 24 hours that they were going to be best friends for the rest of their lives. Grrr.. :)

Sake invited us to join in, and Katie and I each went to a different team. For the next hour or so we played some very mediocrely skilled volleyball matches. Although nobody there was particularly fantastic, Katie and I are notably terrible. With the depth perception of an infant bear cub, we both have a rough time gauging the ball as it comes flying towards us. "Somebody else!", we yell, as we try do move out of the way so one of our more skilled teammates can hit it. We're constantly apologizing for our wretched skills. Very impressive showing.

At one point, Katie notices one of the cool kids is wearing some Tennessee basketball shorts and asks if he's an alum. "Yes." That's about the extent of that conversation. He and his wife, who also went to UT, seemed modestly amused but not much more. There was about a 2-second version of the "name game" that followed. One-sided of course.

After a while, we switched up teams and Katie and I were now joined forces. Not a good thing for our side. "Service," says the other side as the smack the ball over towards us. As long as our fellow players can get to the ball before us, we're in good shape. But as soon as it heads to me or Katie, "somebody else!" "Not me!" "Augh!" "I'm just trying to throw off the other team...it's all part of the strategy!"

We finally decided we'd embarrassed ourselves enough for one afternoon, although we did have quite a bit of fun. We bid our farewells, as did the French Canadians, the middle aged couple, and "Jeff Bridges", who, incidentally, is not a good volleyball player for being as tall as he is. We contemplate posing our offer of wine and view gazing but can't get up the nerve. The "cool kids" stayed behind though to keep playing. Mission Failure.

At dinner, Katie and I couldn't help but notice a marked difference in the way things went. To put it another way, dinner actually went smoothly. Service wasn't bizarrely scattered and disorganized. Whadya know!? Our best guess is that, along with the written apology we received from the management that day, there must have been a memo sent out telling the staff to step their game up for the folks in Burre #1. Perhaps someone on the management team is reading our blog?

(Katie Writing)

The only notable event is the following: We hear laughing coming from the pier. Whatdaya know? It's the cool kids on their way to dinner. Russell and I debate, should we wave? say "hi"? We decide to do both but their too busy laughing and talking that they don't see us. They approach the hostess station and- wait for it, wait for it....all sit together at a table for six. The cool table. We're not invited. Dang.

(Russell Writing)

Anyway, for dinner Katie had some sort of fish while I enjoyed the lamb. Both were quite tasty. However, the appetizers preceding these were a little more iffy. First Katie had the "bay bug", which, although not quite as gross as it sounds (it's sort of like mini lobster), wasn't as delicious as our server described. I had the safer sounding sea scallops, which were actually quite disgusting to both of us! I'm not even going to mention Katie's description of them.

Until tomorrow. The End.

Fiji Honeymoon: Day 8 (Liku Liku) OR Get that Starfish

Katie Writing...

Today has been another wonderful day in the life of the Bloodworths. We started off the day waking up to the sunrise. I assure you, Russell was not as excited about this as I. I went to bed thinking about the sunrise and woke up twice making sure not to miss it. When I opened my eyes, the sun was just coming up on the horizon, so in sweet wifey fashion I yell "Look! Look! Wake up and look!" So Russell jumps up saying "Wha, Wha, What's going on?" and I smile and say "The sunrise. Take a picture. Hurry! Oh, and good morning." So I sat quietly after that, satisfied to see the sun come up and watch the sky turn all sorts of beautiful.

Since we were up, I finished the previous day's blog posting and we fed fish with leftover cookies. Then it was off to breakfast where once more, I made a bad choice. Russell ordered the cheese souffle which we already knew was awesome. I ordered it before I entered my streak of mediocre food choices. It's made with gruyere cheese, onions, hot red peppers and green peas. I know, green peas sounds like an odd choice, but it's REALLY good. I, in my adventurous nature, chose the mud crab omelette. Could be good right? Nope! It was very bland and crabby tasting. Did I eat it anyway? Yep...and followed it up with a full bowl of granola complete with yogurt and berries. That's my kind of breakfast.

And now a note about service. On par with previous dining experiences, breakfast came with it's glitches. Nothing terrible, but still noteworthy. We were seated in a lovely spot facing the ocean and the pier and given menus. Catch one: one of the menus had no actual menu inside, it was just a folder. Catch two: our waitress seats us and asks us if we would like water. We reply "Yes". The question was followed with "Would you like tea or coffee." We go against our routine of just water and add in a request for tea. Away she goes. Eight minutes later, no tea, no water and no order taken another waitress approaches the table. She asks for our room number (of course, however we still haven't figured out why everyone wants to know our room number), asks us if we'd like something to drink and we give the same order of tea and water. She then takes our food order. She repeats the order "Souffle, omelette, and coffee." She is corrected, "we'd actually like to have tea, not coffee." and off she goes. Five minutes more pass. Tea arrives from the initial waitress and she does not take our order. Five minutes after that, the second waitress brings tea. Oops! Lack of communication...who would've thought?!

