The Terminal

Our trip to the Tahiti airport took about 10 minutes. When we got there, we were amazed at the small size of the terminal. It was basically a counter to check-in, a bar, and a few benches.

I was a little concerned as they stated that luggage could not exceed 44 pounds and I knew mine, in fact, did. But, I quickly learned that they didn't really care much. Their method of weighing luggage was putting every piece of luggage they had on a scale at once.

While we waited, since we got there really early, we had a drink at the bar. We spoke to a nice guy from New York while at the bar, who was trying to figure out what converter he needed so he and his wife could charge their camera. He was a marine and he was a little frightened about riding in the small prop plane we were taking to Moorea. Maybe that in turn should concern us? Nah.

Once we were allowed to board, we took our pick of the 8, yes 8 , seats available on the plane. We had to duck to get in and there was definitely no room for any extra bags...or our legs for that matter!

Six of the eight seats were facing forward and the other two were facing backward. The pilots were completely visible to us, which was a different experience than we're used to.

The marine kindly snapped a picture of us during our adventure.

As we were flying along feeling every bit of turbulence and all the bumps, Nate took some aerial pictures.

Moorea is surrounded by a reef, which is evident from these pictures. So the waves crash way out at the reef, away from land. Nate thought it was super cool that we could see the pilots and the runway as we were landing. I think I like traveling on the big Boeing planes much better.

We ultimately landed and arrived safely. Quite the experience.

The most entertaining part was when we went to find our transportation to the resort. Our reservations were written down in the book below...a bit different from how we operate back home!

Next up, our gorgeous bungalow in Moorea...

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Roll the tape...

The next morning we were up quite early, as we were still adjusting to the time change. We grabbed breakfast at the hotel, which was rather impressive. A huge buffet with fruits and meats, eggs, sausage, veggies, potatoes, and items made to order as well.

I wandered around the resort and snapped some pictures, as we were leaving that morning for Moorea. There were two beautiful pools on the resort. This is the first--it was above or below the lagoon, depending on your vantage point. In this case, above.

And the second, which was just picture perfect.



As well as some beautiful scenery...and bungalows!


Once we got all packed up, we headed to the lobby to wait for our transportation to the airport. We had seen one of the hotel workers wandering around taking care of all the baggage, and he was such an interesting man I just had to get a photo with him.

We were sitting in the lobby chatting when out of the blue a local journalist and cameraman came up to us and asked if they could interview us regarding American's traveling to their country. As I tried to blend into the couch we were sitting on, Nate agreed to do the interview and just like that he was on camera:

The lady journalist asked him questions about why he believed American's traveled to Tahiti and why he believed the amount of American travel to Tahiti was decreasing. Nate was very eloquent and gave great answers and it was quickly over. We were joking about wondering which channel he would be on and how he would probably be dubbed over in French. The funny part is that after we arrived at Moorea the ladies at the reception desk actually recognized him from TV! He HAD been on TV and we missed it!! I'd love to have a tape of that.

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Meanwhile, back at the ranch

Once we arrived back at our hotel, we changed into swimwear and hung out at the bar for happy hour. We tried a couple of tropical drinks and quickly realized they weren't that great, In fact, we never really found one we loved the whole trip. Beer was the safest (and cheapest!) bet. While we were relaxing, we saw our first Tahiti sunset and it was superb. I wandered back to our room and got these shots as the sun was going down...

And this was our view from our perch at the bar, overlooking the pool.

While in Papetee earlier that day, we had thought we'd taxi back into town that evening for dinner. However, as we were sitting at the bar we both decided we were really tired and had no desire to go anywhere. We ended up ordering room service that evening, the most expensive room service ever and hitting the hay at 9 p.m. We did have a little fun with the tiki man first, though.

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Papeete

Papetee was about a 10 minute drive from our hotel. Our driver dropped us off at a boat dock area, where we immediately snapped some photos.

The Vaima shopping center, which we later checked out, was home to the islands more "upscale" shopping. In my travel book, it mentioned that a lot of the French vacationers shop here. The most popular item for purchase on all the islands of French Polynesia were black pearls. Throughout the trip, we overheard people talking about scoping out the best deals and spending thousands of dollars on them. Fortunately, I am not a big fan of pearls, so this was not at all tempting for me. Although it was still fun to look.

As were were out and about walking, we came upon this beautiful church, the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.

The inside has gorgeous stained glass and was very big and open. From the church, we made our way to the municipal market, Tahiti's open air shopping market. One can buy many different things there: flowers, fish, fruit, jewelry, clothing, many handmade items, and lucky for us...lunch! An early one, in our case."Snacks" are what many Polynesians feast on for lunch and there were snack bars all throughout the municipal market. What kind of snacks do they eat? Well, mostly sandwiches. They make sandwiches out of crusty french baguettes and put a variety of different meats on them. You see people just walking around munching on a big, long, crusty sandwich. Nate and I chose a poisson cru sandwich, which simply means "fish". Our sandwich was filled with rich crab meat. Yum!

After lunch we browsed around in the market for quite awhile. We were on the hunt for some "fun" wedding rings, as we had leftour real, valuable rings at home. Mine wasn't so hard to come by, but finding a ring to fit a man's finger was another thing entirely. I think we looked in every little shop selling jewelry twice before we found something that would work. In addition to a ring, Nate bought a shark's tooth necklace...very islandy.

The shopping took it out of us, so we stopped in at a snack bar along the street to have a nice, cold beer. We decided to try Hinano, Tahiti's local beer. I'm no beer conoseur, but it tasted good to me! :) While we were hanging out, we got the inspiration to take a picture of our newly purchased wedding rings atop our cold beers.

We also did a walking tour of the city, as outlined by our Frommer's book. All in all, it wasn't that impressive. By that point my feet hurt and I was really tired, so maybe that had a bit to do with my opinion, but the destinations it took us to were just okay. We were trying to burn some time, as our shuttle wasn't picking us up until later in the afternoon. We decided to grab another bite to eat, as our shared sandwich had worn off. We stopped at a little restaurant and split a very tasty salad. Honestly, most of the things we ate on the honeymoon were relatively fresh and healthy. Well, besides the desserts. :) But more on that later...

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Bungalow 496, Revisited

Upon arriving at the hotel, we were a little concerned as check-in began at 3 p.m and we had arrived at oh, 6 a.m.! Luckily, they had a room ready and were willing to give it to us, since we were honeymooners and all. Apparently getting married comes with special privileges. When we checked in, we were treated to a nice tropical juice drink. Very refreshing after a long flight. We were taxied to our room, along with our luggage, in a mini truck.

It was so early, we didn't know what to do with ourselves. We of course snapped the standard room pictures. Bungalow #496!





Our overwater bungalow was really half on land, half overwater, but the view off our balcony was beautiful. I especially liked the name of the boat that was anchored out in the water. You think it's trying to tell us something?


We freshened up a bit and changed clothes and decided to venture out and find something to do. No sleeping for us! We found out from the conceirge that a shuttle ran into Papetee every morning at 9:30, so we signed up to take the shuttle and check out the big city. As we were waiting, I was checking out the view from the balcony in the lobby of the hotel. Not bad, eh?

Next up, our shopping adventure...

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