'Nice to nice to know ya, let's do it again...' Bula! Welcome to Fiji!

So a shortish flight landed us in LA once again. We got our free shuttle to the days inn where we chilled out for the day sorting things out for the next couple of weeks. We were situated in Inglewood yet again. Eeek! We thought a pizza had to be ordered of course its a tradition we've had. The last time we were in inglewood was our first day in the US (when we ordered pizza) and now this was the last day. It was our goodbye present! A good one at that.

Check out was at 12 and our flight wasn't until 10.30pm. We had 10 hours to spare in the lovely Inglewood. Oh fun times. We decided to brave it and try walking to find a post office but all we found was an office which we thought was one. A van of men came up and asked, 'are you looking for a furniture shop?' erm no mate, does it look like we are? I honestly thought we were going to be jumped and put in the van. We were on edge walking around so we made our way back.

On our way we passed an apartment advertising 2 months free rent. Obviously the area is 'amazing'. Surely that's just advertising 'live here free and risk being robbed!' its like a warning for people. The owner would probably say: 'Take the place but if something happens, it's not my fault! You're living here for free.'

Now there's tooting, beeping and shouting at us from cars and then there's inglewood where people just offer you rides to places. I mean seriously were they never taught not to talk to strangers when they were little? Obviously not! Obviously we passed on the ride.

We walked to get a donut(the best donut in the world) and went back to the hotel. One hour down 9 more to go. We basically txt and emailed everyone to see who was available to skype. And had many catch ups sitting by the pool. We said bye to Anne and Brenda as they were coming back to the US as we were leaving, a giggle and a gossip with Soph Irv and Liz caught up with Rhi and her fam. Nobody else got back to us so for a little while we actually sat watching a guy paint. We were literally watching paint dry!

In boring situations me an Liz tend to eat so we went and got yet another donut. On our walk back to the hotel a woman beeped at us in her car. We thought nothing of it until we were sitting in reception an she came through the door. She was dressed like a trashy prostitute. She asked us if we were ok. We said yes and then she said 'are you sure? You better take my number just incase!' we were like no thanks. What was she on? She'd followed us back to the hotel she wasn't even staying at. It was just weird. Lucky we were in reception and not out 'cause there was a guy in her car and i'm pretty sure they wanted us to go with them somewhere. Well it was 3.30pm so we thought we might as well just wait in the airport after that happening, we thought we'd be safer haha.

We took our free shuttle and got to the airport to did our flight was actually at 9.30pm. Good times. Only 1 hour to wait until check in. We sat waiting reminiscing our time in America. Its away with american sims now, so there'll be no more workouts for Lizs thumbs. Haha.

We had Santa joining us to fly in economy class. You'd think his reindeers would come and get him especially this time of year, he should he busy working on the naughty and nice list, not on vacation. He was standing behind us in the queue and he definately had the plague. He was coughing and snorting the whole time we were waiting. I was praying our seats weren't next to his.

My prayers were answered, we were upstairs on our flight! Yes the plane had two floors haha. He was sat downstairs so all was good, he wouldn't be infecting us with is germs. Yuck! We were ready for take off when the captain announces that 3 people couldn't be found so we had to wait for their luggage to be removed, which obviously delayed us! Bad times!

I got no sleep on the plane which sucked. Liz was fat asleep for pretty much the whole journey, her legs up on the window storage unit and all snuggled in her blanket! I was soooo bloody jealous! There's me squished in the middle with a small amount of room and just could not get comfortable! Plus there was a major snorer, who most certainly did not have any trouble sleeping keeping me awake! I gave up trying and watched a film. Eventually I got so bored I had to switch the light on and do some journal writing. I certainly annoyed the lady next to me as she kept trying to hide her face under the blanket. Ooops!

When everyone woke up the lady next to me, Becci a diver from New Mexico, started chatting to us. At first I thought she was going to say something about the light but she wanted to know all about our travels. She was very intrigued!

