Our Travels

I wrote a whole blog about staying put this Christmas and celebrating it at home the way we like it only for all that to be turned upside down, inside out when hubby's roster came out and he's working on Christmas and New Year! So off we go to Samoa to celebrate with my Mama or Granma to Tauilagi while poor hubby stays back to work throughout the "holiday season." Tomorrow my son and I start our journey via Bangkok, on to Auckland, Hamilton to see the whanau and then continue onto Samoa. I'm looking forward to the week-end in H-Town as self and my three sisters will all be together once more if only for a little while. Tau's doting Nana and Papa are coming up from Wellington to spend a few days with the little rascal so it's going to be one heck of a week-end.  Monday self, my son and Lagipoiva are catching the same flight to Samunda and boy I've now worked myself up to much excitement about Christmas back home. I'm looking forward to seeing my m...

I was at the mall with my 3 year old son today. He was doing really well until he saw Toys R Us. I explained that we're having a look and not buying him anything. He said ok and we went to the bike section where he proceeded to try out the bikes and the cars and anything he could ride on. It was time to leave and he didn't want to leave. I literally had to half carry him out of there kicking and screaming at me to put him down as he was not a baby. We got to the door and I spotted other friends so to distract him I said look there's your friend Ruth. We went over to say hi and he sort of ran back into Toys R Us. I saw him run back inside so I assumed(big mistake) he was in the bike section again. I quickly said goodbye and went back to find him only to find him nowhere in the shop. I called out his name and he didn't reply as he usually did. Now I'm running around the shop trying to find him then it occurred to me that he must have left the shop so I run out of the...

Hubby went to play golf a few days ago. When I got home I found he and his golf buddy brooding in the lounge. "Hmmm", I dared ask "I take it, it wasn't a great day on the green today? Who won? How did you guys play today?" Me sounding all interested. One said it was an okay day and the other said they played badly. However that's not far from the normal reply though lately they were upbeat after a game, so I still didn't get why they were brooding today! I knew they were playing with a new golfer so I asked "Oh did Frank beat you guys today? Did he turn out to be really good!", "oh no no nothing like that, he's definitely new, and like us, he's working on his swing."  By then I had enough of the riddles "So why are you both looking depressed as heck?" "Oh we played with Jack...Bahaha. Mystery solved: Jack IS a Pro Golfer, one of two mates that run the golf shop. So I laughed and laughed and laughed some more....

So we were honoured with a visit from the Shamal crew this past week-end. The Admiral and the Commander have reached Sicily on their catamaran, have docked it there for the winter and are on their way home to New Zealand for Christmas. They caught a boat to Malta and flew to Dubai to see their daughter then hopped over here to catch up with all their friends in Muscat and are on their way back to Dubai to continue home to see their family for the holidays. These two survived the pirate ridden Gulf of Aden, sailed the Red Sea and went through the Suez Canal through to the Greek Islands and finally docking their boat in Sicily. They've stopped in many places along the way to sight see and their stories are always colourful and interesting about the people they meet along the way. They're very inspirational and such lovely people. If you want to read about their adventures go to  Shamal Adventures . 

By Lagipoiva Cherelle Jackson REVIEW:  "You know why women don't want to be Orators, because they don't want to show their breasts in public." These were the words of Samoan High Chief Tagaloa, squinting through his leathery brown skin framed by a light trim of  siga  (white hair) as he spoke to Saili, the main actor in the movie The Orator . When this was said, my 8-year-old nephew Barry Uelese Sapatu nudged me in Magik Cinema in Apia and said: "But aunty, Grandma is an orator, and she doesn't show her breasts in public, or does she?" Naturally the answer was "no" but as my mother Vaasiliifiti Moelagi can attest, it's no easy task being a female Orator, let alone a very short one. That much was clear in the film by Tusi Tamasese.I watched the film, not as a journalist, but as a daughter of an Orator, as a girl from Savaii and as a fiercely proud Samoan. Those three factors meant I went into the film, highly sceptical of this New Z...

