Hanauma Bay

Today I went to Hanauma Bay Nature Reserve. Again 'The Bus' was full to the brim, but the ride was much shorter... And again I was blown away by it. Since I planned to snorkel and just leave my stuff on the beach I didn't bring my camera, but damn I wish I did cuz was real pretty!
My hostel has snorkels available to borrow, so I took one those and a pair of my own goggles. The Reserve was $5 to get in but I thought the experience was worth much more. When you got there they made you file into a theater and watch a 9min video about the history of the bay (it's an old volcano carter that got filled in with ocean) and certain "rules" to follow while enjoying the bay.
I'll just cut to the chase- I saw a sea turtle, was within a foot of it, could've touched it but obeyed the park rule of no touchie. I also saw a ton of other fish including a few types of parrotfish, various types of tangs, a few kinds of surgeonfish (the orangespine ones were the prettiest), various butterfly fish, christmas wrasse (beautiful!), spotted blowfish, and a bunch of others. And then a bunch of coral and sea urchins and snails.
Shortly after I arrived it started to rain. I covered my stuff and went in the water anyway, but soon my goggles nosepiece broke so I had to get out and fix it. Then it started to pour! I hung around the restrooms building until it stopped and then put my stuff under a bench and went in again. The wind started to pick up and the rain was continuing on and off. I started getting cold (in the water!) and decided at the next sunny break I would get out, lay on the beach to dry out and then maybe go. Well as soon as I got out the sun went back behind the clouds and it rained some more. So I got the bus and came back here. And then I saw a rainbow! But I'm still cold, even after a hot shower... I guess maybe I should put socks and shoes on? haha Anyway, I highly recommend Hanauma Bay!

I've put up my pics from the rest of my time at home here... ask me for the password.
AND my Hawaii pics so far are available here!

The North Shore

I decided shortly into my stay here in Waikiki that it lands in the same category as Orlando, FL for me, aka I strongly dislike it because it's a dirty tourist trap. There are too many people, the food isn't that good, prices are jacked up (but everything seems to be more expensive on this island, especially groceries... this could be because it's an island...), it's mainly the people that does it for me, man do I hate people. So I decided last night that my sunburnt ass would be better in the morning and be ready to face another day on the beach and thus I decided it was time leave the city and to go to the North Shore.

I took "The Bus," which is Oahu's public transit system and goes alllll over the island and is always only two dolla! Let's just say the price somehow outweighs the many downsides to taking The Bus. Well first I had to take a bus- cuz I didn't want to walk- to the giant mall that I checked out yesterday (yesterday was overcast and yuck) -the Ala Moana Center. It is quite large. They have EVERYTHING. Anyways, from there I transferred onto the Wahiawa Circle Isle Bus, knowing it was going to be an almost 2 hour ride. It started off well, the bus wasn't full, but as we drove through Honolulu more and more people got on. In short, the ride was very unpleasant, nearly 2 hours on a crowded city bus, the windows were dirty and it was difficult to see any of the passing country side, and some big Hawaiian guy kept falling asleep and leaning on me. Very uncomfortable. The whole ride I was thinking this North Shore business better be fucking worth it.

Well.

After about 30seconds of beholding Sunset Beach and also realizing there was a freaking surf competition happening I decided it was- even with the Hawaiian guy falling asleep on me.

After listening to the commentators for a while (there were loudspeakers) I learned that the comp was the 25th Annual Xcel Pro Championship and it was being webcast at surfinglive.com.

Anyway, the waves here were fucking huge! (The annoucer said the swells were coming in at 4-6ft earlier but were now 3-5ft only. They looked much bigger than that, haha.) There are signs posted every 100ms or so along the beach with red flags that say 'No Swimming' Two little boys, surf pros in the making no doubt, long almost naturally dreaded and sun bleached blonde hair, decided to ignore the signs and fooled around in the surf that was breaking closest to the shore. They were basically being tossed on shore by the break. They were trying to body surf but were quite unsuccessful as you could see them be swept into the wave and then pounded into the beach. My questions were they looked to be 7 or 8 -Why weren't these kids in school and how did they not drown? haha

