Last Three days in Paradise

So I don't really remember my last few days, but I do know I enjoyed them and I miss that place, horrid.

Saturday June 5, 2010.
Breakfast with Andrea went GREAT! Her daughter, Aria, was absolutely ADORABLE. She loved us apparently. Lol. She didn't want to say goodbye and kept crying whenever we tried to put her back into the car seat so that they could go. Andrea herself was really nice(: I like her. She said she was bummed out I wasn't staying longer or being stationed there so she'd actually have someone else to talk to. (Her other close friend had just been stationed elsewhere.) She has other friends, but I guess she wouldn't mind having another asian female around that her daughter enjoys being with. Along with Nick of course. Hahaha. Aria really liked Nick. It was so cute!

After breakfast we headed to the other side of the island and visited the Polynesian Cultural Center (PCC). I've been before, but Nick hadn't gone in forever and kept persisting we went. The drive out was beautiful. Past Chinaman's hat, Kualoa Ranch, Lionhead, and finally to PCC. Nick got an annual pass (which was completely pointless because he won't even have time to be home for the next year and a half. but the lady INSISTED it was cheaper so... we did it.) We took the canoe tour first, and walked around the place and took a few pictures. We watched my favorite Samoa show thing (I've been there 4 years ago, same guy runs the show!) and after Nick tried for at least half an hour to start fire! It was hilarious. Three different guys checked in on him. One of them came up to us like, "Hey brah, you okay? You've been at it for some time now." Hahahaha. They were all really friendly though. Later, Nick got picked to participate in one of the family shows in Samoa. It was a firemaking contest - what Nick had been working at for probably 40 mins by then. Lol. He got up there, beat the other guy (who was Navy), but didn't exactly MAKE fire. It was a timed competition and Nick at least got his pile smoking, the other white guy? Nothing. Hahahaha. Anyway, so they called up the real Samoans to do it, Nick and Navy guy were paired up with one each and their partners started racing to make fire. Nick's guy, an ex-Army guy, wasn't able to beat the other Samoan guy, butttttttt, who cares. He didn't give up and that's what matters! Woot! Anyway, after the contest they made them dance. This is where things get HILARIOUS. They weren't told they had to dance, so they were forced to. Navy guy and his paired Samoan dude were just doing traditional stuff. Nick's guy however, ex-Army guy, hahahaha.. had a better idea. He entwined the traditional like dance with body slapping and... (this is the funny part) decided to call Nick out in a pushup contest. Nick was confused when the guy got down into the push up position, but he eventually got down and started matching the guy push up, for push up. Ex-Army man started doing claps inbetween, so Nick did too. But he did the guy one better. He did one where he clapped BEHIND his back. The audience (myself included) found this impressive. Ex-Army Samoan dude decides to do the same. He pushes up, claps behind his back with a BIG smile on his face, but before he can put his hands back down... HE FACEPLANTS. Oh dear, it was the FUNNIEST moment of the day. The best part? I CAUGHT IT ALL ON VIDEO. It's on Facebook if you'd like to watch. Freaking HILARIOUS. The poor guy was so embarrassed he got up, continued the traditional dance with Nick, and after the show walked off the stage in a different direction as I was asking if I could get a picture of him and Nick together. I mean, this guy was BIGGG. Like, knock-you-out-in-one-hit, big. His arms were probably twice the size of my thighs. Good lookin' fellow. Hahaha. I just find it hilarious he'd pick on Nick, who wasn't even nearly twice his size or weight! It's because he thought he was better than Nick the Marine. I'm sure he could've beat the white Navy guy though. Lol. xD Just jokes.

After that, we came home to go fishing with Kevin (again), but instead we went out to dinner with Nick's parents at some Korean place. It wasn't as good as I would've liked it to be, but it'll do. After that I think Nick and I went home and knocked out..? I don't remember.

According to my twitter, we went for a stroll in Waikiki with his friends! Oh, that was SO much fun!!! Gilbert has the CUTEST little Corolla! I mean, it's REALLY nice. I'm not a fan of suped up Corollas but this one, it was just FANTASTIC! I wish i'd gotten a picture of it. Hahaha. It wasn't like, overdone, it was just right. Manual transmission. Full leather interior. The little GPS screen thing that was full touch, large, and folds out. The lights in the interior were nice too. Anyway, yeah, I won't talk about the walk much besides the fact that I really enjoyed spending time with his friends. Justin, Gilbert, Jason, and Nick. (: It was a fantastic, memorable night. Hahaha.

Went to dinner at some Korean place again. That was fun too(: Lol.

Sunday, June 6, 2010.
Woke up in the morning, Kevin packed the poles, and we headed out to Sea Life Park area for spearfishing. We met up with Jay (the guy who said he'd have to watch while I tried on the bathing suits) and Jason drove Kevin, Nick and I out there. We also met up with some female (forgot her name) and a guy friend of hers. As we headed out deeper into the water, I felt a sudden burning, very painful stinging sensation on my right hand. I had just released my spear at a fish so I figured it'd just rubbed my skin the wrong way. But it didn't make sense, my hand wasn't red or anything. I figured I was imagining the pain but it only worsened. No one else around me seemed to have mentioned the pain, but they were at least ten yards away. As I quickly thought of what might be wrong it came to mind that it could be a jellyfish that had stung me. So... I peed on it. Sorta. I mean, i'm still swimming in the water so I did what I could. Call it gross, but it helped a little bit. Eventually, the pain I was trying hard to ignore went away and I continued to look for fish to spear. I speared one - on accident. I freaked out and was nearly in tears as I frantically searched for Nick to get it off my spear. It was so young, I felt HORRIBLE. There was a bigger fish in front of it but it'd darted away and the small one behind it hadn't even seen me, nor I, it. It gets me sad every time I think about it. Anyway, Nick removed it from the prongs of my spear and I had to look away as it made a feeble attempt to swim away from us. I felt so horrible... I can't even put it into words. Anyway, Kevin soon showed up with a fish on his spear and Nick laughed and said the fish he caught wasn't edible. I had to remove his fish from the spear because Nick and Kevin both have a fear of touching live fish. Which makes no sense because I think ... nevermind. Anyway, yeah. I felt bad for that fish too, although it was decent in size.

Ooh! We saw a sea turtle. It was just chilling under a chunk of coral staring at us. I left it alone after a few seconds though. I'm pretty sure there's a law saying we can't swim closer than a certain distance to them.

We finally decided to head in and ... once again, that horrible stinging feeling. It was so shocking I gasped. I looked around me, quickly. Nothing. I was swimming about five feet from Jason so I looked at him to see if he would show any signs of the same stinging I was feeling on the length of my arm. He just looked at me and waved, and continued looking around for fish. The pain was becoming unbearable, I rubbed my arm harshly, thinking it was maybe just something I was imagining. But I knew I wasn't... I swam toward shore, doing my best not to whimper in pain. Feet touched sand. I ripped off my flippers and quickly walked over to where we'd left our things. People seemed to be staring at me, I didn't understand why. I picked up a towel and wrapped myself in it. My arm was still burning. So... I looked at it. A long red line ran from my shoulder to my elbow. I guess that's what people were staring at. I saw Nick starting to swim in so I waded into the water and waved him toward me. He asked me what was up (everyone was talking with other people) and I asked him if there was anything in the water that would sting me. He said sure. I said what. He said, the Portuguese Man o war. I said, "shit". He said "what?" and I showed him my arm. He said, "F***" He turned to his friends behind him and announced I'd been stung by a Man o' War. They all agreed that he should rush me to the 7-Eleven nearby (still like a 10-15 minute drive) to get me some meat tenderizer to take away the pain. I refused continuously. It wasn't something I couldn't handle. It was just pain. As long as I wasn't going to die from it, I'd be fine. The pain, I can handle.

Here's one photo of my sting after it'd been awhile. it stayed red till like the next day after.

Eventually they gave up on trying to make me go so we headed out to where Kevin had set up his poles and was fishing. There was some big blue fish that swam by twice, forgot the name of it. They went nuts wanting to catch it! We even sent Nick back into the water with a spear to wait for it. Hahaha. Eventually, it started getting late and we packed up and left.

On our way back home, we swung by the 7-Eleven to pick up ice for the fish Nick caught. Much to our dismay, however, Jason accidentally locked his keys in the car. After a phone call to his dad, and me trying to look up the number to AAA, we were still stuck. Eventually, I DID find the number to Triple A on my phone (thank God i'd called them a few weeks earlier for someone), and they sent someone out to help us. He had some trouble, but he got it eventually and I bought him a coldddd bottle of SmartWater. He deserved it. Poor guy. Anyway, we tossed the fish, assuming they went bad, and headed home. We got home, and Nick and I did our best to finish packing. His mother had bought me things to take back to the mainland as gifts, and i'm forever thankful for that. I hardly had time to go shopping. Hahahaha.

His friends called, and they wanted to do something. Hit the club, that's what it was. However, we decided not to (although some still went after they swung by to say hi), and started a game of Texas Hold'em. To be honest, I haven't played in forever and practically forgot how to play. I started betting the minimum bets, had Nick help me a few dozen hands, and... Yeah. Hahaha. It was Gilbert, Nick, Jason, and Justin, but Justin left for the club just in time for Kevin to take his place. Kevin K. Not Kevin, Nick's brother. I think Nick ended up falling out first, then it was Kevin and Jason at the same time (I knocked 'em out with one hand. Kevin thought he'd go all in cause he thought he had better cards.) I won that round. Haha. I think they were getting really annoyed that I was winning and only caring about color coding my chips. Eventually, it was just Gilbert and I and he was getting so worked up about beating me. But of course... he failed. I won. hahahaha.

After a bit, everyone hugged us goodbye and left. So, that was that. I really did enjoy my time with everyone though. It was really great, honest.


Monday June 7, 2010.
Woke up early, finished packing up the last minute stuff, and his mom took us to the airport. She hugged us goodbye, and we headed in through the sliding doors. However, we ran into a bit of trouble. The night before while trying to 'Web Check-In', it kept saying I had to use a kiosk. So when we got to the airport, I tried, but it kept telling me I had to talk to an attendant. So I did, and there was some mass confusion. Finally by the time they overrode whatever was happening, the system said it was too late for me to Check in. Soooooooo, eventually, the lady had to manually print my baggage tag. While standing in line for security check in, we realized I had no boarding pass. So we rushed back, where they finally were able to print my boarding pass, and then went through security. Finally we got to boarding and we hopped on. Everything was pretty smooth sailing after that.

We landed at LAX, where Leslie was gonna pick us up. Apparently though I'd only told her that she was only picking ME up when it was both Nick and I. We made it work though. hahaha. Shoved all our crap into her cramped, full car.

Got home, and Nick left soon after. Yeah, that's pretty much the summary of my time in Hawai'i.


Peacee(:

Ah! No time!

Okay, so I have no time to post about the past few days. Hahaha...
I'll post when I get home.

My flight leaves at 8AM tomorrow. I wanna wake up early, clean the room a bit, then finish up packing.

Oh, and I'm so totally in debt right now. >__<

right well, i gotta finish packing now! ttyls.

Diary Day Ten/Eleven

So last night we went fishing. Didn't catch anything, and the night ended like the way it started. Me being annoyed at Nick. I won't bother going into details. We got home early last night but we were all pretty tired still. About 12AM maybe? I'd been feeling kinda sick all night and I ended up puking a bit in the sink. Man, it didn't look like anything I ate. It was like, black, brown and green and looked like chopped up wet tea leaves. Pretty gross. Sorry if that was too TMI for you. (TMI: Too Much Information)

Went to bed.

Friday June 4th, 2010.
Woke up when Nick was leaving for work, he told me his mom was going to pick me up and we were going to go out and pick up some fresh lychee from her friend or something out in some city. She wanted to show me around some more before I leave, I guess. I feel bad, I picked up her call, but hung up on her like ten seconds after. She didn't say anything to me and I heard her talking to someone else so I figured she called me on accident. I was also asleep when she called so the phone vibrating near my head woke me up a bit. I feel bad.... anyway, apparently Nick called me too but I slept through those two other vibrations. Oops? So that was that.

