As he is growing, he has pretty much outgrown his first car seat and we have been looking around for a new one for a while, but selection here is extremely limited. The only model I found so far was some chinese plastic-fantastic thing about which I could not find anything online (the website of the box does not even work, very suspicious) and the pricetag of 299FJD was not too interesting, too.
Seems that thanks to Cost-U-Less we got lucky again. On Saturday we noticed that they just got in 3 car seats from the US, priced at 89.99FJD and looking around online, I could a) varify the mere existance of this thing b) make sure there is no recall on it and c) see that we are not even paying such a bad price, considering that shipping cost to Fiji would be prohibitive.
Yes, he still looks a bit lost in it, but he will grow into it. He sure seems to like his new throne.
No idea what Halloumi is? (or Haloumi? seems both spellings are around) Well, me neither until a few weeks ago when I read about it in a cooking magazine which Ritsu brought me from Australia.
Haloumi is a feta like cheese from Cyprus and what makes it very special is that you can (and you should) fry or grill it. It has an interesting texture and even nicer flavor. Frying it makes it a bit more salty but the cheese can also be eaten as it comes.
We were amazed yesterday when we saw that our main supply grocery store/warehouse has gotten a shipload of new things, among them items we had never seen before in Fiji. Seems they struck a deal with the Australian company Lemnon Foods and now they offer a variety of feta cheeses, the above mentioned haloumi cheese and another nice surprise: semi-dried tomatoes.
I have only once before seen those here in Fiji, and they were molding but still overprized. So, to have these 2 new items inspired me to make some pasta with olives, onion, garlic, chilli flakes and the tomatoes and haloumi. It was delicious.
Here some recipes:
Greek salad with haloumi
Tomato salad with halloumi and broad beans
Prawn and Haloumi Skewers with Mint
Roasted Vegetable and Haloumi Chesse Bruschetta
Lemon Oil Soaked Haloumi With Prosciutto And Rocket (Rocket is known as Arugola salad in other parts of the world)
Cous Cous with Halloumi
Cuttlefish and Haloumi Cheese Skewers
Amazing how his attitude can change within 2 minutes while sitting with mommy watching the evening news. But early evening is known as his grumpy time and since he skipped his afternoon nap, he was even more fuzzy than usual.
Ritsu had the great suggestion of having a tajine for dinner. We already had pretty much all spices in the house, just needed some fresh chicken. Cous Cous is still not available in Fiji (wrong: Thanks to the comment of sfoster I did a new search at MH, and gosh, 2 different kinds of Cous Cous are hiding in the pasta aisle! 5.39 FJD for 500gr), so I made some sweet-spicey raisin-almond rice with it.
The thing with the tajine is the long cooking time. This recipe calls for something like 5 – 10 hours … we kinda stuck with 5 and the chicken really turned out very tender and flavorful. It is actually a fairly easy dish to make and looks even better when you serve it in an authentic Moroccan crockpot.
Always a scary moment when he opens his toothless mouth and you never know what he is going after: the spoon? Your hand? His hand? His stroller?
Speaking of hands, he is very eager to grab the spoon, the foodbowl or the feeding hand. But he really enjoys his solid food and makes it very clear when he wants more. Enjoy the videoclip
I wish sometimes I had this ability to just fall asleep wherever I am.
Have not done that in a while, but home made Hamburgers are always a fun photo op, given the shere size of those meat monsters. No wonder neither of us could finish them.
Julius has been quite talkative and vocal for some time now, only that everytime I try to get that on camera he shuts up as soon as he sees it.
But today we got him fairly good. Vula was making funny faces and noises (which you can hear in the background of the video as well) and Julius forgot the camera about it. His “Baba” and “Wawa” works pretty well, let’s see what comes next.
I am actually getting a bit tired of the topic. By now I have seen 12 out of the 15 broadcast-so-far episodes (something I doubt the ‘reviewer’ below or any of the others here in Fiji who condemn the show have done) and it is a fairly entertaining piece of fiction, it reminds me more of some old Agatha Christie or E.A.Poe stories, it is more of a murder mystery than anything else.
It is in no way the frivolous sex-capade that the commercials and the opinions in the newspaper make it sound like (‘Friends’ is stronger in that department). Instead it actually promotes strong moral values: cheating is wrong (the cheating wife loses her friends, money and I wonder what happened if the husband eventually finds out), respect your parents, marriage is worth fighting for, appreciate your mom’s / wife’s daily workload, stuff like that. Love and the importance of family / friendship are key themes throughout.
From a narrative point of view, the writers manage very well to keep the ‘who-dunnit’ tension level up and throw in a healthy amount of laughter (the only implied nudity I have seen so far was for comic relief only) and you are very curious at the end of one episode, what will happen next week.
