Wednesday, 22 December 2004

Fiji Continued

Got some interesting feedback from people on the Fiji pictures. My friend of mine who's a marine biologist said:

"if i had nuts, i would have busted one when i saw the aerial pic of the resort from the top of the big rock behind it. good reefs much?! my marine biologist neurons were firing at warp speed. i also got a good chuckle out of your surprise that the lobsters have no chelae (claws) because i grew up on the florida lobster, a species that also has no claws (looks just like the fijian one). so i've always thought it's weird that maine lobsters have those big honkers."

And my buddy Sajit gave me these words of warning:

BTW, "BULLA" in Hindi coloquial means PENIS, so I'm warning you so that you dont get bashed up if you call some one "BULLA" in India.

That's even more interesting considering the sizeable Indian population in Fiji. I bet that's caused a fair amount of snickering over the years.

And thus concludes your lesson for today. Not all lobsters have claws, and the Fijian word for "Hello" means something quite different in Hindi.

Posted by flow Frazao on December 22, 2004 at 02:49 AM in Fiji | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 21 December 2004

Fiji Pics

Finally got the Fiji shots up. Also, in case you haven't heard it yet, don't miss the Fijian church choir.

Posted by flow Frazao on December 21, 2004 at 07:49 AM in Fiji | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Saturday, 18 December 2004

Back In Oz

Got into Melbourne last night at around 11 PM. Glenys, Peter, Karen, Jeff, Harold, and Harold's friend Adam were all there to meet us at the airport. Right before we walked through the gate I took a look at my passport and noticed that it was almost two years to the day since we last walked through that same gate. In some ways it feels like ages, but at the same time it seems like it could have been just yesterday.

Karen and Jeff weren't planning on coming back to Geelong, so we sat in the airport for about an hour and had a cup of tea. It's so strange to see all these people face to face after so many years of thinking of them as disembodied voices on the other end of a phone line.

As is the way with families, everything felt completely natural and conversation fell into a natural rhythm. Which is to say Fiona talked and everybody else tried to follow along.

Anyway, we're at Fiona's parents' now and we're having a barbecue for dinner tonight so I'm going to sign off. I'll try to do some proper posting tomorrow and I have loads of Fiji shots and other goodies, but it's going to take some time to get everything sorted. For now, I'll offer you a couple of teasers:

In Fiji, one of the things I was most surprised by was their incredible musical heritage. It seems that native Fijians are born with an innate ability to harmonize. On Sunday we went to church with the villagers, and I was able to record a bit of the service. Click here to listen to their choir.

And finally, this is the view from Wayasewa:


Posted by flow Frazao on December 18, 2004 at 03:26 AM in Australia, Fiji | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Thursday, 16 December 2004

Bula!

Bula everybody! We've been on an island in Fiji for the past week or so - no electricity and obviously no internet. Just a short post to let everyone know we're still alive.

I'm running out of time on this account, but we'll be in Melbourne tonight. I'll do my best to get stuff up as quickly as I can.

Posted by flow Frazao on December 16, 2004 at 06:04 PM in Fiji | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack