Exploring Downtown

This morning I woke up and decided to go for a run down to the shore and run along a sidewalk by the ocean. It was nice while it was still cloudy, but once the sun came out I thought I was going to die for a little while (sorry if you're reading this Mich and Lacey, but getting back in running shape has been put on hold for a little while I focus on not getting kidnapped/robbed in my new place). There was a nice breeze off of the ocean though, and I made it a few miles before I had had enough. The beaches around Suva aren't much to look at - since a reef breaks the waves way out from land, we get no waves and a lot of mud, which isn't too pretty. But, I was very excited to find out (upon closer inspection of the mud at low tide) that there weren't just lots of little orange flowers in the mud, but actually crabs! Hundreds of tiny crabs were running around, smacking each other with their big orange fighting claws that were about the size of the rest of their body. I scampered down to the mud and tried to get a closer look, but they were all very good and hiding in their tiny burrows in the sand, so I was foiled. I'll try to take pictures of them next time I'm down there.

After running, a few of us made a trip downtown to look around the place. Two of the girls in the group actually wanted to get their noses pierced, but it's a little sketchy here: instead of going to a piercing parlor like in the US, you just go to a jewelry shop and they pierce everything using a gun, which isn't too good for cartilage. Arti went through with it anyways, though, and now she has a pretty little stud in her nose. Hopefully nothing will go wrong with it.

Walking around downtown. Eli is rocking a sulu.

Old monument

After getting that done and spending some time wandering around and looking in shops, we found a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant that made big portions of various stir fries for super cheap. We bought a few of these for lunch and had a picnic in the park downtown, and it was really nice to get to sit down in the shade and enjoy the breeze off of the sea.

The park downtown

Mmm, huge amounts of delicious cheap food...

By now, it was time for me to get back to school to go to class, so we hopped on a bus and headed home. Walking back from class, Chauncey and I decided to get some breadfruit off of a tree by the walkway. I picked up a stick, and after whacking at one of the spiky melon-looking things I succeeded in knocking one down. We immediately took it home to try to figure out what to do with it, but unfortunately breadfruit tastes like awful mushrooms. It also secretes a sticky white sap that I am currently soaking off of the knife that we used to hack the thing apart. My first experience with smacking oranges off of trees went pretty well, so I guess you can't win them all.

Chauncey with our breadfruit. She looks happy because this is before we found out how gross breadfruit is.