Anyways: This reviewer formed his opinion solely from what he has read on the internet (the source of all evil anyway)
“BE careful little eyes what you see”.
I read the review of Desperate Housewives on the Internet after all the hype about this program. Desperate Housewives is the story of six women of Wisteria Lane. One woman is desperate to regain and maintain her self-worth after her husband dumped her for a younger woman. Another is fighting a lonely battle and desperate to bring some semblance of order to her life with four kids under six. A third woman is desperate to remain sexy because there is a long line of men who come and go in her life. The fourth, a former model, is desperate to bring some excitement back into her life even if it means messing around behind her husband’s back. And so on.
Ours is a sexually polluted society. Sexual scenes and words are now entering our living room through television and video. One example is the Twisties advertisement where girls in bikinis are promoting a product. Sex crimes are increasing in our sick society.
Does such TV content contribute toward sexual violence against women and children? Can our traditional and political leaders and Fiji TV assure us that TV programs have no real negative impact on our society? Can they tell that to survivors of sexual abuse, perpetrated by their loved ones crazed by media images. Our eyes are the gateway to our imagination and our imagination is a key to our life. “Be careful, little eyes, what you see.”
Ravi Lal
Suva
Be careful little eyes, what your parents let you watch.
We went to the nearby playgroup again (last week we skipped because of the nasty pimple) and Julius sure had fun. I hope he picks up some inspiration seeing the other kids crawl and run. He is the youngest in the group it seems and he cannot really participate but nonetheless he enjoys it. It also exhausts him quite some which explains why at some point he just closed his eyes and decided it is time for a nap.
Two more items to hopefully close this quintology of articles regarding the TV show here an the fuzz it created in the local newspaper.
Today’s FijiTimes has yet another letter: a DHW fan from Birmingham, UK steps up to defend the show:
Desperate HousewivesTHIS in reply to the letter (FT 16/2) regarding Desperate Housewives, which is now being broadcast in the UK.
Having read the article (FT 14/2) I was amazed at the accusations being hurled at the series.
Sexual acts, which I know occurred frequently on an already-broadcast show, Sex and the City, are not frequent in this show, and not much is shown.
Nudity is not common, unless a woman in short shorts and a tight T-shirt counts. But this kind of dressing can be seen in many resorts in Fiji.
Has this destroyed the fabric of society?
Only one of the main characters engages in adultery, and in no way is it glorified. The other characters do not cheat on their partners.
Rather, the series shows the ways in which marriages can go wrong — lack of communication, getting married for the wrong reasons — but does not promote immoral values.
Love is a key theme throughout the show.
The show is more of a murder-mystery and is brilliantly funny.
“Sex opera” it is not. If you do not approve, the answer is simple.
Turn off the TV and spend some quality time with your family, teaching them the values you think they should promote.
Cate MacKenzie
Birmingham
And Saturday night I found that the reader who ‘attacked’ me and this website has posted an apology here in the comments section, explaining how she tried to stop the letter from being printed, I guess after our telephone conversation and how then she was shut out from her computer and could neither email nor phone me. Apology accepted and I would still like to add the initial comment which was trashed by the spam filter.
Now I am actually kinda curious about the show. Anyone know when it is supposed to air?
For some strange reason he giggles when I put him upside down briefly. He enjoys it a lot.
Other findings today: He realizes now how much fun it is to splash water around when bathing. And he developed a weird way of crawling on his back while in his crib: he arches his back to the max and then uses his legs to push away from the sides. Crazy but true.
I just managed to put him to sleep, good night song today was “Steppin’ Out”, not the Joe Jackson version, rather the more bossa nova-ish version from FPM.
There is a new nice option for Sunday lunches: The Rae’s South Pacific Hotel invites to a Jazz BBQ lunch in the beach bar between the South Pacific and the Qaraniqio River. The drive from Suva is about 1 hour each way.
For 20FJD per person you get the choice of 3 BBQ skewers (Beef, Fish or Chicken, all nicely marinated and very tasty [only gripe: the chicken was still raw inside, but they exchanged it]) and then you can load up the plate with salad, rice, pasta, sauces and for desert there is lots of freshly cut fruit.
The jazz music is being delivered by Tom Mawi, Fiji’s finest jazz guitarist, whom we just listened to last Monday in the restaurent where we had our valentine’s dinner. The location and the atmospere are both very nice, after lunch we moves to this oversized couchy bench contraption where we hung out and enjoyed the music.
To our surprise a waiter approached us saying hello, turned out it was Koto, or bartender from 2 years back when we first came to Fiji and stayed at the Suva Motor Inn.
Julius was the perfect baby: He slept fine during both drives, and was quiet while we ate and then playful when we had our hands free to play with him.
