December 9, Sunday

December 9, Sunday

Today is my check-out day.  By 11 am my bags are downstairs and I spend the rest of the morning and early afternoon in the lobby continuing to update my blog. 

At 3:30 pm I get ready to catch the bus for my return trip to the Nadi Airport.   The young lady from the travel counter waits with me.  It is supposed to be a 4 hour ride and the bus stops at every town along the way, even though it said it was an Express Bus.  Still, $22 Fiji instead of the $200 it cost by taxi makes a difference and it isn’t that much longer.  My flight on Air Pacific is scheduled to leave at 10:35 pm so there is plenty of time.  The bus should be here at 3:40; at 3:45 there is no sign of it, but she gets a call from the bus company saying they have mechanical problems, so they will send a car for me instead.   What?   Yes, they sent a car and the guy drove me all the way to Nadi Airport, and I didn’t have to pay anything extra.  AMAZING.    He picked me up at 4:10 and it was exactly a 3 hour drive to the airport.

The drive went well and I paid closer attention when we drove past Pacific Harbour.  They definitely have nice beaches.   And there were two other areas with nice resorts:   Naviti Resort, Maui Bay, and Fiji Hideaway about 1 ½ hours from Nadi;  and near Sigatoka Town about 1 hour outside of Nadi.  And these three areas were bathed in sunshine as we drove by.

Sorry,  no photos.  My camera still refuses to open up properly, so I'm unable to take pictures.

Things were slow going at the airport; but then everything is slow in Fiji.  It’s the heat mostly, but they are an easy going people and don’t rush to do anything.  It took one hour to check in, and I was near the beginning of the line!   I had time to have a meal before the flight: pumpkin soup and lamb samosas.  Very tasty for airport food.  I also drank an entire bottle of water as well as a bottle of juice.

The flight left on schedule and I dosed off and on through the 6 hour flight to Hawaii.

December 9, Sunday    {Country 29 – USA}

No, that date is not an error.  I crossed the international date line during the night and I get two December 9ths this year!   We arrived in Honolulu on time

We landed at 6:30 am and apart for a glitch getting our luggage (the belt got stuck somewhere and we thought that about 20 bags had been lost somewhere) everything went smoothly.  I caught the shuttle bus to the Waikiki Beach area, right to the door of the Stay Waikiki Hotel on Koa Avenue.  The only problem was that obviously, I could not check in because it was too early.  I was tired, but a cup of coffee revived me (really bad coffee from the hotel, will have to find a good coffee shop nearby).  I spent some time online since I had access to a printer and needed to print the documents for my cruise. 

I’ve also decided that I have to buy another camera.  The Panasonic I purchased in Hong Kong refuses to open now; same problem I had with the Sony.  The next one I buy will not have this type of lens.  It will mean a bigger and heavier camera, but I have no choice.  At 10 am I decided to go out and explore the area around the hotel.  Waikiki Beach area is not that big actually and I ended up walking quite a long distance, exploring but also keeping an eye out for a camera shop.  No luck.  I asked in quite a few shops and the answer was always the same   Three different camera shops gone.  I did find one shop downtown that sold cameras, but most were the same type that I already had with the colapsable lens.

I spotted a tour shop and stopped in to see about booking tours.  I’ve been able to select what I want to do, but can’t really go until I find a camera.  The guy at the tour shop told me about a free shuttle that would take me to a shopping mall, so I doubled back, found the stop for the trolley and waited.  It supposedly comes every half hour, but there was a marathon run through the streets of Waikiki this morning, which may account for the lengthy delay.  It turned out that the shop they were taking us to was a “Hawaiian Souvenir Shop”, not what I wanted at all.  When I got back on the trolley I asked the driver about the mall and he indicated that he would drop me off on the way back to Waikiki. 

The mall was HUGE.  I went in and immediately went to the information desk to ask about camera shops. Guess what the answer was?  YEP!  “There was one, but it’s closed down”.  He indicated that there were two stores which might carry cameras; both at opposite ends of the mall.  I started with the Japanese sounding name, near the Macy’s Department Store;  “sorry, we don’t carry them anymore”.  Back through the main hall to the info centre to let the gentleman know that there were no cameras there anymore.  I walked all the way to the other end of the mall, near the Sears store.  That shop only sold disposable ones.  I decided to go into the Sears store.  Eureka, they had cameras.  They even had a few models that I was interested in:  a Cannon and a Nikon.   “Oh sorry, we no longer have the Cannon in stock”  and the Nikon wasn’t exactly what I was hoping for.  The lady was really nice and phoned around to different Sears stores in the Honolulu area, but none had the camera I wanted in stock.  I’m doomed !

I had walked through that mall from end to end twice now and decided that I had had enough.  I stopped in at the food court for lunch and realized that I hadn’t eaten anything since my meal at the airport in Nadi 16 hours before.

I left the mall, returned to the shuttle stop and got back to the hotel at 3:30.  My room was ready, my feet were sore and swollen.  Time for shower and a rest.  Tonight I will be searching the internet to hopefully find the location of a GOOD camera shop.  There HAS to be one somewhere.