Aloha OAHU

My first trip to Hawaii was based on 2 initial ideas.  For starters, it was the cheapest way to fly home (sort of) and number two, it’s a part of the United States (sort of)…so that means, Halloween would be a big deal.

Halloween is my absolute favorite holiday and I decided to leave Australia (and the last week of my work visa) just for the occasion.  After I booked my flight I found out that I had 3 friends living in the islands.  One in Waikiki, the other two in Maui; it always helps to have a foot in the door, no matter the situation.

I got off the plane, went through the motions of typical airport security and found out from the customs agent that the apple I had brought was somehow illegal…which I offered to eat in front of her to prove it wasn’t the “Sleeping Beauty poisoned variety” (she declined sadly).

So that’s the story of the breakfast that never was.  Pointless footnote for that story, (like I ever have any other footnotes)  it is good to know that if it had been a pack of strawberries from Australia, somehow those are legal to bring to the U.S. and I could have eaten them.  We take our fruit very serious here.....

  

"Super-Gonzo", THE Geoff Lau

I found my way to the hostel but it was too early to check-in.  So the lady at the desk was nice enough to let me call my friend Geoff, even though she had explicitly denied the 3 other people in front of me from any phone use.  I’m just a crafty-lass is all.

Geoff and I went to Coastal Carolina University together, we had a lot of classes together and tons of mutual friends and I entrusted him with a very special task.   The task of retrieving and taking care of my “Thor Hammer” (details to come in “My Halloweenie” story)....needless to say, we know each other.

Geoff conveniently lived about 6 blocks away from the hostel.  I didn't know this when I booked the hostel initially but was glad to find that out. 

I went to Geoff’s and caught up with him for a while.  It had probably been 3 or 4 years since I had even seen him and it is always nice to catch up with an old friend.  He took me to a couple of beach spots he likes to hang out at, one of them being the aptly named “Sandy Beach” (inventive!). 

The beach itself was beside the water park where Adam Sandler filmed “50 First Dates”.  That’s fun fact number one for the IMDB (Internet Movie Data Base)freaks out there….like myself, so I thought that was pretty cool. 

Not even the inside...haha...fail

I’m usually not too star-struck with celebrities or anything.  I don’t ask for autographs or anything like that…but I do think it’s funny that my subconscious behavior instantly cared about that water park a lot more because a movie I enjoyed was filmed there years ago.  I think I just established myself as a 12 year old girl.   What a wonderful thing the human brain can be.

We sat and had a few beers at “Sandy Beach” (creative!).  He’s been here for over 2 years so he’s pretty much a local at this point.  I like to pick the local’s brains more than the next person mostly because I like to gain a perspective about what it is like to actually LIVE there.  I enjoy hearing the good, the bad, what a normal day is like.  It’s interesting to me, no matter where I am.

I think it’s because subconsciously I’m still looking for “my place”.  The one I’d like to eventually call home when I get over this wanderlust or “travel-bug” as some say, if that ever happens.  I think about more than the vacation, I think about my happiness with longevity too.

I also want to hear about all the local spots.  I hate the tourist traps and would rather find the dive bars and secret sushi restaurants off the beaten path than to go where 1 million other tourists and backpackers go. 

Arial of "Sandy", with no waves to prove my point, OF COURSE!

We then decide to hop in and do some body surfing.  On the BIGGEST DAMN WAVES I’VE EVER SEEN!

They weren’t even that “big” I guess, Geoff would laugh if he ever reads this.  Probably not by surf standards and certainly not by Hawaii standards but for body surfing, these things were brutal.

I literally got my ass kicked, up and down.  I’ve never felt anything like that.  Once you’re under it just takes you, throws you around, and spins you, whatever it wants.  You are at Poseidon’s mercy.  I had no control and I wasn’t sure when it would stop because just when I thought it was safe to swim up, I’d get tumbled again.

Geoff was no help in this department by the way.

There were times when Geoff would mess with me and say things like, “Go for it bro, you got this!”.

So of course, like an idiot, I’d hop right in it and fall through the barrel to my imminent demise or at the very least an uncertain idea of what my health could be like after.

