Wanderlust
It seems sad to me that I do an awful lot of travel compared to most other Americans I've talked to. I get very little vacation time and skirt the attendance policy on a yearly basis to get the most time off out of the year for travel. It still isn't enough.
On my brothers birthday, aka St. Patricks day, March 17th, Kei and I traveled with her family out to Hawaii.
This was my first time going to the island, though it has been a longtime dream of mine. We stayed at the Hilton Hawaiian Village in Waikiki, and I absolutely loved the islands. I did not get out of Waikiki as much as I would have liked, there was a bit of a miscommunication reguarding how we were handling transportation while we were there so we mostly stayed in Waikiki. I liked the city but I really liked the countryside the few times we did get out!
Every morning I would get up and go out to the balcony at about 5am. The sun wasn't up but it was already 68-70 degrees and smelling of flowers.
I had spam and egg misubi (a kind of rice ball) for breakfast every morning, at least until I discovered portugese sausage misubi. This is a popular food on the island, but doesn't seem to exist elsewhere. I picked up some portugese sausage when I got home and I intend to recreate this treat for myself soon. I also fit pineapple into nearly every meal. Every. Meal. It really is better there.
I took some surf lessons and rode a handful of waves, too! That was a lot of fun, though extremely -extremely- taxing on the body. No wonder there are no overweight surfers! I did make a mistake on the first wave I caught, and I can still feel that mistake now nearly two weeks later. When I fell off my board at the end of the first wave I wasn't thinking about how to properly fall in the water, so instead of backflopping/bellyflopping I fell straight in and landed on a shallow coral reef. Cut up my foot in three places and smashed a sea urchin into my foot. While I was out there I asked my surf instructor if my foot was bleeding and he was all, "Naw man, you just got a little sea urchin in your foot. It's cool. You got like the least amount of urchin you could ever hope to get! Usually your foot would be all black!"
Went to the Bishop Museum in Honolulu. It's about traditional life on the islands and their history. I am saddened by the more or less hostile takeover the US had of the kingdom. I am not a fan of the human tradition of using religions and trade against one another. At least the native Hawaiians got a better deal than the Native Americans.
Anyway, on Hawaii I came back very impressed. I would seriously love to live there and am working out plans on how that could be done. Poor Kei will never be able to do the convention circuit if we go though! In the meantime I'll have to settle with vacations there when I can swing it. :)
Oh yeah and we stopped in California for a few days on the way back to have some fun at Disney Land and California Adventure. It was a lot of fun but I don't have much to say about Disney; they're always fun.
HAWAIIAN ROLLER COASTER RIDE
Already I am looking forward to taking more time off work. This weekend is basically a Staycation, with Penny Arcade eXpo East being in Boston. Looking forward to it!
On my brothers birthday, aka St. Patricks day, March 17th, Kei and I traveled with her family out to Hawaii.
This was my first time going to the island, though it has been a longtime dream of mine. We stayed at the Hilton Hawaiian Village in Waikiki, and I absolutely loved the islands. I did not get out of Waikiki as much as I would have liked, there was a bit of a miscommunication reguarding how we were handling transportation while we were there so we mostly stayed in Waikiki. I liked the city but I really liked the countryside the few times we did get out!
Every morning I would get up and go out to the balcony at about 5am. The sun wasn't up but it was already 68-70 degrees and smelling of flowers.
I had spam and egg misubi (a kind of rice ball) for breakfast every morning, at least until I discovered portugese sausage misubi. This is a popular food on the island, but doesn't seem to exist elsewhere. I picked up some portugese sausage when I got home and I intend to recreate this treat for myself soon. I also fit pineapple into nearly every meal. Every. Meal. It really is better there.
I took some surf lessons and rode a handful of waves, too! That was a lot of fun, though extremely -extremely- taxing on the body. No wonder there are no overweight surfers! I did make a mistake on the first wave I caught, and I can still feel that mistake now nearly two weeks later. When I fell off my board at the end of the first wave I wasn't thinking about how to properly fall in the water, so instead of backflopping/bellyflopping I fell straight in and landed on a shallow coral reef. Cut up my foot in three places and smashed a sea urchin into my foot. While I was out there I asked my surf instructor if my foot was bleeding and he was all, "Naw man, you just got a little sea urchin in your foot. It's cool. You got like the least amount of urchin you could ever hope to get! Usually your foot would be all black!"
Went to the Bishop Museum in Honolulu. It's about traditional life on the islands and their history. I am saddened by the more or less hostile takeover the US had of the kingdom. I am not a fan of the human tradition of using religions and trade against one another. At least the native Hawaiians got a better deal than the Native Americans.
Anyway, on Hawaii I came back very impressed. I would seriously love to live there and am working out plans on how that could be done. Poor Kei will never be able to do the convention circuit if we go though! In the meantime I'll have to settle with vacations there when I can swing it. :)
Oh yeah and we stopped in California for a few days on the way back to have some fun at Disney Land and California Adventure. It was a lot of fun but I don't have much to say about Disney; they're always fun.
HAWAIIAN ROLLER COASTER RIDE
Already I am looking forward to taking more time off work. This weekend is basically a Staycation, with Penny Arcade eXpo East being in Boston. Looking forward to it!