Ok, that's all for meal bloopers, at least for now.

We finish breakfast and head back to the room for a little snorkel. One of the perks of these over water burres is that you have a ladder off the side of your porch that goes right down into the water. We don't even have to go anywhere to see the beauty of the coral reef! Down we go to see what there is to see. The fish here are beautiful! We see fish that you've only ever seen in Finding Nemo. Clown fish, Parrot fish, fish that look like leopards, clear fish, fish you can't even describe. My favorite thing and what I'm most fascinated by are the bright blue starfish. My mission for the day- hold one.

The first step of my mission is to figure out if the blue beauty I've admired from afar is actually a starfish and not a piece of coral (which is what Russell believed). I dive in and take time to enjoy the view. Rainbows of color everywhere you look. Even the nasty sea cucumbers are cool. Now I know the general population's fascination with neon, everyone wants to have a piece of this beauty below the ocean. My opinion, keep the neon on the fish...it does not look good on humans. Anyway, I find the bright blue object about six feet down. As I've discussed in a previous post, I have become a floater and not a sinker so getting below the surface of the water proves to be a challenge. I swim down just long enough to poke it. Hmm, it's rigid. It does not seem to budge when I touch it, maybe it is coral. I swim on to shallower water to see if I can find another one. I find one on a big piece of coral. I pull, it doesn't budge. However, I've decided it definitely IS a starfish, each one I see has five arms; some of them are hiding halfway in the sand or in the holes of other coral. I continue the mission. I swim over a shallow bit of sand and spot one, it's not too deep for me to grab and there's no coral for it to attach itself. I pick it up, it doesn't squirm like the other starfish I've held on this trip. I get really excited, this may be the most beautiful thing I've held in my hand yet. We must take a picture. Somehow, Russell isn't quite as excited as I am about my discovery. I get him to hold it and he does so like he's found a dirty sock- far away from his body with just his thumb and forefinger. I laugh and take it back into my possession. When we get back to our dock, I place the starfish carefully on the ladder so as not to drop it or harm it in any way. Now is when he decides to use his tentacles. They're tiny, and strong! The starfish is stuck to the ladder! I pull and push and try to slide him off, I mean, he's got to come off sooner or later or he'll dry out! I feel terrible when I pull him from the stair and he leaves a few tentacles behind. Starfish have the uncanny ability to regrow missing parts, right? It's just a few tentacles right? Either way, I apologize profusely, we take it's photo and I swim him back down to the bottom of the ocean. (Thank you for reading this part...I'm sure I've enjoyed writing it much more than anyone will enjoy reading this play by play).

We end our bit of snorkeling and do a bit of lounging and cookie eating (might I add that one of the room service men called us the cookie monsters today). After that, we packed our bag and headed to lunch with the expectation of spending time at the pool and making some friends.

Lunch: Russell scores, I fail...surprise! Russell gets the pesto risotto with squid and I order the chicken ramen in honor of my sister. Russell's lunch was rich and flavorful, mine fell flat- watery broth, unidentifiable chicken pieces, bitter mushrooms, soggy tofu. These aren't your average ramen noodles and ( I can't believe I'm saying this) I think Manchu Wok is better. Please, write that down. Lunch brings the crazy bad service once again with an empty drink menu and no water or any sort of service past the part of being seated for 15 minutes. Several waiters look at our table and a few even ask if we've been helped, but to no avail. Finally water comes followed by appetizers and food and even mojitos that we ordered after Russell goes to the hostess desks and requests it. The rest of lunch is uneventful.

And we're off to the pool for some friend-making. Have we mentioned that we aren't good at this? We met some people who arrived two days ago that have become best friends with every American couple in the resort in less than 48 hours. Russell and I feel like we're back in elementary school trying to break into the "cool group". We're sissies. At the pool, we eaves drop on a few conversations, watch people making friends and take some paparazzi pics of the guy who is in his late fifties and vacationing with his mother.

Let me introduce you- Adorned with a handlebar mustache, he drinks wine straight from the bottle and balances a CD Walkman with really nice Bose headphones. He does a little dance that he thinks no one can see. I can only imagine that he's rocking out to some vintage hip hop from the 80s. He comes complete with a gold chain and a plumber's crack. It's possible that he shaves his chest. This is the same guy who wears sunglasses to dinner. Don't worry, he changes them up, sometimes he wears reflective lenses ( you know, the ones that look like rainbows) and sometimes, on special evenings he brings out the yellow lenses. Russell says he looks like Jeff Bridges, from the Big Lebowski. He wears his house shoes as flip flops and has taken special care to get some frosted tips in his shaggy brown hair. His outfits are an endless array of ridiculousness from white steel toed boots to button downs replete with images of skulls and lightning bolts . This man scares me to death. Every time he walks past me, I envision him slugging me in the face and laughing as he continues on.

