life, by me

  

So, after the longest day of my life so far, I arrived in LA for a hit and run type tour. I've been to LA before and done all the 'touristy' stuff, so didn't mind too much not repeating all that. I stayed in Santa Monica, an area of LA I really like. It is close to Venice, and 'Muscle Beach', where you can walk along and watch some big guys pumping up their guns...

In Venice, I happened upon a 'Hare Krishna' festival, which was rather bizarre, and very colourful.

Venice is a nice area, found some random canals which run through the middle of the streets...guess maybe that's where the name 'Venice' came from.

To begin with, it was a bit of a culture shock being in LA, having flown from peaceful Fiji, with around 30 people on each island, to LA with absolutely tonnes of people walking/jogging/cycling/rollerblading/buggy racing along the boardwalk, it was kind of crazy!

I sat on a wall for a minute and got accosted by an LA pimp, we had a little chat, he was pretty amusing, it's amazing the 'different' people you meet when you are travelling!

My LA stopover was just 24 hours, then I flew to San Francisco! I had never been here before so was looking forward to it and I was coming to visit my American friend, Emma. Emma has a cool little apartment in the centre of San Francisco with a coastal view, you can see the famous 'Golden Gate Bridge' whilst eating your breakfast, it's ace.

I didn't know much about San Francisco before I got here, but have had a busy week sightseeing so feel like I know a bit about it now. It is full of hills, most of the houses are built on steep hills all over the city which offer amazing views. This is 'Lombard Street', the 'crookedest street in the world'. At an incline of 27 degrees, this hill was too steep for cars to climb so in the 1920's they revamped the street to look like this, so the cars could manage it...must say, it did always seem to have a queue of traffic built up at the top of it...

San Francisco has become well renowned for its still operating 'cable cars'. I thought these would be like the kind you get when you go skiing, but apparently they are 'gondalas', these cable cars look more like a tram. Anyway, I went to the cable car museum, which was actually more interesting than it sounds, and learnt how they were going to stop them all because they were out dated and newer more modern forms of transport had been invented, but a local member of the community started a petition to keep them as she loved them and got the community involved and they ended up keeping 4 lines - made me realise that sometimes normal people can make a difference, even if it does involve old fashioned cable cars. Anyway, figured I should have a go on one, so took one from one side of the city centre to the other (3 miles), which took about 20 minutes. I was lucky enough to be the last one on, so got to hang off the side for my life as the guy next to me wrenched around with the brake everytime we hit a hill (quite often).

As San Francisco has quite a built up centre, they have quite a few 'rooftop gardens' that you can go and chill out in, they're pretty cool, and you get a nice view of the city. Here I am experimenting with my cameras timer...

Whilst walking through Chinatown, was excited to see actual Chinese people playing 'Chinese chequers', it was like some kind of underground gambling park, with people all over the place playing either chinese chequers or cards on pieces of cardboard and dollar bills changing hands.

I spent a day wandering around the 'Mission district', which is a kind of arty place and has lots of street art, graffitti and painted murals on the buildings. I really liked it, despite the crazy people on the bus and the man that punched the bus driver, this place had a nice feel to it.

On Friday I went on a Segway tour of the City! I have seen people riding around on these, sort of inwardly mocking them, but really wanting a go myself, so that's exactly what I did. It was hilarious, with a max of 10mph, we ripped up the streets of San Fran. Incase you don't know what a Segway is, here is a picture of me modelling the look.

The weekend consisted of a fantastic tour around the city and beyond with Emma, my host, beginning with pancakes, American style, for breakfast...

These are the 'Painted Ladies', some well photographed houses that tourists like to see, so I thought I'd better not let the side down.

Alcatraz Island from the boat

A cell

The view of San Francisco from the prison

Emma and myself pretending we are prisoners...

We found a cement 'death slide' where you take along your own cardboard boxes to whizz down...with some friendly signs from the neighbours at the bottom, requesting you not to scream.

San Francisco does not refer to August as 'Fogust' for no reason, it has been foggy most days, but i've still had a bit of sunshine inbetween, here are a couple of foggy views...

Here are a couple of other views of San Francisco...

