more words now

Hey people, this is don here trying to get a blog up and running. This blog has been set up as a way to keep connected to the rest of the world that’s not in paradise at the moment. For those who are in paradise with me, what are you guys doing here? Don’t you have better things to do?

Anyway, time to tell you how things went. Oh by the way, I’m not writing this on Hawaii Day 1 but Hawaii Day 2. The thing is, I had realised that when I arrived at Sheri’s place last night, I had been awake for about 48 hours with only fleeting sleep on the plane on my way to Hawaii and a short nap when I was in Narita.

Firstly, Northwest is not exactly the best way to fly. The journey from Singapore to Narita was not a very comfortable one. I am very ashamed to say that I got air sick in the plane and that it was the first time in years. I didn’t even get airsick when I was travelling on the flying coffins of Eva and China Airlines. (I didn’t really like Eva but I thought China Air was pretty decent.) Heck, I didn’t even get sick when I was on the Charlie 130 to erm, I think it’s an open national secret but a national secret nonetheless so I shall not say where I travelled to on the Charlie. In fact on the flight to Narita, they served food barely better than the SFI food served on the Charlie 130. The one good thing though was the personal TVs. I was really afraid of having to sit through a super long journey without a personal TV and my friend Chris had told me that Northwest didn’t have personal TVs, so I was really relieved to see a TV behind every seat. And they had pretty decent programs too. I watched “Thank you for smoking” but I fell asleep halfway because I wasn’t feeling too well. Oh, and I just remembered that it took me a bloody long time to find the freaking earphone jack for my seat. If anybody from Northwest reads this, or anybody who works with airplane companies for that matter, please have something telling patrons where the bleeting earphone jack thing is. After taking an uncomfortable nap, I decided to watch “Over the Hedge”. That went pretty good at first but then, they stopped the movie halfway to say that we were about to land. By about to land, I mean 30 minutes from actually landing. And then, they didn’t continue it at all. OK, well, they did but without the sound. Genius.

Next was the adventure in Narita. Thank God for travelling companions. I was travelling with Fairoza who is also going to be studying in Manoa with me and Ruth who’s gonna study in Austin but came to Hawaii for a weeklong break. So we decided to hang together in Narita while we served our time there, which was a pretty impressive 6 hours. First off, we decided to be Singaporean and look for food. Being in Japan, we decided to look for sushi. Guess what? There’s no sushi in Narita when you’re on transit. So we decided to settle for Macs. But we compromised for our own dignities and got burgers unavailable in Singapore. Then we headed to one of the lounges that had Internet connections and decided to hang there for a bit. After finishing our food, Ruth went online at a rate or 100 yen for every ten minutes and Fairoza went online at a rate of 100 yen for like ever. Apparently there was something wrong with that terminal but who cares. Anyway, while they were online, I decided to take a nap on the desk. Only after I woke up did I realise that I could have just as easily gotten to sleep on the seats there that could accommodate me lying down. Anyway, about an hour before we had to board the plane, we decided to go around Narita one last time just in case we missed anything and guess what? Yes, there is sushi in Narita, in a Food court behind the FaSoLa duty free thingie. And there was a Starbucks there too and a really cool place that sold really nice bags. Unfortunately, I could find anything that sold “Hard Gay” stuff so sorry guys.

Soon after that we had to board the plane. Fairoza grabbed a coffee from Starbucks cos she wanted to stay awake so she could watch Thank you for Smoking. Well, we got on the plane and then I noticed something very troubling. THERE WERE NO PERSONAL TV SETS!!! ARGH!!! There wasn’t even any music for much of the journey. They played Akeelah and the Bee on the shared TV and that’s a pretty good movie. I strongly encourage people to catch it. There was a pretty good quote on it about Fear that I can’t remember word for word and even if I did I would share it cos I want you guys to go watch it. But this time, the flight was a lot more comfortable and the food was much better. I didn’t get sick on this flight. However, the best thing on this flight was the landing. As we were about to land the lady next to me opened the shutter for the window to reveal the most spectacular view I’ve ever seen from an aeroplane. I think it was Maui or the Big Island we were flying over but it was Gorgeous. I got off the plane really excited cos I just wanted to see more of the beauty of Paradise. And then I had to pass through immigration, which was a rather pleasant experience. The Border and Immigration Control officer was very nice and made things very easy for me. The shite part came when I had to go get my luggage. I waited and waited and waited. And then I saw my bags by the side of the carousel which was just too packed with people and so after about 25 minutes of waited for my luggage I was finally able to pass through customs and out into the bright Hawaiian sun!

By this time, I had already lost Ruth and Fairoza. And that was pretty bad cos we had no way of getting in touch. I decided that I should get a pre-paid card and then tell Fai my number through email or something. But that is another adventure I’ll get to later. First I had to find Sheri. I was pretty worried cos it was already about 930 when I cleared everything and I told her my flight was arriving at 850. But my worries were unfounded. As I approached the arrivals area she just ran up to me and gave me a huge Aloha hug. It felt good to see her after all these months. We tried looking for Fai and Ruth but then just decided to give up since Fai was probably with her host family and Ruth was probably on her way to her hotel room. Then Sheri and I walked over to her car. She had to rush off to class and I was afraid that picking me up would make her late but apparently, she just made her class. So she went for class and left me to explore the university on my own.