Went back to sleep, then finally woke up again when people started texting me. Returned Nick's call, got the 411, and then decided maybe it was time to get up and do stuff. But, I have yet to. I put my glasses on, and went online. So this is where it ends. Hahaha. I'm on Facebook, chatting, and blogging. I figure i'll get out of bed soon to wash up and shower. Wear one of those new shirts I bought myself. Which reminds me... I need to call my mum and ask her to put more money in my account. xD Eh, i'll get to that later.

Anyway, Nick wants me to come up with a list of things I'd like to do today before we leave Monday morning. I've been REALLY wanting to go to the USS Arizona Memorial. I've seen it from afar (Nick's house overlooks Pearl Harbor and my previous visit to Hawaii I visited the little Pearl Harbor section area thing) and i'd really like to see the inside of the Memorial up close. Along with looking down at the ship of course. But like I've said before, i'm afraid I might get too emotional. I also want to go for a stroll in Aloha Tower and Waikiki. I wouldn't mind visiting the PCC (Polynesian Cultural Center) again, but it's kinda expensive (for non-locals) and I don't wanna make Nick waste any more money on me. I feel bad. Nick also wants to take me to Kualoa (no idea where that is) and the Waikiki Aquarium (driven by that a few times). So, I'm really looking forward to my weekend.

Oh! And we've got an old family friend's son that moved out here a few years back. He got married and settled down here. Sorta. Him and his wife met in the Army and she's out now, but he's still in. I think he might be a lifer. Medic. Over in Afghanistan right now so my prayers for him. I've never met his wife or his kid and she ended up contacting me on Facebook when she saw me post on his wall that I was on Oahu. Not only that but the city she lives in is only about 2o minutes away from where Nick lives! So we swapped numbers and I texted her asking if she'd like to do breakfast, lunch, or dinner sometime. She called back and said she'd love to and we picked a time and place. The IHOP in Pearl City at 10AM this Saturday. I'm excited!! I finally get to meet his family(: (I had the chance before when they came to visit in Cali but was really busy with school)

Really, i'm seriously excited. xD

Anyway, I'm gonna go wash up now because I really need to pee. Until next time, lates!
<3

Diary Day Eight/Nine/Ten

Let me start off by saying i'm in a kinda annoyed mood. So this should be short and simple.

Tuesday June 1st, 2010.
Nick went to work. When he finished we headed out to North Shore area. Swung by the Dole plantation where I got the "kama'aina" discount. It's a discount that locals get when they show their Hawaii ID. So that was that. We also stopped at Matsumoto's for some shave ice. It's quite popular there and the line was... well, wasn't that long when we went. After that we hit the beach and Kevin caught some waves on his body board while I worked on my tan and Nick did... nothing. We saw some turtles swimming in the water but... didn't get a real clear view. And Nick would like me to mention that we saw some dumb haoles. It's the term for ... well, white people.

Headed home, and uh... that's all I remember for that.

No wait. Okay, we went fishing with Kevin randomly. Checked out a couple locations but they were either closed, fenced off, or just not a good place to fish. We finally went to a place Kevin said would be alright. They call it "China Wall". We set up two poles and they went at it. Kevin ended up catching a scorpion fish. A baby one, and they were freaking out when I said it was poisonous only if you were stung. They kept telling me to just cut the line, but I refused. I didn't want the poor thing to be in pain even more. I soon realized he'd swallowed the hook and I couldn't get it out no matter how much I twisted and tugged (I feared to pull too hard. I didn't want to rip anything). So, I had to cut the line. I tried to throw it back in, but he hit the cliff edge before bouncing off into the water. I felt so bad. ): Anyway, we got back at home around 2AM. Knocked out.