Fiji Honeymoon: Day 7 (Liku Liku)

(Katie Writing)

I'm a bit embarrassed to say that there's not much to write about for today. Russell and I have become quite content just sitting and watching- water, boats, fish, sunrise and set, and maybe a few people as well.

A quick sum up of our day- we slept in and decided not to attend breakfast. We are brought daily homemade cookies which satisfied our hunger and got us off on a good start for over-indulging and expanding our waistlines for the day. I was telling Russell yesterday that I can feel my body getting fatter by the minute but for some reason, I'm just letting it happen! Anyway, after breakfast we packed our things and called for a "porter" to pick them up and take them to reception where we would be checking out and then checking back into an over-water burre. Porters are nice because they come in a golf cart and no one has to lug the luggage across the resort. Well, I made the call at 10:20 (we were supposed to be at checkout by 11:00). At 10:40 we got a call from the front desk asking if we were planning on coming to check out. We explained that "yes, we are. We're waiting on our porter." The front desk assured us that they would send one out. Well, 10:55 came around and there was no porter in sight. I made the executive decision to haul our bags up ourselves. It's about a half a mile trek to the reception desk. On the way, a member of housekeeping stopped us and said "you should've called a porter". We explained that we did and no one came. On she walked to continue her daily duties. As we approach the reception desk the woman behind the counter looks at us and said "Oh, you should've called a porter". Once again, we politely explained that we did and she just changed the subject looking a cross between embarrassed and annoyed (not our fault we asked twice and no one came). Finally, the office manager is leaving his office as we are making the final delivery of our bags and he says "Oh, you should've called a porter". We again politely explain our situation and he cuts us off but NO ONE EVER APOLOGIZES for their less-than-five-star-service.

While I'm on the service subject, let me just give you a little insight into the craziness at this resort. Again, I must say, we are having the time of our lives and we are grateful for the opportunity to come here, but I'm positive that no-name highway motel service is better organized than the service here. For example mealtime: You check in at the little desk and you are seated by the hostess (maybe a host, maybe a waiter, maybe a member of the band...no one can be sure). Someone else comes to bring menus and introduces him/herself as your waiter/tress. After that someone else brings you water. There are only two options in each category of the menu so it should take only a few minutes to decide. By this point you realize that you'll never see your waiter again as four different staff members approach your table and ask for your burre number, but no one takes your order. Finally, someone will notice that there isn't any food on your table and they will bring you bread (which I must say is always fantastic) and take your order. Then, each course is served by a different staff member. After each course, more and more flatware is removed from the table so that by dessert, nothing is left. This sounds practical and would be if there were only a few people in charge of your table, but it makes it quite confusing for staff to know whether you've actually eaten dessert and you are just occupying your table or if you are patiently waiting for dessert. Most often, the case is that you haven't received dessert. Again, more people will ask for your room number and finally, dessert will come. If you're lucky, they'll just re-take your dessert order altogether because no one has recorded it at all.

Now, onto the rest of our day...

Once our bags were stored, we took a detour to the pool while we were waiting on our room to be ready for us. The pool is beautiful. It's an infinity pool and lots of architectural consideration was put in while building it. It curves around and has little cubbies throughout with islands of trees and beautiful steps across to the other side. The chairs are all placed in sets of two with big umbrellas and there is a water stand so that you can stay hydrated. We put our umbrella down so that we could get some sun. (Surprisingly, the UV rays aren't strong here right now. We've been using minimal sunscreen and have yet to burn. It must be because it's winter here). While at the pool we took advantage of the wine we brought with us. I must add- we bought boxed wine before we left the states because we thought it would travel better- it did and it was a great value. This wine is no Franzia, it's actually quite good and you can get the equivalent of 4 bottles of wine for between $20-30. Anyway, I had packed the leftover white into a water bottle so that we could discretely pour it for ourselves without looking like the tightwads that we are :) It was a beautiful setting for a midmorning drink.

Following our time at the pool, we ate lunch. Once again, management had to go and impress us by having no one to seat us for lunch. So we just hung out and waited for lunch to get a late start. I'll have to admit, life could be much worse than having to wait for a seat at lunch :) Another good meal was had for Russell, he had a lamb burger on a ciabatta bun with grilled zucchini and cucumbers. It was well-spiced and a great size. I, on the other hand, have been cursed by the gods of mediocre cuisine. I had the spiced crawfish pasta. It was by no means the worst food I've ever eaten but was reminiscent of a Lean Cuisine. Lots of pasta, four pieces of tomato, about 8 pieces (that's like sliced pieces, not whole) crawfish and some simple spices. Needless to say, underwhelmed, sadly in keeping with most of my meals at Liku Liku.