'Welcome to the tropical isle of smiles' said the pilot. We had arrived on the beautiful island of Fiji! On arrival we had a welcome sign saying bamboo hostel Josie l! We sat and chatted for a while with our host who was so adorable.

Two famous Fijian rugby players had just flown in the same time as us and our host was soo excited for us, he got us pictures with them. Not attractive ones at that. I couln't have looked any more minging after no sleep on a 10 hour flight wearing something that could have been mistaken as a bin bag! Yuck!

The players are like royalty to them here. It was so good to be back in a country that knew what rugby actually was haha.

We had a ride waiting for us to take us to the bamboo hostel. It was only 7am and we couldn't check in until 10 so we got our bikinis on and to the beach we went! It felt so good to see the sun smiling again! it felt like it had been forever! Blue sea, white sand and gorgeous weather! Could you ask for more? After a few hours sunning ourselves on the beach we finally checked in.

We decided to take a visit downtown Nadi on the local bus, to get some groceries and drinks. Nobody can say we dint experience real Fiji. The place was packed with local people. We were pretty much the only brits there. It would have been so fun to wander 'round the little markets and things if we didn't have bags and bags of food and drink. We'd finished our shopping within an hour and the bus wasn't due back for another two. Public transport here doesn't run very frequently haha. Our food for the next week consists of beans, Wraps and noodles. Appetising right? Well we are on a budget so it will have to do. Well anyway let's just say we started to struggle in the heat, carrying lots of heavy bags and just generally feeling disgusting as we hadn't showered yet! Attractive I know! We sat in a cafe for a bit and ordered some fish and chips to share before going to wait for the bus.

After getting back there were a few people in our dorm one which was the Fijiian God i'm sure. He had the voice i imagine God having. More so than the guy from Lion king in Orlando. Most of the other people in the hostel are British and are not that sociable or friendly.

After finally getting our shower (which just dribbles water) goon would not be satisfied with it haha, we had some drinks in the room. I tried some Fiji beer, which went down very well. Len it's a beer on our good list! Very tasty.

We went to join in downstairs and chatted to some French guy for a bit, but we were so tired we lasted until 8pm. Shocking I know, so we bought some choccie(British by the way, yes they have it here) and went straight to bed for an early night.

We both woke up at 6am, that's what happens when you go to bed as early as we did. It felt good being up early though. I felt fresh. We had some brekkie and went to the beach for some more laying in the sun.

One of the hostels has a pool which anyone can use which is cool so we chilled there for a little while and ordered some yummy, juicy cocktails in the sunshine. We were living a life of luxury.

The day passed by nicely and it was time to get ready for a night of Fijian dancing on the beach. Not us dancing of course, just us watching hot, muscly men all oiled up dancing with fire! Just stop a moment to just picture that? Nice huh?

I'm pretty sure the guys doing the show were either beginners or just drunk cause they kept dropping everything. I had petrol from the fire baton flung on me accidentally so i was very worried the fire would come anywhere near me, especially as we were in the first row. When one person was doing the tricks the rest of the group sat around in frnot of the audience waiting to jump up and catch the fire or the knives just incase it came anywhere near us. Slightly worrying haha. Even though lots of things went wrong it was still impressive. Plus they were stupidly HOT to watch!

When the show had ended a Newton Fawlkner look-a-like took the stage with his digareedoo and some sortnof guitar. Shame he was nothing like the singer. He was dreadfully boring and killed the mood. He sang about going to Jamaica, I can assure you his flight there has been cancelled, Jamaica don't want him, he'll bring down their rasta vibe!

We got chatting to some guys from new Zealand who'd seen the singer before and had about 5 of his demos. Never been played of course. Haha. They told us that the dancers are there everyweek and once theyve danced their mission is to pull travellers. A bit later when the boys left one of the dancers tried it on with us! We kindly refused and seconds later he hit on a girl at the bar and she went home with him straight away. Haha! Hilarious right?

