Went to watch Avatar in 3D today. The movie was awesome. The 3D was unimpressive, probably because the screen is too small. Other than that, the movie has superb graphics and storyline, plus great music. It’s as good as – if not better – than the Wachoski brother’s Matrix. James Cameron reeeally knows what he’s doing. Some reviews said the plot wasn’t very original, but for me I don’t remember seeing another movie with the same kind of storyline.I loved how the graphic artists created Pandora (where the movie is set) – luminous moss, seeds, mushrooms, giant Pterosaur-like creatures that the people could form bonds with an control, Christmas tree worm plants that’s basically a blown up version of a Christmas tree worm taken out of the sea, and the giant, magical tree. If only such a world existed in real life.

On a side note, I’m leaving for Shanghai tomorrow. Will be back in a week!

Just for the record, Fiji is not in Japan. Mount Fuji is in Japan. Fuji apples is not from Fiji either. Neither are they from Mount Fuji. Fiji, on the other hand, is an island state in the South Pacific Ocean. Anyway, here’s the continuation of the previous post, and what happened after diving.

Day9 – 05/12/2009

Planned to base myself in Nadi at first, but changed my mind at the advise of Sarah, whom I met on the boat. So I shared a cab with her down to Pacific Harbour, a  small towns along Queens Road, which is one of the two main roads on Viti Levu (the bigger of the two main islands).

This is the Uprising Resort, where I stayed for 5 nights. Decided to take a risk (and save on the expenditure) and stayed in their dorm. It was really comfortable and neat, and other than the first night I slept really well. The first night I was just a little jumpy I guess, sleeping in a room full of complete strangers for the first time. It wasn’t full though, there were only 4 other people around for the first night. On the second day though, a big pack of youngish looking Brits came and I thought “Oh no there goes my sleep” but I slept surprisingly well the second night. Maybe they’re all tired too.

Didn’t do much the first day except walk around the town and the resort and read. Called up Beqa Shark divers but they ran out of space for the time I’m there so no shark dives for me. The Zipline had space though, so I booked that after my Rivers Fiji rafting trip.

Day10 – 06/12/2009
Also, the receptionist at Uprising told me there’s a hike around the area which I could join, and told me to be at the reception by 8.15. I went, waited for an hour, and nobody showed up. Only then did the receptionist call the organisation and told me they left early.

So I didn’t do much the entire day again, other than walking to the town, discovering that the blister I got from my fins on my foot had opened, and walking back and staying in the hotel for the rest of the day.

I jet-skied in the resort though, and tried their free horse-boarding. The jet-ski was fun, especially in the strong waves. The wave would carry the jet-ski up, and it’ll slam down onto the water a split second later. Horse-boarding was a disaster though. It’s basically surfing with a horse, which has a rope attached to its body for people to hold on to. The horse then runs along the beach and pulls the person along.  Since I can’t surf, the only way I could do it properly was on a knee board. I tried to use the surf board a few times and failed quite miserably. A couple of Australian guys could do it though. I need to learn how to surf in this lifetime.

Day11 – 07/12/2009

River trip with Rivers Fiji! They picked me up from Uprising, dropped me at their Headquarters where everyone else was, and packed us along with all the equipments onto a bus. This was the start of the “scenic road”, aka unpaved gravel path through the jungle (or rather, regenerated undergrowth land from all the logging).

A group of Chinese boarded the bus at this point. I didn’t realise they were a TV crew (I thought they were just typical Chinese tourists sporting oversized videocams and cameras) until the guy in front started filming and the guy who sat next to me took out a microphone and started blabbering away in Cantonese. To me Cantonese either sound funny or weird. It sounded really funny at that moment. Turned out that they’re from Guangzhou TV Station, hired by Air Pacific to film in Fiji to promote the country to the China crowd, in conjunction with their newly opened flight to Hong Kong.

It is always amusing to watch first time travelers from China look at things overseas like they’ve never seen anything before. Like banana cake. Which they filmed. With the guy holding a piece and doing a commentary in front of the camera.

Misty mountains in the distance.

The upper course of the river. The water level was extremely low. When it’s the highest it can be over 10 members above where it was then.