During lunch we were alerted that our overwater burre was ready. This time, our luggage had been portered to the room. Score one for the management team! Wow. This. Room. Is. Awesome. It's much lighter than the land burre and has a more luxurious, less Disney World Swiss Family Robinson look. Of course, my eyes are immediately drawn to the view. It looks like we're back at Taveuni and we're the only people here. We have a small wrap around deck. On one side, we have a view of islands and ocean and the other side we have a view of the shoreline with volcanic and coral rock formations as well as trees. We have a nice view of a few sailboats and an indescribable view of the sunrise. Back to the burre- we have a large open bathroom with a soaking tub that looks over the view. From lying in the bed, you also get a great view of, well, the view. There are large windows and doors throughout that can be opened so it's like you're just sitting on the ocean. Mostly because you ARE sitting on the ocean.

We decide to spend most of the day hanging out in our new digs.

Of course, I can't go long without a report on the management staff. We get a phone call that we have left our "canvas" in our previous dwelling. A canvas? Hmm....we'll have to think on this one for a minute. Yes, as a matter of fact I left a bag of seashells and water shoes. I ask what they would like us to do and they say a porter will bring it to us. Fat chance.

I realize I have forgotten to call for dinner reservations, so I make the call and the front desk says that they'll call us back with a confirmation. Good thing I didn't hold my breath. Once again, same as when we called for internet issues, previous dinner reservations, porter service...there is no call back as promised. And incase you were in suspense waiting to find out about our "canvas" that never came either.

A bonus about our new overwater burre- we get a mid-day snack around 3:30pm Yum! Just what I need, food for my over-worked, I mean extremely lazy body. It's really good. Feta, pancetta, marinated tomatoes, and bread. Russell hates it so I get to eat it all myself!

Now it's time to get ready for dinner. Just what we need: more food! I can feel my double chin expanding just thinking about it. We again go through the same chaotic dinner experience of rotating waiters but the food makes up for it. At least Russell's does anyway. Once more, I have continued my curse of mediocre cuisine. Russell orders the 6 hours braised beef cheek with pureed potatoes baked in coconut husks. It is the most satisfying food I have ever tasted. Rich, smokey, melt-in-your-mouth goodness.

I have duck leg. This was one skinny duck. My duck leg was dry and stringy but had good flavor. It was atop grilled radiccio. Again, great flavor, but over-cooked and soggy.

For dessert, Russell had a green colored crepe with black sweet rice and coconut sorbet and I have a melon creme brule with vanilla cake and watermelon. I'll have to say, we've both jumped on the train of mediocracy for dessert. It was definitely a swing and a miss.

So, off to the reception desk to learn more on "The Case of the Forgotten Canvas". It appears that no one knows what we're talking about so they tell us to check our closets. Again. So, doubting our searching skills, we check our closets again but to no avail. We call the front desk. The conversation goes something like this:

Receptionist: Bula

Me: Hi, I'm calling about the canvas (since this seems to be the word to use) that we left in burre 43.

Reception: Yes

Me: We still don't know where it is.

Reception: Can you describe?

Me: Yes, It's a yellow bag with brown leaves on it. It contains water shoes and seashells.

Receptionist: have you checked the closet?

Me: Yes.

Receptionist: both of them?

Me: Yes.

Receptionist: Yes, thank you. bye.

Me to Russell: Argh!!!

Later they call back. I insist that Russell take the call because I know that there is no "polite" left in my body.

Receptionist: Bula! Have you found your bag?

Russell: No.

Reception: Can you describe?

Russell: Yes, yellow bag with brown leaves contains water shoes and seashells.

Reception: can I have your Burre number? (this is a common question when no one seems to know what's going on)

Russell: Yes, previously 43 now 1.

Reception: have you looked in the closet?

Russell: yes

Reception: both of them?

Russell: yes.

Reception: the housekeeper said she put them in your closet.

Russell: babe, check the closets. (closets checked) Russell to Receptionist: they're not in there.

Reception: ok, thank you. bye.

At this point, we're sure that the bag is long gone and we begin to calculate the value of lost items. After the sum is totaled, we get ready for bed and are on our way to sweet dreams when there is a knock on the door.

You guessed it, it's our bag. Where they found it, we'll never know because there was no explanation or apology given. Oh well, we still have a spectacular view and the soothing sounds of the ocean.

The end.

