Today was a busy day. We had a crew of people come to wash and wax Kosmos (yippee!). Eric briefly met with them, then the four of us (Adrienne, Christi, Eric, and John) headed to downtown Nadi (pronounced Nandi). Nadi is a much smaller city that Suva. Most of the buildings are two stories, with the occasional 4 story building. Like Suva, Nadi is clean, with no graffiti of litter about. Suva has some charm, Nadi has none. Except for the Hindu temple, the architecture is utilitarian.

Our first stop was the Hindu temple. The entrance fee is $2.00 USD each. We cold take photos in some areas, but not all. We had to keep our shoes off on the temple grounds. The temple is amazingly ornate. The exterior looks like a giant relief (style of carved art) that is painted with bright colors. The interior is mostly flat wall, but virtually every inch of it is painted with large scale images similar to the reliefs on the exterior. The temple is quite beautiful. There are several altars around the temple where people lined up to worship, many offering sacrifices of food. The altars are small rooms housing a statue of some sort. Some of the statues are animals, some people. There were people disassembling a structure in the courtyard. We were told they had just finished a week long special celebration. We wandered around and looked at each of the altars and admired the artwork. Many people were there actively worshipping.

From there, we wandered around town running errands. Nadi seems to offer all the city basics, with restaurants, grocery stores, a nice hardware store, clothes stores, a five and dime, and several souvenir shops. The produce market in Nadi is similar to the one in Suva, with stall after stall of vendors selling raw ingredients, including fish and spices, that seems to go on forever. Between the various shops, we were able to pick up almost everything we needed, including Tim Tams.

A lot of people approached us, some panhandling, some trying to pull us into their stores, others trying to get us to follow them to some store that offered better prices than the ones here on the main drag. Everyone who talked to us was looking for money. This was a sharp contrast to Suva, where a huge percentage of people on the street talked to us just to be nice and only a couple were looking for money. We still think that Fijian people are some of the nicest people around, but had our only impression of Fiji been Nadi, we would not have had as good things to say about Fijian people.

After shopping, we went on a helicopter ride. The helicopter ride was amazing. We went over a couple of the islands, getting amazing views, then up into the mountains above Lautoka. We went through a narrow gorge in between the mountains, which is pretty, Then the pilot took us to another area of the mountain that has a waterfall. We went over the valley of Nadi then headed back to the landing site on Denaru. We got a picture of Kosmos and Voyager III as we were coming in for the landing.

For dinner that night we went to a restaurant called Chefs, located in Nadi across the street from Saffron. We knew it was a nice restaurant, but we were surprised by how nice. The service was 5 star French style, including sorbet with champagne between courses to clear the palate, a complimentary appetizer, and a generous amount of chocolate truffles handed to you as you left. The style of food was French with a local influence and was excellent. The portion sizes were quite large by French restaurant standards. And the price? About $25 USD per person for a main course. We rank Chefs as the best value for the money of any restaurant we have been to in the world.

After we were done eating, the waitress asked us if we wanted dessert. We mentioned that Adrienne was on her way to the airport and asked if we would be able to get dessert and the check quickly. They assured us they could. While we were eating dessert, all the waitresses gathered around our table and sang Adrienne a Fijian song that would bring her safe travels. It was incredible. And she did have a safe flight, so it must have worked.

By the way, we should mention that Adrienne took most of the pictures we have posted since she arrived. Thanks, Adrienne! And thank you for being such a good houseguest!