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Honeymoon Day 5 – Vinaka Fiji, and kia ora New Zealand!

May 26, 2009 By: Judy Category: Travel

Saturday, November 22nd, 2008

We had to wake up early today to catch our ride back to the mainland and make our 10AM flight. The earliest daily seaplane flight is at 8:30AM, and given the time it takes to the airport, that would be much too close to comfort. I had originally booked our last night in Fiji on the mainland, assuming we’d take the boat back the day before our flight. A month before our trip, the resort that runs the seaplane service got a booking with an early morning seaplane arrival, which means we could get an earlier flight back to the mainland. We really lucked out; it was relaxed and convenient to spend all our time in Fiji at the same place.

Unfortunately for me, the sickness I thought I had paradise-d away never left. Either that or I got something new. When I woke up this morning, I had that feeling in my throat: the one where you know you’re going to be miserably sick later in the day. I was already feeling a little worn. At breakfast, I stuck with fruits and muffins and drinking as much orange juice as possible. Kelvin helped himself to cereal with milk. Because we had to leave early, the dining area was open earlier than usual. My appetite was sucking cuz I was feeling ill, so a staff lady wrapped my muffins to-go. I miss their muffins.

After breakfast, we looked over our tab for our trip. Everything looked to be in order. The total cost for all the food, services, and activities not included with the cost of the room after Fiji’s ridiculous 17.5% government tax: 1331FJD. At the time of our honeymoon, it was about .55USD to FJD, so about $732. Overall, I was very satisfied with our stay at Navutu Stars. The food was good, and the people (and dogs) were very friendly. Everything was excellent, especially considering how inexpensive they are (relatively speaking, anyways). I thought staying at the same place for 5 days, I’d run out of things to do and get bored. Seeing how much stuff I tried to cram in on the last day, that obviously wasn’t the case. We even missed out activities I had planned on doing. For example, we never had a private picnic on a private beach, and we never explored the island the resort was on or snorkel the resort’s beaches. Maybe next time. *sigh*

With the bill settled, we waited in the dining area until our departure. I can’t remember when we were supposed to leave, but they were running late. I remember getting anxious, but all the staff people were very chill and relaxed about it. It was very Fijian of them, I guess. When they got word the seaplane was almost arriving, the staff gathered together, gave us leis, and sang their send-off song. We got on the resort boat with Seruvi, and we headed to the dock of Turtle Island Resort, the resort that runs the seaplane service.

We watched the seaplane land and the staff of Turtle Island Resort carry away (literally, at least for the woman passenger) the vacationing couple that deboarded the plane from the beach. Seruvi dropped us off at the dock, where we waited with several native Fijians and various food supplies.

Our ride

It turns out all the people waiting were hoping to get rides back to the mainland. The pilot (who I’m guessing was Canadian, based on his Canadian-flagged hat) was yelling at them for not telling him, as he would have brought something bigger than a 4-person plane. As is, he could only take one other person, aside from us, of course. They dumped all the food supplies and luggage into the back, and I sat in the back seat with some random Fijian who had really terrible body odor. (I tried to breathe through my mouth for the trip.) Kelvin sat shotgun to pilot in the front. The seaplane coasted to a location where it could take off properly, which seemed to take FOREVER as the seaplane moves fairly slowly on the water surface.

I’m somewhat afraid of flying. I don’t like turbulence, but the scariest thing for me is, by far, takeoff. And at this time, I was in a tiny, old seaplane crammed in the back with some smelly Fijian guy. Despite this, it was surprisingly not scary. The takeoff and landings were completely smooth. It was a beautiful day, and apparently the air was as calm as the waters, as there was zero turbulence for the entire 45 minute flight. The views were so gorgeous; Fiji looks great from the air. It costs a lot more to take a seaplane than to take a boat, but it was worth the money to make our trip easier and to experience the flight at least once.

We arrived at the mainland around 8:50 AM to this dinky dock in the middle of nowhere. There was an old Fijian guy waiting to help us deboard (where he came from, I don’t know), and the cab Navutu Stars had arranged for us was already there.

We had a little over an hour to make our flight, so we were rush-rush. The taxi driver was super-duper nice. As he drove, he made to point out things we were passing by, including interesting landmarks. He also got us to the airport in 20 minutes. I read you’re not supposed to tip in Fiji, so I didn’t tip him. In hindsight, I wish I had. I never converted any of the coin Fijian dollars I had (which was probably a good $10 of coins), and I don’t know if I converted all my Fijian bills. The guy was friendly, fast, and probably would have had better use for my coins than them just sitting my change jar at work right now.

When we got to the airport, we rushed through check-in and security. We arrived to the boarding gate as passengers were getting on the plane, so we really cut it close. But we made it, and it was on to our next destination: Auckland, New Zealand!

The flight was only three hours, so it wasn’t long until we got there. We were seated near a couple stewardesses who told us the plane and crew were from Los Angeles. They guessed correctly that we were honeymooners, saying we “looked like honeymooners”.

