Thursday, December 24, 2009

Hawaii, Where It's Nice

ハワイー

20091220-DSC_6529_30_31Enhancer

Day 1 - I landed at Honolulu International Airport at 6:30am. Past the customs dude who gave props to the 山手線, and after a quick ride on the wiki-wiki tram, I pulled up to the inter-island ticket counter. Turns out my connecting flight was almost 4 hours away. I need a drink!

20091215-DSC_6171

Shit. Airport booze is overpriced by American standards, but under-priced by Japanese. Anyways, it's probably for the best, as I was perpetually drunk for the last 4 days, except for the 8 hours I went on a charity motorcycle toy run. More on that later, as I still have to blur all the children's faces in Photoshop, Japanese style.

20091215-DSC_6172

What to do... get my BK on? Maybe another bar?

20091215-DSC_6174

Nope. But I ran across this.

20091215-DSC_6173

Fuck, I just felt nostalgia from a damn coupon magazine. You see, it's been 13 years since I've been to the Hawaiian islands, but during childhood I went almost every year with my family on some sort of home swap deal with family friends. Well I'm back.

Reading a copy of "101 Things to Do" gave me an idea of exactly what I do NOT want to do.
  • A luau. I got busted for sneaking some mai tais back when I was 18 at a luau and hate them now. Fuck you! I'm not a part of your system.
  • Anything with the word "adventure" in the description
  • Holy Shit, an ATV tour company. Whatever, but check out the website name - www.ridetherim.com.
  • I'm anti-dolphin tourism, because I watched the Cove last week. Now bring on the burgers and Kalua Pork.
Day 2 - Damn, I can't stomach American food. What's up with that? Too much sauce? Must be jet lag or something, because this is coming from someone who eats greasy ass ramen 4 times a week.

20091217-DSC_6203

Now this I could handle. With limes picked from the tree outside.

20091217-DSC_6238

20091217-DSC_6204

A bit of a misnomer,

20091217-DSC_6206

as deep fried, covered in sickly sweet sauce fish isn't really home style out in Japan. Maybe down in Kyushu, the one place I haven't been.

20091218-DSC_6260

Homemade ahi poke (too much salt though, my bad).

20091218-DSC_6426

Coconut crust on fish is crazy good.

20091219-DSC_6431

Kalua pork is also crazy good.

20091220-DSC_6500

Kona coffee from the source.

20091222-DSC_6656_7_8Enhancer

On my last day I had fresh sea turtle. It was good, but I could only eat like 2 bites and had to toss out the rest. もったいない!

Day 3 - Green beach!

20091216-DSC_6193_4_5Enhancer

Black beach!

20091218-DSC_6355

20091220-DSC_6447

Lava!

20091218-DSC_6416

Day 4 - Hilo has a lot of rain, so there is a perpetual flow of water and some pretty rad waterfalls. But mostly it's just an overlook.

20091217-DSC_6210_1_2Enhancer

20091218-DSC_6261_2_3Enhancer

Pee Pee falls is a bit harder to get to. Climb over some rocks for 15 minutes. Try not to drop your big heavy SLR camera. Then chill with some local reggae. These are the guys from Soul Redemption.

20091218-DSC_6286

20091218-DSC_6289

Dude can sing. Hopefully they'll come through Tokyo someday, though Japan has a fairly whack (though popular) reggae music scene.

20091218-DSC_6293

Check em on myspace.

20091221-DSC_6621

Day 5 - Hit up the other side of the island, the dry side. My dad was talking about one of his favorite beaches. White sand with plenty of shady trees. Minus the shady trees. I guess there was a fire.

20091219-DSC_6440

Day 6 - I really wanted to see the lava up close. Access from the East is monitored, but the West is totally free. For real, the West side is much better than the East side. The sun may rise in the East, but it sets in the mutha fuckin West.

20091220-DSC_6544_5_6Enhancer

If you want to walk for 2-3 hours each way.

20091218-DSC_6330_1_2Enhancer

Over a hardened lava field.

20091220-DSC_6559_60_61Enhancer

The lava flow changes often. I got about an hour in and figured I'd give up. Good hike though, as I was all alone on the rocks.

Day 7 - 10 - Other random photos from my trip.

20091217-DSC_6214

People love Hawaii sooo much! Love is a scar on a native tree.

20091217-DSC_6216

My dad's place is.... いなか.

20091217-DSC_6245

But inaka means hella wild fruits growing wildly.

20091217-DSC_6247

20091218-DSC_6314

This little spider was humping my beer for like 10 minutes.

20091218-DSC_6429

20091220-DSC_6464_5_6Enhancer

What up dood?

20091221-DSC_6595

Your friend has the right idea.

20091221-DSC_6599

See ya Hawaii!

20091222-DSC_6644_5_6Enhancer

1 comment:

Dave Fox said...

Wow, that brings back some memories. Jen and I went a couple of summers ago to the Big Island, and some of your pictures look really familiar. We went to that green sand beach, and hiked several hours to see the lava close up. =)