Fiji: The Highlights

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Some highlights from our Fiji experience while we stayed at Mango Bay:


• The men singing and playing the guitar to welcome you as you land into the airport
• Everyone shouting "Bula" to you.
• Discovering a love for beach volleyball and table tennis
• Playing touch rugby with the men in the village....Tom had previously thought Wales was a rugby crazy nation but Fiji is something else! About 50 men from the village of only a couple of hundred meet to play rugby every night.
• We were invited to have dinner with one of the local families by a woman called Riabi who we met on the beach while she was selling jewellery and sarongs; a great chance to try some authentic Fijian food and experience the culture. The food was delicious, fresh fish poached in coconut milk, eggplant, spinach and breafruit. It was a shame that we didn't actually eat with her family and that she had prepared the food just for us, as the rest of the family sat around looking on hungrily.
• We took a trip to the school in the local village where the children were unbelievably excited to see us and sung us some songs. The boys are absolutely rugby crazy.
• The table tennis tournament and Wise's organisation of it, kind of knock-out, but several second chances if you lost and a milkshake for the eventual winner.
• How lazy Illy, the activities manager, was...really enfuriated Rach but Tom found it funny. "If he's going to write activities on the board he should at least call them out!!!!!"
• Learning about the Fijian culture with coconut jewellery making, basket weaving, and Fijian cooking classes.
• The Polynesian dancing...we have no idea how the women shake their bums the way they do. Both of us took our turns at giving it a go....fail!
• All the rugby and rugby league on TV all the time....the perks of a rugby crazy nation.
• Tasting Kava, the national drink, for the first time. It is made from the root of a plant and pretty much just tastes like muddy water. It makes your mouth numb.
• The staff at Mango Bay singing "Isa Lei" as a goodbye to us.
• The Fijian singer rocking "You are my sunshine." His favourite song.
• Snorkelling in the coral reef just off the coast. We saw some black tip reef sharks and hundreds of varieties of colourful fish and stingrays.
• Learning the best way to drink out of a coconut and the best way to crack it to get to the flesh.
• The breakfast...nattttt! The whitest of white carbs...white bread, cornflakes, jam, fruit juice, sugar, sugar, sugar.
• The trivia/pub quiz... the Mango Bay masterminds.
• The nervous moment when we thought we weren't going to get to the airport when our prepaid bus did not show 'Fiji Time' was not appreciated here. The aeroplane will not wait!

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