11/11/11 I just had to blog today because of this special date. That's a whole lot of 1s in a date. Today we went to Shatti Beach where lots of people go for strolls, BBQ and not necessarily swim. A friend with a son same age as my boy met us there. We had lunch there then our two boys rode their bikes around, played in the sand while us two mums laid on the mat under the shade until the two boys made their way to the water(to my horror). I was hoping they wouldn't swim but yeah kids and beach of course that's inevitable. They played in the water for a bit and then another friend joined us. The sun came out today after almost a week of dreary and rainy weather here so a lot of people made their way outdoors to enjoy the beautiful day(Friday too)! We stayed there until after 5pm which was perfect timing to come home, feed the little one and put him straight to bed totally knackered from his big day.  Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult I started reading this book last night ...

Christmas soon I'm really looking forward to Christmas now! I've decided to stay back and celebrate Christmas in our own home to give my son the full Christmas experience of putting up and decorating a tree and so on. I'm looking forward to the Christmas decorations and hype in the shops. It gets better and better every year here in this great Muslim country we live in. When we landed here 7 years ago Christmas time was almost depressing due to the lack of atmosphere. Today it's Christmas in the malls and even better are the malls in Dubai where they go all out! I'm secretly hoping to sneak a trip to Austria before Christmas...now THAT is REAL Christmas! Timu We had a bbq last night and a few friends came over, which was fun as usual. Woke up with a bit of a headache but not too bad thank goodness. There was a lot of food though and today we enjoyed the left overs from it. Today I parked myself on the couch and watched my recorded shows all day! Like how us...

Day 3: Up early and headed to Maria Delle Grazie where the original Last Supper painting by Leonardo DaVinci is to be found. Unfortunately you have to pre-book to see the painting and as our trip was a bit last minute we were unlucky with the tickets. So I thought we'd still go there and hope for the best. Luckily where we stayed was not far from all this and it amounted to about a 5 minute ride on the train every morning. And once there we could walk everywhere and the streets are so pretty that it's pleasant and fun. We took Tau's stroller of course so we didn't have to carry him though he enjoyed sitting on his dad's shoulders than the stroller half the time. We got to the Grazie and sure enough it's fully booked and we're obviously not the first to think that there may have been cancellations as they had a big sign on the desk to say that there were no cancellations! DaVinci Codes However we weren't to be disappointed as in a smaller chapel they h...

Day 1 We landed really early in the morning but hotel check in was 3pm. We walked around Venezia ate at cafes and had machiato and cappuccino. We walked to a nearby park where Tau played in the playground and rode on a merry-go-round which he didn't want to get out of. It was fun walking all over the place until around 10am we were really tired and went to check the hotel Sheraton again. To our delight we were allowed to check in early. We went had a good days nap and then went to the Duomo to look around and enjoyed the sights and food. We found the famous Luini bakery but it was closed. After dinner we went to the  Cioccolati Itali  gelato shop and had an ice cream each. It was yummy with raw chocolate. The shop's so popular there were queues of people to buy ice cream in October! Day 2: We were up early so we got dressed and strolled to Ottolina cafe on the way to the metro to have our Italian breakfast of croissant and latte machiatto baby chino for Tau before we headed...

Duomo Gothic Cathedral: Tau & I posing  Tau & his daddy and the travelling stroller! Inside the Reale Piazza We made it to Ciocolatti-yummy View from Duomo Plaza On the rooftop of the Duomo My mandatory cup of tea while people watching at Duomo Plaza

                                                World Cup Fever                                                   Blue Fountain for True Blue fan                                                Scotsman had too much?                               Hubby with Kenya mate Ali supporting Samoa:)

                                           The Refs blow the whistles for kick-off.                                                                  Us two                                                  Touch, Pause...ENGAGE                                                                   NZ players                               ...