Wednesday June 2nd, 2010.
I can't say I remember clearly, but I don't believe we did anything. Oh, i spent like forever in Hawaiian Island Creation (HIC) looking at stuff. They've got a LOT of neat stuff in there! Nick and I ended up leaving though to pick up some fish for his dad and I didn't make it back in time so I had Kevin set it aside. Oh, Kevin works at HIC so I get his 40% off(:

Wait, backtrack a little bit. Nick was at work, finished, came home, we went to the NEX with Kevin, bought 2 fishing poles (one 10ft one 11ft), and dropped him off at work (where I went shopping.)

Okay, so we picked him up and we went to go night fishing. We again went to a couple locations and finally settled on Bellows Air Force Base. There were roaches and I was freaking the hell out. Not cool. Nick got on my ass about being afraid of them and I argued back with him about touching fish. Oh, btw, Nick and Kevin are afraid of touching fish. I said roaches outrank touching fish ANYDAY. I can't stand roaches. We got home around 2AM again and knocked out.

Thursday June 3rd, 2010.
Today, Nick went to work, I slept in like twenty more minutes, then got ready and went to work with Kevin. I swung by Nick's office to say hi, then went back to the mall to go shopping. It was that or do paperwork for his recruiter. I spent like another three or four hours in HIC shopping. I tried on like 4 different bikinis and eventually settled on one with some help of friends and picture messages. Amazing how far technology has advanced. xD So yeah, I ended up spending like $215. Did I mention i'm totally broke? Yea, I just kinda screwed myself over.

So uh, I think we're gonna go fishing again later tonight. Kevin's bringing his friend and his girlfriend. That'll be fun.

So that's pretty much the update for now.

Peace.

Day Seven - Memorial Day

I posted in the morning so, this will somewhat be a continuation of it.

The hike kicked my ass. Like, it was horrible. We went clockwise on the Aiea Loop Trail instead of going counterclockwise. I really think we should've gone counterclockwise. It's just ridiculous to do the whole trail, then have a whole uphill, muddy, slippery, humid, mosquito-filled, and hot section to deal with when you're already exhausted! It was only 4 1/2 miles but we ran most of it. Kevin and Nick didn't seem to be so bothered by the heat and humidity but oh man, I ain't used to that weather. We met some nice people along the trail though(: Everyone's so friendly....

Oh wait, let me backtrack a little bit. We headed out from home, swung by a grocery store to pick up some extra snacks and food items, then headed up to the trailhead. Once we got there (it was superpacked with tourists and such), we started a fire in one of the fire pits (which took some time) and started grilling our food. Hot dogs and galbe (korean style short ribs marinated) along with some Flamin' Hot Muchies and an Ewa sweet onion were also on the menu. Hahaha. Those onions really are sweet! They're grown in the city of Ewa (obviously) which is like... I wanna say 15mins from Nick's place. Anyway, after we finished eating we started out on the trail at a brisk pace. I wanted to get it finished as soon as we could so we could make it back home in time to get ready for the lantern festival.

