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TADA! Here is the long awaited DOUBLE daily dinners post: Los Angeles and Fiji edition. Thanks for waiting! I hope you enjoy this post, there’s lots of new stuff and I chatted a bit.

Favourite Recipe #6: kokoda, duhhhh. I will try and make it this week I think.

Favourite Recipe #7: rorou. I doubt I would be able to make this at home though! Rose should try it at her apartment. :)

march 8th, 2013 – breakfast buffet (at Ayres Hotel in El Segundo, California)

This is actually a lie. We had popcorn for dinner at the basketball game but I didn’t want to show you a picture of that (again) so I took a picture of my breakfast at the hotel the next morning.

march 9th, 2013 – tree hugger sandwich for me and seafood skewers and broccoli for scott (at Sloopy’s Beach Cafe in Manhattan Beach, California)

march 10th, 2013 – in-n-out animal style burgers and fries and pink lemonade (near LAX, California)

(LOTS) more pictures after the jump…

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Oh my goodness catching up on blogging is taking AGES. Good thing I don’t have much school work to do this weekend! I’m almost done though, I’ve finished my Fiji recaps and my next (DOUBLE) daily dinners post is almost finished and ready to post on Monday morning. Hooray!

Today I thought I’d just tie up a few loose ends and get completely caught up.

My overall impressions of Fiji are AWESOME. I LOVED my trip and I’m so grateful that I got to see and do so much. I feel like I got quite a decent picture of Fiji since I got to see it from so many different viewpoints: as a tourist, as an international student, as a local etc etc. It was great having Rosemarie to show me around and introduce me to her friends from Fiji and all over the place.

Fiji is a little more expensive than South East Asia but it’s also so much less stressful because (almost) no one tries to scam you! It seems that Fijians are very honest people. I found the prices to be generally fair and there were no tricks. I’m sure there are exceptions to this but really I didn’t have any problems. It is also handy that there is no language barrier.

One thing about travelling in Fiji though is that you have to be pretty willing to eat whatever is made for you. At a lot of the resorts you don’t get any choices and your dinner will just be brought out for you already served up on a plate. This is pretty much my favourite way to dine, so I was happy, haha. But if you’re a bit picky you might go a little hungry and I would pack some extra snacks.

I would totally return to Fiji. It’s really not too far from Australia so I’m quite confident we will return some day.

It was also soooooooooooo nice to spend so much sister-time with Rosemarie. She was fairly busy with school while I was there but we still managed to squeeze in a lot of visits. YAY! And then the family reunion at the end of the trip??! Even better! (It would have been perfect if Scott could have come too. :()

Oh kokoda, how I love you. I ate this FOUR times in Fiji. The first was homemade by Rosemarie. Then we ate it together for lunch at Beachouse. Then it was available for lunch at Octopus Resort, where my gushing convinced EVERYONE at the table to try it as well. And then finally they had it at my last meal (lunch) in Fiji on Robinson Crusoe Island. I WAS SO HAPPY.

I read 8.5 books on my Kindle on my trip. KINDLES ARE AWESOME. I read Hopeless, Safe Haven, The Silver Linings Playbook, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, The Power of Habit, Warm Bodies: A Novel, White Teeth, The New Rules of Lifting for Women, and half of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (no insignificant feat!).

I went to Trader Joe’s in Los Angeles again on the way home and they were sold out of cookie butter AGAIN! I seriously almost cried. I am cookie butter cursed, I swear.

Since I’ve been home I’ve just been at school mostly. I’m back at the gym too following a new weight lifting plan that I’m very excited about. And we had a games night the other night with Lesley. I don’t have very much school work so this weekend has been nice and relaxing. I am so so so close to finished school!!! (5 more weeks of classes/clinical, then 3 months of clinical over the summer…. at SURREY!! my first choice!!!). Then DONE!!! I CAN’T WAIT!!!

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FIJI TIME!! I flew overnight from L.A. to Nadi and arrived at 5:15 AM Fiji time. I actually managed to sleep a fair bit on the plane so I was ok. I caught the bus straight from the airport to Suva (about 5 hours) to see Rosemarie. She was there to meet me at the bus stop with a hot chicken pie in hand! Best sister ever.


