Sheraton Hotel Tahiti Papeete

... if there is no daughter, the youngest son is raised as a “she-man”. It’s not a matter of cross-dressing, but a total way of life. They are not transvestites and there is no derision in how they are treated or viewed. In fact they are held in high honor. We saw two she-men on our walk through the city, I was glad I knew beforehand as it is kind of strange. Well, enough for now. Bon Soir from Tahiti.

... s home in the hills – hubby cooks a
wonderful meal on the wok (outside) and we take pics of the family.
Later that night – hubby who lived in the “jungle” at one point
with no electricity and only a chess board – beats Mike twice in
chess, but Mike takes it good-naturedly – because the guy was good.
Again the hospitality was amazing: the family slept in the living
area with the baby and Mike and I were ...

... that, when you are in the middle of the ocean it is amazingly huge.!!
We are going to watch the departure from Papeete tonight at 8pm and will have an early night.
Happy Birthday to my beautiful grand daughter Kate. Hope you had a lovely day.
I am not going to even try to add photos on this trip. It is hard enough to get Internet connection properly. Bye for this time. Thank you all for your replies. It is great.
Love from Stephanie and Graeme.

... making stops along the way. Beautiful island but we both agree probably not a vacation destination in the future. Once we were done we headed to the local outdoor market to wander around. Found a few souvenirs and then walked back to the ship for some swimming before heading off to sea again. Lessons Learned: - Humidity in the tropics can be a bugger. - Never trust a guy when he insists he is the best driver. - Round abouts are dangerous places.

Thursday 5th February - Day 23 - At Sea Another day aboard the 'Beautiful White Lady - our home away from home', as the Captain always refers to the Tahitian Princess. We continued our journey on a south westerly course through the French Polynesian archipelago bound for Rarotonga the weather was still VERY warm so after breakfast we sat outside on the sun deck, we then attended a lecture given by a guest speaker about 'Maori mythology, lifestyle, music, dance and belief ...

... lagoon for one day at least. 1st day: visit of Papeete market, walk around, bought food at the market, checked out the beach... The plan is to do absolutely nothing all day the 7th, rent a car to do the tour of Tahiti the 8th, go to Moorea the 9th and a big walk up the mountain the 10th. I'll see after that. The 7th was highly successful in doing ...

... city and we breakfasted in an open sided, palm covered dining area looking over the sea, where small waves were breaking on the outer reef. We taxied into town to arrange our next move. The weather was very hot and sunny and I noticed the taxi's digital temperature gauge reading at 37 deg C. The rough conversion is to double the deg C temp and add 30 to bring it to deg F. I'll let you do this one - yes, I was surprised as well! We planned to try to go out to one of the 'Windward ...

... the buses stop and all the shops close. Taxis are incredibly expensive out here, so I was forced to adopt the early start and early to bed routine. Completely different from South America! It is currently summer out here, which is also the wet season. This meant grey skies and rain everyday. In fact, I didn't see the sun or blue sky whilst I was staying on Tahiti. After a few days I decided I'd had enough and headed to the nearby island of Moorea.

... time while I'm in New Zealand which was nice because they are fun to hang out with and Kiya is absolutely adorable. Last Friday marked the end of lectures so there was a campus-wide party/concert at the student union building called the Tea Party. Bands played from 11am-4pm but when kiwis party, they go insane - most of them were dressed in ridiculous costumes, as outrageous as American Halloween, and completely wasted by 9am. The Tea Party was a ...