View from the hotel in Papeete at 6am in the morning.

My family and I went to Tahiti for vacation this winter break…we got back on Christmas day; a 5-day vacay. It was definitely relaxing and very nice to have some summer weather! We went to two islands: Tahiti Nui and Moorea. Moorea was a 30 minute ferry ride from Papeete (which is in Tahiti Nui). The beach was beautiful (as you can tell) and the water was quite warm..and the waves were perfect to play in!

We spent 2 days in Tahiti Nui. We went to a museum to look at some cultural aspects of the Tahitian island. The Tahitians were mainly polytheists but were also influenced by the French with monotheism…The museum also introduced the history of coral reefs and volcano/lava (which is why there was black sand in Tahiti) as well as Tahiti’s main exports– vanilla, coconuts, and pineapples. Everything in Tahiti was EXPENSIVE as hellll because basically everything was imported. All meats are imported; they have cows locally for the milk and that’s basically about it!

Botanical gardens in Tahiti. Beautiful!

We spent the next two days in Moorea, which is a very tiny island as I said just a 30 minute ferry ride from Papeete. Moorea seemed more touristy but at the same time had a very small-town-like feeling. I’m sure those who live in Moorea all know each other. There honestly wasn’t much to do in Moorea except stay in the resort and play in the waters…Well, they have some pearl shopping but I definitely cannot afford that! I wished we had gone to their local shopping markets..they looked like flea markets, but we didn’t get to go since they are closed on weekends and everything closes down on Christmas eve!

The bungalows we stayed in. There is a ladder to get in the water!

These bungalows we stayed in were absolutely amazing! This is what I imagined when I thought “Tahiti.” You are basically free to go in the water whenever and snorkel. These bungalows are in a lagoon so the waters are quite shallow. But let me tell you: there are sharks, eels, stingrays, and other dangerous fish that come out at night! Definitely creepy and scary. There are TONS of fish in the waters, especially since there are mini coral reefs everywhere. We would take back bread from the restaurants and feed the fish. Once you drop a couple pieces of bread in the water, all the fish come rushing. It’s pretty cool.I only snorkeled once becuase I tend to get scared of the too many fish…but my dad and a family friend found tons of sea urchins and oyster-like clams! Pretty cool!

All in all, my trip to Tahiti was really great. Here are some interesting things I learned –

1. In Papeete, there are almost NO traffic lights. Everything is traffic circles. But, there are tons of auto accidents that happen. Some roads are right by the waters but have no protective wall/barrier so when people drunk drive and cause a car accident, cars fall into the ocean..quite scary.
2. According to one of our tour guides, the population in Tahiti–about 50% of them are under 21, so there is going to be major problems with their form of “social security.”
3. A large portion of the population there is also obese..why, we don’t know. My dad guessed it was because they used too much coconut oil. Don’t know if that’s true..haha.
4. Moorea seems to have no waste management system implemented. Those living by the resort in Moorea burned their trash. Every. single. day. It smelled like shit and it is so damaging to our atmosphere. THANKS A LOT!

It has been raining really hard these past couple of days, especially at night. On Friday night, I was driving home, and it was raining so hard I could barely see where I was going…in a 50 zone, I was going literally 35-40. And there was no one on the streets… But I guess it’s good to get some rain here since we never really do, even though I despise the rain.

Anyhow, today, I got my ears pierced. Yes, I am 18 and just a day ago, I still never had my ears pierced. I’ve always wanted to, but my mother told me not to until I was older, because her ears got infected pretty badly. I guess she just had a bad experience. But it never really bothered me a lot that my ears weren’t pierced, although I always envied people who got to wear pretty earrings. But now I guess I will too, soon!

So, on New Year’s Eve, I went out with my family and we went to a nice hotel to have drinks. My dad was already pretty drunk, but he likes to drink to relax (and no, he is not an alcoholic, but maybe you’ll think that he is, after this story..heh). But he was getting pretty loud and obnoxious (but all in good spirit), except my sister was annoyed and told him to stop drinking. She ended up blowing air out of her straw at his shirt, and some water came out of the straw. That was out of line, even in my opinion. Anyhow, he ended up getting really mad and decided (in his drunk state) to start yelling at her about how my sister was making him out to be “an evil drunk” even though he “wasn’t drunk.” Long story short, he embarrassed all of us, and my sister, my best friend, and I took a walk and didn’t go back until we were leaving.

My dad still hasn’t talked to my sister, and I didn’t realize I did anything wrong (…I didn’t..) until I realized he was (and still is) giving me the cold shoulder. What the hell. I did nothing wrong. What bullshit. It’s ridiculous, and he needs to get over himself.