Our first look at New Zealand

When we got off the plane, the air felt SO nice. After being in Fiji’s sticky air for 5 days, it was nice to be back in a place with a similar climate to the Bay Area (basically, perfect). We exchanged our Fijian bills at an exchange before customs, but it turns out there’s banks and exchange places outside the secured areas as well. We found the WestPac ATM. WestPac is the largest bank in Australia and has ATMs everywhere in New Zealand. They’re also in cahoots with Bank of America, which means you can withdraw money from your BofA account at WestPac ATMs without ATM surcharges or conversion fees. We were also using a Capital One credit card (which has no international conversion fees AND covers the $1 fee Visa/Mastercard charges) for all our honeymoon expenses, so we were doing direct conversions for our entire trip. The only exception was doing currency exchanges at the airport, where they overcharge you big time for the convenience.

Buy our smokes, btw SMOKING KILLS.

We took a cab from the airport to downtown Auckland, where our hotel, SkyCity Grand Hotel, is located. The ride was long and seemed inefficient. I thought the cab driver might have been ripping us off, but more probably is that there isn’t a good direct route into downtown. We were dropped off in front of our hotel, where the doorguy helped us take our luggage into the lobby. (Kelvin’s bag makes this awful noise when rolled, and the doorguy carried the bag instead of rolling it after like 2 seconds of rolling, lol. Kelvin’s father didn’t lend us the greatest bags; my bag was hard to roll cuz the wheels were too close together and would constantly fall over to its side. I kinda chuckle thinking back on me and Kelvin’s constant bitching about them. I probably should have registered for some luggage.) Our check-in went very smoothly, and we went directly to our room after check-in. The hotel has some awesomely smooth and quiet elevators, and the elevators doors make a soft hiss that makes me feel like I’m on a sci-fi show.

I had asked for a room with a view in my online reservation, but I know that’s always hit or miss. This time, however, was definitely a hit. I can’t remember the exact floor number, but we were in the teens. Plus, our room faced the harbor and the SkyTower, so the view was amazing. (I know you can watch people do the thrill-ride jump thing off SkyTower, but I never got see anyone do it while I was there.) The room wasn’t the largest, but it was comfortable and very chic. I don’t usually stay in nice hotels, so this was pretty awesome to me. This was probably Kelvin’s favorite accommodation for the trip.

The view

Kelvin made these cool panorama images with his digital camera. I forgot to post the one from Fiji, but here’s the one for our SkyCity Grand hotel room.

After settling in, we ventured out to the city to get some food and explore. This section of downtown has several hotels within the same area, and the first place we went was to the food court in the mall (call the Atrium) below the Crowne Plaza Hotel, across Albert St. from SkyCity Grand. We were looking for some real food aside from the airplane food we had earlier. The food court was an international food court, so no burgers or hot dog on a stick. Instead, there were stalls for every kind of Asian food you could think of, plus Mexican and Italian food. One stall, Uncle Jack’s, caught my eye because of the pictures of beef noodles on their menu. On the other side of the stall was a Quickly Fresh, a pearl milk tea place. From this and listening to the Mandarin spoken by the FOB-y looking folks behind the counter, I deduced it was Taiwanese stall. I dunno why I was so excited about a Taiwanese food court stand in New Zealand, but I really wanted to eat here. Also, I was definitely sick at this point, so I was happy to have noodle soup. The pearl milk tea was decent like any other pearl milk tea I’ve ever had; the beef noodles were only okay.

After our snack, we proceeded towards Queen St., walking through some shopping stuff on the first of the next building. It was very reminiscent of Taiwan, as all the shops looked like they sold cheap made-in-random-Asian-country cheap clothing and accessories. On Queen St., our store called JayJays caught our eye. I love this store. Everything was SO cheap, even more so with the favorable exchange rate for us. They basically sell snarky clothing for poor-ass teenagers. While Kelvin and I are old people, we’re immature and cheap, so the store really appealed to us. I bought a couple clearance shirts, as did Kelvin. And there were SO many cute summer outfits. Tip: If you’re going to New Zealand and Fiji in November, go to New Zealand first so you can buy all your cute resort clothes before heading to Fiji. I found NOTHING at home before leaving for my trip, and seeing all this cute (and CHEAP) summer wear after leaving Fiji frustrated me.

After shopping, we walked around some more. We dropped by an arcade where Kelvin found out he’s nowhere near as good at Beatmania as he used to be.

Queen Street

We eventually made it to some movie theater. Since we had a lot of time to kill, we watched Burn After Reading (decent, but very strange and dark).

This movie is Four Christmases in the US.

After the movie we wandered a little more, passing by City Hall before heading back to the hotel.

We dropped by SkyCity (not to be mistaken with SkyCity Grand across the street), which is where the SkyTower and casino are located. I can’t remember, but I don’t think we did much at the casino on this night. We were looking for dinner, and we found a lot of places were closed already or too fancy for what I felt like having. (I wasn’t feeling optimal at this point.) Back at the Crowne Plaza, there was a ramen place called Genzui still open on the main floor, so we had dinner there to satiate my noodle soup needs.

After dinner, we called it a night. I wanted to get as much rest as possible so I could be well for the rest of my honeymoon. (It didn’t work.) We watched more Lord of the Rings, and I familiarized myself with New Zealand television. I wish I had written stuff down while I was traveling, because I remember very little of it. For TV, I remember there was a SkyTV and TV3 (and I guess 1 and 2), and that there were movies on all the time during primetime. And all the commercials had people saying things funny. For example, the shampoo Fructis: in commercials in the US, we hear them call it Frook-tees, while in New Zealand, they made it sound a lot less exotic by calling it Fruck-tis.