This was exactly what we did for almost the entire 24km journey. Yes – nothing. Beautiful scenery, yeah, but we barely got to paddle (the guide did most of the work), which was not exciting at all. Not to mention I got grouped with 3 Fijian women who sounded like they were flirting with the Fijian guide the whole time. Also the rapids were tiny. So much for being called class 2 rapids.

It was interesting to watch fish in the water though. And the occasional wild duck that appears. And gasp at how tall the tree ferns at the side of the valley are. And look at the erosion patterns.

We jumped off the raft and swam for a bit at a calm section of the upper end of the river. The water was refreshingly cool. A little too cool perhaps, I was shivering almost the entire rest of the trip down the river.

Lunch!

Those waters were deeper than I thought. And apparently there’s a hole in the rock between the two pools.

Down he goes..

And up he comes from the other side. I really wanted to try but I don’t think getting wetter is a good idea when I’m already shivering.

The Chinese TV people had a raft to themselves, and they appeared to have lost their mind once on the river. They started singing – and making their Fijian guide sing along with them, and teaching him how to say “I love you” in Chinese, among other weird things they did.

The wider and shallower lower course of the river. It rained/drizzled intermittently almost the entire journey.

The waterfall where we stopped for a break.

The water was cold runoff from the mountains.

Locals on a bilibili (or a bamboo raft).

Day12 – 08/12/2009

Ziplining with Zip Fiji!

Giant millipede!!

The entire course consist of 8 ziplines, the longest is around 200 meters. Not sure how high it is above ground, but it sure was a heck lot of fun speeding above the canopy and over a river.

We got to go on another round for free because their boss wasn’t there to pick us up. And because of the newly opened Air Pacific direct flight to Hong Kong, there were two Hong Kongers doing the Zipline with me on that day.

Giant gecko back at the resort!

Day13 – -09/12/2009

I took a local bus to Suva that day, took about 1 hour and a half. Suva is their capital and the largest city in South Pacific. This was Navala, a town along the way.

This is how their buses look like.

The city was much less than what I had expected, but there was beauty in the derelict architectures around the city. This is an abandoned luxury hotel which had seen better days in the 90s.

It’s now used for military purposes..as a camp, I think.

The rather out of repair and unkempt Thurston Garden. But it doesn’t pass as completely overgrown either, I think it would have been better that way though. Now it’s just in limbo.

The state of the city just gets worse with every coup. Every party that comes into power is short lived. Now Fiji’s under a military government. For the largest city in South Pacific, it’s not that all impressive.

Lunch at Bad Dog Cafe, ranked the best restaurant in Fiji by Lonely Planet. Nice place, but I don’t really like the thick crusted pizza I ordered.

In the middle of Pacific Ocean is the last place I expected to see CHINESE.


The harbour. A closer look revealed that the ship are pretty rusty.

The handicraft market that has “tourist trap” written all over it. I got really annoyed with people saying “konichiwa” to me.

Yes Eggplants! at Suva Municipal Market.

Fresh vegetables!

Upstairs were the dry stuff

Indian grains.

There were kava stalls everywhere selling kava roots.

Waka waka waka.

Kava roots. That’s where kava comes from. They dry the roots, then grind them into powder and mix them with water to drink.

I was surprised to see lots of Chinese vendors in the market too. I spoke to a 20-ish Chinese girl there, and she told me she was born in Fiji and her parents came from Canton. Interesting.

Holy. Cow. I just saw unicorn fish a few days ago in the sea. This is just wrong.

And parrotfish and sweetlips too. Holy crap. They were going at $25-30 per fish.

Food wrapped in I think banana leaf and cooked in a lovo. I bought two of those to try. One was cassava and the other was coconut flour with sugar. Took one bite of each and couldn’t eat anymore :\

The only multinational retail chains I saw in Fiji were McDonald’s, KFC, and Gloria Jean. No Starbucks! That’s good, but since McDonaldisation had already happened, it’s only a matter of time before Starbuckisation follows.

The bus terminal.

Took a bus from there back to Pacific Harbour.

Back at the resort.

This is the first time they gave me towels. And a flower. So I took a photo.

Day14 – 10/12/2009

Took a 4 hour long bus back to Nadi, where I’ll be catching a flight back to Singapore the next day. Stayed at a hotel this time. It’s called the Raffles Gateway Hotel and it’s directly opposite the airport. Had a nice name but as everything else in the country, it was old and had the out-of-repair feel to it. The only good thing was the food and this – Tom and Jerry on TV! (:

Planned to stay at Novotel at first, but they’re fully booked. Also planned to walk around Nadi for the rest of the day, but I had that horrible red and itchy rash which developed a days ago so I didn’t feel like doing anything. The rash was much better now though, thank goodness.