After a few hours of watching the pros I headed down the beach towards Banzai Pipeline. It seemed like the waves were getting bigger the further I walked... and it was magnificent. The beach was virtually deserted. It was sunny. There was a nice breeze. This was the Hawaii I was looking for! I alternated walking along the beach and the bike path in the places the beach was steep and narrow for the next few hours and then stopped at Shark's Cove around 4pm. There I sat and read and enjoyed the sunset. Golly. T'was a beaut! Then I grabbed some dinner at the grocery store that happened to be across the street/hwy and then took 'The Bus' back. It was much better this time, haha. There was a Japanese couple trying to get to Waikiki. At one point the man said to the driver "No english. Speak Japanese please!" I almost laughed out loud, haha.

I will definately be going back to the North Shore at least once more before I leave Oahu!

Aloha!

PS Will post my pics tomorrow!

Aloha

Right now I am sitting in the courtyard area of my Hostel in Waikiki, Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii. Earlier a big gecko type lizard (15cm long!) ran up the wall that I'm sitting by (need to be plugged in) and then again a few minutes ago it reappeared and chirped at me. Bastard.

So let me bring y'alls up to speed. The flight from Vancouver last night felt long and I was in and out of sleep for most of it. When I arrived it was dark and even though it was only like 8pm it felt more like 2am so when I finally got to the hostel all I wanted was horizontal sleep. I am in the lower bunk in a room of 3 bunks, so thats 6 people. The guy above me last night was a restless sleeper and tossed and turned all night and I thought I was going to die should he toss too hard and come crashing through. He left this morning though, so now there are just 3 of us in the dorm room. The place is clean (the bathroom smelt of bleach this afternoon, a good sign in my opinion), just a little old and rundown. There is free continental breakfast of coffee, tea, toast and jam/PB, and for 35cents you can have oatmeal, weeeeeeeee! and free wireless and free locker use and a bunch of other shit that you can borrow for free (like boogie boards, snorkels, beach mats, etc). Anyways, a lot of the people staying here appear to be in couples or groups and many are ESL. I'm still feeling a little jetlagged and thus have not put in much of an effort to make friends, but my time will come. I've also overheard the staff commenting on how quiet it is around here (the hostel), I guess it's usually hopping? Maybe this will change this weekend, Halloween is supposed to wicked fun here.

Today I spent most of the day wandering around Waikiki and a couple hours on the beach. My SPF8 sunscreen did a wonderful job, however the spots I missed are feeling mighty warm right about now, haha. I wouldn't say the beach was crowded today but I was somewhat surprised by the number of tourists. Well I guess they're all tourists... and this is Waikiki, mega tourist hot spot. I think I was picturing a more quaint version of Hawaii. I'm going to see if that exists on the North Shore later in the week. But the shopping around here is pretty sweet. I wish I had a bigger bag, haha. There is an area a few blocks from here called 'International Market Place' which is an open air mall filled with little kiosks full of cheap souvenirs. There is also a Lesportsac store; I might be getting myself an early Christmas present there later!

Anyways, I had some bad news today, it turns out that my timing is not as perfect as I thought, as Diamond Head Trail is in the middle of being closed for a month for repairs and that was one of the top things to do on my list. I'll have to see if there is a smaller dormant volcano to climb on this island.

In other news, I was wandering around a few hours ago trying to decide what I wanted for dinner. I wanted something warm as I was experiencing somewhat of a chill from too much sun. I was about to cross the street when a random girl asked me if I was from here and knew of any good places to eat, as she was by herself. I told her I wasn't from here and that I was also looking for a place to eat and was also on my oddy knocky. In truely awkward fashion we somehow decided to eat dinner together and ended up going to the great American eatery known as Chili's. It turned out that she was from Vancouver and was in Hawaii for the third time in a year and wants to move here, but is trying to figure out the whole working situation with Visas and all that shit. It was... err... an interesting meal and although the company wasn't really my scene, the food really hit the spot.

