{"id":1661,"date":"2016-01-02T03:45:05","date_gmt":"2016-01-02T11:45:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/?p=1661"},"modified":"2016-01-02T03:45:05","modified_gmt":"2016-01-02T11:45:05","slug":"heading-back-from-fiji","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2016\/01\/02\/heading-back-from-fiji\/","title":{"rendered":"Heading back from Fiji"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We&#8217;re about to board a seaplane back to Nadi from which we&#8217;ll fly first to LAX, and then hopefully to SFO later.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>We leave 9:30pm Jan 2 in Fiji, and get home at 4pm Jan 2 in San Francisco.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>That &#8211; ladies and gentlemen &#8211; is the magic of the international date line.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>It was absolute magic, and a ton of photos and stories will follow in the days to come. But first some things I&#8217;ve learned:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If you pick up a sea cucumber from under the water, then it spits water at you<\/li>\n<li>Don&#8217;t touch the coral. It will cut you. You will get infected.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li>Always ask the questions you&#8217;re not sure about because the answers can be fascinating and wonderful.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li>Get a return plan. It&#8217;s a paradise that needs to be revisited.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li>It&#8217;s really, really weird to be a day ahead of everything you know. Especially when you try to send new year&#8217;s wishes.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li>Don&#8217;t drink the kava<\/li>\n<li>Smile. It fixes everything<\/li>\n<li>A ridiculously good looking 6-month old boy will be kissed at least 25 times a day while in Fiji<\/li>\n<li>She can be as beautiful five years later as you remember her being the first time you arrived<\/li>\n<li>Eat the fish.<\/li>\n<li>Grow old. Not for yourself, but for the others who get to enjoy your company.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li>Be worthy of their company, and make sure they are worthy of yours<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The trip was amazing. The friends we made laughed with us, and then made fun of us. I met a prominent US Senator and his family. I was inspired by an old man with a huge soul.<\/p>\n<p>Good-bye Turtle Island. My heart stays with you.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We&#8217;re about to board a seaplane back to Nadi from which we&#8217;ll fly first to LAX, and then hopefully to SFO later.&nbsp; We leave 9:30pm Jan 2 in Fiji, and get home at 4pm Jan 2 in San Francisco.&nbsp; That &#8211; ladies and gentlemen &#8211; is the magic of the international date line.&nbsp; It was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQyAq-qN","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1662,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2016\/01\/03\/yes-john-there-is-something-worse-than-turkish-time\/","url_meta":{"origin":1661,"position":0},"title":"Yes John, there is something worse than Turkish time","date":"January 3, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"In high school, it drove my dear friend (and comrade in arms for all things sports) John Gottshall bat shit crazy how late I was to everything.\u00a0 Heading to the Ale House? At least 15 minutes late.\u00a0 Tailgating at 2pm? Show up at John's house at 2:15.\u00a0 You wanna drive\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;just thinking out loud&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1348,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2014\/11\/17\/3-days-til-30\/","url_meta":{"origin":1661,"position":1},"title":"3 days til 30","date":"November 17, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, I've run out of ideas, and steam. So today's post will be a photo gallery of the last 10 years. Thanks for keeping up with me :-) (Post-looking up all of the photos... holy shit what a great decade)","rel":"","context":"In &quot;just thinking out loud&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1679,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2016\/01\/05\/can-a-year-be-367-days\/","url_meta":{"origin":1661,"position":2},"title":"Can a year be 367 days?","date":"January 5, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"When I was 16 years old, I went to the DMV to get my license. I had received my permit on November 21, 1999 (one day after my birthday). The law said you had to wait 1 year. 2000 was a leap year, and so I went down to the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;just thinking out loud&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":421,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2011\/01\/01\/what-a-year-2010\/","url_meta":{"origin":1661,"position":3},"title":"What a year, 2010","date":"January 1, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The roller coaster which was 2010 has come to a close. It was pretty awesome. I got married, Micky is pregnant. I changed jobs (still at TokBox though). I'm ready for 2011. I'm going to become a father, and I'm also pretty psyched about the new doors that have opened\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;New Year Resolutions&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1010,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2014\/03\/16\/this-week-in-review-10\/","url_meta":{"origin":1661,"position":4},"title":"This week in review","date":"March 16, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Not a lot of sleep. Micky being in NYC fills the whole house with weird creaks, and this strange sensation that every noise is someone out to get me (or maybe I've watched too much Burn Notice...). The week ended well, and the weekend was even better. Saturday was good\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Life Updates&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1107,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2014\/04\/13\/this-week-in-review-14\/","url_meta":{"origin":1661,"position":5},"title":"This week in review","date":"April 13, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Since I'm playing catch up, the best I can really do is throw up a bunch of photos. The orange heater I built (with my two magic elves). That's me showing off a bit. The rest are just a day in the life.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Life Updates&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1661"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1661\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}