I've been planning hubby's birthday bash this Friday. The theme being Rugby for obvious reasons. OK so I planned this before the world cup started and well here we are on the eve of it and there are only 4 teams left at the World Cup! So I knew this was going to happen and tried not to put too many eggs in one basket but I thought I'd risk it and order a NZ table flag for every other country represented hoping that at least they make it through to the semis. I have enough big Samoan flags to drown out the rest plus the party website didn't do Samoan table flags...baskets.  Anyhoo very exciting and I've been at the shops all week to buy the right stuff and make sure I don't leave anything out. I looked for a caterer to do a BBQ set up but unfortunately in this case we live in a city full of Indian restaurants that most of the places I asked offered to do samosas, spring rolls... and mains would be curries...umm no thanks. So in the end master chef birthday boy...

I've been following this singer from New Zealand of Samoan and Tongan descent who's competing in the Avon Voices competition. Her name's  Roslynn Mahe   and has an amazing voice. So she's now in the final, the competition has been going for months now and I normally just log on to the Avon  page when I see the updates on facebook, vote for her and leave cos we islanders do that choo hooo.  Just tonight I decided to have a look at the competition or who Ms Mahe was up against. And ummm yeah I wasted my time ha! They were nowhere as good as this Pacific contestant I tell ya. But that is my humble opinion and others might feel otherwise. OK so I watched four others and went bleh halfway through their songs, one lady was too jerky almost twitch like...eek, one destroyed the 'natural woman' song, and one was in a too tight pink dress and tried a bit too hard. Now don't go have a look because you might just agree with me!  Roslynn Mahe however, when I heard of ...

I can't wait to see this movie. So my sister FJ was planning to take our mum to see The Orator next week when she goes over to visit H-Town and she feared mum might sleep through the movie. And I wondered about that too, Mum is an orator for/in our family and is so well-versed in the Samoan culture that she is a tricky one to please. I just got off the phone with Mum in Samoa and she happily informed me that she had been to the premier of The Orator movie in Apia last week and....:  What a fantastic movie it was! I kept prodding why she thought it was so good and she said to her it got the message across that in our culture whether you're big or small or however you look like when you can speak or orate then everyone looks past that and see only the Orator, as the message is brought across with a gift that only an orator has. She also said that the movie was well made and to the point, no gasu and overdoing. There it is, now I just wish I open the paper tomorrow and it tells...

http://www.rugbyworldcup.com/home/fixtures/knockout.html  wow love how the Northerners are against each other and so are the Southerners so it'll end up a North vs Southern Hemisphere Final. How brilliant...not

Break-through Two weeks ago I had a supermum day. I've been wanting to make pizza from scratch and finally attempted it and it came out really well. My 3 year old loved it and of course enjoyed helping me make the dough. Hubby was impressed and it takes a lot to impress the Master Chef himself heh. I had this fat free cheese cake recipe for ages and finally have all the ingredients and made it right after the pizza. I'd never attempted cheese cake before and never thought I would but I'm trying to lose weight and miss my sweet treats so tried to make this fat free no sugar cheese cake to get me through the tough days. Well big pat on the back for this first timer, if I may say so myself the cheese cake was purrrfect. OK this one doesn't allow for a crust, only the cheese part and boy it came out with great consistency. I love cheese cake I guess the low fat version ain't too bad. Facebook I dislike the new settings on facebook. It was fantastic just before they ...

Cheering for Samoa against Fiji in Chilli's KL Eating at the Bangshar Markets with uni mate Sumi Alex showing some muscle at the Petronas Twin Towers Our flag just happened to appear from nowhere for this shot lol And Alex starts the trek up the 278 steps  with Tauilagi in tow! Batu Caves KL This sucker stole Tau's drink from his hands , it was funny at the time On the way down, Alex's done his exercise I was there too, see heh

I finally got hubby's iPad to hook up to the internet in KL in our hotel room and on to facebook I went, to see what was going on. The first odd news I saw were people telling my cousin to be strong. It was obvious something was very wrong judging by people's messages. My heart sank as I realized that her unborn baby had died. What an awful awful thing to happen. I cried for her, for them, for the sadness that they must be enveloped in. I could not fathom what she was going through and prayed for their peace of mind. Now she has written about her ordeal and how it happened and it's just heartbreaking. I just want to say to her that it is NOT your fault. It is nobody's fault. Ia maua e oe le mafanafana mai le Ali'i i nei taimi fita.

