Had to post this cute picture of my baby niece, Rosalee, with Nan, her great grandmother. We get to see Rosie this Christmas and can't wait! Hopefully we'll get to see Nan before too long as well.
Friday, September 26, 2008
BABY ROSIE!
Had to post this cute picture of my baby niece, Rosalee, with Nan, her great grandmother. We get to see Rosie this Christmas and can't wait! Hopefully we'll get to see Nan before too long as well.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Tahiti and Moorea
So Priya and I recently got back from our romantic getaway to Tahiti and Moorea. We were in Tahiti for three days and then took a ferry over to Moorea for another four days. Here's a brief description of our trip and the islands.
Tahiti is the largest and most populated island in French Polynesia, though, by comparison, it's a little smaller than Oahu and considerably less populated (175,000 people compared to 800,000 people living on Oahu). The first thing you notice about Tahiti is the dramatically steep, green mountains that rise up into the clouds.
This is a picture of Papeete, Tahiti's largest city, as seen from our ferry returning from Moorea. Despite the few big hotels you can see in this picture, it's actually a quaint city...reminds me of a mix between a much larger Avalon (on Catalina Island) and New Orleans' French Quarter. It has sidewalk cafes, an open air market, and a certain sleaziness that would probably turn off some American travelers. Of course, everyone in Tahiti speaks French and/or Tahitian, with English being a widely spoken third language.
Papeete was cool but this vacation was all about relaxing on the beach.
Tahiti has almost entirely black sand beaches as it is a volcanic sort of place. (I wish I could say that I took this photo but I actually downloaded from Wikipedia...we somehow managed to not take any pictures of the black sand beaches.)
Our resort had one of the few non-black sand beaches on the island. We spent lots of time lying on the beach and around the pool at our resort. Tahiti is the kind of place where you can shamelessly lie around for days because, frankly, there isn't a whole lot else to do. It's a guilt free beach vacation in paradise.
Here's another picture of the same view at sunset. The island that you see in the distance is Moorea, which means yellow lizard.
We did manage to go on a half-day 4X4 tour up into Tahiti during which we saw some cool waterfalls and swam in a beautiful river. Here's a pic from that excursion.
After our time in Tahiti we took off on a ferry to Moorea. Physically, Moorea is distinctively paw shaped with two nearly symmetrical bays on the northern side of the island that are separated by a mountainous peninsula. Here's what I'm talking about:
This aerial photo shows the two bays. You can also see them in these next two photos.
This is Cook's Bay, named after Captain Cook who, as we were told a thousand times, actually landed in Oponohu Bay and never went to Cook's Bay. Cook was not the first European explorer to reach the island but rather the third behind fellow Brit Samuel Wallis and Frenchie Louis Antoine de Bougainville, both of whom arrived in the 1760's. Wallis was ill and didn't stay long enough to make much of an impact. Bougainville and his men, however, had a good old time. They were greeted by the natives with outrigger canoes filled with fruit and women, the implication clearly being that the men were to each choose a woman of their liking and make sweet love. Bougainville's men happily oblidged. Many of them actually abandoned the captain and ran off with their native girlfriends. Surprisingly, Bougainville appreciated that the Tahitian's didn't have an "ownership society" like we got here in America, and tolerated a good amount of theivery as well as the looseness of the women.
Cook, however, was not as liberal-minded and destroyed some of the villagers' homes after a goat was stolen from his men. He also locked up some of the island's chief's in order to get back a few of his men who had run off with their own native girlfriends. While Cook didn't seem to enjoy the people of Moorea, they were apparently amused by Cook and often stole things from him only to give them back a few days later. It must have been love-hate relationship because Cook returned to the island twice and was warmly welcomed on both occassions, or so we were told.
In this picture, taken from the same spot, you can see Oponohu Bay.
Moorea is maybe 1/3 the size of Tahiti and has only 16,000 residents. It takes about an hour and half to drive the one road around the entire island. Actually, there is one other road that goes up to the lookout from where these pictures were taken. From there you can hike out into the island's jungles. We did exactly that and found some cool stuff, including ruins of several old temples and this monstrous banyan (or banyan-like) tree. It's hard to judge the size of the tree from this picture but it was easily 30 feet around. I climbed it a little before Priya made me get down. Oh to be a kid again.
Okay, so the interior of Moorea is cool, but the main attraction is the warm turquoise waters that surround the island and all of the cool stuff that lives in the water. The picture at the very bottom of the blog is the view from the end of the dock near our bungalow. This next picture is of Priya looking serene on the "dock" of our bungalow.
The little buoys in the water are marking a coral garden so that kayakers don't bump into it. There was great snorkeling all around our bungalow. Priya even got into it and she generally doesn't take to swimming.
This is another picture of our resort in Moorea. Again, not a bad place to lie around.
Other highlights of Moorea included feeding sting rays, swimming with black tipped sharks and eating some delicious fresh seafood.