Some tiled steps made by the local community

Graffitti in a derelict boat yard building that Emma and I explored in

"Bula!"...you hear this everywhere you go in Fiji!  It's the Fijian greeting, meaning 'Hello' and 'Welcome'.  It means more than hello though, literally it means 'life', it is said to you everywhere you go!

So, I just spent 9 days in Fiji. It was mostly like you would imagine...white sand, blue water, palm trees, hammocks.... I spent the majority of my time on the islands, to the east of the main island. Initially I thought I'd just stay on one island for the week, but then realising there is only so much sun bathing I can do, decided to take a look at a few of the others, and I'm glad I did because the ones I saw were all quite different.

The first island I stayed on was 'Bounty Island', and was simply a small island with sun, sea and sand. You can walk round it in about 20 mins and is where they filmed 'Celebrity Love Island' a few years ago if anyone saw that! The left over set has now become part of the resort there. It took me a couple of days to get used to doing nothing/not much after all my sight seeing in New Zealand, but surprisingly didn't take me too long to get used to the pace of life!

Fijians actually promote themselves as having a different pace of life to the rest of the world, referring to it as 'fiji time'. They told me that Fiji is the first place where the sun rises in the world so they don't see the need to rush - 'fiji time' also means buses are late, taxis take detours and life is just generally chilled out and laid back! (Although in contrast, on one island, Fiji time meant dinner was sometimes half an hour early and you could turn up on time and have nearly missed it...)

I have found Fijians to be really friendly and helpful people. They like to treat you like 'family' on the islands and all the guests get treated to some singing and dancing most evenings! Here's a photo of a bit of a fire show they treated us to one night...

Bounty Island was also where I first tried the infamous 'kava'. Kava is a traditional Fiji drink that everyone seems to drink, mainly in the evenings and looks (and tastes) like dirty water. It's made from the roots of a native pepper plant and acts as a mild sedative to the drinker. Apparently it is now sold to western countries to put in to sleeping tablets. When I was drinking it, although it was gross, I was attempting to be hardcore and keep up with the Fijians so had 5 'low tides' (high tide = big coconut cup full, low tide = small!). It had no effect on me in the evening, but all my limbs felt so heavy in the morning, I didn't want to get up!

When you leave the islands, they like to sing you a goodbye song to send you off, as I was the only one leaving Bounty Island this day, I got my own personal rendition as I sailed off in the boat...

The second island I visited was 'Waya Lai Lai'. Here I got treated to some 'bula boy' dancing, which was amazing. Traditionally, the men don sarong type things or grass skirts and do welcome dances and war dances - you name the occassion, they'll have a dance for it! Very entertaining!

Another night, the staff did a fashion show of what people in Fiji used to wear, and here they are pretending to attack me (they used to be cannibals you know...)

I also had a weaving lesson and made a bracelet from a padana tree leaf!  And on one of the other islands, I was taught how to weave a bag out of a palm tree leaf...here it is, modelling how it can hold a large kitchen knife.

I spent 1 night in 'Tavewo' island, right in the north of the Yasawas and then a few nights on 'Naviti'. Here I went on a village tour, met the chief, who conducted a kava ceremony and I got to enjoy some more of their wonderful drink and then a local school sang some songs for us. It was good to get out of the resorts and see the contrast of how the local people live, which in some ways reminded me a little of some places I saw in Asia. 

This is the kava ceremony in the village 

 Some boys at the village school giving us their performance of the 'Bula dance'

One day on Naviti one of the staff climbed up a coconut tree and threw down some coconuts for us and then shimmied down the tree head first, it was rather impressive! 

Some more pictures of 'Bula dancing' on Naviti Island

Fiji was really nice, hot everyday and I didn't even have to cook for myself as all the places to stay are catered, it was great. I did, however, realise that there is only so much 'relaxing' I can do on the beach so am looking forward to a bit more exploring in USA!

I left Fiji today, and due to the fact LA is 19 hours behind Fiji, it is still 'today' now and I've been here, and awake, for ages now, but seem to have gone beyond the point of tiredness. Well, this is definately the longest 31st of July I've ever had.

My final farewell song as I left Fiji...