Fiji Honeymoon: Day 6 (LikuLiku Lagoon)

Russell writing...

Our second full day at LikuLiku was almost identical to the first full day. Eating, lazing about, and a hike through the hills. With that being the case, I'll try to do a quicker job than normal walking through the day's goings-on.

For breakfast we had the exact same thing as the day before, although Katie didn't get the cheese souffle. In what I thought was a kind gesture, I piled up a plate full of bread and brought it over for her, lest she starve. She was perfectly content though with her freshly juiced beverage she made at the buffet table, although by the end of the meal we both had picked the bread plate nearly clean.

For the rest of the morning we spent most of our time alternating between our lounge chairs down by the beach and our covered day bed next to our deck. I love this day bed! We had one at Taveuni Palms too, but this one might be slightly more comfortable. One day, if we can afford it, we'll have to add one to whatever house we buy down the road. Sipping champagne on a day bed by the ocean isn't a bad way to spend one's morning!

After lunch, during which Katie had a "crispy beef salad" (which she likened to beef jerky...not sure that's a compliment to the chef!) and I enjoyed a delicious salmon quiche, we both decided another walk was in order. We rested a bit first, but by late afternoon we were ready for our second island trek. Katie's stomach wasn't feeling well (bad jerky?), but she was determined to push through it. We set off first backtracking our journey from the previous day. We went past the Mololo Island Resort, and past where the starfish, etc., had all been (although this time the tide was up and we were instead wading through water), and then back up through the hills. It was a little tougher this go round than it had been the day before as it seemed the uphill climbs were now steeper.

When we arrived at the fork where we could take the path back to our burre, we decided to keep on moving past. The trail, according to the resort-provided map, is supposed to continue on through the hills over to a long beach on the other side of LikuLiku, but we soon found this to be...inaccurate.

After trekking along the well-defined path a bit, the trail suddenly stopped short. Hmmm.... The map says it keeps going, so what's going on? We tried to push through the brush, but it was too dense, and we had no choice but to head back to the resort. As we walked back to our burre, I spotted what looked like another trail. It had no "employees only" sign or anything next to it, so I thought perhaps the map had simply mislabeled things and that this was where we had been intended to go in the first place. Against Katie's better judgment, we walked along the new path hoping to continue on where the previous path had been cut short.

We soon found, once again, that the path was not what we had supposed. Instead of being a walking trail, it seemed we were actually walking through the resort's trash dump complete with nearby incinerator. This should have been a tip-off, but I posited that the trail must pick back up on the other side. It seemed to...for a bit, but then seemed to be less defined the further we ventured. It wasn't long before the trail and the brush became indistinguishable, but Katie and I kept walking slowly and surely up an increasingly steep hill. About halfway up this hill, which turned out to be more like a small mountain, Katie had the right idea to stay put while I journeyed on ahead. The ground became more and more gravelly, and it was near impossible to get traction with my shoes. After a few near stumbles and a LOT further than I thought, I made it to the top of the hill and took a few pictures. I turned around to look for Katie and couldn't even see her down the hill. Wow....lot steeper than I thought.

On the way back down, which was a lot scarier than the way up, I seemed to be doing ok: taking my time and carefully placing each foot as I sidestepped down the mountain. Not too far down though, one of my feet gave way and I began tumbling down in an out-of-control run. I tried to fall down on my backside but the momentum was too much. Before I made it to Katie I finally tripped on a branch, falling down on my side with my arm scraping against the ground to stop me. Ouch. BIG Ouch.

Bruised and humbled, I hobbled over to Katie and we tried to make it down the REST of the hill together. Again, I fell, and then Katie fell after. This wasn't the best idea I've ever had to climb this sucker. If only someone could have videoed the whole affair!

Somewhat defeated, we made our way back to the burre to prepare for dinner. On the way, we came across a couple that happened to be two Americans from southern California. We were relieved to find people at the resort who appeared to be relatively normal! They had just gotten married, the same day as us in fact, and they had arrived at LikuLiku that very day. The first part of their honeymoon was spent in Hawaii, and we tried to give them our insider perspective on Fijian honeymoon living.

Dinner was uneventful for the most part, but the meal itself was interesting. There was no menu to choose from and instead we were served an Indian-influenced assortment of foods. The first course was absolutely delicious! It had a few fried items including something resembling a corn dog. Much better tasting though :)

The main course was a bit of a chore. It's been a while since I've had crab legs, and I'm not sure after this night that I'd be quick to have them again. Katie and I were so frustrated trying to extricate the small amounts of meat from the joints, etc., that by the time you actually got something you didn't even care anymore.