I was going to upload the photos for the rest of the trip, but I had Sam Tsui’s Lady Gaga Medley YouTube page opened and there was a link to The Duke’s Men of Yale performing Umbrella at ICCA 2009. Then there was another link to Fermata Nowhere singing Single Ladies at ICCA 2009. I was rather amused so I went to watch the whole of their Heartless Medley.

From there I got the link to all kinds of A Capella groups performing at ICCA so I clicked on almost every link there was.

Another hilarious arrangement, of Flo Rida’s Low.

Nothing fancy but I love the arrangement.

There goes my plan to upload the photos. Ah well.

The way he started the medley was a little abrupt, but all’s well once past the first 17 seconds (:

I’ve decided to split up the photos of the trip into two posts – one sea and one land. This is the sea part. Sorry for taking so long to post - I came back with a mysterious rash, and because my family moved when I was away I had 5 boxes to unpack when I get back plus furnitures to settle, and then my internet stopped working. Now I’m posting on a borrowed laptop.

Day1 – 27/11/2009

Arrival in Brisbane for transit. It’s nice to set foot in Australia again, even if it was only for 4 hours. 7 hours night flight was tiring and crampy as usual, but I watched The Cove on the plane. It was a really good movie/documentary about captive dolphins and legalised dolphin slaughtering in Japan.

Transferred to the Pacific Air flight to Fiji 4 hours later. On the flight there they misplaced my vegetarian food order (but found it in the end), and on the flight back I got a rather mouldy wet towel.

My first impression of Nadi, Fiji was bad – even worse than what Lonely Planet had described. Everything looked derelict and rundown, I didn’t see a single traffic light, the taxis aren’t metered, yada yada. Not to mention the delay at the airport getting the visa, which was supposed to be issued on-arrival, granting me a 40 days stay. Instead, after being held up for nearly an hour (they said 5 minutes) like a suspect and countless questions, I was issued a 15 days visa (the length of my stay) with a warning not to cause any trouble. My guess is that they’ve never gotten any 17 year old solo travellers from Asia before. But I’ll refrain from making any judgements till I’ve seen more of the country.

Day 2 – 28/11/2009

Spent a night at Nadi Bay Resort Hotel (unfortunately the place’s not as nice as it sounds) before getting picked up by NAIA Cruise.

The ship docked at Lautoka.

My cabin. Small and cozy and has its own bathroom (:

First night on the boat. Settled in, set up our equipments, and was briefed on safety and others by Sam and Brigitte (two of the 3 divemasters). After a check dive at the unimpressive and bleached Samu reef not far from shore, we’re ready to set out and see the best of Fiji.

The crew welcoming us on board. They’ve got such good voices and they sound really good together. Wish I had videoed one of their songs but my G10 was in its housing.

Day3 – 29/11/2009

View from the cabin porthole. Wake-up call (aka the anchor dropping) at 6.30 and it’s up and diving! First day at sea and 4 dives to go! A dive first thing in the morning really wakes you up.

At Wakaya; a dive site called Howard’s Diner. My photos don’t do the spectacular reefscape justice at all since no colour ever shows up except blue. It was so frustrating and I can’t use flash because it’ll just put white specks all over the photo without lighting up much of the corals.

Someone found a white tip hiding in a tiny cave.

One of the many gorgeous Gregornian fans.

Unicorn fish! My first time seeing one for real.
Clark’s anemonefish.

The reef was so alive. Everywhere you look there’d be literally thousands of fish swimming about. It was amazing.

Every once in a while a big pelagic hunter would swim by. Never thought I’d actually see them on this trip! Here’s a wahoo.

A few of the thousands of little anthias all over the reef.
Aww poor anemonefish trapped outside the closed up anemone.

Yup – lots and lots of anthias.

Back on the skiff after a dive. The dives – spectacular as they are – are freezing cold. I come out shivering like hell after every dive even though I was wearing a 3mm wetsuit, a 5mm wetsuit over the 3mm, and a hood. 60 minutes in 25 degrees water does wonders, and the wind makes everything even colder. I’m glad there’s a hairdryer in the cabin.

