Yesterday Adam and I decided to have an adventurious spirit and walk to Savusavu (the tiny town by our apartment) and go on the pearl farm tour. After walking down our 300 ft drive way which, if you are going up is a pretty steep hike, we walked an hour on the dirt road to town. In town we have found a small resturant run by the local dive shop that has a menu of some amazing fijian, asian, and indian cusine. I chose the chili garlic chicken, which was amazing. After our lunch Adam and I went on the J. Hunter pearl farm tour.
The pearl farm was pretty interesting, they have over a million oysters that they have specialized japanese technicians implant stones from the mississippi river into them to produce the pearls. Every day the fijian workers clean the exterior of 1000 oysters to prevent disease or harm from sea life. When about a year has passed and the japanese come back to harvest the pearls, which are then sold on the pearl market in japan. Evidently only the japanese have the skills to implant and harvest the pearls without destroying the oysters. The benefit to this trade is that because of the addition of the pearl farm on the island many fijians now have jobs. Also the company was able to help some of the small villages they employ get electricity.
Speaking of electricity, we found out a couple of days ago after having frequent blackouts that the whole island is powered by generator and when they switch over to another generator the users lose power for about a half an hour or so.
Today was a lazy day, it seems the Washington rains has found us as it poured all day making us stuck in our studio apartment, hopefully tomorrow the sunshine will find us again.
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