June and Kristiina's Adventures in Fiji, Australia and New Zealand

Recently June and I were lucky enough to cross the equator and Pacific Ocean and get a glimpse of these beautiful countries. Hopefully these photos will make you go visit too!

We started out the journey in Houston, where I had to race through customs and was the last person to make it onto June's flight. Then we arrived in Los Angeles! I hadn't visited LA since I was 7, so I was very excited. Ryan picked us up at the airport and Amanda and her husband Jon met us for a lovely dinner at Maria's house. LA also has the Pacific! Tropical, but desert overcrowded tropical.

We departed LA at 11pm, and after 9 hours of crossing the Pacific and many time zones we arrived in Fiji at 5am. We rested for a few hours and went on a wonderful snorkeling tour to Mala Mala island. It was tiny and there were more staff than guests. The day was perfect, unbelievably blue water, great snorkeling and friendly guides. And the starfish were blue and we didn't see any sharks!!!

When it was time to go, we sadly climbed into a tiny boat, which took us the to the big boat. When we stepped between the boats you really get a good idea of how BLUE and CLEAR the water was!

Perhaps our favorite (or most magical) part of the day was during the quick boat ride back, when the snorkel guides broke into song the whole way! Here is video of our favorite Fijian song. June loves the way the water goes rushing by in the background. Enjoy.

That night we were pleased to see how beautiful the hotel beaches were at night. Each hotel had a torch lighting ceremony where large men in grass skirts would beat on wooden drums and run around lighting torches all along the beach. It was great!

For our second day in Fiji we took another snorkeling tour to an island. Unfortunately we went with a bigger tour (Captain Cook Cruises) and it was very impersonal. We took a big beautiful "sailboat" (we used the tiny motor the whole time) to an island 2 hours away, but sadly it was 2 hours along the coast in a SLOW boat, not 2 hours out into the open ocean.

The crew also sang songs, but they weren't as good, and no one was interested. :(

Then they made this horrible ceremonial tea called Kava. It's mixed by hand and drunk out of a communal coconut shell. And it makes your mouth and throat numb and tingly and it tastes as good as it looks!

June and I were the first women to drink it (and luckily only the 5th or 6th people) and here June is saying "It's not that bad..."

This second island was also beautiful and had great snorkeling. June and I were the best snorkelers out there and spent all our time in the water. We saw big heads of coral and also lots of poisonous Crown of Thorns urchins which are destroying the coral in Pacific and Australia.

More to come!