And it’s back to the main boat for food! My daily routine for 6 days: get up, dive, eat, dive, eat, dive, eat, dive, eat, sleep. Ahh, this is the life (:

Brigitte briefing us for the next dive.

Back out to sea!

At Yellow Mellow this time.

A booby flew over from the nearly island!
It circled the ship..

..and landed on the bow.

Another one came.

Look at all the attention the booby’s getting.
This is what happened I went diving with taped up heels to prevent them from getting even more abrased by my fins. The fabric all but fell off, leaving the stubbornly sticky white stuff. I still got a blister in the end. Sheesh. I need higher boots.

This was the only week in my entire life that I had dessert every dinner. And gosh the food was so good. During meals was a good time to chat and listen to other people’s stories too. Two of them really liked Singapore’s airport. I guess I kind of spoiled it by saying that the rest of the country’s quite boring.

Day4 – 30/11/2009

My first time seeing a soldierfish.

Leaf scorpionfish.

Juvenile ribbon eel!

Grouper.

Long nosed hawkfish perched on a sea fan.

Fire dartfish.

A juvenile something, forgot the name of that fish.

Nudibranc.

Sam “feeding” the butterfly fish by scraping the rock.
Upside down coral grouper. Fiji’s reefs must be in really good condition since there’re so many groupers around.

Saw this villa on one of the islands. Well, that’s cell phone coverage for us!

Everyone got into the skiffs in the afternoon to head to the shore of Makogai island for the village visit. We all had to wear sarongs and the ship provided some brightly coloured ones.

The villagers preparing lovo for us. Lovo means food which is prepared in an underground oven.

The meat stuff – chicken and a wahoo – wrapped in I think coconut tree fronds. There’s also yam, cassava, and potatoes.

Everything’s covered and sealed with yam leaves before left to cook for 1-2 hours.

Meanwhile we went on a tour of the village. See what I meant about the brightly coloured sarongs?

The village’s Chief Watson showing us some herbal medicine used to heal bites and cuts.

The island hadquite a history; the Brits used to occupy it before it was used as a quarantine for leprosy patients. When the Brits had it they built an outdoor theatre. This was the room where they placed the projecters.

And the concrete wall opposite is the screen.

Houses in the village.

The village kids playing with Sarah’s camera. They’re not usually dressed like that by the way, that was just for the sevusevu and the performance.

Sevusevu (or the kava ceremony) is when a gift is presented to the village chief, followed by the drinking of kava. Kava is a mildly narcotic drink that comes from the root of a pepper plant and is sort of the Fiji national drink. The roots are dried, grounded, mixed with water, and squeezed out into the tanoa (that large wooden bowl) before being scooped out by smaller bilos (bowls made from coconut shells) and offered to the guests.

When offered the kava we have to clap once, take the bowl, drink it in one shot, return the bowl, and clap three times. It tasted like muddy water if you’re wondering, just like what people said. Good thing’s that it didn’t leave a strong aftertaste.

After the sevusevu they put up a performance for us.
At the end of which we were invited to dance.
Sam showing the kids his video camera.

Just in time! The food was done after the performance was over. They were taken out and “shipped” to the boat for dinner.

The (poor) wahoo, chicken, dalo (or yam) leaves with coconut cream, salad, beef, potato, yam, and cassava. The only thing I didn’t like was the cassava, but the tubers were as tasteless as they could get. They said the chicken was good though.

Day 5- 1/12/2009

Up for the morning dive at Mount Mutiny! When the site was first discovered, the people on the boat loved it so much that when the captain said it was time to leave, there was a mutiny.

And it is gorgeous. Steep wall dropping into the deep, huge sea fans and 2 meters long whip corals as well as millions of fish makes it one of my favourite dive sites (the others being E6 and North Save-n-teck).

A…tree. When I first saw a white thing in the wall I thought it was some fossilised tusk, before I saw the branches and the bark-like texture. Apparently it was washed there during a bad storm in January.

Hawkbill turtle. There was one or two small ones swimming about.

Annnd here is E6! This part is called the Cathedral, and I think you can see why.

It was just amazing to swim through that with the shimmering sunlight flicking through the overhanging reefs, and we did it – twice!

Saw this lying on the corals, looks like the stomach plate of a turtle.

