Depart US soil, lose a day and arrive in Nadi

We get up and out and return our rental car with plenty of time to spare.  The Honolulu airport is quite the shopping mall with stores like Channel, Ralph Lauren, Marc Jacobs, etc. It is a feast for the eyes - the only real shopping we do these days.  We get our bags checked into Air Pacific at NO CHARGE - imagine that and when we ask if food will be served on our flight, we are told "Yes.  There will be two meals on your flight"  Welcome to the sensible world, right!  We get to our gate and on-board our plane.  It reminds me of how travel used to be.  When they would greet you pleasantly, have a nice blanket and pillow awaiting you in your seat, Offer plenty of overhead storage space, Free drinks (including wine)  two movies,  warm hand-towels, and yes, two hot meals.  We see on our itinerary that we will be making a technical stop - where in the world will they stop since all that seems to be between Oahu and Fiji is the huge Pacific?  Apparently, we are stopping on Christmas Island no less.  Is that where Santa vacations?  Perhaps, but more specifically it is a place called Kiribati.  Who knew? We arrive there after about three hours and it is a very interesting view from the plane.  This is an atoll in the middle of the Pacific ocean.  The plane stops there once a week to drop off and pickup passengers en route to Fiji or Hawaii going the other direction. I guess this is about where we cross the international date line - that ephemeral spot on earth where you experience time travel and either are projected forward or backward by a day.  In our case, we move forward and say good-bye to a very short January 10 and hello to late afternoon on January 11. After about an hour, we are up in the air again and after a very long 4+ hours we arrive in Nadi at 9:30 at night.  Our transport to our hotel takes about 30 minutes to arrive and by the time we check in, we are pretty weary.  Our hotel is definitely on the No Frills side of things and we have the sounds of jet engines lulling us to sleep. I discover a gecko crawling on the ceiling just as I am preparing to bed down for the night.....hmm.  This may be a long night :D  But as they say in Fiji......Bula Vinaka! (a warm welcome)