My travels: South Pacific

The first impression is from a movie in 1958, South Pacific. At that time, it was a movie in CinemaScope with multi-sound tracks. Songs like Bali Hai Bali Hai was very popular at the time. In 70 or 80's, Tahiti was on National Geography. The black pearl necklace and turquoise colour lagoons gave me very deep impression. In 2014 April, I had a chance to visit French Polynesia by cruise ship. The regular airfare from Toronto to Papeete is about 2500 CAD or higher. The route is Toronto to Los Angeles, then Los Angeles to Papeete by Air Tahiti.

French Polynesia has many islands, I have visited only 3. They all belong to Society Islands. Tahiti is the largest island, with population 183,645 (2012 census), the most populous island of French Polynesia and accounting for 68.5% of its total population. The capital Papeete, is located on hte northwest coast with the only international airport in the region, Faa's International Airport, situated 5 km from the town centre.

Geographically, Tahiti located 4,400 km south of Hawaii, 7,900 km from Chile and 5,700 km from Australia.

My another impression of Tahiti is from the movie - The Mutiny on the Bounty(1962 version) with Marlon Brando, Trevor Howard, Richard Harris, Hugh Griffith.

South Pacific Islands

Tahiti & Moorea

Papeete

Papeete - April 18, 2014. This modern city is very clean. People are very nice, drivers stop to let you cross the street. It is just like Hawaiians, they stop and let you cross the street. There are Chinese live there, also, there is one KMT building. The day of my visit was Good Friday, virtually everything is closed, except cruise ship area. I visited Notre-Dame of Papeete, there are many prayers inside the church.