FIJI TIME & SETTLING IN SYDNEY

The Yasawa Islands adventure was the best adventure of my life. Mesj, Kris and I went with Awesome Adventures Fiji, and went with the package, A Great Pair. We stopped off at two islands, Kuata and Korovou. Both were beautiful and different in their own ways. On Kuata, we had much more traditional Fijian foods and went snorkling and hiking up to the summit of the island. This is also the same island that they shot the portion where Tom Hanks tried to hang himself in "Castaway" after he lost his ball, Wilson.

Where Kuata was more traditional and intimate, Korovou was a resort aimed at tourists. The food was more international, they had singing and dancing by the "bula boys", and they had a lot more of the comforts that we would be used to at home, such as the internet. Here, I did more hiking, including a sunrise hike that was quite challenging as before the sun came up, we had to hike up by flashlight. The guy I went with, Bjoern, was really scared of spiders, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise as he would hike infront and point out all the spider webs so I wouldn't walk into them. I did alot more activity on this island including swimming in the dark, sleeping on the beach in order to enjoy the beauty of solar system in the southern hemisphere, and going to visit the village on the island. At the village, the primary school children sang songs, recited poetry and performed dances for us tourists. It was really interesting to see that even though the Fijians have their own language, they are still taught English in their schools. Their school rooms looked very similar to classrooms that you'd see in North America.

Now, I have been in Sydney for almost a week. I spent the first four days and three nights at the Maze Backpackers Hostel near Chinatown. Together with the other three girls, we attended orientation at the Paramatta Campus on the second day. It turned out to be quite useless as all the information that we were given, we had already known from before.

The next couple of days spent looking for accommodations in the city. Let me tell you how different it is looking for places then in Toronto. Before I got here, I had visions in my head about finding a nice little flat for the four of us, and we would each get our own bedroom. RIIIIIGHT. The horrible reality is that most of the apartments in Sydney are crowded with people. I was really lucky to find a place in Ultimo that I am now sharing with two other girls. The other three have found a place very nearby that they share with three other boys. So they have six people in their two bedroom apartment versus my three people n a two bedroom apartment. Also, because people are packed into small spaces, the living quarters are disgusting. Alot of the places that I went to look at were very cluttered and messy. So, I really count myself lucky to finding a place where I have my own space.

I also have free wireless internet, and the place comes with a gym and pool. It's also a 10 min walk to the central train station where I will need to go when I have to go to school. AND, I am a two minute walk from the Broadway shopping centre where they cater to just about ALL my needs. There's several grocery stores there, a pharmacy (which they call chemist in oz), phone place, travel place, tons of clothing stores, food court....EVERYTHING.

Because of all this settling in, I haven't really taken in any of Sydney's sights yet. Also, I have spent a night at my Aunt and Uncle's house in Hornsby. They are a really sweet couple and have offered to help me with anything that I need. I met my cousin, Lanthia, her husband, Tom, and their three children, Crystal, Aaron, and Kara, for the first time. They made us dumplings! yummy!

Tomorrow, I plan to visit the Chinese garden and the Sydney Aquarium. This weekend will also be really fun as I am going to visit my friend Bronwyn in Canberra. It is her birthday on friday so I'm catching the bus and staying two nights with her and PARTYING IT UP!!!!

FIJIAN ADVENTURE: DAY 1 & 2

I'm currently sitting at an internet cafe at the Nadi Bay Hotel, a gorgeous place with two pools and good food!

The flight was very long. Jo, Kristen and I flew out of Pearson airport and stopped over in Minneapolis and LA before flying to Nadi airport, Fiji. The first flight was on a tiny plane and even though it was a two hour flight, it felt MUCH LONGER. The next two were consecutively larger and after taking a gravol on the last 11hr leg from LA to Nadi, I was feeling really sprightly. We almost missed our last flight there because they had our flight under two airlines. We arrived at 5:30am at the airport and immediately encountered a very LARGE problem...our luggage did not arrive with us from LA!!! :0

Yup, that's right. You can imagine our horror when we found out that there was no more luggage from that flight. We talked to the luggage people at the desk and they told us that they would be put on the next flight the very next day. But after arriving at the hotel, we got very worried because we were hearing all these horror stories from other backpackers staying at the hotel. They were saying things like not receiving their luggage for days, and one girl staying here STILL hasn't received her luggage in the past FOUR days!!! Plus Fijians like to rip us off with money. They put us in a taxi and charged us $10 when really it's like a $4 ride.

Anyway, we were definitely NOT happy campers. We went into Nadi downtown area and tried to look for swim suits but they were either incredibly expensive or they were so cheap and gross, and frankly, didn't cover much. Either way we ended up going to the airport really early this morning, and THANK GOODNESS, our luggage were all there. I think they just got confused at the LA airport. It's very disorganized there.

So now we've just spent the day lounging by the pool in our OWN bikinis and drinking strawberry milkshakes and Fijian beer. There are a lot of English people here. We seem to be the only Canadians so far. We head out to the Yasawa Islands in the morning and will be there for 4 days.