Two other items worth noting about dinner. Towards the end of the meal, we were treated to a local church choir singing. Katie and I had hoped to attend one of the local services that morning since it was Sunday, but we ended up not scheduling it in time. With the church choir singing during dinner we were able to enjoy what surely would have been one of the church highlights. Related to this event, there was a couple sitting next us that's worth mentioning. A bit older, and either Australian or English (either way, they had a near impossible dialect to understand), these two seem to command some sort of respect amongst the staff. Perhaps they're the owners? We've seen them at a few other meals since we've been here, and they're the only ones with a reserved table. Anyway, during the choir's performance, this white Anglo couple was singing right along with them. Interesting!

Fiji Honeymoon: Day 5 (LikuLiku Lagoon)

Russell writing...

I feel like we've let time get away from us a bit since we've moved to LikuLiku Lagoon and we've consequently gotten behind in our blogging. Of course, that could be partly attributed to the fact that LikuLiku isn't as memorable a place as Taveuni Palms was. That would be a difficult feat for LikuLiku to accomplish!

Anyway, the pace of Fijian living has slowed down for us somewhat since our move. This is ironic since I'd intentionally selected Taveuni Palms as our first destination because it looked like a great place to unwind after all our air travel. LikuLiku was going to be the "social" spot where we'd be living it up in a faster-paced setting. Oh well.

The first thing to report from our first full day at LikuLiku is: breakfast. Unlike Taveuni where you were able to select from rather large menu and make personal requests as desired, LikuLiku offers a breakfast buffet and a small menu of a la cart items. I consider it a small step down from our previous home but only slightly as breakfast turned out to be quite delicious!

The breakfast buffet offered an assortment mostly of breads (sweet and savory), jams, fruit, etc., but it also offered, somewhat impressively, fresh coconut milk still in their coconuts (you just punch a straw through the top and drink away!) as well as a juicing station. Fresh beets, carrots, pineapple, mango, and a few other items sit next to a Breville centrifugal juicer for all the guests to enjoy... although I suspect that only Katie and I are the sort to make use of it. Great addition to the spread.

As for our a la cart items, Katie and I ordered a cheese souffle and some coconut crepes respectively. The souffle was delicious, and in truth, the coconut crepes rival those we had at Taveuni; I actually even somewhat preferred the texture of the LikuLiku crepes. No syrup provided though?

After that, our morning consisted largely of lazing about and people watching. For a place that has won a number of awards and is stated to be a 5-star resort equal to what we experienced at Taveuni, it's a little difficult not to be surprised by the other clientele. I hope that doesn't come across as snooty, but I trust that if you were to witness some of the styles in vogue here you'd understand. Thus far we've met or observed the following: 2 Japanese sisters on vacation who take pictures of themselves whatever chance they get (there's nothing wrong with these 2 of course, but it's still quite something to imagine how many "rolls of film" they're going through); a couple from NYC that looks like they're straight off the boat from Jersey Shore; a couple whose male counterpart walks around in basketball jerseys and who wears his sunglasses in a gravity-defying way; plenty of tattooed-laden fellows and lasses; a man with a handle-bar mustache who, no lie, wears his sunglasses day and night, wears shirts adorned with skulls and flame patterns, and who apparently is here with his 80ish-year-old mother. The list goes on.

Next is lunch. With the exception of the previous night's dinner, which was a barbeque buffet, lunch and dinner meals are three courses which are chosen from a menu with two lists of options that change each day of the week. Hopefully that makes sense. Anyway, Katie and I enjoyed for lunch a plate of fresh Tuna and some squid.

The post-lunch agenda was a blank slate, so we decided to do a little hiking to combat our increasingly problematic calorie intakes. An excellent idea it turned out as we had a wonderful time exploring the surrounding area of the resort. There are supposed marked trails around the property, and after a bit of searching we finally found an entrance to one near our burre. This early part of the trail was a "coconut grove," which we think was planted by the resort. Trees are tightly packed together, bent in all sorts of peculiar ways, which makes for an impressive visual but complicated hiking.

As we pressed on, we found that our expectations for an easy jaunt were a little off base. The trek was much more involving than we'd anticipated! Hills, vegetation, sandy and rocky inclines and declines where getting a bit of shoe traction proved a challenge. But it was well worth it and brought us spectacular views. After crossing one particular peak, Jona's Lookout, we descended down the "mountain" into an area of mangrove trees next to the coastline. The mangroves had trapped all sorts of debris, etc., within them, and we had to trek through and past an old mattress, dilapidated boats, pipes and tubes.

Beyond the mangroves though was where we spent most of the remainder of our day. The tide was near its lowest point and we walked out on an expanse of exposed rock and coral. Here we ventured slowly about and took in all the marine sights. Katie is a bit braver than I, so while I stood back and took plenty of pictures to document the moment, she stooped down every few feet to examine her latest finding: a colony of crabs; different varieties of starfish; sea cucumbers.

