Pacific Harbor

(Written Sunday 27/9/09)

I like the word Pensive. I think it embodies the meaning in the word itself, which is always a good characteristic for a word to have. Like most days on any holiday, yesterday I did a lot of thinking. One of my thoughts was about my thinking pattern. I have decided that my thought pattern is best called Pensive, than thoughtful.

I am not yet sure if it is a good or bad attribute, but I find that when left to myself, I will think a lot. Unlike the definition of Pensive, I don’t think that deeply, but I can easily, and happily, spend long spans of time mulling over thoughts, ideas, memories, and fantasies – and this is usually, as is included in one definition of Pensive, sad or morose.

Yesterday was a pretty typical opportunity for me to be pensive: Alex and I left the lodge around noon and drove the 150km to Pacific Harbor. This small village, though a bit more touristy than others, yet still seemingly rugged, is acknowledged as the cultural center of Fiji. Alex and I had hoped to go there and learn the history of Fiji and the Fijians in a more hands-on and entertaining method than the web.

Unfortunately, and to no fault of Alex’s though she seems to think otherwise, this “cultural center” consists of a “museum” (Jori – you would probably find it unworthy of the name: it was a single room with a few objects on display, poorly photocopied photos pinned onto one of the walls, and about 4 pages of articles that were either taken from some published journal, or typed up in a very unprofessional looking manner), and a tour.

Of course the tour only happens three times a week at very specific times… and we missed the one for Saturday by about 5 hours. There had been no information about times online that I know of, and when it was described as a cultural center, we expected something more substantial and less rigidly scheduled (ie a large museum with reasonable daily hours). So we wandered around for about an hour before hopping in the car for the 2.5 hour drive back.

Perhaps because of the car travels – and the dynamics of a large family going on long car rides – that I went on with my family as a child, but for whatever reason I find that car rides and other types of traveling is the time when I am most pensive. I usually take a book with me for traveling (currently I am reading Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky – a bit heavy for a vacation book, but still good), but I inevitably spend at least half the time just browsing through the archives of my memory, ideas, and fantasies.

Especially on vacations like this when I have lots of free time for my brain perusing, I get very tired of my thoughts. I often just go over specific memories or thoughts that are of particular annoyance at the time. It is times like those when I am glad to take a break from the trip to stop on Sunset Strip and watch the sunset (photos to follow). The funny part about that is that the road was parallel to the path the sun takes and is on the South of the island, therefore you had to look down the beach to see the sunset (the street itself did not see much of the sunset).

Fiji is still great, and though I have had more free time to be pensive than is healthy, I am glad to have taken up the opportunity to come here.

Cheers!