New Year and noodles

So, it was December 30th and we were in Mare.  We were idly chatting about what we might do for New Year's Eve and given that we were in a hotel without a car, a nearly two-year-old and no restaurants within 9 kms - we would be eating in the hotel.   Right?  Well, maybe not.

On the 30th, a sign went up announcing the New Year's Eve dinner.  It was a buffet - a pretty copious buffet by all accounts, with crab and prawns and roast pork.  Lots of food and unfortunately a price to match.  As we stood by the door to the restaurant, our eyes scanned down to the price...CFP11,500.  That's $220 kiwis - each - before we'd even had a drop of vino.  Ouch!

So we asked if we could eat something from the regular menu - but have it on the lovely balcony in our room.  They checked, verified again - the answer was no.  CFP11,500 was the only option. They knew they had us sucker tourists by the nads.

Or so they thought...

We were also a good 5 kms from the nearest shop, dad reckoned he could walk it, first thing before it go too hot.  He took off at 6am and at 7.15am he joined us for breakfast.  It had got hot, the shop was further than we thought and he'd had to turn back.  This was now becoming an Odyssey. And Charlie took over Homer's part.

We thought he'd take a bike...but he was smarter than that.  He stalked reception for a few minutes and happened to hear that a car rental guy was taking a car back.  Charlie hitched a ride with him to the local shop (think over-sized dairy on steroids).  Sweet.

Charlie bought us crackers, cheese (camembert in a pop-top can), chippies and cashew nuts for our entree.  Our main was 2 minute noodles (complete with bowls and plastic spoons) and desert was fresh mango.  It was all washed down with some very drinkable bottles of red. Perfect.  He hitched another ride home.

We had a hilarious night slurping our noodles on our lovely balcony overlooking the sea.  And the total cost of the evening was about CFP 1000 ($20) each.  Sweet as.   Here are some pics of Mum and Dad with the noodles and Homer himself, enjoying a beer in 2009.

Bonne Annee a tout le monde!