Meet the Friends

Sunday morning Gin and I decided to opt out of going to the village for the Sunday mass. We did our usual morning thing. Did nothing! We laid in bed, ate breakfast, laid on beach chairs.

Gin and I decided to walk around the beach from end-to-end. When we reach one end of the beach, we started chatting with a British couple Ben and Louise. They were the first friends we made at the Octopus resort. They were both from England and were traveling for 8 months. They both worked at a travel agency in England where they met and now we're hoping to get a wedding invitation from them in the future. Contrary to my usual experience of the brits, this lot was very sweet. Instantly, we made friends with them and we started chatting with them about their travels and our travel plans. We made such good friends with them that we had all meals together everyday until they left for the Coral Coast in Viti Levu (main island).

Since eating was a communal affair, Sunday evening another couple joined our table, Jamie and Poppy. They were both from Wellington, New Zealand. Another wonderful couple we made instant friends with. They were so sweet, they invited Gin and I to stay with them in Wellington, NZ. We both are really looking forward to hanging out with them once we get to Wellington. Jamie is a banker whereas Poppy is a high school teacher. Poppy said she would take us to her high school. Gin and I are very excited to spend a day at her high school. Unfortunately, Jamie and Poppy left on the same day as Ben and Louise did. I was really sad because I was having a wonderful time with these guys. I felt like I would have been happy if we had left the resort with them as well, but we still had 4 days to go.

The Noble family we came with on the boat was very cute. Mr. Noble, Mrs. Noble and their 2 daughters. Their entire family moved to Auckland, NZ in search for a better life. They found that place to be Auckland, NZ. They moved there from England. Mr. Noble always told me what a shame it was not to be doing anything at the beach and just laying around. He had no qualms about saying it straight to my face and that made it very funny. He always had such an English aura about him and a very gentlemanish way of carrying himself. He was a wonderful companion I had when I decided to go for a full half day hike :). Gin got a massage instead on that day.

Linda from Holland was also fun to hangout with. We made fun of her when she said that hives.com was a very popular social networking website in Holland and she had absolutely no idea what hives meant. Ben, Louise, Gin and I had a great time teasing her about it for the rest of the stay. She was a good sport about it.

Therese from Ireland was on a 2 month journey through the beautiful islands of Fiji. She was also an incredible reader. She had finished a 1000 page book in a day. Of course, needless to say, she had finished the last Harry Potter book in a day and here I was still on page 207 after reading it for 2 months. I always use the excuse that I speak 4 languages and normally that spares me weird stares from people.

Thanks to Linda and Therese who kept us company through our communal meals until we came across Neil and Rosie. Neil and Rosie weren't a couple. They were just traveling together for a year. Unlike Ben and Louise, they were much more uptight and British. Anyhow we had fun time with them as team Walu (name of our team) did extremely well on the quiz night at Octopus Resort. Out of 5 rounds team Walu won 3 rounds which involved 2 champagne bottles and 2 rounds of some shots I had never had before. It was the most fun night of activity we had during our stay at Octopus.

Lastly, we met another wonderful couple. Jacinta and Alex were from Melbourne, Australia. Jacinta insisted that we let her know when we would be in Melbourne because she wanted to take us around in Melbourne. Gin and I thought that was very sweet of her. Alex was very nice to offer us drinks when they won $40 in bar tap when their hermit crabs won during international crab racing tournament (at least that's what the resort called it). We couldn't believe that out of about 40 crabs, their crabs Gertrude and Nigel were 1st and 3rd after 3 rounds of the tournament. Our hermit crab Herbert was out of the tournament after the 2nd round. We were excited that at least Jacinta and Alex won.

All in all, I couldn't believe how many awesome people we met at Octopus. Even if some of these people we'll never meet again, they hold a special place in our hearts. We look forward to hanging out with a few of these new friends somewhere along our journey.