Wachi's Travel Log: Hawaiian Getaway!

Aloha Readers on the Mainland,

I know I haven't been to constant on this blog so I thought I would make it up to you with a quick travel log of my trip to Hawaii, God has blessed me in giving me the opportunity to take such a wonderful trip during such a busy time in my life, so I thought you would all like to enjoy the memories with me.

As a quick prologue, this trip was basically a spur of the moment thing with an old buddy of mine Rhys, who was one of my life long friends who didn't get to accompany the rest of us on our LA adventures 4 years ago, so we were keen to wanting to hang out again and make up for lost time. Long story short he invited me to join him on a Hawaiian cruise, his mom had gotten a discount and it was very promising. So I used the 2 months I had to save up as much as I could and accompany him on this island adventure. (In fact I am still paying off some debts, but man was it worth it!)

Thursday August 27th, 2016

So we were scheduled to meet on Friday in Hawaii, as the Cruise left on Saturday evening and we didn't want to afford missing it, however I had to leave on Thursday, a day earlier, since it was a 14 hour flight from my end, and if there was any chance of a delay i couldn't afford to leave on Friday, so that began my groggy journey by air, that took me from Costa Rica to Houston to San Francisco, to eventually Hawaii.

On the first leg of this flight, I was graciously upgraded to economy plus, and you know what that means don't'cha readers? That's right!! Leg room for days!!! It was amazing to have so much space to actually stretch my legs in that first flight, and not only that I had a really dope airplane neighbor named Clara from Germany who was in Costa Rica the entire summer in part of an exchange program. It was really a treat to have such a social and bubbly airplane neighbor, normally that burden is placed upon my person and others just sleep or get up to use the bathroom every 9 seconds lol. Anyhow the first flight went fast due to this interaction.

<-- That's Clara on the left and I am the one with the beard just fyi. (Hope you had a safe flight back to Germany Clara!!)

The next Flight in Houston was my main sleeping the whole way kind of flight, which is always pleasant, and within an hour of arriving in San Fran I was already boarding for the Hawaiian flight of 6, almost 7 hours. By this point I was tired of watching the same Man vs Child challenge on United's  on screen entertainment, so I decided to slide my card to pay $5.00 for a movie (remember when movies were free? Wouldn't it be easier just to charge an extra $5.00 per plane ticket and just include the movie? No one would complain if that is how it was done.) and after I paid I started watching that new Jake Gyllenhaal flick, "Demolition Man" only to have the screen flicker within the first 15 minutes of the film. An announcement then came on the PA system letting us know that there are technical difficulties and they will be resetting everything, when they do it eventually asks me to pay again, so I call up the attendant and they just say "Oh well, go to United's website to ask for a refund." and left... so suffice to say I just tried to sleep again for the last leg of the trip.

Finally at 7pm Hawaii time I arrived and made my way to my hotel in Waikiki, I ordered a Pizza, which they took my $10 bill as tip, what the hell, so I paid almost $40 for a pizza, which is not what I was planning as I only had limited spending money for this trip, but anyways I ate that and called it a day.

Friday August 28th, 2016

Now, as there is around a 5-6 hour time difference between Hawaii and Costa Rica, I woke up extraordinarily early and ate some pizza for breakfast, during this time I watched some tv, explored the hotel and called my loved ones as I waited for Rhys to show up, eventually I just went to the small rooftop pool they had to see if I could melt away my tourist whiteness of skin hahaha. If I can say anything about Hawaii is that the weather was quite lovely for the vast majority of the time.

<-- In case you are all curious that was the view from my hotel room on the first morning.

Anyhow I did this til about 1 pm where I got the message from my good buddy Rhys that his flight had arrived, so I got my stuff and wait to wait for him at the lobby, it was glorious seeing my old friend again, and with the our Hawaiian adventure officially begun. We swim suited up and went exploring Honolulu for the day, first stop being lunch, of course.