We are wondering about staying a night there to sample their fine dining restaurant, but even the local rates are a bit steep.
First we have here a nice panoramic view for which you just need the FREE QuickTime Player and then click the image below.
And now for a collection of pics (please click to enlarge)
This last picture is their bar opposite the reception. The background is a huge mirror which has water running over it like a waterfall. Looks great.
This evening we were invited to Reiko’s place for a farewell potluck dinner and it was quite some fun. Especially for Julius: he enjoys seeing many different people, he is not shy at all and sure enough when he saw that some other guests brought their kids, he switched into flirt mode and sure enough, his charme worked.
To see something like that on a full Saturday noon supermarket parking lot is quite aggrevating … and no, most likely not a Fijian driver. The plate is marked CD, so it is some diplomat’s car.
Remember that headless floating corpse back in January? I actullay wonder if they ever found out the who and why and whodunnit.
Well, they found another one:
Man’s body found
(Saturday, February 19, 2005)A body of a 22-year-old Fijian male was found floating in a creek behind the Walu Bay industrial zone on Thursday night.
Police said the body was found at 7pm after alarm was raised when a man from a nearby settlement did not return from a fishing trip. Relatives at nearby Nauluvatu Settlement identified the man.
A cousin of the dead man said he saw last saw him at around 5pm close to where the body was found.
The cousin was on his way to play touch rugby.
According to police, the deceased left his home at noon to go fishing.
They said a post mortem examination would be held to determine how he died, but they had not ruled out an epileptic fit.
The dead man was an epileptic.
This one they at least could identify and someone apperently missed him. Still very tragic.
As long as he has something to hang on, the standing part is going very well already, once he tackles balance, he will be walking in no time.
Today we went for lunch to Ritsu’s office where he enjoyed the marvelous view from the 6th floor of the Reserve Bank building (still the tallest building in Fiji, but soon to be surpassed by the constantly growing Suva Central building which is right next to it.)
I experimented around with some shots to a) create a bit of extra dynamic and b) to hide the nasty pimple. The pimple thing did not work out too well, but we are very happy that it looks much better now and is healing successfully.
Julius slept a bit better last night, woke up at 1 and at 4:30 (which was also end of night). After the 1 AM sleep break he finally fell back to sleep after he rolled himself right next to me and leaned on me. Very cute, but I could hardly move anymore. Note: the smaller the person, the more bedspace he demands.
This is the 4th installement in an ongoing saga about a petition, my response letter to the local paper and a phonecall I received in that matter.
I was expecting an email from Ms. Kabakoro (as I had offered her on the phone that I will check out why the comment got trashed and be happy to post her comment. Ms.K, I am still waiting for that email) , or a letter to the newspaper further discussing the TV situation in Fiji. No, instead she decided to have the FijiTimes print a rather personal attack against me:
I don’t think that the mispelling of my name is her fault, but rather FT ‘s (since she had ‘attended’ University in Hawaii where she studied English and Nursing according to her website[did she ever graduate? Website does not say so]).
I will write more later, but for now I am just dissapointed that none of my explanations I gave her on the phone were understood (i.e. that a spamfilter is an automated function, not active censorship; that the wording of the error message is beyond my reach; that SHE has triggered the spam filter somehow). I also never said that I am against censorship per se. But this assumption leads Ms.K to believe that I am double minded … and thus I must be double minded in all my ways … neat generalization.
The developer of the brilliant spam karma spam filter is having a great time seeing his work mentioned in a small island nation’s biggest newspaper and has this to say about it. Trying to figure out why the comment was trashed he investigated and found this:
It would appear Fiji has a strong propension toward triggering Spam Karma’s filters, I think this is mostly due to the proliferation of proxy servers in order to reduce bandwidth costs (proxy servers can sometimes mask users’ IPs, which doesn’t bode well with Spam Karma at all, since it is a way too common mark of nasty spambots too).
In the last 4 months this website received a whooping 874 comments, of which 807 were spam. Thanks to spam karma we do not need to weed through invitations to visit online casino or how to get cheaper Zanax.
I nearly overread another letter to the FijiTimes today regarding the TV program in Fiji in general:
Television programsTHERE has been an awful lot of hoo-ha in the papers recently regarding the quality of programs presented on Fiji One.
Personally, I don’t think legislation will solve the matter. It will simply drive the quality of the television programs into total mediocrity.
I think what it does need is a good dose of competition to drive quality and provide for customer choice. However, so far as I am concerned I find television highly educational.
As soon as it comes on, I leave the room to find a good book to read.
Kevin Barrie Mutton
Nadi
See, it is so easy to not watch programs you don’t like.
Recent Comments