fish8me.com

i went to hawaii 2 weeks ago.

before you read anything, play this:

no, hawaii was nothing like hawaii five-0. but how awesome is that intro anyway?

let me just say, its all jetstar’s fault. before jetstar, air travel was expensive and required a significant investment, which naturally meant greater thought was put into things and the longer it took to decide, the more likely you were to find alternative ways you wanted to spend you money.

then along comes jetstar with its deceptively cheap “$200 to honolulu” air tickets, and before you know it, you’ve book two. except it doesn’t cost $200. it costs $200 to get there and then another $200 to get back. ooops we forgot to mention the additional $150 TAX PER TICKET. so that’s a grand total of $700. BUT unfortunately the flight is from sydney, so you have to figure out a way to get from MElbourne to sydney on your own i.e $100 ticket each way. and don’t forget accommodation and food. and transport to and from airports. and shopping. wow. i’d rather have spent that money… i can immediately think of 20 things and people i’d rather have spent that cash on.

but anyway to hawaii we go. i’ll skip where the story really began, in the US consular office in melbourne, since there’s nothing much to say except stringent security measures mean i have to take off my Croc flip flops everytime i entered the building to put them through the x ray machine in case i’m McGyver or something and i found a way to detonate Croslite™ like C4.

so. i catch a flight to sydney, and from there its about 12 hours to honolulu. on the flight i’m reading Mr Nice, a book Ad recommended to me. its about this oxford graduate who becomes an international marijuana smuggler. very interesting stuff. it would serve as my beach book, and i would finish it before landing back in australia.

throughout the flight, i cannot wait to feel the sun,the sand and the surf on waikiki beach. its hard not to think about that when you’re coming out of a Melbourne winter and traveling in cramped conditions for over 15 hours.

we finally land in honolulu and its good to be back in the good old US of A. first thing that really hits me about hawaii is that there is ALWAYS a beautiful backdrop of volcanoes no matter where you go on the islands. its in the back, like a city skyline, except more awesome. the 2nd thing that strikes me about it is HOW MUCH IT REMINDS ME OF SINGAPORE AND MALAYSIA. the weather, the flora, the architecture, the PEOPLE. we’re talking tropics, with all the tropic flora planted next to roads. I took pictures of the place and if i didn’t tell you, you wouldn’t be able to differentiate between singapore or malaysia and honolulu.

look at this and tell me this doesn’t look like singapore.

anyway i spent the first 2 days lying on the beach, thinking and doing absoultely nothing. well ok that’s not completely through, i was thinking of something.