Only to come up and see Geoff laughing and asking me questions like, “Why didn’t you bail out of that one?  It was huge”. 

Thanks buddy.  Good to see you too.  

The previous sentence was structured “plural” because this happened several times.  SEVERAL times!  I never knew if he was serious or at least not until it was too late.

Plus, he was grabbing all of them like a complete bad ass and I wasn't about to disappoint New Jersey’s answer to “Aquaman”.

So I flipped, I fell, I rolled, I slammed, I obtained an absurd amount of salt in my eyes, tried not to drown on more than one occasion.  Then decided I had enough, so I took the flipper off.

 

Geoff had equipped me with a flipper (singular; he had the other one) to help with kicking/paddling.  Except if used by a novice, such as myself, you end up just looking like a duck with a clipped wing, going around and around. 

So I gave him the flipper back and managed to hold my own for a bit.  He taught me how the locals like to body surf, which I really enjoyed.  It’s more of a corkscrew through the entire wave.  Since the waves are so long and large, you’re able to ride them for a longer duration of time.  Which in turn gives you more time to be creative.

So long in fact that I rode one wave twice.  I came in went through the wave and came back up, only to go back down again…none of which was planned.  Geoff told me he saw me underwater and didn’t know what I was doing (flipping and flapping and whatnot)…that made two of us. 

Anyways, the local’s body surfing technique is to basically go in on your side with one arm out stretched in front, with the other arm reaching towards the back of the wave.  Then you make it your own.  You can flip or turn, spin, or just ride straight.  You make it whatever you want.

 

I made it a mess.  That’s what I made it. 

I did manage to get it a few times but the waves at this beach were so powerful and relentless it was hard since it was my first time on waves this big.  There are no surfers on that beach because the drop-off is so enormous, supposedly it's pretty dangerous and people get hurt all the time (something else I did NOT know before getting in).  It goes from really shallow, to thousands of feet deep within a few yards which can explain the outrageous momentum of each wave (somehow…).

I make it sound like a terrible time, but it wasn’t.  It was great!  I’d do it again tomorrow, I just like to be over-dramatic, for the sake of the story, and I have to tell it that way. 

After the beach, Geoff took me to a secretly delicious and frankly suspicious sushi restaurant.

Delicious explains itself; it was suspicious because A) I probably couldn’t find this place again if YOU paid me to because it was in the middle of nowhere and B) it was connected to a carport….and I try not to eat my raw fish, or anything for that matter, out of anything connected to the words; car, port, cart, truck…just doesn't sound right.

But I trusted my friend so I thought I’d at least try it and it did NOT disappoint!

Then I had all I could take, we took the food back to Geoff’s and I crashed on his couch for a while.  I felt bad, but between the sun and the jet-lag  I never stood a chance of watching Game 2 of the World Series.

Even though you could probably add “Game 2 of the World Series” to the list of reasons I crashed on the couch…baseball is crazy boring. 

So I woke up (or we woke up, we never actually discussed our "Friends" like “man nap” together) and Geoff took me back to the hostel because he had to get to his ukulele lesson (see! How cool is that?  Localized, Hawaiian style ukulele lessons).

And as I generally do from that point when I’m on my own, I make new friends. 

The hostel put me off at first because everyone was kind of doing their own thing and not hanging out together.  I don’t like that. 

You’re in a hostel for God’s sakes!  If you wanted to do your own thing, then you should go get a hotel room.  Hostels are for travelers who want to meet new people and drink heavily, let’s be serious here.

So I get unpacked (aka throw my bag in a corner, the backpacker way) and head outside to strike up whatever conversation I can basically.  I’m booked in for 5 days and there is a zero percent chance that I allow a bunch of un-socialites to ruin my first few days in Hawaii.

As you do when we finally put that first foot forward, I met a couple of really cool people.  From all over the world, just how I like it. 

The key is, depending on the setting, to move all the furniture/tables together and force the interaction. 

You're welcome Seaside...my presence is felt everywhere

If there is too much space, people will utilize it.  If you make them come around, that’s when the magic happens.  They will thank you later.  Or they will discuss pointless trivia with you while they stare at their smartphones…either way.