Rose with some fresh (??) juice from the market, still tasted like Tang

It was great to see Rose again after so long. I stayed in Suva for 4 days and we crammed it full of yummy food, awesome swimming, and lots of talking.

It was really really hot and humid in the city. Thankfully Rose’s apartment has an outdoor pool. I spent a lot of time in there. Her whole apartment is very nice. This is the view from her balcony:



Fun rope swing, but would have been better if someone else was there to pass us the rope

She also took me to Colo-i-Suva Forest Park which is about 30 minutes out of town by bus. We had to walk 100 km in the heat but it was worth it because the waterfalls and swimming holes were awesome.

She made me my first kokoda. It was a life changing experience. I am now obsessed! (I ate it four times in Fiji hahaha.) Kokoda (pronounced kokonda) is white fish cured in lime juice with chopped up cucumber, tomato, chilli, cilantro, green pepper (etc.) with coconut milk. You can eat it with rice or fries or bread and it is amazing. I will definitely be trying to make this again here in Vancouver soon.

Other things we did together in Suva: drank sangria, had a pool party, learned about mangroves in marine biology, went partying downtown, ate Hunky Dog hot dogs, ate parrot fish, went to the movies.

Then that first weekend a big group of the international students planned a trip to Beachouse, a big backpacker resort on the Coral Coast, about 3 hours from Suva. It is a really nice resort considering it is for backpackers! They had lots of activities but I didn’t do any of them, oops.

Rose and I brought our own food to save a bit of money. Our tuna, cucumber, BBQ sauce and Indian snack sandwiches were pretty disgusting though. Surprising?

We spent the days snorkelling and kayaking, and the nights on the beach and kneeling at picnic tables (inside joke, sorry). You could surf there too but I am scared of reef breaks because if you fall the reef is only like 2 inches below the water surface. AHHH!!! I will stick to nice soft beach breaks.

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Hello future friends. I think this day doesn’t actually exist for me, since I leave Los Angeles on Sunday night and arrive in Fiji on Tuesday morning. Haha. Hoorary for pre-scheduled posts.

I missed a few dinners this time, oops. And my next daily dinners post will most likely be late… But hopefully I have lots of cool Fijian food to show you then.

The funniest meal this time was March 5th, when Scott made a really gross meal consisting of uncooked wet birdseed (millet) and really gross salmon. Maybe I sound really mean right now but he thought is was gross too. We choked down our salmon but everything else went in the trash. Then he made a giant batch of popcorn. Mmmm nutrition.

Favourite Recipe #5: ummm… can I choose the poutine? It was great.

february 24, 2013 – pad thai

feburary 25, 2013 – broccoli soup

february 26, 2013 – cheddar apple bacon bbq quesadilla

more pictures after the jump…

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Rosemarie said I should choose a favourite recipe from each Daily Dinners post and then at the end of the year I will have a great collection of 26 recipes. I think this is a super idea so bear with me while I quickly catch up with the weeks I have missed.

Favourite Recipe #1: Beans and rice, with shrimp. The original recipe is WAY TOO SALTY but other than that it is flipping delicious. And cheap. We add the shrimp and omit all the salt.

Favourite Recipe #2: Shrimp with fried egg and avocado and green onion on rice. There isn’t really much of a recipe for this except cook all that stuff and put it together on a plate. Serve with soy sauce. It takes like 4 minutes to make it excluding the rice.

Favourite Recipe #3: Butternut mac ‘n’ cheese with caramelized onions, bacon, and apple. SO GOOD. Cassia tried it and she liked it too. I roast my own pumpkin because I am anti-canned pumpkin. The recipe is time consuming but so worth it. I may never stop talking about it.

Favourite Recipe #4: Dragon noodles. Scott made it and it was awesome. Leftovers weren’t good though, so just make enough for dinner.

OK back to work for me. I still have 4 midterms, 4 labs, a case study, AND MORE to get through before I can fully relax on the beach/rollercoaster. Ah and I also have skeleton this weekend.