Toronto waterfront...

I go around the world admiring and taking photos of ports, harbours and cities. Sometimes I take my own city for granted and I don't stop to admire it's beauty and uniqueness.  Yesterday I was invited to a post wing ceremony for a friend that flies for a local airline and I had the opportunity to stop and take in the city for a bit.

Beautiful!

Tiziano Ferro - Il Conforto (LA-CT Version) ft. Carmen Consoli

Current song obsession.....beautiful song....

South Pacific: New Caledonia

Nothing made want to re-learn French faster then going to the French speaking islands of New Caledonia. My Spanish was NOT coming in handy here at all and well I kind of need to get around.

New Caledonia is somewhat culturally and geographically similar to Vanuatu.  We visited several islands including the water snake infested Isle of Pines, Lifou, Mare and the capital Noumea. 

Noumea was the only place where we had a hospital and an airport along our itinerary but the immigration laws made it tough for us to deal with restricted nationalities.  It was also the only place that had stores but I have to tell you that it was tough to buy anything. I remember that one day I was desperately searching for deodorant (not something I ever want to be left without again) and I paid a whopping $20 USD for it. As soon as I got back to Sydney I bought four deodorants!  New Caledonia operates in Pacific Francs which I then had to convert to Aussie dollars and then to US dollars for it to make any sense to me.  There was a supermarket there and I can tell you that the only thing that was reasonably affordable was the wine and cheese (my two favorite food groups).  Lets just say that wine and cheese nights became a regular thing for my friends and I. 

Casino supermarket's wine section :)

Wine and Cheese Tour

Innocently hiking not knowing it's
snake infested

Isle of Pines is full of....well you guessed it; Pines.  Apparently the dinosaurs didn't survive but the pines did. Oh and the island is also full of water snakes and later I learned also land snakes.  I am incredibly afraid of snakes to the point that it will cause a full out panic/anxiety attack.  I try not to let it stop me from doing things I love like hiking and swimming and so far not thinking about it has worked.  Thank you baby Jesus and adult Jesus that I have not seen a snake in the wild in years because I do NOT need to have a public meltdown.

My first week onboard I hiked the main hill on the island. I thought that after four days onboard I had mastered the jet lag induced by the 24 hour flight and the 16 hour time change but oh, I was wrong. Two-thirds of the way up I got very dizzy and nauseous and I let my friends continue without me as I sat on a rock to regain my sanity. Little did I know that the hill was crawling with snakes,  I only found out six months later when the Ship Physician said 'never hike that hill alone, it's full of venomous snakes'...lovely!  

For months I didn't go into the sea as I heard stories of sea snakes. One of my friends even told me one got caught in the propeller of one of our tender boats and became sushi real fast. About four months in we did a fun island tour and after hours int he heat, I finally jumped in the turquoise sea. Mind you I kept my eyes peeled all around me, the water was super clear so if anything came my way I would see it. Lucky me, no creature made any sudden appearances.

Most of these islands don't have much on them (except for Noumea). There was one restaurant with amazing (not so reasonably priced) food at a pristine location. It quickly became a crew favorite. The service sucked, wait you have to get service for it to actually suck.  You had to sit yourself, get your own cutlery and own menu, place the order at the bar and pay for it but they did eventually deliver the food at a snail's pace. Lucky for them it was the only restaurant near the port. Nevertheless the food was amazing and the view incredible which made up for the shitty service.

We stopped at Lifou only a few times but I did get a chance to explore. The island is known for a cave which hosts a small yet very deep lake.  There's also a church at the top of the hill which has an incredible vista of the port area.  There's also some gorgeous beaches and incredible flora and fauna. On our way to the church we saw a little makeshift drink stand and commented 'your dog looks like a little goat' to the owner and it turned out to be a....you guessed it,  a little cute goat. 

Mare is a gorgeous beach laden island. The population is less than 8 000 people and there isn't much on the island but the beach is breathtaking! I discovered the beach because another friend of mine was doing a world cruise and took a stunning beach photo and I just had to know where it was, turns out it was Mare. This island is the island that made me realize I have to revive my French.  We took a private taxi and I was trying to negotiate a pick up time with the driver in my broken French. Well, he never came back.  Was feeling a bit deflated with my French skills but when I told the port agent in Noumea that my French sucks he said "Your french doesn't suck, there are no taxis in Mare that's why he didn't come back". Oh. Haha.

Well I think the photos speak for themselves, New Caledonia is just amazing!

Not so summer time reading....

And what I mean by 'not so summer' is that the books pertain more to one's development as a leader rather than personal development or fun, fluffy reading (which I also do from time to time to give my overthinking brain a break).  Nevertheless both are great books that have been recommended to me by colleagues and I think anyone in a leadership or management role would benefit from reading them.  This book  I really enjoyed; Creating Magic by Lee Cockerell. Several of my colleagues have read it and recommended it.  Lee shares his strategies and lessons that he has learned over the years from failing time and time again in different jobs in the hospitality industry.  He then talks about how he's been able to apply those lessons at Disney.  I enjoyed the audio book as it's read by him and he has a particular southern twang, shows how much I miss the south.  Lee shares some very important lessons but the biggest take away at the end of the day is that it's all about the people. It's the people that work for you that make you successful and you need to take good care of them.  Doing what I do every day, this didn't come as a surprise to me at all. However, every day I watch in horror how this has not become apparent to other people in management roles.  I strongly suggest this book for all leadership roles whether seasoned or new.