We didn't last much longer in the bar, i couldnt listen to anymore of the depressing s*** playing. It was killing me slowly! So off to bed we went.

Woke up and yes you guessed it, we beached it, to catch some rays, after a catch up with the
wacko Jacko! Soon after a bit of tanning and job hunting we popped to the local shop which looked as if it was prepared for a robbery. We weren't sure if it was actually open with the amount of bars surrounding it. It was like a very small cage! And all the goodies were inside the cage not to be touched. Finally we got our goods which consisted of 6big bottles of water and a crunchy, and made our way back. Liz was having difficulty carrying the bottles and was basically hinting for me to take them off her. Eventually I did and she told me that I would make a good African lady. Not sure that's the case to be honest, all I did was carry six bottles of water for less than half a mile. Haha.

After some more bathing in the sun the clouds decided to hide it from us, so we went inside to get ready to go for some dinner. As we found out everything here was much cheaper than we first thought we decided to treat ourselves with a meal at the smugglers hostel. Doesn't sound that great but it was bloody lovely and it went down nicely with a Fiji beer. As we were eating torrential rain hit and we were sitting watching a storm. It rained hard!!

We joined a guy that we had met earlier that day, Tony for some drinks and a game of cards. We also got shown some AMAZING card tricks by another guy, Marco the magician, that joined us! Seriously, no idea how he did them but it baffled me! They were some impressive tricks! The night passed by and off we trotted back to our hostel. I sat up for a bit writing my journal and got talking to Joe a guy who sound exactly like he's from Essex but apparently he's not haha.

We woke up to no sun! Can you believe it! I think the rain drowned it there was so much! We sat at the little bar for a bit and had a family skype session before catching the windowless bus, with the locals again into town. Walking 'round was a bit better than the previous time we came. Slightly cooler and we weren't carrying big bags of shopping. We wandered around for a little while, had some food at a little cafe before going to the Market to try some Indian sweets. We were being adventurous! We bought four little tasters and perked our bums on the wall and got tasting.

A few minutes later a random man comes up to us chatting about how he has no money but he loves life. The conversation got weirder and weirder by the minute...until he cam out with: 'Why da man kill da bird? And why da humans kill da humans?' seriously! It was the strangest begging technique I've ever seen, i couldn't contain my laughter so I had to get up and leave. Especially as he started to eat the leftover sweets we didn't like.

We walked back to the bus station and waited for our return bus to New Town. It must have been attract weirdos day ad another guy cane up to us with a bag of something which kinda looked like peas, but stank. He offered us some Liz took them but shoved them straight in the bag and I kindly refused. He left for a little while then wandered back over to us...he began talking about how him and his friend keep track of people they speak to by writing down names and addresses in his little black book. That was his way of asking Liz her name and address oh phone number and email as well haha. Her address was 1 cowell close, simon avenue, Texas, 90211 haha! Thank god our bus came before he asked us anymore!

We got back in time to catch some rays by the pool. Mike and Johnny came back and took us for a ride on their boat. Who needs to Pay to see the islands when you can do it the Jiz(Josie & Liz) way...the BEST way! We rode all the way to Denerau island where Mike's house is. It's pretty much a private, very luxurious island. His house is a huge open plan house right on the water! It's amazing! He took us for a ride in his jeep around the mainland seeing the rich hotel chains along the front. Can you believe the hotels actually groom the sand? What is with that? It looked ridiculous. We went to pick up some meat and headed back to mike's for a BBQ and some beers.
Mikes friend, Ben joined us and before lighting the barbie they took us for some boat driving lessons around the island. I feel I was a natural at it! Haha. I could definately get used to driving a boat around my own private island! Liz got the hang of it too. We could definately adapt to the lifestyle Mike has. After the most amazing BBQ the boys drive us back.

Everyone was sat at the bar so we joined them for a few beers. Well a few beers led in to a few more and before we knew it we were playing ring of fire with Joe, Mike, Jamie and Tony, with a group of girls joining us later. It all got a bit messy after a little while, involving clothing being exchanged, I have never... and new embarrassing nicknames! The boys were in a much worse state than us, and things were getting slightly out if hand so we took the escape root and went to bed.

