What a view :)
more photos can be seen at http://picasaweb.google.com/find.barlow/BayOfIslandsDolphinTour
Well, as the saying goes, 'Life is Sweet!'. I was lucky enough to come across an advertisement for a job working at an employee party for one of New Zealands most used travel companies. They offer, in retyrn of your services, money off their passes to see New Zealand! I decided to see how much it would be, and in the end, 26 hours of work saved me $1100 :) It was a fantastic evening and I can't believe I got paid for it! Here are some pictures from the party, I even got to play with some fire :) 
would have been 
better had it not been raining. We went to the skytower, the tallest building in the southern hemisphere. We also went to Mt. Eden which is 1 of 2 places in the world where you can see 2 oceans at once, without them touching. The other place is in Panama. The highlight however was the Harbour Bridge Climb. Here, suitingly for New Zealands reputation for extreme sports, if you chose to pay you could bunjy jump from 40 m above the river. Well, don't you know that I did!! It was so scary, my hand was shaking when I was trying to sign the waiver before I even left the ground! It was an adrenalin rush for sure! Then they let you go a second time for free if you went naked, so guess what.... I did!! Wow, that time I definitely went all of the way into the water below me! For those who don't believe me there are pictures, but for my family members sake, I am not forcing them to accidently come upon them :)
Arrival
So as some of you may know already, my flight to Fiji was delayed by a day. But what many of 
you don't know is that this, as many things, was a blessing in disguise! Air Pacific caused so many people to miss their connecting flights that they put all of us up in a great resort, Tokatoka, for the first night! It had the coolest pool I've ever seen and the food (courtesy of Air Pacific) was wonderful! We checked in around 12 a.m. and were eating our dinner poolside with some light swimming by 1 a.m.
The next day I went around Nadi town, took about an hour and I saw an A-mazing Hindu temple. Then I found a hostel for the night on the beach! I went out to the bar that night and met a great new friend, Mylie. She is a Canadian woman with a Fijian husband and a baby girl with a Hawaiian name, needless to say, we had very similar personalities and had a blast at the bar. As it turned out, she backpacked to Fiji and loved it so much she started her own travel booking agency there. So the next day, she and 
I sat down and planned my Fiji vacation! If ever you are thinking of going to Fiji, I totally recommend you get in contact with her at fijime@hotmail.com. After planning all day, I went back to the hostel on the beach, had a relaxing night and prepared for my coming departure to an island call Robinson Crusoe the next morning.
What can I say about Robinson Crusoe Island, it's a BLAST! Unfortunately, Fiji had a cyclone 2 weeks before I arrived and this island was looking a bit in the dumps because of it. This island takes about a half hour to walk around, and that's if your taking your time to look at the sites, like 
the sea snake which is about 20x deadlier than a Cobra I'm told! Lucky for us, their fangs are in the back of their mouth, making it very difficult for them to bite you. Only 4 have died ever, but there is no antidote. I thought it would be here that I would find some time to catch up on some reading, especially when the rain came. But I was wrong, way wrong! The staff on this island were amazing 
and there were maybe a total of 35 people on the island, everyone knew each other in a matter of hours and the fun never stopped. It rained the whole time I was there, and I was still busy all of the time, with to much to do! And I might add that there is absolutely no technology on this island, save for one phone. The island does come complete with bucket showers though :) We played A LOT of rainy beach volleyball, made coconut jewelry (I made a great arm band), 
played music, drank the Fijian drink of 
Kava, and played other various 'getting to know you' games (some of which definitely included alcohol). I met a bunch of great people and was sad to leave, but the next adventure was awaiting to pick Ian and I up on shore. **Did I mention Ian yet? He booked his travel with Mylie right after me and ended up with me on my whole Fiji trip. He is 19, from the UK, and doing his gap year at the moment. A great new friend! Here is a pic of us with a War paint on. 
FeeJee Experience
FeeJee Experience had not been something I originally wanted to do, but Mylie said I would love it, so I did it. It was an amazing way to get to know the real Fiji and I had an unbelievable time, 
making friends I will never forget! Thanks Mylie! FeeJee Experience was a 4 day bus tour around the main island Viti Levu. Day 1 started with a rainy beach lunch, then we sand boarded 
(boogie boarding down a massive sand dune) and finished the day at Mango bay resort, which had a lovely pool and a great bar.
hours were spent totally in the sun with no shade relief, then 45 min. in the jungle, and the last 45 min were spent with water up to our knees, still in the rain forest. Our reward came when we finished the trek and arrived at the most amazing river. The guy in this pic is my new friend, Joey, the girl was our 
tour guide, Anna. We ate lunch on the bank and then went for a very relaxing tubing experience down the river where we arrived at a waterfall. After jumping around in the waterfall for sometime we took a boat down the rest of the river back to the boat and drove on to our next sleep destination. When we arrived we were so exhausted we basically ate dinner and went to bed. The dinner was cool there though because they put on a show for us with traditional Fijian and Indian dances. Fiji is very much influenced with Indian culture as most of the business owners there are Indian.
Day 3 was immerse yourself in Fijian culture day! We went into a real village where we met the chief and had a traditional Kava ceremony with him. I had experience many Kava welcome ceremonies by this time, but they were all touristy, this one was NOT! The chief chanted a little then we passed around the bowl. For all those who don't know, Kava is a root that is ground up and then water is passed through the powder to make a drink that tasted mostly like dirt. Kava has a small na
rcotic effect and is widely enjoyed by every Fijian pretty much everyday. We get it in Hawaii to, 
but it is not nearly as popular, or spiritually significant. After the ceremony we went river rafting in the makeshift bamboo rafts that pretty much fell apart on us. This was fine because we landed in mud and turned it into a huge mud fight for about half an hour!
We brought school supplies to the children who were more than grateful. The schools that FeeJee Experience visit really get to benefit from this. Each person on the bus spends about 2 dollars on school supplies and the children get to each have their own pencils and notebooks, rather than passing 1 pencil around the class for each child to use as in many of the neighboring villages. The children sang us a song and we even gave them some candy, which was obvious they never get. They were so grateful! 
Afterwards we played a game of rugby with them, which more or less turned into keep away, us vs. them. It was a very fulfilling day that touched my heart in many ways. 
fantastic, only $25 a night. In the U.S. you would pay at least $50 to have a share room at a place like this. It was on an amazing beach, with postcard type views, 8 beds in a room and 2 bathrooms, free snorkeling and kayaking gear. It being the last night of FeeJee Experience, we partied down! Sasha was a fun and games organizer there and he saw to it that we played 
many drunken games. This place is also known for having the best and cheapest scuba diving in Fiji. So the next day when the bus 
departed, I 
stayed (along with 7 others)! I dove for my first time in almost a decade! Because it had been so long I decided to take a course that would not only serve as a refresher, but gave me my PADI Advanced Diving Certification. My partner was Ben, we did our first deep dive (30 m) and night dive. We also got to do a wreck dive, search and recovery dive, and a navigation dive. I have to say, the night dive is something I will NEVER
EVER forget. It was bloody fantastic and afterward I was on cloud 9 for about 6 hours! After 3 days there, the 8 of us who got off the bus, got on the next FeeJee Experience bus (they came every other day with a new group). The last night at Volivoli, the 2 dive instructors (Paula was ours, pictured below driving the boat) informed Ben and I that we had one last test to receive our certification... We had to drink a BULA drink! What is this you may ask, apparently it is a shot of whiskey in a pint of beer that you chug up-side-down! After we did we, we made them do it. The 4 of us afterwards are pictured .
