It's Unusual...
10:24pm: As an Aussie to actually "go back in time" when flying back from an overseas destination, but as Fiji is 2 hours ahead of Australia it happened!
So now it feels like 12:30am, but I can't head off to bed yet because I'm just finishing up making cupcakes for the Get Together at Mum and Dad's retirement village tomorrow, the last batch is just about ready to take out of the oven. And I should maybe make the frosting tonight, so I can frost them tomorrow, or maybe just wait for tomorrow, hmmm...
I do remain confounded over the flatness of my cupcakes...I put the baking powder and self-raising flour in, but they hardly rise at all. I wonder what I'm doing wrong? Hopefully, Mum won't be too disappointed by their appearance, and I only got 18 out of this batch as well so I'm not sure I can even taste-test one.
But I digress, this morning I was in Fiji! It's really amazing what planes allow us to do...I mean it seems like ages ago, but yeah it only took four and a half hours to travel 3,000km or so!
It has to be said, the difference in the weather is a bit of blow, it was a lovely 24 or 25 degrees C in Fiji, but now back here in Sydney it's 12 degrees! Brrrr.
Although, I did have a bit of a bad time this morning, when my IBS decided to wig out a bit...I ended up not having much breakfast - which wasn't helped by the fact the toast at the hotel this morning wasn't very tasty. The fruit platter was good though!
Now we didn't need to get to the airport until 1:35pm, but last night Mum came up with a plan to visit a very fancy hotel on the way to the airport, it's one of those places that have overwater bungalows, so we checked out at 11am to head that way. We ended up running a bit behind schedule and the taxi driver drove at quite a rate of knots! Not gonna lie I did briefly wonder if we were throwing caution too much to the wind and might end up having an accident, however, as you can tell by the fact I'm writing this we did not.
As it was though, we only had about twenty minutes or so at the hotel, we didn't venture very far into it, but we did go to the restaurant and had a drink (coffee for Mum and her friend, and what was meant to be an iced chocolate for me, but I think was a regular milkshake). The restaurant overlooks this beach which might be man made, that has the overwater huts and there's also beachside bungalows, so all in all a very fancy hotel indeed! I might need to save up my pennies to go there, although it probably wouldn't be for the whole time since that place is like $500 a night! o.O
It was a bit of a concern when our taxi driver, who was supposed to come and get us at 12:45pm didn't show up at first! I'm not sure where he got to, but it seems everyone knows everyone in Fiji and the hotel clerk was able to call him and let him know we were waiting.
We needed have worried too much though, because we got to the airport in good time - although I hoped to spot this goat we saw on our way to the hotel when we first arrived, Mum's friend actually spotted him first, he was hanging out in an old broken down car that had become overgrown with plants. You'd think this wouldn't be a hard thing to spot, but as I said we didn't manage to spot him.
Now the idea was that I would split off from Mum and her friend and do the whole checking in process and getting to the plane and all that by myself like I'm going to need to do when I come home from Japan next year. It didn't quite go that way though, firstly, I'd forgotten to download my boarding pass after Mum checked us all in, so we went to the check in counter together to get them printed off. Then I went off to change clothes and go through security and x-ray by myself, which was a bit an ass because as always I have way too many bags :OP I managed to get through in the end without losing anything.
The Nadi Airport is quite small compared to Sydney and I spotted Mum and her friend pretty quickly on the other side of security, but I decided to sit separately from them, at least until I went to fill up my water bottle, then I went and sat with them.
Then the plane was delayed, not for super long fortunately, but during this time I found out what the security people meant when they told me not to put the large rubber band back on my carry-on bag (it's a bag that has a lid that pops open and it's a bit iffy so the rubber band helps stop it from suddenly popping open at inopportune moments), apparently due to Aussie quarantine rules, they check your bag again before you can get on the plane. Also after filling my bottle with water I ended up having to pour it out. Shame.
Then, I was supposed to be sitting on the other side of the plane and a row back from Mum and her friend, but when we went to the check-in counter, the chap who printed off our boarding passes reassigned my seat so we were all seating together. In the end though this turned out to be a win, because firstly, the person who I would have been sitting next to was rather tall and wide so I would have been squished and secondly the tray table of my original seat didn't work! So thanks check-in counter chap!
On the good news side, even though the estimated time for the flight back from Fiji without the tailwind was five hours, that must have been a worse case scenario because as I wrote earlier it was four and a half hours. On the bad news side, the wi-fi wasn't working on the plane so even though I downloaded the Qantas entertainment app I couldn't watch Ghosts liked I'd hope, so instead I did one of the giant crosswords in the book Mum's friend purchased, I didn't actually finish it LOL.
Also while there wasn't 42 kids on this flight, there were two in close proximity to us and they cried like practically the whole flight! I mean, daaamn I get it during take off and landing, but the rest of the time... On the plus side there was a third baby who slept the whole ride so it might have been worse LOL.
Right, so it's coming up to midnight now, which is like 2am, so I'm gonna wrap this up here and head for bed even thought the archery is on at the Olympics which I enjoy watching. Ah well, I'll have to catch up I guess.
Goodnight all!