My first stop was to see the exchange coordinator and on the way there, a lady stopped me and asked me for directions. That so made my day. Hahaha. Anyway, after that I went to the Health Centre and the Student services centre. There I found out that I still could not register until I could break my holds but that would have to wait for day 2. After that, I met up with Sheri and we went for lunch at L and L’s Drive Inn. We had a boxed lunch, the first one ever for me in that way. Dr Barnard recommended that I try one and so I did. It was pretty good but I still wasn’t feeling too well from my plane ride and stuff so I could not finish everything. After lunch, Sheri had to go to work and so she asked if I wanted to hang around Ward for like about 5 hours before she picked me up again. I said I didn’t mind and thus my Ward adventure began.
The adventure was because I had to get a pre-paid line for my phone. This is something we probably take for granted in Singapore cos there’s always a singtel or m1 or starhub somewhere around. Over here, nobody really knows where T-mobile and Cingular are and they all say it’s pretty near but their near is kinda far. Anyway it started of by a lady telling me to walk to someplace called CompUSA cos she said there was a T-mobile there. It took me about 20 minutes to walk there and when I got there and asked where the T-mobile was, I was told that the nearest one was in the downtown area about a 45 minute walk away in “thata” way. So I walked in thata way until I reached ward again and I just gave up. I went into another shop in the ward warehouse and asked where the nearest T-mobile or Cingular was and this really nice lady gave me pretty clear and accurate directions to get to a Cingular which was just a ten minute walk away. So I happily walked there and got me a pre-paid line. The charges there are pretty interesting going at $1 a day on the days you use your phone, so if you don’t use your phone, you don’t have to pay. And calls are at $0.10 a minute but the best thing is that calls from Cingular to Cingular are completely free. And that is really cool cos Sheri and Fai are both on Cingular too. I do realise that this is not much of an adventure but you have to remember that by this time, I had been awake for about 36+ hours with only fleeting sleep on the plane and the nap in Narita so there were times when I just had to take about 30 minutes to rest and just gather my wits. I was very tempted to just co to the ward Cineplex and pay about US$6.50 to sit down in a cinema and sleep but then decided it was against my principles. So I just went shopping. I bought a pair of boardshorts and got a free t-shirt so I thought it was a pretty decent deal. I also bought lotsa stuff to drink cos I was just so thirsty that afternoon. I mean it doesn’t feel as yucky as the weather back home but it is awfully dry and so you really need to hydrate yourself. I also went to check out a Christian bookshop and it was pretty good. The books there I have never seen in Singapore and I think they are pretty cheap comparatively too. There was a book called Grace Gone Wild which I picked up because of the catchy title and it was about how we tend to misunderstand and take for granted God’s graces. After that, I took some pretty random photos and then decided to wait for Sheri at the L and L’s.

So at about 5 in the afternoon after being awake for about 40 hours, Sheri picked me up. Then she asked my whether I’d like to join her boyfriend and his friends in a game of soccer to which I replied that I probably couldn’t play without dying but I didn’t mind watching. She told me it was a real sort of game so I decided to check it out. So we went to Jason’s apartment, which was a pretty nice place and then went down to the field. The field was very close to diamond head and so I just had to take some photos of the beautiful promontory instead of watching the game. The fun thing was that next to the guys playing soccer was a bunch of guys playing touch and I think they were all kiwi or something. The public fields there are free and have lighting at night. How different is that from back home where sometimes you have to pay for fields and then bring your own lights. Anyway, after the game I finally had a chance to go to Sheri’s place and have a good rest.

When we got to Sheri’s, I found out that it was on top of a super steep hill. And I mean super steep. When we got in I met Sheri’s sisters Cari and Christina and her parents and nieces and brother-in-law too. Her mum cooked for us and we had nice Asian food for dinner. In all honesty, the food here was a lot better than at L and L’s. Sheri then showed me to where I’d be putting up for the rest of the week and then I took a shower and prepared for bed. I checked my email and stuff and sent an online sms to my dad telling him that I was doing well and then I just fell asleep. Sleep felt so good especially after the Longest Day Of My Life. Officially I think the day lasted for about 42 hours of which 20 were spent in Limbo. Anyway, I think that the 10th of Aug 2006 will go down as the longest day and probably will never be beat. And I figure that the 9th of Jan 2007 will be the shortest as I leave Honolulu on the 8th and arrive in Singapore on the 10th of Jan.

Anyway here are more photos.



this is a picture of the view from the university. It's called the University of Hawaii at Manoa and it's in Manoa Valley. Since it's a valley, ergo, there are 2 mountains it's in between. here's one of the mountains. I don't know what it's called but i'll try to find out and tell you guys some other time yeah?



ok, here's the thing... the palm trees here are pretty sweet so there will be quite a lot of photos of palm trees. they really are pretty aren't they...



here's a picture i took while i was in sheri's car. yup, there sure are lots of mountains here. kinda feel strange though. it's like i'm more interested in going to the mountains than going to the beach. I mean, the beach seems blah compared to the mountains...







alrighty and these are pictures of the view from sheri's place. you know, it would be so cool waking up to this every morning. anyway, i just took these photos today cos it's like the first time i've really had the time in the day to take pictures since i'm normally rushing off somewhere in the early morning and only return like way at night. i kinda want to climb further up the mountain she lives on and then take more photos. damn i like my camera and i think he likes me lots now cos he can take really power shots and live up to his billing as a powershot...
ok, forgive the corn...