Right, so I talked about the trail run a bit earlier before. There were some tourists on the trail that were really holdin' up the line. Some parts of the trail were really thin and could only allow one person to pass through at a time. We found the airplane after some trial and error (a WWII plane went down somewhere along the trail. however, due to time, lots of debris and a fallen tree have made the crash site almost unnoticeable. I climbed down off the trail to get a closer look at the plane. If I wasn't told it was a plane, I never would've known.) and after getting a few shots of whatever I could we continued on down the trail. Oh man, being me I forgot to pack my belt and decided to wear my Juicy Couture jeans that were a bit too big for me. While I was running I'd have my thumbs in the loops of my pants at the side, be holding a big water bottle, and running behind whoever was leading. I must've been some sight to see because when Nick was running behind me he made us stop, and asked Kevin to give me his belt. Which he did so without a problem but I still felt bad. The belt didn't help much though, and if not made it only harder for me to pull my pants up. Hahaha. Anyway, that was that. We made it back to the car and my face was probably just as red as a ripe cherry tomato. I hung my head outside the window as Kevin drove home to cool down. As soon as we got home I changed into some shorts and sandals. We waited for his girlfriend and once she got there we headed out to Ala Moana beach park where the Lantern Festival was being held. Man, that place was PACKED. We parked at the shopping center and ran over to the site where we ran into Nick's mom. We filled out the paperwork, and headed to the volunteer tent where we got name tags and told to meet at the tent by five thirty. So Kevin, Nick, Shayla (Kevin's girlfriend), and I headed to the water to wade around a bit. Oh man, tourists really pack that beach. The water isn't so clear, and the sand is pretty rocky. I'm assuming due to the coral reef just off the coast maybe four hundred yards out. I saw bits of corals rolling around in the surf. Anyway, we left after a bit just standing in the water up to our knees and talking. Walked around for a bit, then went back to the tent. Got bored, headed across the street to the park, did some pull-ups, monkey bars, a climb thing, and I climbed a pole. Then we headed back to the tent and just hung out. Finally it came time to take the lanterns. We all lined up behind the guy and he lead us through the lantern request area where we were all handed a wooden lantern (not the paper ones the other people got). I was first in line, then it was Nick, then Kevin, then Shayla and everyone else with the group. We all walked in a line through the crowd (some people were just being completely ridiculous. We were part of the ceremony and they were giving us crap for walking in front of them. Us, rude? No, excuse YOU, YOU'RE being rude sitting in the walkway that was cone-d aside for us, retard.) and eventually made it to the area we were supposed to be at. (I give pity to the newspaper guy who kept trying to interview me and take pictures of me and I just kept ignoring him and waving him off. But I was only trying to do my job.) We stood with our feet in the water as the performances finished off and Her Holiness Keishu Shinso Ito gave a speech, and her and her high priests lit the flame of... Harmony! And then they lit the big lanterns and put them on a canoe boat like thing and floated toward the middle of the little cove we were in. Tourists begin releasing their lanterns and then we were given the 'Okay' to put ours into the water. Then the big lanterns were also put afloat. It was so beautiful to see all those flickering candles in those lanterns float out toward the ocean. Like, I can't even express the beauty of it! It was so emotional too. Nick had given me some money to donate so I could have a lantern float with my Uncle's name. Oh, how I wish i'd been able to take pictures! But doing my job, they didn't allow us to have anything and wanted us to be formal the whole way. I did sneak a few shots after we were clear. I also know that we were on the Jumbotron, TV, and photos in newspapers and websites.

Haha, funny moment. Nick was trying to hug me while I was making a mass text of a picture of the lanterns floating when a man put a camera on us. When Nick pointed this out I slowly leaned into him more and put my phone behind his back and out of sight. Hahaha, embarrassing, yeah? Soo, we were on the jumbotron. Nick's mom thought it was funny how it all happened with me and the texting. Hahaha. Oh well. Anyway, I had a great time. It was really beautiful. I recommend everyone to fly out a Memorial weekend and watch, if not participate, in the Lantern Festival.

We went out for sushi after. At a conveyor belt place. That was alright. Headed to Hickam Air Force Base to get gas but ... omg, it was so ridiculous. We had to go in to get a pass, but then had to go BACK in to get our pass revised. So retarded. Anyway, we got our gas, and went back home. I fell asleep next to Nick who was online playing his little Facebook games and woke back up when he forced me into the guest room to sleep for the night (he read a text on my phone and wanted to squabble). He came back in a bit after and after I explained it was lyrics to a song he made me go to the bathroom where I washed up and took my contacts out and retired back into his room. We watched TV until I fell asleep.

I didn't get to sleep well last night though. The right side of my throat has been killing me nearly all day. My left side feels fine, but the right one is swollen or something. Oh, who knows. It still hurts.

Anyway, that's about all there is to blog about. My postcards to my family should be in the mail by today, hopefully. Nick left for work at 9AM where they force him to sit there and do nothing. I was texing Kevin earlier (even though he's at the other end of this hallway) and he was asking me what I'd like to do today. We'll see. I have no plans. Haha.

I think i'll take a shower... Then text Nick and ask him if he wants me to walk over to his recruiting place or have Kevin drop me off. Yepp, that shall be the start of my day.

Other lanterns being set off from the beach.