Musée de la Ville & First Day in Nouméa

I decided to take today easy and just explore the city center at a leisurely pace. First stop though, was the currency exchange place so I could switch the last of my vatu into pacific francs.

After that, I found a little cafe restaurant and bought the cheapest food I could find, a little hotdog with cheese and sauce. New Caledonia food prices are definitely the most expensive of the trip, it’s kinda crazy how expensive food is here. Even compared to French Polynesia which imports a lot of the same products from the same places.

With some food in me, I walked around the central square, Place des Cocotiers, and stumbled across the Musée de la Ville de Nouméa. It was still early ish in the day and I had it on my list of things to see in the city, and the student price was only 100F (CA$1.20) so I went in a spent a few hours there!

It was a relatively small museum but well done and a few different cool exhibits, highlighting the history of New Caledonia and of Nouméa. New Caledonia has basically been in a semi constant state of political and civil turmoil since its inception. The indigenous population, the Kanaks, were extremely poorly treated by the French, and the French to this day aren’t very keen on the whole reconciliation thing in their stubborn French way. There was some periods of peace, facilitated by Jean-Marie Tjibaou, a Kanaky politician who was really a huge figure in establishing peace and common ground between the French Caldoches and the Kanaks. But recently that peace has kind of deteriorated because of a few different things the French government has done. Interesting to learn a kind of over view of the 20th century history. And you can still feel the tension in the air, even just walking around the city. It doesn’t feel dangerous, but you can definitely tell there’s so much engrained racial segregation in just the activities and places people hang out. Obviously not overt, but it’s still noticeable

The history of noumea itself was cool too, post-world war it had a huge rapid expansion in population which needed lots of new housing and infrastructure. There was also a piano on the top floor which was nice to play! I haven’t played piano since I left home lol.

After hanging out at the museum, and in its garden, I went to the grocery store around the corner to buy some food for my stay. Definitely not eating out, but even groceries were expensive. I got some deals on soon expiring/just expired products lol. Ate a tuna sashimi lunch (the one cheap thing relative to home) in the park and wandered down by the waterfront, before heading back to the hostel and making yet another spaghetti and hotdog dinner!Baca lagi