Hunger
Comfort
Hygiene
Energy
Fun
Social
Bladder
Room
Plane
Reach for the laser with Antic's Sims-ulator!
So now it feels like 12:30am, but I can't head off to bed yet because I'm just finishing up making cupcakes for the Get Together at Mum and Dad's retirement village tomorrow, the last batch is just about ready to take out of the oven. And I should maybe make the frosting tonight, so I can frost them tomorrow, or maybe just wait for tomorrow, hmmm...
I do remain confounded over the flatness of my cupcakes...I put the baking powder and self-raising flour in, but they hardly rise at all. I wonder what I'm doing wrong? Hopefully, Mum won't be too disappointed by their appearance, and I only got 18 out of this batch as well so I'm not sure I can even taste-test one.
But I digress, this morning I was in Fiji! It's really amazing what planes allow us to do...I mean it seems like ages ago, but yeah it only took four and a half hours to travel 3,000km or so!
It has to be said, the difference in the weather is a bit of blow, it was a lovely 24 or 25 degrees C in Fiji, but now back here in Sydney it's 12 degrees! Brrrr.
Although, I did have a bit of a bad time this morning, when my IBS decided to wig out a bit...I ended up not having much breakfast - which wasn't helped by the fact the toast at the hotel this morning wasn't very tasty. The fruit platter was good though!
Now we didn't need to get to the airport until 1:35pm, but last night Mum came up with a plan to visit a very fancy hotel on the way to the airport, it's one of those places that have overwater bungalows, so we checked out at 11am to head that way. We ended up running a bit behind schedule and the taxi driver drove at quite a rate of knots! Not gonna lie I did briefly wonder if we were throwing caution too much to the wind and might end up having an accident, however, as you can tell by the fact I'm writing this we did not.
As it was though, we only had about twenty minutes or so at the hotel, we didn't venture very far into it, but we did go to the restaurant and had a drink (coffee for Mum and her friend, and what was meant to be an iced chocolate for me, but I think was a regular milkshake). The restaurant overlooks this beach which might be man made, that has the overwater huts and there's also beachside bungalows, so all in all a very fancy hotel indeed! I might need to save up my pennies to go there, although it probably wouldn't be for the whole time since that place is like $500 a night! o.O
It was a bit of a concern when our taxi driver, who was supposed to come and get us at 12:45pm didn't show up at first! I'm not sure where he got to, but it seems everyone knows everyone in Fiji and the hotel clerk was able to call him and let him know we were waiting.
We needed have worried too much though, because we got to the airport in good time - although I hoped to spot this goat we saw on our way to the hotel when we first arrived, Mum's friend actually spotted him first, he was hanging out in an old broken down car that had become overgrown with plants. You'd think this wouldn't be a hard thing to spot, but as I said we didn't manage to spot him.
Now the idea was that I would split off from Mum and her friend and do the whole checking in process and getting to the plane and all that by myself like I'm going to need to do when I come home from Japan next year. It didn't quite go that way though, firstly, I'd forgotten to download my boarding pass after Mum checked us all in, so we went to the check in counter together to get them printed off. Then I went off to change clothes and go through security and x-ray by myself, which was a bit an ass because as always I have way too many bags :OP I managed to get through in the end without losing anything.
The Nadi Airport is quite small compared to Sydney and I spotted Mum and her friend pretty quickly on the other side of security, but I decided to sit separately from them, at least until I went to fill up my water bottle, then I went and sat with them.
Then the plane was delayed, not for super long fortunately, but during this time I found out what the security people meant when they told me not to put the large rubber band back on my carry-on bag (it's a bag that has a lid that pops open and it's a bit iffy so the rubber band helps stop it from suddenly popping open at inopportune moments), apparently due to Aussie quarantine rules, they check your bag again before you can get on the plane. Also after filling my bottle with water I ended up having to pour it out. Shame.
Then, I was supposed to be sitting on the other side of the plane and a row back from Mum and her friend, but when we went to the check-in counter, the chap who printed off our boarding passes reassigned my seat so we were all seating together. In the end though this turned out to be a win, because firstly, the person who I would have been sitting next to was rather tall and wide so I would have been squished and secondly the tray table of my original seat didn't work! So thanks check-in counter chap!
On the good news side, even though the estimated time for the flight back from Fiji without the tailwind was five hours, that must have been a worse case scenario because as I wrote earlier it was four and a half hours. On the bad news side, the wi-fi wasn't working on the plane so even though I downloaded the Qantas entertainment app I couldn't watch Ghosts liked I'd hope, so instead I did one of the giant crosswords in the book Mum's friend purchased, I didn't actually finish it LOL.
Also while there wasn't 42 kids on this flight, there were two in close proximity to us and they cried like practically the whole flight! I mean, daaamn I get it during take off and landing, but the rest of the time... On the plus side there was a third baby who slept the whole ride so it might have been worse LOL.
Right, so it's coming up to midnight now, which is like 2am, so I'm gonna wrap this up here and head for bed even thought the archery is on at the Olympics which I enjoy watching. Ah well, I'll have to catch up I guess.
Goodnight all!
Hunger
Comfort
Hygiene
Energy
Fun
Social
Bladder
Room
Plane
Reach for the laser with Antic's Sims-ulator!