Week 8 (2nd post)

  Sorry the post took so long. I made some videos with copyrighted music in it. I tried to get permission to use their songs and post it but they said no. (the album is Night Visions from Imagine Dragons) So if you know me and want to see them, you will have to see me when I come back.

Anyways…

  This past 2 weeks we moved into a new apartment, swam with whales and dolphins, had coconut water straight out of the coconut, saw a chicken cross the road, and went snorkeling again. And someone told me the coolest and  silliest trick I’ve heard of. And I’m just going to say that a camera doesn’t capture some scenes to well, and definitely can’t capture the experience. And, without further ado, I will proceed to the first subject…

New Apartment

   We moved into a new apartment. We think it is altogether better with the exception that there is no internet here, so we would have to use the dental clinic’s wifi. (we were using it before at our old place because we were adjacent to the clinic.) Here is the new video…

we haven’t seen but 2 roaches in the past 2 weeks here, and hope never to see one in the future. But there is plenty of ants.😀  When you are using the shower and someone else is using hot water, the shower water gets freezing cold.

Small New Things

Coconut water

My mom bought a drinking coconut from the market (it has coconut water in it). 

  It seems more refreshing than water! We shared it at the dinner table one night. It wasn’t a surprise to me that it was gone soon after we cut the top off. the inside flesh of the coconut is what you use for coconut shreds, except this coconut was to young so if we attempted to shred and dry the coconut flesh inside, it wouldn’t make much, wouldn’t taste amazing, and would be stiff and rubbery. the coconuts are picked at a different stage of its growth for that. But, my mom decided that since it was so expensive ( even though at eagles eye view of this island all you see is coconut trees! ) she wouldn’t plan to buy any more.

Later that day, our new neighbors (who also just happen to be the people who work at the dental clinic with us) brung us a whole bag of them for us! They explained that some stranger that they worked on at the clinic gave the front desk lady a wad of money to provide lunch for everybody there. She bought a whole bunch of coconuts (like 15, 3 per person) for lunch. but all of the volunteers either skipped lunch or went home for it. All of the coconuts were handed over to our neighbors, and they delivered them to the volunteers who help at the clinic.

(update: my mom found someone who sells coconuts cheap. we get 6 coconuts every week now!😋  )

Creatures

   I have been wanting to take a picture of a bat, but the moment I pull my phone out, its gone. I’ll try to get a better photo of one, but this is the best one I’ve got. 

We had some elder missionaries for dinner. One of the missionaries used to be a principal at a school, and a lot of kids thought that he was pretty cool for a principal, witch I bet he was. One of the students told him a trick that he thought was pretty cool. Over where he lived there was a lot of bats in the sky during the sunset. The kid said that if you get some chicken liver, put it on a fishing hook, and throw it into the sky, a bat will grab hold of it, and you can fly the bat like a kite. 😂

(this is not about bats, but the same missionary said that when he was in math class in school and he was bored, he would do this for entertainment. A girl with long blond hair sat in front of him. He would ask if he could have a hair, and she would say yes. (?) He would then catch a fly, but not squish it, and somehow tie a end of the hair on its leg. then he would pin the other end of the hair between his finger and the desk and let the fly go. The fly would try to fly away but instead fly in circles! Somehow he still got an A in math!😂 )

Chip bag

From the title above, you might be thinking: “What’s so unique about a chip bag?” Well, even here in tonga, the chips are different. Here is a picture of one:

See what it says? It says: ‘Purple kumala chips’. I'm pretty sure that purple kumala is a type of huge long root. They kind of taste like potato chips except not as thin. And it’s made locally!

Adaline’s Butterfly

An Elder missionary who knew how to breed butterflies gave Adaline a butterfly chrysalis. it used to be bright green with just a couple of shiny, gold colored flakes on it. the first picture is what it looked like after a while, and (of course) the second one is when it crawled out of that cramped chrysalis. We didn’t see it hatch though because we were at church.

These missionaries lived in garner, a town nearby where we live at home. The sister breeded some butterflies for one of my aunts weddings on my dad's side a while ago! they moved to tonga just for an adventure after they retired, and got called here when they moved in for their mission. small world!

Weird Bread

We went to the bakery and saw some weird bread. rainbow bread…

and tank bread…

I’ve never seen anything like it. 🤔

Hole in the rock beach

We went to a beach to look for shells. this is what it looked like…

See where it gets its name? there were lots of shells there, but most all of them were occupied, and accidentally brung some hermit crabs home! 😄

Swimming with Whales

We went swimming with the wales last Saturday. Here are some pictures… 

Pretty cool huh? The Whale guide said that ocean was unnaturally smooth that day. I also broke my watch during the trip. : (

It was probably in the water when it broke. That's why it will not turn on. But my dad says that the 1 year warranty will cover it. lets hope it does. 🙁

Thursday Night

On Thursday, we went to ‘The Natural Land Bridge’ and then went to dinner at a resort, which started at 8:00 PM. Then we watched a series of native dances, including the fire dance at the very end. I’ll bet you will like the video!

The Natural Land Bridge

My plate (bottom one)

the plates are made out of a banana tree!

The Native Fire Dance

Bob’s Beach

It’s really not a beach. It’s another blowhole location. I’m pretty sure I posted about blowholes already. it seems that the water erroded a cut into the shoreline. Here is a picture…

Isn’t it picturesque? Like I said before, you just can’t capture the experience.

Well, that's all there is so far, folks. I hope I can keep up to this blog more often because we have less than a month here and I've only posted 2 times now. ☹️  But on a happy note, I've got this post done and i'm all caught up! we are supposed to go to an island called 'Eua (<-- link) by plane pretty soon. it's the shortest commercial flight in the world!

(ps 1 more thing, we FINALLY started turning on the ac! its like 80 degrees fahrenheit here (26.7 degrees celsius)my mom only lets us turn it on when it's humid !)

please follow for updates and see you next time!😀

Hayden