Shopping and Dining

Shopping
Whether shopping or just browsing, here's your opportunity to become acquainted with some of the savviest Fijians as well the best barterers around. In Fiji, you'll discover unique cultural and historical artefacts, stylish international boutique fashions as well as budget gift and souvenir shops. Most stores are open 8am to 5pm or 6pm, sometimes later at hotels and resorts. Most stores are closed on Sundays. All of your major credit cards are widely accepted.

Some popular items to bring home for friends, family and business associates to enjoy, include Fijian inspired designer T-shirts, carved tanoa bowls, from which the "national drink yaqona" (kava) is mixed and served, Fijian replica war clubs, "cannibal forks" and Fijian combs. Handicraft like woven baskets and mats, masi (tapa cloth), animal wood carvings and pottery items are best sellers. And, for international fashion buffs, the ubiquitous sulu for men and women in Fiji's all-purpose, one-size-fits-all garment. Women wear them 100 different ways from a beachside wrap to an evening dress while men in business and government wear them as a day skirt.

Beyond the hotels and resorts, in our towns and cities, you'll find a wide assortment of shops frequented by locals. Shops offering glittering displays of gold jewellery along with cottons and silks are popular among and often owned by our Indian compatriots.

And, if you really love the age-old practice of bargaining, head for Cummings Street in Suva where it has reached the highest art form! Here are a select few of Fiji's most popular shopping emporiums not to be missed...

Markets - Fiji style
There is no chrome shelving. Point of sale signs are mostly hastily hand-rendered on bits of cardboard and the muzak is a background hub-bub of Hindustani, Chinese and Fijian.

Dining
Dining in Fiji offers a multiethnic culinary experience. Whether dining at your hotel, island resort or "in town", you'll find a palate painted by flavours from india, China, Korea, Japan, Italy and the best of Europe as well as Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific waters.

Restaurants run the gamut from five star international to 24-hour air-conditioned coffee shops. Steaks and local seafood can be found in most restaurants as can the specialities of our own Fijian cooking heritage. Most hotels and resorts also offer specific culinary themed nights, magiti (Fijian feasts), beach or poolside BBQ's, as well as Fiji's best known and pervasive outdoor cooking experience-the lovo, an underground oven of heated rocks cooking a variety of foods wrapped in banana leaves. covered with earth and coming out after several hours of cooking with a faintly smoky flavour, lovos, produce succulent, tender meats, chicken, seafood, and given the proper occasion, a whole suckling pig!.

Stay a week in Fiji and you're sure to come across a lovo followed by a meke, our colourful evening of traditional Fijian song and dance by nearby villages or resort island staff members. Everyone deserves a lovo and meke, and it's a reward you'll only get in Fiji.

You also shouldn't leave Fiji without having experienced other traditional Fijian dishes. Kokoda, Fiji's most popular speciality, is portions of fresh fish marinated in lime juice and served in a half coconut in lolo - a word that sounds as sweet as it taste- made from the sweet cream of the coconut, a staple in Fijian cooking. Or savour a palusami, meat wrapped in taro (dalo) leaves and cooked in lolo.