We began making our way back to the resort, taking in all the imagery as we went. To get back though, we continued along the beach/rocks rather than returning through the hills. As a result, we came across one of the neighboring traveler havens, the Mololo Island resort. It seems a bit more family oriented, but in some ways, perhaps just aesthetically, it seemed to match up a bit more with Katie's and my preferences. Instead of "Fijian" burres, their beach is dotted with what I feel inclined to call South Carolina-style cottages. Very pretty, and we admired the view. (although it's worth pointing out that we also walked past the staff quarters, which are beyond the resort; a bit slum-like...the staff quarters at LikuLiku seem much better).

Upon returning to LikuLiku, it was near time for dinner. Katie and I cleaned up, and left early for the restaurant to participate in cocktail hour. For as big as this place is, we can't help but note how antisocial this "social" crowd is. Perhaps only WE'RE antisocial? Either way, the cocktail hour doesn't seem to be heavily attended, and Katie and I contented ourself with a mojito which we enjoyed at a corner table.

Dinner consisted of some sort of chicken dish that Katie ordered while I requested the Australian venison. Quite tasty. But then they had to spoil the whole affair by garnishing our desserts with clear-colored jello. Who eats jello? Another great day, but I'd still say we miss Taveuni. :)

Taveuni Palms: Day 4/And our departure for LikuLiku resort

Russell writing...

Our final day at Taveuni Palms was bittersweet in a most remarkable way. Bitter because we'd be leaving somewhere that we'd already grown so close to. Sweet because we finished our time with a bang!

The day began a wee bit earlier than planned because Katie woke up at 4:45am but was somehow convinced, even after looking at a watch, that it was actually an hour later. As a result, I was awakened by Katie shortly thereafter, and we started to prepare for our day. We marveled at how dark it was outside, but still didn't think to double-check the time!

The day before, Kelly, the co-owner of Taveuni Palms, had introduced herself to us during our lunch. We were immediately impressed by Kelly and didn't have too much trouble imagining being friends with her back in the real world. She and her English husband aren't too much older than us as a matter of fact (we suspect them to be in their early 30s). Anyway, by the end of our conversation, Kelly extended an invitation to join her and her two friends on a trip to a recently started pearl farm for it's very first pearl harvest the following morning. A pearl harvest like this one only takes place every 3+ years and lasts only a few days, so it was truly remarkable that we happened to be at the island when we were! Of course we agreed to join in the excursion :)

Fast-foward back to present day. It's morning, and as I said, Katie and I believed it was an hour later than it actually was. We had been told by Kelly to be ready to leave at 8:00am. By the time 7:00 rolled around, or at least what we thought was 7:00, Katie and I started to worry that we wouldn't be able to eat breakfast in time before our outing. So, we called the staff and told them to hurry our breakfast along. Teila replied that they would start making it right away, but we remained worried nonetheless. Soon it was "7:45" and we still had only just eaten our morning appetizers. Not only were we worried, but we were starting to get frustrated that the staff wasn't fully appreciating our time crunch. Long story short, after "8:00am" passed we finally double-checked the time only to find that it was only 7:00am in reality. We apologized profusely to the staff for unexpectedly ordering a rush breakfast at 6 in the morning. "Senq a na Leqa", said Teila. No worries.

Kelly came and collected us after breakfast, and the three of us along with Myles and Sara (two friends of Kelly's from New Zealand) hopped in the car to be taken to the pearl farm. On the other side of the island we pulled off of the main road onto a little dirt one off to the side. After a short way we came across a small bay area, and we could see what amounted to a hut on stilts out in the open water. Kelly signaled the hut to let them know we'd arrived, and a motor boat soon appeared to ferry us over.

At the hut we met Claude, a marine biologist and MBA who apparently is the entrepreneurial type who likes to start successful businesses and then quickly sell them for a profit after he gets bored. I envy this man. Of course I envy Kelly and her husband too! Maybe after going to Duke's b-school for the next two years I can build up the confidence to do something comparable. Fingers are crossed :)

Anyway, today was pearl harvest day and in addition to Claude there were a number of local Fijians to help with the operation. The single most important fellow there on this particular day though was a Japanese man, a "grafter," who'd been flown in to perform the grafting on the oysters. From my understanding, this basically means that this man carefully extracts the pearls from the oysters in such a way so as to keep them alive (it's apparently quite easy to kill the oysters in the process, so a skilled professional is hired), and he then reinserts new "nuclei" into the oysters that survive so that they can be reused for the next harvest down the road. Also, I believe that oysters that are able to be reused often yield even higher quality pearls, so this process is very critical.