I can't wait for the Samoa Wales game to get here. I'm sure all Samoans and Welsh alike are pining for this game. This Manu team in my expert opinion might be the best prepared to get through to the next level of the competition and on to the finish. Ia talosia ia. It's so funny how alot of my FB Samoan friends have the Manu fever. All the profile pictures are blue with something either the flag or a Manu shirt worn or whatever Manu Samoa affiliated, it's just crazy but beautiful patriotism right there.

And finally the Go The Manu video has been released to the supporters after according to the admins of the Go The Manu facebook page the Manu Samoa watched it a few hours ago before their first game against Namibia. All the best tomorrow Manu Samoa. Which brings me to the supporters, especially those so close to the rugby players. Watching some of the games this week just reveals once again how BRUTAL the sport of rugby is. One thing I have to say is that I do not envy the mothers, wives, kids, girlfriends/boyfriends and sisters of those players as they watch their men getting tackled and physically re-arranged on the rugby battle field. I saw one Italian who got tackled a few days ago and for a few seconds he did not move! And my heart went out to his family thinking omg his mum or wife must be on the edge of her seat then. On that note I wish the families and almost families of the rugby players peace/to'a in supporting their loved ones as they go onto the battle ground for th...

My humble review of this amazing fantasy story by Lani Wendt-Young: A captivating read, a page turner. Lani Wendt-Young takes you on a ride following Leila’s journey to the small islands of Samoa from Washington DC to learn about her mother. What she discovers is beyond her expectations. The heroine’s experience is so real thanks to the author’s mastery with words that you are truly immersed in Leila’s supernatural world at times and her emotional quest to find her true self in the midst of her extraordinary findings. It couldn’t have been set in a more suitable place than that of the superstitious and exotic islands of Samoa. The amalgamation of the legendary Samoan myth into a modern day setting is nothing short of brilliance, a credit to the author’s true talent. Suitable for all ages. A must read. You can buy an online copy on smashwords or on amazon Try and buy it on amazon if you can to make this book the first Samoan written and based book to make the Amazon top 100. The ...

Oh the Rugby World Cup fever is so contagious right now it just speeds the heart beat every time. Can't wait for the game tomorrow morning Oman time 6.30am. Go Manu smash those Namibians and then on to the other three. O tou mama na, fai ia mafai. Attack Attack Attack... and don't forget the 3Ds Defend, Dominate AND Dackle Dackle Dackle choo hooo Here are some pictures that my lovely friends here in Muscat helped with in front of The Sultan's palace in Ruwi to show our support from this side of the world for the team for the Go The Manu facebook page. Join it to follow the Manu Samoa and the preparations in New Zealand. My prayer is for them to do amazing for their sakes. They seem so confident and with a purpose that I'm sure they do not want to let themselves down. But what a tough pool they have though but warriors they are and I believe in the current team. Nevermind our dodgy Rugby Union and their antics...that's for another day. GO MANU SAMOA. Do it for you a...

Lake Mondsee Tauilagi climbs every mountain...

Having a fabulous time with my family in Austria. We spent all day in and out of the pool the went to town to enjoy live music while sipping caipirinhas in the streets of Mondsee. We're having fun catching up, eating and drinking too much and just laughing a lot. Missing the rest of the sisterhood but not to worry we're drinking your fair share:)

Yippeee can't wait to catch that flight tonight to a destination unknown. Looking forward to catching up with the French Connection and have some fun.

As I was rushing to put my son's shoes on him and head out, a man knocked at the gate. I locked the house and walked out with my son to our car outside the gate where this guy was standing. I asked him what's up and he said; "you have a beautiful house". I said "thank you but it isn't ours, we're just renting it." He continued to say his wife and he, indicated towards his car where I could see his wife, are building a new house and they really liked this style of housing. What came next just about bowled me over. He asked if he and his wife could come into our house to have a look around and take photos!!! I stood there dumbfounded. I mean he looked nice enough and seeing the demure wife in the car just about made me say okay as I'm a nice person like that(yep)! But then I thought what the heck? take photos of our personal space? by these strangers? Ummmm alarm bells rang in my head... should I be a nice lady or an unfriendly one? Nice or sa...