The rays are not at all afraid to swim right up to you. In fact, they hover around like pigeons waiting to be fed...like demonic water pigeons.
All in all, Moorea is one of three most breathtakingly beautiful places I have ever been. (The other two being Kaua'i and Rocky Mountain National Park.) I would live on that little island for the rest of my life if Priya would come with me. Maybe if McCain wins I can convince her.
Someday.
Tahiti is the largest and most populated island in French Polynesia, though, by comparison, it's a little smaller than Oahu and considerably less populated (175,000 people compared to 800,000 people living on Oahu). The first thing you notice about Tahiti is the dramatically steep, green mountains that rise up into the clouds.
This is a picture of Papeete, Tahiti's largest city, as seen from our ferry returning from Moorea. Despite the few big hotels you can see in this picture, it's actually a quaint city...reminds me of a mix between a much larger Avalon (on Catalina Island) and New Orleans' French Quarter. It has sidewalk cafes, an open air market, and a certain sleaziness that would probably turn off some American travelers. Of course, everyone in Tahiti speaks French and/or Tahitian, with English being a widely spoken third language.
Papeete was cool but this vacation was all about relaxing on the beach.
Tahiti has almost entirely black sand beaches as it is a volcanic sort of place. (I wish I could say that I took this photo but I actually downloaded from Wikipedia...we somehow managed to not take any pictures of the black sand beaches.)
Our resort had one of the few non-black sand beaches on the island. We spent lots of time lying on the beach and around the pool at our resort. Tahiti is the kind of place where you can shamelessly lie around for days because, frankly, there isn't a whole lot else to do. It's a guilt free beach vacation in paradise.
Here's another picture of the same view at sunset. The island that you see in the distance is Moorea, which means yellow lizard.
We did manage to go on a half-day 4X4 tour up into Tahiti during which we saw some cool waterfalls and swam in a beautiful river. Here's a pic from that excursion.
After our time in Tahiti we took off on a ferry to Moorea. Physically, Moorea is distinctively paw shaped with two nearly symmetrical bays on the northern side of the island that are separated by a mountainous peninsula. Here's what I'm talking about:
This aerial photo shows the two bays. You can also see them in these next two photos.
This is Cook's Bay, named after Captain Cook who, as we were told a thousand times, actually landed in Oponohu Bay and never went to Cook's Bay. Cook was not the first European explorer to reach the island but rather the third behind fellow Brit Samuel Wallis and Frenchie Louis Antoine de Bougainville, both of whom arrived in the 1760's. Wallis was ill and didn't stay long enough to make much of an impact. Bougainville and his men, however, had a good old time. They were greeted by the natives with outrigger canoes filled with fruit and women, the implication clearly being that the men were to each choose a woman of their liking and make sweet love. Bougainville's men happily oblidged. Many of them actually abandoned the captain and ran off with their native girlfriends. Surprisingly, Bougainville appreciated that the Tahitian's didn't have an "ownership society" like we got here in America, and tolerated a good amount of theivery as well as the looseness of the women.
Cook, however, was not as liberal-minded and destroyed some of the villagers' homes after a goat was stolen from his men. He also locked up some of the island's chief's in order to get back a few of his men who had run off with their own native girlfriends. While Cook didn't seem to enjoy the people of Moorea, they were apparently amused by Cook and often stole things from him only to give them back a few days later. It must have been love-hate relationship because Cook returned to the island twice and was warmly welcomed on both occassions, or so we were told.
In this picture, taken from the same spot, you can see Oponohu Bay.
Moorea is maybe 1/3 the size of Tahiti and has only 16,000 residents. It takes about an hour and half to drive the one road around the entire island. Actually, there is one other road that goes up to the lookout from where these pictures were taken. From there you can hike out into the island's jungles. We did exactly that and found some cool stuff, including ruins of several old temples and this monstrous banyan (or banyan-like) tree. It's hard to judge the size of the tree from this picture but it was easily 30 feet around. I climbed it a little before Priya made me get down. Oh to be a kid again.
Okay, so the interior of Moorea is cool, but the main attraction is the warm turquoise waters that surround the island and all of the cool stuff that lives in the water. The picture at the very bottom of the blog is the view from the end of the dock near our bungalow. This next picture is of Priya looking serene on the "dock" of our bungalow.
The little buoys in the water are marking a coral garden so that kayakers don't bump into it. There was great snorkeling all around our bungalow. Priya even got into it and she generally doesn't take to swimming.
This is another picture of our resort in Moorea. Again, not a bad place to lie around.
Other highlights of Moorea included feeding sting rays, swimming with black tipped sharks and eating some delicious fresh seafood.
The rays are not at all afraid to swim right up to you. In fact, they hover around like pigeons waiting to be fed...like demonic water pigeons.
All in all, Moorea is one of three most breathtakingly beautiful places I have ever been. (The other two being Kaua'i and Rocky Mountain National Park.) I would live on that little island for the rest of my life if Priya would come with me. Maybe if McCain wins I can convince her.
Someday.
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