Wednesday, September 20, 2006

maui wowie (but not what you're thinking)

today was our second day in maui. it's been absolutely amazing, so beautiful. yesterday we took a trip to molokini, which is a crater island off one of the volcanoes of the island. from above the island has a crescent shape which shelters a great spot for snorkeling. we spent the morning exploring this spot and we have tons of photos.... which unfortunately are on the underwater camera and therefore NOT available for our immediate viewing pleasure (who knew digital cameras would make me so impatient?).


turtles!

after we left molokini basically we did some cruising around. and our pal captain doug opened up the bar.... the open bar.... :) i managed to ruin my careful tanning system by standing on deck in my suit drinking free vodka cranberries for a couple of hours... but what are you gonna do? we did get to see some turtles swimming near the boat - above is my best picture (which is admittedly not that good).


maui downhill bicycle

today meg and i did the downhill biking safari. now many of you might know how i feel about bikes.... for those of you who don't - i don't like them. living in japan and riding my flippin bike to work every day sort of turned me off of them. but this was an opportunity to ride a bike down a VOLCANO. (almost) no pedalling required. and the views were amazing - they said we had one of the clearest days that they've had in a while. but it was still a little bit scary.... careeening around those hairpin turns... trying not turn too far left (into oncoming traffic) or too far right (over the edge). it was exhilarating and beautful and i'll never do it again.

i'm quite excited that tomorrow i will try surfing for the very first time. i imagine in my mind that i will be quite a natural at surfing and possibly join the pro circuit in leiu of a traditional job. but we'll see how that goes. my immediate goals is to not get too badly sunburned the day before my massage. :)


Monday, September 18, 2006

aloha cousins!

i am in hawaii, cruising like a millionaire (except that i'm staying in one of the practically underwater cabins, but whatever) and having a blast. :) today is our first full day on the ship and we are docked at hilo on "the big island".

we arrived in hawaii on thursday evening after a long LONG day of traveling (i had two stopovers, the rest of my family only had one). it was all we could do to stay awake through dinner (hawaii is 6 hours behind the east coast). but i did make one great discovery at the ubiquitous "abc" stores (there's one about every block in honolulu) - they carry onigiri, which are these fabulous japanese snacks, basically rice and some sort of filling (salmon, tuna...) wrapped in seaweed and absolutely delicious.


waikiki at sunrise

friday morning was probably the earliest i've ever woken up on vacation... i was awake from about 3 or 4 am - dozing when i could. but we all got up and decided to head down to the beach for sunrise. unfortunately we were on the wrong side of the island to actually see the sun rising up over the ocean, but we still had a nice view of waikiki and diamond head.

we hit the beach pretty early and started the tanning (burning) process. i'm happy to say that i'm NOT sunburned (yet) and am well on my way to a deep, dark hawaiian tan (hopefully). by noon time we were pretty much done on the beach (we were there by like 8am) so we had some lunch and did some relaxing.


germaine's luau

friday night we went to germaines luau. basically a huge buffet of traditional hawaiian foods - such as the roast pig and poi and lomi-lomi. then there was a fabulous show of many different kinds of island dances. we saw some from hawaii, tahiti, new zealand (who knew?), and samoa. oh, and did i mention the drink tickets? ;P tropical (and your average run of the mill drinks as well) drinks and both meg and i purchased the souvenir germaine's glass (which only cost one ticket to refill - the same as the little cups). good times had by all.

saturday we hit the honolulu zoo which was nice. and then it was down to the port to board the ship. our rooms are actually really cute and the beds are super comfy. this morning i even woke up at a somewhat normal time (not normal for me, but there are people who wake up at 5:30am, right?). so before i know it i'll be on hawaii time... and looking tan like a native... maybe...


Tuesday, September 05, 2006

my first day of unemployment

and AWWWW YEEEAAAH it feels good to be unemployed. :) well, more truthfully, it feels good to not be going back to that particular job... i do realize i will have to work again at some point. but still. for now, i'm pretty happy.

two months from now i'll be starting my teacher training course in costa rica. it's meant to be pretty intensive, so in the meantime i plan to get myself organized as much as possible. relax as much as possible. study up on some english grammer. and possibly take on some temp work after i get back from hawaii.

for now i'm reading through my let's go costa rica (which is 3 years out of date, since, irritatingly enough, the new version will come out just after i leave for CR - grrr), flipping through my costa rican spanish phrase book, and thinking about starting to listen to my spanish cd's. i'm also thinking about taking a spanish language course down in CR after i finish my training course. it makes sense, since i'm intending on staying for a while...

anyway. i'm sure these two months will just fly by, so if i don't call you, you should definitely call me. :) more later.