i just got back

i went to hawaii last week. i went to the islands of maui and oahu.

the plane left nagoya at around 6pm on 18th june. we bumped and jumped our way across the sky, passed the international date line and landed in honolulu at 7am on 18th june. from honolulu we caught our connecting plane to maui.

maui airport is like an old school gym, with wooden strips and wooden benches. we met our tour representative who talked utter bullshit to try and get us to buy optional tours. we said we would think about it. the guy who dropped us off at the hotel discovered i could speak english, and told us we could check ourselves in. as i sit and type this now, i can't really recall anything about the hotel room. i think it had white walls.

we rented a car, the cheapest car from the company. it was a 1999 nissan sentra. it had scratches and dents along the door, the plastic lining on the windows was hanging off, the door handle wouldn't release properly, amongst other things.

we ate lunch and drove to big beach on the south of the island. i'm a bit shit at describing stuff so i will just use the most appropriate cliches. it had golden sand and clear blue water. it had picture perfect palm trees and a clear clean sky. behind the beach was a green mountain. it was glorious.

we left before sunset and went to kihei beach until it got dark. it wasn't as nice as big beach as the strip of sand was thinner and we could hear the traffic from the road. old guys that looked like they may be homeless drank beer on a nearby picnic table.

in the evening we went shopping in a shopping mall. i bought a disposible waterproof camera for the next day.

we were at the port at 6.30am and on the boat by 7am. we were going to molokini. the ship zipped atop of the waves. molokini was already surrounded by boats by the time we got there. we did snuba, a hybrid of snorkelling and scuba diving, and took pictures of all the fish as well as eachother. then we went to turtle town. i saw some turtles swimming in the sea. all i could think about was how pi in life of pi by martell decribes how to gut a turtle and eat all it's insides.

after the trip we drove to lahaina. we had lunch in a burger restaurant with the greatest view a burger restaurant will ever have: perched over looking the whole pacific. after lunch was some walking around and then i fell asleep on a grass bank. a security guard woke me as he was leading a hobo away from the park. he was just checking i was ok.

we drove further north to kanapali. kananpali was a ghost town, a typical resort area hammered down with super chain hotels and no people or life (except for in the hotel and on the hotel beach). we saw the sun set on the beach, which was far to crowded with loud families. we drove back to lahaina for dinner. we ate seafood in a restaurant which was fabulous.

the next day i set the alarm for 2.30am. we were scheduled to drive up the volcano to watch the sunrise. i drove the whole way, up the winding curvy roads for around 2 hours. i followed trucks full of bicycles. when we finally got to the top, it was too dark to see where the viewing platform was. we were 10000ft about sea level. it was cold. not chilly cold but arctic nipples cold. and it was cloudy, well it wasn't really cloudy, but we were standing in a cloud. visablity was less than 9 metres. sunrise was a total bust and we couldn't see shit. the best thing about it was we met this american guy who used to be in the navy and kept talking endlessly about his japanese roommates in college and how his loved those guys. he shook my hand before he waddled off into his SUV.

on the way down the view was amazing, once we got below the clouds that is. maui, the towns, the ocean, the hill and fields all lay before us. bikes zoomed past me as i crawled down the slope, drinking in as much as i could. on the way down we stopped by a shack and looked at the flowers. they were imported from south africa. we met another american. he told us why macadamia nuts were so expensive.

in the afternoon, after a stop in krisp kream, we were at kapalua beach. it too was a little overcrowded. the bay had a lot of fish though. we move to napali beach via maui tacos. the beach was better and i tried boogie boarding. even though the waves were only a foot or so tall, i still got a kick.

we caught sunset on the lookout point that in winter is a lookout for humpback whales, and then went to a restaurant called seawatch. we could hear the wave.

the next day we woke up early to have one last drive around maui before we had to leave for the big city of honolulu...