Well it is almost 10pm and I am fading fast. I'll try to stay up another hour but it will be tough! I finished 'Angela's Ashes' today and am now on to the Barack Obama memoir- "Dreams From My Father." I will be reading it in Obama's home state (thanks Aunt Cathie), so maybe he will have suggestions on things to do and places to eat ;)

Vancouver

Well leg one of today’s journey is over. I am currently sitting in YVR killing time before my 4:45pm departure to Honolulu. I, of course, couldn’t turn down one last party night in Canada last night and was thus up late and am now fighting a mean headache… it could just be from lack of sleep though (haha) since I had to get up at 7am to shower and make final preparations. I felt kind pukey and didn’t even want to think about food and needless to say did not pack a snack, which would be awesome right now. There is a Tim Horton’s a few gates down so I should probably hit that shit up before take-off.
So I land tonight at 8pm local time and then will have to figure out how to get the bus with my giant backpack to the hostel I booked. Then I think I will spend all of Monday wondering aimlessly through Waikiki. Tough life.
Anyway, this is the beginning and I’m finding it hard to believe that I’m actually doing it, finally! I would say right now I’m a little nervous because I do not know what tomorrow holds, but I’m trying to stay positive and turn that nervousness into excitement. Hopefully the beauty of Hawaii will blow all these mixed emotions away and it’ll be smoooooooth sailin’. Holla!

Time keeps on tickin, tickin, tickin, into the future...

It recently occurred to me that my concept of time has changed… dramatically! “Concept of Time” might not be the best way to describe what I’m getting at here; it’s more like “Concept of Future.” When I swam my life revolved around it: the practices: the meets: the daily schedule even (eating at a certain time, sleeping at a certain time, everything at a certain time!). And now I guess you could say I’m free of all this- my daily schedule is my oyster and I’m slowly getting used to what I should be doing with it- but it’s my ‘concept of future’ that has just now caught my attention. Swim meets used to be what I looked forward too in the not so far future (not so far being 1-2 months) they were the light at the end of the hard training tunnel. But now, as I am about to embark on this trip/journey/travels/move?/whatever, I’m kind of thinking- once I get there and get settled- then what?

I think this could be where I have the biggest post swimming trouble/problems: the loss of the cycle, the hard work rewarded by results (at a meet) in the form of performance cycle. Even though the results weren’t always positive they were always a learning experience and a stepping stone on the path to swimming faster which was the direction I was trying to follow.
What direction does the real world want me to follow? I guess I better take some time to write down some Aussieland related goals… maybe on the beach in Hawaii? In mean time any suggestions would be great!

Oh Yeah...

OU SUCKS!

Texas beat OU at the Annual Red River Shoot Out at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas on Saturday. Texas is now #1.

It's 9:17pm and OU still sucks.

Hook 'em!

Thanksgiving Weekend

Happy Thanksgiving one day late! I hope you all reading this had a lovely weekend with family and/or friends and some turkey and potatoes!

I had both an awesome and horrible weekend... it started Thursday night at Bar None seeing the Vancouver band 'Mother Mother.' Doors were at 8pm and we got there around 9 I think, thinking they would be on pretty soon. We didn't know there would be two opening bands... two bad opening bands. The first group sounded like they had maybe practiced once maybe twice before. Pretty awful. But at least they're sweet tie dyed outfits matched! haha The next band was better, had definately played a gig or two before, but they were still quite poor. The two openers made Mother Mother seem like gods: Polished and professional. But they really were fucking awesome! They are touring around Ontario right now and I highly recommend checking them out, plus they are cheap!

So on Friday I went down to My Bar for import night Stellas and made plans for Saturday night. These plans made my Saturday night house party morph into an all out dance party. I had a big list of songs to download for dancing purposes and even different chapters of music/dance styles to follow in order to rock out to the max. INTENSE. Saturday had high expectations.

Well Saturday came and I prepped during the day and then started drinking early, around 7, before my guests arrived. That was probably my biggest mistake of the weekend. I proceeded to drink more when party goers got here and thats about all I remember. I was told later that I had a great time and danced my heart out. I'm still a little upset about having little memory of it though, it's like I wasn't even there :( A lot of pictures were taken and the next morning when I looked at them I was pretty shocked since I could not recall some of the events. Anyways and needless to say, my blackout party ended up in vomit and then next day was spent deep in a gravol induced sleep because I was determined to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner! By 4pm I was up and the party mess from the night before was cleaned up and I had taken a dunk in the lake and felt a lot better. Lucky for me TG dinner wasn't until 7pm and despite feeling dopey from the gravol it was delicious. My first Canadian Thanksgiving in 6 years! Crazy!

