fiji unmapped

Land of the Big White Cloud from Jon Carr on Vimeo.

I found a little extra time while touring New Zealand to pull together a highlight video from our trip to Fiji. I hope to create videos for all of our stops to share the experience with friends and family. 

If you like the video, please select the little heart icon in the upper left corner of the video and comments are always welcome. Thanks for watching.

fiji time

It is our last day in Fiji. I am currently watching the sunrise from the beach, which is only a few feet away from our bure. Fiji is the first stop in our unmapped adventure and it is a bit surreal. I feel like I will be returning from vacation and back to work shortly. Instead, we are off to New Zealand tonight for our 18-day camper van excursion. 

Fiji is a beautiful place. The people are incredible, always smiling. Bula is Fijian for hello and whenever you encounter a Fijian they give you a warm welcome and a big smile. Things move pretty slowly around here and it can be attributed to "Fiji time." Annie and I definitely feel it. It is probably a combination of humidity and an influence from the natives but we are moving very leisurely these days. My day consists of three meals, three naps, and a little poolside scrabble. 

I think Fiji was an important first stop for us to unplug after a grueling February of boxing up our lives. I initially had the urge to check email every half hour but Comcast solved that problem. Since I am no longer a paying customer, I lost my primary Comcast email address. It feels a little strange being so unplugged with my phone number shut off and losing my email but also a little empowering at the same time. 

One of the main things I will take away from Fiji is something we learned when we attended the Fijian history talk at our resort, Treasure Island. In Fiji, the natives have a practice of letting everything go from the day every sunset. If something happened or someone wronged them on any level, they forgive and forget by sunset. At sunrise, it's a fresh start each day. It think it is a great philosophy and something I will work to put into practice a little more in my own life. The people are always smiling and so friendly and I'm sure this can be partly attributed to their sunrise philosophy. 

On a final note, we have had a really positive response to the blog and we encourage and appreciate everyone's comments. It makes us feel connected to friends and family. I am sure there will be a little homesickness on the trip so keep the comments coming. 

All for now. I am headed back to our bure. The very short walk will probably take much longer than expected. "Fiji Time."

sfo-lax-nan-akl-syd

After two months of planning we are finally heading off. We have given up our apartment in Cow Hollow and are putting our stuff in a friend's basement. After we move our things we are driving down to Los Angeles to see my family for a few days. We are lending the car to my 18-year old niece who just got her license a week ago. I am not sure if she is more excited about us going on a world trip or the fact that she has a car to drive while we are away. I'm betting on the latter.

We leave for Fiji on Tuesday and decided to treat ourselves by staying at a white sandy beach resort on Treasure Island. It has been grueling getting ready so our goal while we are there is to do absolutely nothing except for lift a cocktail once in awhile. We will be in Fiji for four days and then head to Auckland, New Zealand. We will be in NZ for three weeks traveling from North to South Island.  Based on feedback we have gotten from people who have visited NZ we decided to rent a campervan. This is no ordinary Great American RV. It is a one of a kind hippie campervan. Go all out or go home is what I say. We will be able to sleep and cook in our camper.  From Christchurch, NZ we will fly to Sydney, Australia. I am really excited to see some friends of mine who I met in Japan. And that's what we have planned so far.

Our hope is to be away for six months but it's up in the air. Jon says if we come back sooner than six months it's a bit weak. We'll see what happens. Maybe we will like a particular area and stay there for a few months. Stay tuned to find out.