Getting a hold on the skiff is hard work in the choppy sea. I’m glad there’s someone on the skiff to pull me up after that, I could never climb back up there on my own.

Yummy snacks awaits us back on the boat (:

Did a night dive at Undenaiable that day. That brings my number of night dives to a grand total of 2. Somehow I felt that my first night dive in Austalia was better than this one. It was more open in Australia so I didn’t have to worry about bumping into corals but for this, there was a coral wall on one side and when it is completely dark I can only see where my torch shines and with my lousy buoyancy control there was quite a lot of frenzied hand paddling. Not to mention I lost my torch halfway (I let go of it -thinking that it’s tied down on my wrist- to adjust my BCD and when I’m done the torch was gone) so I freaked out a little. Thankfully one of the guys in the group noticed and had a spare torch so he loaned it to me for the dive. Thank goodness. It must be funny to see a bright shiny thing bobbling up the water.

That was also the night when I got horribly seasick. We were on a big move, from Vatu-i-ra to Nanema Marine Reserve, and the sea was choppy. Probably shouldn’t have watched Whale Wars while the boat was rolling. Sarah brought the DVD on board so we were watching it in between dives. It’s a documentary about an activist group, the Sea Shepherds, trying to stop the Japanese whaling fleets from killing whales in the Southern Oceans. The Japanese claim hat they were doing research while processing the whale meat for sale on the market.

So back to the seasickness, I didn’t think I could hold my dinner down much longer so I went to sleep before I could finish watching Whale Wars. Missed the morning dive the next day, I didn’t want to know what it’s like to puke underwater.

Day 6 – 02/12/2009

At Two Thumbs Up. Garden eels!!! I didn’t have to mask my shriek of excitement because nobody could hear me I couldn’t get a closed up shot though, they’re incredibly shy and retreats back to their hole as soon as I’m 2 meters away from them.

Yellowtail barracuda!

Look at all the eel and fish just sitting there enjoying the current while we work our ass off swimming against it.
Cute little Midas blenny hiding in a hole. It bites! Hah, but it was fun putting my finger in front of it and watching it open its mouth wide and biting me. It’s harmless, just hilarious to watch.

Cleaner shrimp and coral grouper. This was one of the few cleaner shrimp holes that I didn’t see a moray eel in, so I put my hand in front of it and got a “manicure”. At one of the previous dive sites I stuck my hand in front of a pair of cleaner shrimps and a moray eel emerged from one of the holes behind to investigate.

This was a different dive site. This was North Save-n-teck! Where everything happens (: It was a decent of 30 meters into the blue before going over the plateau on the left.

Grey reef shark and fusiliers.

Big eye barracudas!!!

More barracudas, and scads in the background.

A school of mackerels.

I swam through it (:

Popcorn shrimp at Kansas, named for their soft corals which look like the rice fields of Kansas when they wave in the current.

Tomato anemonefish.

Sam and his fancy video camera. Wish I had one but I should probably stick to photography.

Scorpionfish.

Gang of bluefin trevallies and longnose emperor roaming the reef.

Day7 – 03/12/2009

HUGE malabar grouper back at North Save-n-teck. You can tell its size from that 4cm cleaner wrasse at its head. It was over a meter long.

The archway.

Another group of mackerels.

Flounder.

The only moray I got to photograph, and it was a fat one.

The gang of trevallies and longnose emperor raiding the reef again.
A Napoleon wrasse came along this time!
Ghost shrimp spotted by Mo the divemaster. I wonder how the divemasters spot these things.

Feeding frenzy! Titan triggerfish!

It seemed to be addicted to munching on that piece of rock. It was gnawing on it so intently that I could literally stick my camera in front of its face to take pictures. It also didn’t mind me touching it.
Cleaner shrimp ridding my hand of dead skins (:

Wanted to get my teeth cleaned too, and I spent 5 minutes trying to coax it into my mouth. It was pretty hard since I’ve to stay in one place and there was a current. It did go in in the end though

Since it was our second last night on the ship, the crew prepared a kava party for us.

We had to wear the brightly coloured sarongs again.

The way they harmonize, it just seemed so natural that I began to wonder if every Fijian was a born singer. I think it’s deep in the culture.

We drank kava too. I had two bowls, and decided to leave it as that.