On Monday my sister went wakeboarding. She's nuts!

So that was my Thanksgiving Weekend and with that out of the way, the countdown begins... only 12 more sleeps in Canada left!

P.S. You'll need a password to see those pics, so maybe if you ask me nicely...

Some Road Trip Pics...

Austin: Homeless man at intersection of 2222/290 and I-35

Dallas looms

Texarkana bound

Outside Texarkana for some Texas BBQ at Texas Bar-B-Que Corral

One last Texas Sunset :(

Driving over the Mississippi out of Arkansas and into Tennessee

Pancake Pantry!

Nashville, TN

The BG!

Louisville awaits

Elizabethtown, KY

Cincinatti at dusk

Cinci Skyline

Sunrise near Findlay, OHIO

Toledo Pride

Detroit, MI

Bridge to Canada signs

Ambassador Bridge, Goodbye USA

Welcome to Ontario

401 down to one lane, woof.

O Canada

The damage!

EPIC

I had an epic weekend in Toronto. I walked A LOT, drank a lot, and dance partied a lot. I could try to take account of the exact details here but I won't because that might spoil some of the epicness and you the reader might disagree that it was in fact not really that epic. But it was. I will indulge you in a highlight or two.
1. Chocolate Bar Day- Of the 21 bars only 20 were sampled (the last one waits for this weekend). The day started out strong with the first couple bars being at least half consumed. But from then on out only bite size pieces were cut off each bar. And even then getting through them all was somewhat of a chore and chocolate bar was expanded to two days instead of the originally designated one. We were weak, but it was still fun. And the sugar high I experienced was like nothing else! woooooooooooooooooooooo!
2. St Lawreance Market- I love this market. Just knowing that I could go down there on a busy Saturday morning to get fresh, delicous produce and then go home and cook up something amazing makes me want to live in Toronto . Mmmm Mmmmm!
3. Korea town- Korean BBQ and Norebang that's open til 4am... need I say more? NOPE. EPIC.

In other news... my Mom is paying me to clean the house later this week and before Thanksgiving weekend. Our usual cleaning lady has a broken leg and is therefore out of commission. So I'm doing it for the sweet beer money.
I'm really excited about Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. It will be my first in 6 years. I still feel the need to call it CANADIAN Thanksgiving, is that weird? Maybe? hahaha Anyways, turkey and gravy will really hit the spot in the gross coldness called the fall in this country. The thought of warm Australian sunshine is the only thing that will get me through these temperatures. The winter coat has already been broken out and it's only October 7th! Uh-Oh!

Back at it?

Today I did a practice with my old club team, good ole EBSC. It has been almost exactly 2 months since I was last in the water doing actual swimming (K-town Tri, Aug 3rd, a stagering 750m!). Anywayzzzz, it felt weird: Like I was swimming in a pool of jello. My front end... well I had no front end, all those muscles don't function in that manner anymore. It was enjoyable though and dare I say fun?? The fact that it was only an hour def helped too! hahaha. Also, I definately felt like I got a good workout out of it... when was the last time I can say that about swimming?? I do not know.
So I am going to go back and swim some more. I like being a rec swimmer ;)
I'm also going to coach a little bit. They are looking for a new coach for some of the younger kids and I offered to fill in for the time I'm here slash until they hire someone else. Should be GTs!

In other news my Dad got my car fixed. Should be good as new with its ALIGNMENT all better.
This morning I went to Watertown to pick up the stuff I had shipped via Greyhound. I got stopped at the border both ways. First I was "randomly selected" to go inside and fill out a customs form and have my car searched. And then on the way back they wanted to look over my customs forms from when I came into Canada through Windsor on Saturday and take a look at what I had in the car this time. So that time alone added at least 30mins to my trip. But oh well, I have EVERYTHING now. EVERYTHING. I still don't have enough hangers (I've bought over 30 and still need more) and still need to find a home for my shoes among other things. Ugh, it is neverending.
The weather here is gross. Gray and rainy and cold. Starting to really look forward to Hawaii and spring down under and the whole skipping winter thing.