We found this really snazzy burger joint simply called, "Waikiki Burgers". and believe it or not despite the simple name, the food was quite flavorful, they even had funky little umbrellas on the burgers. Classy.

Behold the colorful and delicious meal that was brought to us. -->

As all Hawaiian stereotypes have led us to believe, there is even a pineapple included on the side, simply magnificent, and quite sweet too! (Shout out to our amazingly friendly waiter Jason btw)

After lunch, we went off and began exploring Honolulu and catching pokemon, (This was when Pokemon Go was still playable and fun, though I hear Gen 2 is out now meh.) we continued this trend whilst also enjoying the local weather and flora to the fullest, as well as being the occasional tourist and blindly wandering into neat looking shops, this eventually led us to this beautiful beach in the middle of town, boy, I can honestly say I had never seen water so blue and clear, simply gorgeous!

As you can see with the tiny collage thingy over here -->

---AUG 2018 UPDATE---

HEY ALL, SO I KNOW I LEFT THIS BLOG HANGING FOR FAR TOO LONG AND DON'T KNOW WHEN I WILL EVER BE ABLE TO CONTINUE IT, LIFE IS JUST TOO HECTIC FOR ME RIGHT NOW. EVEN STILL I PROMISED THE HAWAII BLOG AND LEFT IT INCOMPLETE SO I WANT TO AT LEAST SHARE A FEW MORE PICS WITH YOU AND IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS OR EVEN CARE FEEL FREE TO COMMENT BELOW;

MUCH LOVE!

<-- Me with my boi Rhys, after getting "Lei'd". This was also the room where the boarding of the cruise began. Fun Fact: A few other passengers confused Rhys and myself as Cruise employees instead of fellow passengers, talk about racial stereotyping lol, we should've asked for some tips.

Over here is us on the cruise ship and moving on to the next island of Maui -->
















Down below I present you some quick pics of when we landed in Hilo, and the botanical beauties it possessed, mainly the vibrant flora and the illustrious gecko, Wallace Tefflesworth.

As the days passed we continued to go to the final, and arguably most beautiful island, the nature infused Kauai! Here is where, in my opinion the scenery was the most breath-taking;

 <-- Here we are approaching the beautiful Na Pali coastline, and it is truly a magnificent sight to behold. It is a moment where one truly does lose track of time and surroundings, with the sea breeze, the warm sun, and the gorgeous view.
















Followed by this next tropical vista on the island of Kauai, honestly, Costa Rica is a gorgeous country, but this beach in Kauai was just something else;

Simply luscious! We spent the rest of the date exploring the island's coast, without worry of the time as the boat was docked for the night. We were caught in the rain and sun, but our moods were ever relaxed and adventurous.

This is also the island where the bulk of our souvenirs were bought, specifically at this place called "Crazy Shirts" were they had shirts dyed in local alcohols and other natural dyes. It was very cool. Also this awesome store clerk, gave us some awesome tips on how to get pineapple Oreo pies. Rhys says it's because she was hitting on me, but I think it's just because she thought I was bomb in my aloha shirt and therefore felt compelled to share her pie secrets lolol. Unfortunately whatever the reason, we had reservations at one of the restaurants on the boat that night and couldn't partake of the pies.

Anyhow, fast forward to the next day, the final night of the cruise and this is where I got to meet comedian Michael Sommerfield, he was a very nice and chill dude, though that may have just been the Hawaii magic talking, and I mean the relaxed atmosphere not some Hawaiian drug. Anyways, he was very funny and even laughed at some of my lame jokes so he is super cool in my book (Rhys fell asleep so he wasn't able to meet him.);

<-- Also dang my skin looks orange in this pic, Hawaii really Trumpifies you, soon I will have the urge to build a wall haha.

After our time on the cruise was done, we spent our final day back in Honolulu, and just walked around the town, spoke with locals and enjoyed the culture. We even discovered some really dope pieces by a local artist named "Walfrido Garcia", honestly if I had the space in my home and the extra cash I would've bought some of his pieces for my home. I urge you to google his work, the man's lighting techniques on the canvas are mesmerizing!




