Thursday, January 22, 2009

Hawaii is such a crazy place

I know everyone is jealous of me being here. Quite honestly I don't blame you. However, before you go and sell all of your stuff and hop a plane out here there are a few things you should know:


1. Honolulu is pretty polluted. That's right, lots of buses spewing out smoke and crap. It is also an interesting fact that as beautiful as this place is and as much as people seem to want to preserve the beauty here (lets face it, the tourism is what keeps this place going), there is very little as far as recycling is concerned. I think that Kansas actually had a better recycling program!

2. Your typical customer service here is pretty bad. Yes, if you stay at some high end hotel here and shell out tons of cash you will probably get some pretty great service. Unfortunately for the rest of us who are merely going to pay 15 bucks for a moderately crappy hamburger the typical service is more like a nuisance to our waiter. Not that everyone here is lazy, just most of the transplants from the mainland seem that way so far. I don't really understand how people get to keep their jobs AND make tips at these places.

3. Hawaiians have some crazy tie to all of those cliche things you have always heard about. I never in my life thought I would walk past a couple of guys deep in conversation at 6:30AM reminiscing about how it was when Don Ho was here. And my God, don't you dare say something bad about the Duke! You might get lynched! I know Don Ho didn't die that long ago, but it just seems so odd to me. Like the world was a better place when he was here....

4. Spam is like a food group here. I swear I have seen about 8 or 9 different types of Spam here so far. There is Spam with bacon (I have a can and will let you know how it is), tabasco, cheese, low-fat, low sodium, regular, and with onion just off the top of my head! I honestly never knew there was a market for the stuff, but that just shows you what I know.

I hope you like my pointers on what to expect when you come to Hawaii some day. Keep in mind that this isn't really a rant, but simply a few things that most people would never expect when they come here.


Aloha,
Pete

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Join me as I frolic in the coffee leaves

Wow. That is what I have to say about my trip to Kona today. I will preface this entry by saying that I have never been to an origin country or coffee farm before, so I was pretty excited to be seeing all of this stuff!

Walking off the plane on the big island of Hawai'i I was assaulted by the harsh, moon-like surface of the island. This picture isn't quite as impacting as what I saw from the plane, but it gives you an idea of the desolation.
















Luckily, once we got into the mountains and hit the Greenwell Kona farm it got considerably more lush.

















The farm was overflowing with trees and Tommy Greenwell seems to be doing an exceptional job as a farmer. I learned alot from him, and was maybe a bit too excited to take many good pictures... I will link my random pics on flickr so I dont have to blow up blogspot.




Everywhere we went on the island seemed to have an amazing view. We ate at a little cafe that had about a 100 foot drop off the back deck. Great view of the ocean though!
















Lastly, if there is one thing that cracks me up about Hawaii it is just how differently things are done here. For example, this is the waiting area at the airport. It was completely open air and mostly uncovered. The planes literally pulled up about 75 to 100 feet away from where we were sitting! Such an unusual place.


















That is what I've got for now. Check out my flickr photos here! There are a few of my apartment, it became pretty spacious after i pushed the two twin beds together! Also I only took pics on one of my lanais. It's okay to be jealous ;D

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

The adventure begins!

Here I am, sitting in Waikiki. I arrived at 3pm yesterday and my first impression was "Holy Crap this place is gorgeous!!" After spending the evening watching the sun set over the ocean with a maitai in hand I realized that this might be one of the coolest places I have been.

So, first impression, pretty incredible. Since I am 4 hours behind what I am used to I naturally woke up at 5 in the morning and couldn't get back to sleep. What do I do? Walk across the street to the coffee shop, get an "oat cake" and a double espresso and go for a jog. If you have never gone for a jog in the morning with the ocean to your right and the sun rising over the mountains to your left before while the cool morning air invigorates you, I HIGHLY suggest that you try it. I am obviously romanticizing this place quite a bit, but it certainly does feel a bit like paradise.

On that note, I came to a realization last night (or this morning, everything is a blur so far). This is a place where people DREAM of going. This is a place where people save thousands of dollars just to come for a week. This is a place that so many people find to be the ideal, and I am living here! My life is going to be so different from what I had in Kansas that it is a little scary. I have to remember that every time I have seen one of those stupid hula girls on someone's dash board or cubicle desk, they only get to fantasize about the place that I am seeing every day. Definitely going to need to work on my appreciation factor out here.

Now for a more pressing matter, should I go to the pool?


















Or should I walk the extra 100 yards to the ocean? ;D