Hawaii

I guess I’ve neglected my blog a little the past week or so. Hmm… what did I do.

Last week Tara and I discovered a kava bar downtown. Kava is this crazy plant found on islands in the Pacific that is supposed to make you really happy and mellow, but since it’s not alcohol, there’s no age restriction. The kava was mixed with coconut milk and drunk out of a coconut shell… it wasn’t the greatest tasting thing ever, but the whole experience was awesome. There was this whole process we had to go through before we could actually drink that kava, and the guy who owns the bar is very friendly and nice.

Saturday there was a trip in the afternoon/evening to up to the top of Mauna Kea. Tara and I were on the standby list, and of course there was one seat left at the end for the two of us. So we didn’t get to go, which made me really sad.

Since Monday was Labor Day there were no classes, so Tara and I went with our other roommate, Megan, to the Pana’ewa Rainforest Zoo here in Hilo. Getting there and back again was an adventure in itself, which seems to be an ongoing pattern here. We waited for a bus to come for awhile before accepting the fact that none were coming due to the holiday. So we then walked to 7Eleven to use the atm machine, where we proceeded to call a taxi. Later, when we wanted to come back, we didn’t have enough cash to take us all the way back to our apartment, so we had the driver drop us off at the mall. We then had to walk back to our apt in the heat, and it was a pretty long walk.

But the zoo was great! It is apparently the only natural rainforest zoo in the United States. The animals were all really cute, and I LOVED all the rainforest plants and flowers.

Yes, those are lily pads.

This is Namaste. He's a White Bengal Tiger.

I made it through the first week of classes. Yay! Most of my classes actually seem like they’re going to be a lot of fun. My art history class is probably going to be really hard, though, because it is all Japanese art history. Not only do I know nothing about Japanese art, but all of the artist’s names sound the same to me, and I’m going to have to learn Japanese words. Uhh… yeah, okay. I’m also taking a Hawaiian Ethnozoology course, and in two or three weeks we are going to be making fishing nets in class out of leaves from some native Hawaiian tree. My Kumu (teacher) is also going to be taking us on excursions, in which we are going to be fishing using only nets and SPEARS! Hahahahahaaaaa. I’m trying to picture myself doing this… and it’s just really funny. We’ll see how well that works out.

Somehow having to go to class in the morning is made much nicer by the fact that along with school books in my book bag, I also sometimes have a bathing suit and towel.  Tara and I went to the pool a few times this week after we got out of class, and it’s wonderful. I swam some laps and then floated around in a tube in the most gigantic pool I’ve ever seen… and occasionally I paused to wonder how they have this at a school.

This morning I had my jazz class, and it made me sooo happy!!! It’s like an actual real class, with a good teacher and students who can really dance. I haven’t had a real class like this in over three years now (soooo depressing), but I am definitely out of shape. I was very sweaty and gross by the end.

I’m off to Hapuna Beach in the morning, which is on the other side of the island and is supposedly one of the nicest beaches in the US. So that’s exciting.

Aloha.

Tara and I have been keeping quite busy. Over the past three days, I’ve been on a tour of Hilo, finally bought some food for the apartment (yay!), gone to the farmer’s market, saw a volcano, went to the beach, and walked around downtown a bit (in search of Starbucks…lol).

So the farmer’s market here is amazing!!! There is sooo much fruit and things. I don’t even know what half of them are. We bought some papayas (A whole bag for a dollar), starfruit, lychee nut, and rambutan. It was delicious. Also, the homemade crafts and jewelry were great!

The bus trip down to Volcanoes National Park took about an hour. (The bus system is nice since it’s free, but it is oh so slow!) But it was sooo worth the trip! We only had about two hours to spend there, because everything we do is pretty much based around the bus schedules, so Tara and I decided to take the trails closest to the entrance of the park… And what a view we got!!! After walking for about two minutes, this appeared…

Right there in front of me was Kilauea. The crater around the volcano is so enormous, and watching all of the steam pour out of it was amazing. I still can’t believe this! We continued on the path, walking around and not passing a single person until the end of the trail (I was starting to wonder what wild animals Hawaii has wandering in the forest. I should look into that.) We eventually got an even better view of the eruption, and passed right through smaller steam vents coming up from the volcano.

Standing this close to and walking through volcanic steam coming up from the center of the earth somehow didn’t seem all that safe to me… but it was an incredible experience.

Then today Tara and I tried to go over to Kona (on the other side of the Hawai’i), but apparently the bus only stops if we flag is down… so it drove right past us and we missed it. Instead, we ended up going Carlsmith Beach here in Hilo, and it was lovely… we even had our own private beach that we swam out to. And I saw a sea turtle swimming around that was absolutely ginormous!!! Like seriously, it looked like some sort of sea monster.

Other random thoughts:

- I successfully “slept in” until 7:30 today! It was very exciting.

- I saw two speed limit signs. They do exist.

- Most police here drive around in normal cars with a single blue light attached to the top.

- I think everybody here knows each other.

- Tara and I have talked to and had extremely strange interactions with people way too many times already. I can’t even describe.

That’s it for now. Hang loose.

Well, that was the longest day of my life (literally). I woke up at 5am (NJ time) yesterday after getting only three hours of sleep and flew out to Phoenix. Tara and I got some lunch there at around 3:30pm your time (12:20pm in Phoenix), and then continued on to Honolulu. That flight was over six hours, which wasn’t too fun, but it really wasn’t too bad either. Tara was able to switch seats with someone, so at least we got to sit next to each other. Yay!

Arizona… or possibly California.

California!!! And my first sighting of the Pacific Ocean. 

The plane ride was very smooth, and we got to Honolulu around 11:20pm NJ time (5:20pm in Hawaii). Flying in over the island of Oahu was absolutely the most gorgeous thing ever! The water is so aqua green colored. We flew through these gigantic puffy white clouds on the east side of the island over huge hills covered in green, and then all of a sudden, all the clouds were just gone on the western side. Part of me was dying on the inside because of the fact that I couldn’t take any pictures (No electronics during takeoff or landing). I even saw a rainbow as we were flying in!
Next we checked into the airport for our third flight, where we planned on getting dinner. Well, there was no place to eat in the airport, and the plane was an hour late. We sat there for three hours, and by this time I was extremely tired and hungry. But eventually we boarded the small plane, and flew over a lot of islands. It was dark by this time, so all I could see were the lights. But it was really awesome seeing the clusters of lights all over, surrounded by the black of the water.
We eventually made it over to the apartment (which is really nice!), and dragged our heavy suitcases up to the third floor. Dinner and showering wasn’t really important to me anymore at this point, so I put some sheets on the bed and passed out at 11pm my time (5am your time – this whole time change thing is very confusing).

So, here it is. I made a blog, (with some, or well… a lot, of help from my brother. thanks!) and I plan on posting all of my Hawaiian adventures here. So if you want to know how I’m doing, see some cool pictures, and read about what I’ve been up to during the four months that I’ll be gone, this is the place to go.

I can’t believe that I’m leaving so soon! Two weeks from now, assuming that my planes (all three of them) are on time, I should be in Hawaii at this time! Crazy.