This book on the other hand focuses on energy in the work place. Being the hippie that  I am I was able to identify to this management book on another level as well.  The book basically talks about putting out the kind of energy that you need to get back and getting people either on your 'bus' or off your 'bus' to get where you want to get to. Although not mentioned in the book it of course falls under the Law of Attraction. What you put out in the world is what you get back. The universe makes sure of that. The more I read, whether it's management, spiritual or what not, the more I find that all of these theories and laws are one and the same.  A solid management book that uses metaphors rather than life lessons, a good read for anyone who is into The Secret or Law of Attraction.  

South Pacific: Vanuatu

Vanuatu was the first island that I visited on this crazy Australian/South Pacific adventure.  If it sounds familiar to you it's probably because it was the first island to host the Survivor series.  It's a relatively small nation north east of Australia with a population of just over 280 000.

Vila, Vanuatu

The first port of call I managed to see was the island of Vila.  It took me a while to wrap my mind around everything, it was just so different then the Caribbean and Latin America I was used to. I spent the last ten years speaking Spanish and using American dollars as my primary currency.  Now I found myself struggling in French, using Aussie dollars and the local currency Vatu and neither one of those was making any sense to me.  The culture was different, the language, history, the food, the music, landscapes and people.  I was cautioned about former cannibalism practices and the prevalence of snakes in Oceania, both sent shivers down my spine but the latter evokes a deep fear and phobia that I have had all my life.  As someone who is rather sensitive to energy and vibrations of the land, I can't say that being there was always comfortable for me.  There were times that the energy was too much. 

Nevertheless my first visit there I just took a stroll through town and went to the colourful market.  I managed to buy some flowers that I killed almost immediately but I did enjoy them for the couple of days I managed to keep them alive.  

I went back another time and visited  The Secret Garden , that was a rather interesting experience.  Its a good half an hour drive from the port.  My friend and I caught a beat up unofficial van taxi to the area.  In the middle of nowhere and far from civilization, the cultural center provides some insight to the rather dark past of the nation.  Deep in the overgrown jungle is the welcome center followed by a restaurant, a tribal show, traditional huts and examples of the vegetation and animals of the island.  One of the colourfully clad performers took us around and showed us down the narrow, overgrown and winding paths.  We got a quick glimpse of everything and decided to come explore further later.  

Our guide

He took us back for the performance which was educational but unnerving at the same time.  The performers were dressed in traditional garb and for some of them that included a penis sheath.  If you're not sure what that is, I'll explain. It's basically a covering for the penis which is then tucked into a makeshift belt. Everything else and I mean EVERYTHING else is kind of left to it's own and not covered in any way.  They explained cannibalism and it's history.  Cannibalism was used as a form of warfare between the tribes. So your tribe does something nasty to us, we will kidnap one of yours and eat them later.  Only men were eaten and not women and apparently white people are too salty.  Of course being the geek that I am I had to spend some time researching this phenomenon.  The last recorded cannibal killing in Vanuatu was in 1969 but as I did more research it looks like there

Do you see the penis sheath on the right?

were some not so broadly broadcasted incidents of people breaking into graveyards and eating bone narrow in the early 80s.  Knowing all this made my visit to the Secret Garden a bit eerie. Knowing what took place on the very land that I was stepping on made me nervous and any time a blade of grass brushed me on my leg, I jumped.  It didn't come as a surprise then when one of the performers pretended to throw a spear at my head, I screamed like a little girl and jumped three feet in the air.  Pam and I watched the show and escaped as soon as we could before we were volunteered to go in the cooking pot for the show.   We spent some time walking around and learning more about the nation. The more we learned, the darker I felt. There were lots of articles on cannibalism.  Many of the missionaries that first came over were captured and eaten.

When a husband died then his wife would be buried alive with him.  This was to encourage the women to take good care of their husbands.  In certain parts of the nation it was bad to give birth to baby girls, in other parts it was the opposite.  Either way when a child of undesirable gender was born, the baby was buried alive.  There were photos of these graves and you could tell that the bodies were buried in distress. The energy of these photos was chilling.  We spent about an hour reading and learning and it got to be a bit too much and we left.  We didn't return to the port after this experience.  I get chills down my spine even now when I recall the experience to write about it.

We also visited Santo and Mystery Island in Vanuatu.  Santo is the largest island of Vanuatu.  We had a one time visit there and decided to go for a stroll. The port smelled like blue cheese but it turns out that there was a warehouse full of coconut shells that provided us with the fragrance.   As we made our way outside of the port, we were greeted by Vanuatu tribes men with spears. Scarred by our previous experience I wasn't sure if I was going to be ushered to the road or impaled and eaten for dinner later.  We went to a crafts market and a food market.   The crafts market sold a lot of home made goods and vintage coca cola bottles.  The bottles puzzled me and eventually I managed to find out from one of the locals that there were the coke bottles left behind by the American soldiers after World War II.  Now when people go to dig to build homes they come across these deserted bottles and resell them to Americans as souvenirs.  The market also featured some tribes women in traditional

garb (sans any tops for the more authentic look) and some men walking around with snakes around their necks.  This of course didn't help my phobia and I was on edge for the rest of my time there.  We ended up having  some juice and coffee at the local coffee shop. Trying to convert the bill from Vatu  to Aussie and American dollars took all four of us HR bunnies to sort out.

Mystery Island is a small island that is completely uninhabited.  Locals come to the island to run the food, drink and massage stands and to provide entertainment.  I thought there would be some interesting name behind the island but it turns out some Queen was going by the island in a boat and simply said 'That island looks like  a mystery' and the name stuck.  It's a crew favorite for snorkeling and kicking back and relaxing. We would bring our snorkel gear, snacks, books and blankets and just chll out and enjoy life and express gratitude for this island's beauty.  You be the judge of this island's beauty with these gorgeous photos.

Ironic isn't it? After all that cannibalism talk and I still get IN the pot

Blanket chill out with my crazy peeps

Mystery Island after heavy rain