I could have really done with a KFC in the morning but i stuck with tea and toast, only because i didnt know if there was one about haha. We basically spent yet another day lying by the pool, chilling out!

It needed to be a chilled day as we were heading towards having a heavy night. We were going to party Fiji style! We had planned to meet the NZ boys at 7.30ish so we got ready and waited at smugglers. They arrived right on time with 3 new members to the group who were joining us on our night out. They wanted to watch the fire dancers again, which by the way was fine by me, I got to watch the new love in my life dance again haha. We ordered food with many drinks and sat and enjoyed the show. After a few drinks Ben started us on the shots! Yuk... I was not a fan.

The dancers had finished and we were all geared up to hit the town. Mike took care of the bill and got his friend to come and pick us up in his White party van, filled with neon lights and HUGE speakers. The party started in there haha.

We hit the Ice bar first, where there was a line of jägerbombs and shots on fire waiting for us! We got to go the other side of the bar and Liz had drink poured down her throat, one of them being the local whisky, bounty! Ewww! The place was pretty much all ours, johnny was dancing on the bar, someone else pole dancing, ben doing headstands on the bar and me and Liz dancing like nutters to J Boog! Our new favourite song!

As we left to go to another club the bouncers were having a cava session outside, so we all joined them as me and Liz wanted to try it. Its like a natural drink they have over here, I think maybe a natural drug, but OMG it's vile! It basically just felt like i was drinking a muddy puddle. And once you've drank it your mouth goes all tingly and numb. It's safe to say I won't be drinking it again.

We danced the night away at the next club, which was a little busier. We all decided to take our shoes off as johnny had lost his and we all felt bad. So yes my feet were black as the night in the morning! We were in luck as all the guys we met danced as crazy as we did! We had met our match haha. 3am came by fast and we said bye and caught a cab home. We'd arranged to meet them at 10.30am to go snorkelling.

Morning came and our 10.30am trip surprisingly didn't happen haha.
No boat trip for us! I spent the whole day feeling sorry for myself. The heat didn't help with my struggling. The Brits pretty much laughed at me all day. I managed to squeeze an afternoon nap in and we did sone washing. The NZ showed up at 7pm, slightly later than our arranged time haha. They were on it again though. Some hard core boys right there. We had a little catch up reminiscing the night and then later that evening we played a game of Monopoly with Joe,mike and Tony. Joe and Mike are hilarious to play with, they take monopoly so seriously! They are pros at it though. I went bankrupt after about 30 minutes, Liz not long after me. We left at about 11pm and when we saw Mike in the morning, he told us he'd claimed victory and the game went on until 12.30am. His words were 'Im all monopoly'd out!'! Brilliant!

Well it was time to say our goodbyes to Fiji. No more being on Fiji time for us! We got a taxi to the airport and an hour later board our flight! We took off and an hour into our flight came the message: 'due to a problem with the plane we have to turn around and land back in Nadi!' Bloody s*** myself! I actually thought we were going to need to use some of the safety routines they show us at the beginning of the flight! Damn! I wish I'd listened to them. 'There's no left falange! Ahhh!' Fiji obviously didn't want us to leave. So we took off in Fiji, flew for two hours and landed back in the same place, to then find our flight was cancelled until the next day and we were being put up in a hotel for the night. What a pain! It would have been ok if it wasn't for the downpour of rain!

Ah well like me and Liz always say: 'Everything happens for a reason!'

Well I will love you and leave you now as we wait for our flight out of the tropical isle of smiles! Back to Sydney to become working girls again(not in that way), well actually if everything doesn't go to plan maybe in that way haha! Jokes!

This might be the end of blogging for a while, I'm hopefully going to be a busy girl over the next few weeks, but don't worry I'll be back soon!

Don't miss me too much.
Love ya'll
J.L xxxx