We got to survey the entire process, although we were instructed to be quiet while peering over the shoulder of the Japanese grafter. It's meticulous work. Katie and Kelly promptly began sifting through the pearls that he'd already extracted, and it really was something special to behold. I have never particularly cared for pearls one way or the other, but it's a neat thing to see a harvest take place right in front of you! After sifting through the thousands of dollars worth of pearls sitting in a little white bucket, Katie picked out a few for herself (a few smaller ones!). Very beautiful! Approximately 1,200 total pearls are expected to be yielded from the harvest.

While this continued to go on, I grabbed some snorkel gear and descended off the side of the hut into the water to take a look around. Some very beautiful sights to be seen! Our snorkel trip from the day before had been quite lovely, but the local marine life wasn't quite what it normally is because of damage from a recent "cyclone" a few months back. This side of the island near the pearl hut was in better shape since it's location left it somewhat more protected. Coral was vibrantly colored, and fish of all sizes swam about. I didn't see any rays or sharks or eels, sadly, but I did see another turtle darting through the water!

After the pearl harvest we were taken back to the villa to clean up and pack. It was our last day there and we soon would be boarding the flight back to Nadi for our boat transfer to LikuLiku resort, which is on Malolo Island (a totally different area of Fiji). Our departure from Taveuni Palms was emotional for us, as we'd come to truly connect with the staff. They all got together and sang for our sendoff. Kelly escorted us to the resort car, which took us up the road to the small local airport, and we soon took off for the next leg in our Fijian journey.

(Katie Writing)

The trip over to Nadi was mostly unremarkable- Just a rocky plane ride in a tiny puddle jumper. Luckily, my bag made it over this time! From the Nadi airport, a driver took us to the port where we would catch the ferry over to Malolo Island. We checked in and then went to grab lunch before shopping. We decided to eat at an Indian restaurant. Our first clue should've been that at 1pm we were the restaurant's only patrons. At first, we thought we were having unrealistic expectations for service since we had spent the last three days experiencing the best service of our lives. As time went on, we realized that service was simply terrible at this restaurant. It took us over an hour to get lunch and lunch was very mediocre. Oh well- every meal can't be perfect.

From there we wandered around the mall, in and out of shops comparing deals on Kava bowls and pearls. We ended up purchasing nothing, but at least had a fun time looking! We stopped into a tiny bakery to find something to satisfy our unsatisfied bellies. This bakery was a homerun. We should've eaten lunch there. We bought a cinnamon roll typed pastry that was huge for 1.20 Fijian dollars which means it was about .60 cents.

We boarded the boat to make our way to Malolo Island. We were seated in the Captain's Lounge- aparently an exclusive but unnecessary treat where we found shelter from the sun as we traveled. The only other passenger was a just past middle aged woman with short dyed red hair and big sunglasses enjoying a book on her ipad. As we got closer to our destination, she had a short conversation with us, only long enough to reveal that she owned one of the islands along with her husband and they had opened an exclusive resort. Once she left the lounge, our stewardess explained more about her island and about the people who stayed there. The only name she dropped was Paris Hilton who apparently spent her birthday on the island a few years ago....we were sorry to have missed her (NOT!).

Upon arrival to Liku Liku, we were greeted seemingly half-heartedly by four staff members who sang a Fijian welcome. We were then led to the bar where we were given a passion fruit iced tea and filled out all of our forms that said that we wouldn't sue the resort if we were injured and that we would pay for all incidentals. From there we were given a partial tour of the property and led to our burre. The burre is nice, but it's not Taveuni Palms and it takes us awhile to acclimate to our new atmosphere. We realize how ridiculous we are as Liku Liku is also a very nice place to be.

After a nap, we get ready for dinner. Getting ready is something we haven't had to do in several days. What do you mean we actually have to be at dinner at a specific time and in a specific place?! At Taveuni Palms we just called when we were ready, threw a t-shirt on over our swimsuit and picked a place in our villa for dinner. Oh well, I guess walking a few minutes to dinner with other people isn't so bad! We arrived on the island on buffet night. It was traditional Fijian food, so they claimed and it was pretty good. I'll have to say, nothing compares to Taveuni Palms food!

On the buffet there were several mixed salads with a Thai influence as well as oysters, sushi, grilled vegetables, and a grilling station where you chose your meat and it was grilled for you just they way you wanted it. The grill station was our favorite. The meat was quite good. In addition, there was a dessert buffet that looked deceptively inviting. We had a sampler plate, but settled on a pear crumble and a panacotta and berry dish. So I guess our first day at Liku Liku was like an introduction back into life. By the end of the day, we were beginning to settle in and like the place although our initial response was to turn and run back to Taveuni Palms into the arms of Teila.