We hung out for a bit, had a few drinks, etc etc.   Then jet-lag called again.  I hate that guy.

He’s like a bill collector accept he knows where you are and how much sleep you owe.  I was due quite a hefty amount of slumber.  So I called it an early night. 

I woke up early and energized (7am).  I was shocked, but coming from Australia I’m pretty sure it was a normal time there…like, the next day, around noon, when normal people wake up. 

So I chose to be productive and go for a run.  Anytime I’m in a new place, I go run.  It helps me to become acclimated to the area and it’s a great way to see some sights and get some cool photos.
 

It is also…a great way…to get lost.

As I did.  For the….“every single time I do it”. 

Not that it is bad, it’s just exhausting. 

So what started as a nice run on the beach with some mixed in push-ups, turned into me seeing the entire “Diamond Head” mountain. 

Then deciding I’m going to find a way to get to that mountain.  That I’m going to climb that mountain. 

MAN complex strikes again.

I see, I conquer…

Okay, it’s probably more like, I see, I do 12 things that I thought would work at the time and didn’t, then I ask for directions, then…decide that I’ve already came too far and will do it another day.

MAN complex.

I literally ran AROUND THE DAMN MOUNTAIN!  I thought I had struck gold.  The name of the mountain was “Diamond Head”, so why wouldn’t I follow “Diamond Head Road”?

Nope.  Complete wrong way but this sexy surfer chick helped me out by telling me that I had already came too far to go back so I might as well just try to get to the other side.  So I did the whole loop.

By the time I finally found the entrance, I had decided that I didn’t care about the “Diamond Head Crater” anymore. 

"Diamond Head", behind the palm trees...aka NOT CLOSE

At all, like when you’re watching a good TV show that has been on for too long. 

It started out great, everything was going well, you have your favorites but everyone is entertaining enough to bring you back each week, you kept up with the show for several seasons and then BOOM!

The inevitable happens…a silly plot twist, they ran out of new original ideas, or they made way too much money and just started putting random nonsense on your screen to lengthen a show that should have died already.  (Textbook Examples: “That 70’s show”, “Weeds”, “Lost”, “The Sopranos”).

And it gets to that point where you’re like, “I don’t care about any of these characters anymore…if they all died next episode, I would be completely unaffected”.

One of those moments.  I no longer cared about getting up that mountain...

SOOO GOOD

I found my way back to the hostel and the newest crew of “Adam’s merry men & women” chose to spend a major part of our day finding….Walmart.

That’s right.  Walmart.  All this tropical paradise and yet, we NEEDED to find Walmart.

Milk and other various food items are at least ½ the price of what they would be at the street shops in Waikiki. 

So it was totally worth it.  I got stocked on food for the week for cheap, grabbed the rest of my necessary items for my “THOR” costume, and purchased a reasonably priced bottle of WHIPPED CREAM VODKA for $12.  (Reasonably priced…or properly priced?  TALKIN’ TO YOU AUSTRALIA, get it together!).

Which I completely intend on putting in a water bottle and taking to the festival tomorrow, raging like a complete lunatic and slapping girls on the ass with my hammer (literally & figuratively), these were my first 2 days in Hawaii.  

It should be pointed out that I did in fact finally get up to the top of the "Diamond Head Crater" trail on my 2nd stint in Waikiki.  It took me 2 hours to run to the top and back from the hostel and the guy at the front gate of the park let me in for free.  He let me in because I told him that I was "crazy fast" and could beat whatever the best time was.  

People walking usually take 1 hour, 45 minutes.  He told me that I wouldn't be able to beat 40 minutes.  I ran up, took photos, got water and dodged countless Asians up and down the mountain for a sparkling time of 38 minutes.  Which could have been better but I took my time up at the top taking pictures.  

It was a "sparkling time" because I was glistening by the time I was finished.  Not sexy glistening...like, my pants were so soaked that I had trouble keeping them up as I ran back to the hostel.  Probably should have went early instead of midday....but I DID IT!

This message was brought to you by: The MAN complex

Oh YEAH! I f***** climbed that!