And well that's it, we both arrived at the airport later that night and said our goodbyes, the adventure had come to an end, but it doesn't mean it is to be our last! Adios Hawaii! Aloha Costa Rica!

*Deep Breath* Readers, my apologies for this disjointed, ultra-delayed, nonsensical travel blog update, if you can even call it that. But I lost a lot of the pictures for the trip, and if I didn't finish what I started with what I did have I probably wouldn't upload anything. Again if you have any questions let me know and I can go into more detail on the trip. If I ever do another travel blog type deal I will make it more structured. Thanks for sticking with me despite all the mess.

Much Love and Mahalo,
Wachi

MS Paint Mondays 61

I'm back! Sooner than you all expected no doubt, though perhaps un-surprised by now how this again was not posted on a Monday lol, should I just call them MS Paint Fridays at this point? Nah, I would probably mess that up too, so let's just keep it as Mondays, rolls off the tongue better, like a crayon, which is used for art, which is what this is all about, so let's cough up our art supplies and MSPAINT MONDAYS!!!!

--Thoughts of the day--

* So work has been pretty chill this week, even still I have been chosen to help the new hires and they have truly made my job more of a hectic dilemma. Now don't get me wrong we are all new sometimes and need that helping hand. However in this case it is annoying, let me explain...

* Imagine this, you have a solid team and a new player joins to fill in the last possible position, there are no rooms for subs or anything else, and you help your coach in showing the newbie the ropes. All good so far! However one day, someone from another team sprints up to your team's coach and says they want in, there is no open position, and even the substitutes are filled, yet your coach says "Umm ok go train with the others until there is a new opening." (this includes me in the scenario, and there's no date for when a new opening could happen) 

* Here is where the art of patience and obedience comes in, you do as you are expected and you do it well, however after a couple of weeks when you realize this goes from being a task to being a random person taking up your time so that they can train to possibly replace you as there are no spots open, that just gets awkward... like does she have nothing else to do in her current team that she needs to constantly come to ours and take hours of our work week? Haha.. seriously though.

* In the end it helps me reflect on myself, how I have been whenever I join a new class or team. I want to use this current time wasting annoyance to remind myself how to act when I move on or begin to learn something new, I don't want to be a nuisance/fire that has to be calmed and put out, I want to be a bulb that takes note and energy from those willing to teach me that I may burn bright and help illuminate them further from the things I learn. I don't know if I am making sense or not, but I guess it goes along with the mindset to love what you learn, but learn to read the atmosphere and whether it is your time to join or not.

With all that said and done I don't know if this week's paint is super relatable to my thoughts as it is an old one, however let's see if I can make it work. This doodle titled; "Fiya Fighta Extraordinaire" was, like last week's, done in response to a friend and colleague from my early days in the company, so when I was a newbie. He was a lover not a fighter, unless it was fires, as he was a volunteer fireman, but even still he was very shy. Interestingly enough, last week's paint, represented my colleague Kat whom was very hard to really reach due to the phone wall she'd put up. Well Alex (the fireman) was able to break through that shell, and both of them continue to be great friends to this day. Goes to show, that sometimes your approach isn't the right one, but that doesn't mean there isn't value in it. As a student or a teacher, we can always help start or put out fires, it is how we learn to solve problems and teach others how to avoid them. Huh, not sure if I am making any sense, but it's honestly amazing how we can learn so much from all the individuals we meet in life, even those we don't want to give training to hahaha.

As always, I hope this exercise helps you ease that weekly case of the Mondays and inspires you to start creating new things, and really help expand the creative construct that is your brain! I encourage you to share/send me your own MS Paint Monday creations, if I get enough I plan to do an MS Paint showcase at the end of every week so we can enjoy each other's styles and imaginations.

Much Love, Wachi