We're enjoying the quiet evening unwinding after dinner with Master 3 down for the night when the peace is ravaged by tyres screeching followed by a loud bang of metal scraping and more screeching until it comes to a stop. It was too close to my front yard this time I thought our car was caught up in the heavy metal band out there. We run out to check and within seconds people had swarmed around the broken up sedan that had come to rest on the road partition. Our car was in one piece but the pieces of the broken car were all over the road and some were not far from the front parking lot! Just when I thought I couldn't take anymore of this we noticed among the debris was a teddy bear! A freakin' teddy bear! Did that mean there was a kid in the car? Or did that mean the car owners had kids. I convinced myself it was the latter as I walked back to my house and left the side show to half the town that were now parked all over to have a look! I'm not sure how people have not...

And so Ramadan starts tomorrow or it might have been today, I'm not sure. The summer weather has been absolutely amazing. This is our seventh summer in Oman, yep, seventh and this is probably the best weather we've experienced in what you call summer. If you haven't been to a desert country or the like before well let me try and describe the heat in summer. When you exit your Air Conditioned house you're hit with this wall of heat. And I mean wall because it hits you full frontal, it engulfs your whole being, it violates your every pore, it makes you inhale heat which you'd never thought possible. You're simply surrounded by the heat so you run to your car hoping to cool down faster but the car thermostat reads 47 Celsius and everything is hot in it, from the seat to the steering wheel. You turn the A/C on full blast only to be blasted by more hot air so you turn it down again and wait for some cool air to come out, so you think maybe I should wind the windows d...

A preview from "The Orator" movie. According to Samoa Observer it's been picked for the Venice International Film Festival. I really want a copy of it. It sounds interesting and it's all in Samoa which should be interesting. Moreover it's written and directed by a Samoa born son Tusi Tamasese.

So we went to the Deira City Centre which is literally across the road from the hotel we're at. This hotel which hubby's work use for all their employees when in Dubai for work turned out to be conveniently located. You step out the door and you enter the metro station stairs where you can walk across to the mall or you can just cross the road at the lights(but it's too hot for that now). The metro below can take you to a lot of attractions across Dubai which is very handy. We walked across to the mall and had a look around and oooh the sales were just in your face, inviting you in to buy buy buy! Uh huh they appealed to my weak mana'o tele self. After looking for hubby's new toy to no avail, he and our returned to the hotel while I feast my eyes and brutalise the bank card at the shops. I'm normally not an impulse shopper but today really tested my willpower! I bought this cheap eye shadow kit in May. Result is every time I wear the damn thing my eyes get ...

Thank goodness for creche's that run summer programmes. I put my son in one not too far from where we live and it's been great. Every time I pick him up he runs out with a new craft that they made in class. Sunday were the birdies Peter and Paul sitting in a boat, Monday was a turtle and Tuesday was a frog that he had attached to his hand like a puppet. Each had a little rhyme attached to the back of the craft. Very clever crafts using paper plates and card boards. He came back with more creative things in 3 days at this creche than a whole year at the one before! Anyway he's enjoying making new friends and he's happy to be going to 'school'. Hubby had to come to Dubai for his sim on the week-end and I decided that we'll tag along and enjoy lounging around the hotel room and swim in the cooled pool. And that's what we did yesterday. When hubby went off to work we went down for a swim at 7.30pm and stayed there for about an hour. Got back to the room ha...

An amazing swimming hole called the To Sua(with water) and another To lesua(without water). This is where my youngest sister's wedding was held. A spectacular location and the family that own this land keep the land beautiful and natural and have all sorts of exotic plants growing on it. An ideal wedding ceremony location, as the sun sets, the natural colours all around are magnified along with the colourful attire of the guests, while the wedding vows are drowned out by the crashing waves below you have but the newly weds body language and the beauty around you to go by. Sunset from the Cross Island Road looking back at Siumu.