We arrived in paradise at about 11am, having been picked up from our hostel and transferred to a boat. The boat ride had taken about an hour, we sat in the warm breeze and bright blue sea. There was a Fijian lady with her three kids on the boat and I couldn't take my eyes off her gorgeous little girl who was so sweet and happy, she had the most beautiful eyes and sat concentrating on making sure every last crumb was out of her bag of crisps.
As we got close to the beach resort they transferred us into a smaller boat and we walked through the water for the last bit to the welcome party of staff singing and playing on a little guitar on the beach for us. They pride themselves on being friendly and great customer service and they definitely live up to their reputation. We shook hands with everyone and all day long around the resort you say 'bula' as you see anyone.
We were handed cocktails and shown to our room, we had booked the budget room, it's supposed to be basic but you get all the resort facilities. It's not even that basic!! We have our own little hut and our own terrace to relax on!
We spent the day wandering from one deck chair to another, Edd went for a few swims and I learnt how to tie my sarong!! They have different activities each day, some free some not but sarong tying and bula dancing was on the list and somehow I ended up the only one in the class!! 
Thankfully another ultra keen lady joined me when she heard what we were doing and Edd came past just in time to be my partner whilst the 4 of us learnt this dance with the bar music turned up loud for us!! It was a very bizarre experience but to be honest great fun, everyone here is on holiday, up for fun and getting involved. There's lots of little bits going on but mainly everyone is just sunbathing.
We had drinks at the bar on the beach with a beautiful sun set and then the evening show began. We all sat around the swimming pool whilst we watched the staff dance and sing dressed in their grass outfits.
The men did warrior dances and the woman danced with fans. They then had us all up in a big line around the swimming pool doing the bula dance (Edd and I now experts!) and the conga! The motto was no dance no dinner, I was amazing at how well that worked, everyone was on their feet! We then all lined up to shake hands with every member of staff before we went for dinner.
This place gets rave reviews and the only negative comment is that some people say there aren't enough tables of two. The tables are mainly big tables so that everyone shares and socialises and as we sat down I couldn't believe people writing reviews could be so grumpy and antisocial. We sat down to a table with a couple of Kiwis and an Aussie could, along with our friend Clarke who we met on the transfer.
Food was very good, we had about 10 dishes of meats and rice and weird vegetables as well as spinach soup and pumpkin and banana mush for starter and dessert respectively. We finished dinner and our table cleared fairly quickly to go and get drunk on kava. I haven't worked out what Kava is yet, it seems to be some sort of strong alcohol but it's a tradition in Fiji and if offered it it's supposed to be rude to refuse it.
Apparently it has anaesthetic properties and numbs your mouth and throat. Sounds horrendous if you ask me!! Edd and I were left at the table shocked at how much hard work dinner had been, I think both couples had suffered sun stroke because they were so uninterested in making conversation it was exhausting.
We've earmarked, hopefully more interesting people for dinner tomorrow night! We'll have to see!!
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