The crew singing Isa Lei, the Fijian farewell song.

Day8 – 04/12/2009

Back at Vatu-i-ra.

Our final dive briefing, and our last dive before heading back to mainland.

A sleeping baby octopus.

An edible looking nudibranc.

A not-so-edible looking sea cucumber, held by one of the crew who dived with us on that day.

And because he did that, I finally saw a sea cucumber spitting its intestines out!

These two shots were taken at the end of my first drift dive at a site called The Whole Shebang. Drift dive just means you drift with the current, and it was incredibly fun.

The booby was waiting for us when we got back from the dive.

On the way back.

One last sunset on the boat.

Day9 – 05/12/2009

Saying goodbyes.

Thank you NAIA, for showing us the spectacular dive sites, for the wonderful company, for the great food and for taking such great care of all of us. I will definitely be back for more!

And, don’t worry there won’t be this many photos for my next post, so check back for my adventures (or maybe not so much) on land!

Just a quick post before I leave for the airport. This time I packed 2 jackets, including a waterproof one, waterproof pants, and waterproof shoes (learning my lesson from the Sydney experience).

Hope the dives go well, hope the weather’s good, and hope I get to see what I wanted to see! (:

See you in 2 week’s time.

Yes I should be on the plane now but obviously I’m not, because apparently, I need an Australian Visa just to transit in their freaking airport. Thanks a lot, stupid passport. You did it again.

Visa is done! Thanks to the nice lady at the Australian Embassy who called me to tell me the news today when it wasn’t their working hours. I’m finally leaving tomorrow after moping around at home for 3 days. I’m just so relieved that I’m not going to miss the diving trip (which is already booked). Couldn’t really stand the thought of $3000 USD going to waste just like that.

Time to re-pack!

FAM 2009. Farewell Alma Mater 2009. RGS’s version of prom, which is, in short, just a formal dinner event. Nothing remotely prom-like happened except the pageant. On the other hand, it was quite interesting seeing people arrive in dresses, fake eyelashes, hairspray overload, and 4 inch heels.

In case you’re wondering, no I did not wear a dress, I did not wear heels, and I only spent $2.90 for FAM.

In the Hilton ballroom, which was tiny.

The food was quite good, though they totally overfed us. We barely ate the last 2 courses, and spent majority of the time hunting down familiar faces and taking photos.

Look at all the attention the first course’s getting.

Table peekchur.

Mr Evans.

Mr Yeoh.

All the FAM nominees and the winner.

Glam Dot and Xinyi! Xinyi had a sneezing fit because of her hairspray.

Dorothy’s Steve Maddens!!! I tried it, and could hardly balance. Gahh but I still want a pair (:

The class.

I like this.

And the night won’t be complete without at least one unglam shot

She looks like the matchmaker in Mulan, at the scene when she realised a cricket jumped into her shirt.

I spent way too much time on those nails to not post a photo of them. And if you wanna know, the $2.90 I spent for FAM was for that bottle of sparkly nail polish.

Finally got around to upload them today because FAM photos’ll be coming up later and I don’t want to be left with too many photos unposted.

Walk-In of the Sec4s.

I like their hats.

Jessica’s very interesting dream (and “speech”).

Mrs Hoo’s very interesting “Principal’s Address”. It turned into a story performed by the class chairs.

Graduation song.

Sec4 teachers.

Mr Chua’s biggest fans.

Aliens on the rooftop.

Singing the school song one last time. Look who was looking at the camera while everyone else’s singing

eleanorigby / says:
where’re u going in beijing?

xinyi/ says:
haha gu gong tian an men
these 2 are confirmed

eleanorigby / says:
do u want to borrow my lonely planet beijing book?

xinyi/ says:
nope
haha

eleanorigby / says:
*sticks out tongue*
fine i’ll laugh at u when u miss out all the nice places

xinyi/ says:
all that BJ has to offer is like gongs and parks and hills and chang cheng

eleanorigby / says:
hehe im not gonna say anything to that

xinyi/ says:
):<
okay okay i want i want))):

It’s not a horror movie. And he doesn’t look as menacing as in the poster in the actual movie. I love how the bike transforms into something alive and blazing. If I were a better writer I’d have written more on how great the movie was (except a few parts). Awesome character, but Neo’s still my favourite because he can fly and the Ghost Rider can’t