Sorry about the delay, people... Since our first few posts encompass a month's worth of stuff, consider splitting the reading into a few doses to prevent overexposure and boredom!
Hate to wake you up to say goodbye...Monday, August 07, 2006
The good news about starting a blog on such a sad note is that things can only get better. I've packed my 75litre backpack and it's HUGE. I suddenly regret not working enough on my shoulders during my short-lived gym membership. It's actually heartwrenching to pack.. having to "eliminate" clothes that don't make the cut... I went through about 7 cuts.. each time appologising to that shirt or underwear which wasn't gonna travel the world with me.
The planning started 2 years ago... encompassing 63 countries over 5 continents. Jem and I were gonna go from India, through the Middle east, the Greek Islands, down to Tanzania and the wildest parts of the African continent, across the Atlantic to the US, work downwards from Mexico to Guatemala, Nicaragua and the rest of Central America, continuing South through the whole of South America from Peru to Chile to Venezuela and the rest, finally flying back to Singapore - but not without a final stop in the Hawaiian Islands. It turns out, we were forgetting one important element in our plans - money. So here we are, still as excited, but focussing our adventure on the whole of Central America, South America, the Carribean Islands and parts of the US...
Habla Ingles?
Aloha!It's astounding how things mess up... and work themselves out. Long story short... we missed our standby flight from Tokyo to San Francisco, leaving us with 2 options: Stay in the insanely expensive city until one of the already overbooked flights over the next few days manages to squeeze us in... or take the only and last flight out of Tokyo for the day to the United States. As it so happens, of all the 50 states, we found ourselves on the way to the most gorgeous one of all... Hawaii!!!
The Beach
The 5 days we spent in Oahu were so awesome... Highs and Lows:
Highs
1. Driving to the Northern part of Oahu, stopping at every beach along the North Shore. Our favorites? Sunset at Waimea Bay and Sunset Beach.
2. Body watching at Waikiki...
3. Just the idea of being in Blue Hawaii...
Waikiki sure has hot lifeguards... and gorgeous sunsets...
Lows
1. Prices! Although they sure beat Tokyo, still blew our budget.
2. Our first hostel. Everything was looking up at first. We checked into a backpacker's place and settled for dorm style accommodation -2 bedrooms (4 beds each) - in a cute little hut alongside the North Shore. Ready to call it a night, we bump into 2 people on our porch who were gonna be staying in the next room. We spent the next few hours swapping stories, drinking, reminicing about rock ballads from the early 90s and having a blast. And then.... (I'm embarassed to admit that i was dead tired, and slept through all of this and only expereienced the horror for the last 1/2 hour, right before leaving at 6am while Jem was fully conscious during the entire thing ) At 2:30am, a HUGE drunk noisy Asian man enters the room and strips to his tight high cut undies, collapsing on the top bunk of his bed, his giant feet sticking out. In his comatose state, he snores like a Boeing and FARTS (gross wet ones!!! Ewwww!!!!) almost continuously throughout the night. EWWWW!!!!
Sigh... to be a DOLE pineapple for a day....
