Volcanic ash makes the difference. ..=
.

At least, that's what it said on the coffee mugs.
Recently during semester break we took a quick three-day get awa=
y weekend to the resort town of Kokopo. That's on the east end of =
the island of New Britain, in Papua New Guinea.

Here is what th=
e beach looked like standing on the shore in front of the Kokopo Beach B=
ungalow Resort.


<= br/>Turning around at looking at the resort as it would appear from sea.=


For the record, that is=
Blanche Bay of the Bismarck Sea. (You could look it up.)

Each=
room is a private little bungalow of your own. The back side — ocean =
view aspect — had a porch and we spent quite a bit of time sitting on t=
hat. Here's the panoramic view from our porch.

I can't imagine what the part about v=
olcanic ash refers to. Possibly, it means the beach, for it is "bl=
ack sand" beach just as you see in Hawaii or anywhere else volcanoe=
s have been recently active. From the resort we could see the open crat=
er of Mt. Tavurvur belching smoke and steam right in plain view. It was=
somehow majestically beautiful and awe-inspiring at the same time, abou=
t eight and a quarter miles away.

To tell the truth, we did a l=
ot of nothing. There is a lovely pool and you could see the beach. The=
restaurant is quite good. And we did take a brief history tour includi=
ng driving into Rabaul to see some of the volcanic destruction, still vi=
sible 20 years later.

But three days of mostly nothing was a go=
od feeling after more than a few fifty-, sixty- and even-longer-hour wee=
ks that made up Semester 1.