Hawaii Day 1
The first day of Hawaii started early for me. I woke
up at 0545 (not unlike any other day for Insanity) to watch the sunrise. Well,
attempt to watch the sun rise. There’s wasn’t much of one because of all of the
clouds over the ocean. It was still pretty cool though; everyone was super
psyched to finally be getting into port after days at sea.
After
immigration we finally got left off the ship at around 10 in the morning. And
we were off to the beach! Well, kind of. We had been told, well what Keani had
been told by a friend from Hawaii, was that Richardson Ocean Park was only
about 2 miles from the port. However, when we got to Hawaii and asked the
police officers, it was actually 4 miles away. Luckily we were able to find a
tour guide to take us to the beach. We loaded up like 10 people in the van and
we were off! Again… BUT, first we had to stop and get some snacks of course!
Keani talked me into trying this Hawaiian wrap thing called Musubi with Spam,
sticky, rice, and sea weed. Surprisingly, it was pretty good. She thought what
made me hesitant about trying it was the spam, but come on. Being raised in the
south, Spam is at the bottom of some of the worst things I’ve tasted. It was
the fact that it was warm and wrapped in seaweed that kept tripping me up.
Something like that just seems like it needs to be kept refrigerated, not
sitting out in the hot Hawaiian sun for hours.
Once
we finally got to the beach, all of my visions of Hawaii were shattered (later
to be reconciled in Honolulu (from a distance)). Richardson Ocean Park was a
black-sand beach, which is lava rocks that have been eroded over millions of
years into a fine sand. I can tell you all about the geological processes and
compositions, but nobody really cares, including me. When we went swimming, we
ran into some fellow SAS guys who let us use an extra pair of goggles they had
with them. We were able to see these GIANT sea turtles in the water. They all
reminded me of Crush from Finding Nemo because they let you get right up close
to them and look at them. Some of my friends with underwater cameras were able
to get some really good close-up pictures of them. I’ll have those to show
everybody over summer when I get back.
All
around the sandy part of the beach, there was all of these lava rocks that were
awesome to climb around. On some of them, you could even see the lava flow
patterns that were preserved in the rock. While Keani was hopping around the
rocks like she was a bird, the SAS guys that had joined us were like bear
crawling barely making it up the rocks without killing themselves. It was great
and there is some pictures to prove it.
After
we were done with the beach, we piled in a taxi with some other SAS kids (9
people in a 7 people van) and made our way downtown. The taxi driver originally
said $20 for everybody and then ended up charging us $3 a person so in reality
he ripped us off. It was fun, though, and the driver was really interesting to
talk to about Hawaiian culture. Note: Everywhere Keani went where she told
people where she was from (Makaha, Wainai, Oahu) people kept like telling her
they were praying for her and they were sorry because it is the bad part of
town. It must have a pretty bad rep because everybody who has lived in Hawaii
for any amount of time knew about it.
We
headed to the Farmer’s Market to give ourselves an idea of what would be there
the next day. Keani got us all to try some of the tropical fruit and it was all
so delicious. We tried leche, star fruit, apple bananas, and a lot of other
weird stuff. It was even better because Desmond Tutu was there too the people
probably had no idea who they were talking to. Abby bought a guitar from a cool
little store on the corner while we were there for $100. Not bad.
After
the market, we walked down the main street and just explored some of the little
shops. The first lady, Auntie Bev, told us to get some shaved ice from the shop
next door and man was it good. You could get ice cream in the bottom and any
flavors you wanted. The lady made all of the syrups herself and there was
everything from the traditional strawberry to nasty dried plum (it’s a Hawaiian
favorite, I’m told. Keani has candy just like it and tortures all of the people
on the ship with it.) I got Leche and Lilikoi and it was one of the best things
I’ve had in my life. After we ate our shaved ice we wandered into the store
next to that where I bought two lava-lavas or the wraps that can be a skirt or
a dress or whatever you want it to be. I got a purple and pink one with turtles
and a black one with the sea and sea animals on it. I then successfully got my ice cream around
the world from a little homemade ice cream store downtown.
We
decided to walk back to the ship thinking it wasn’t too far and it would only
take about half an hour. What we didn’t think about was that it was raining and
we had been given bad estimations of distance all day. So what we were told
should take half an hour really took about two and a half hours. After about 45
minutes we decided to try and find a cab to take us back to the ship. We were
“fortuitous” (Jordan-grr) to find one right away that we could take to the
ship.
On the walk we did see some interesting things,
though. We ran into some guy running along the beach, canoe practice, and a
“Beware Falling Coconuts” sign.
After dinner on the ship we all embarked on the
untold adventure of SAS- the Wal-Mart
run. We piled 13 people into a van and made our way to the exotic Wal-Mart. SAS
kids had already attacked it- the randomest things were sold out in the food
section. I’m sure we tripled their daily sales for the day.
The 2nd day dawned early. We planned on
meeting at 7am on the 2nd deck, but it was more like 715 for me.
Abby was surprisingly on time though (a first- for anything). As we were walking
off the ship Jim Finley asked us where we were going and when we told him, he
asked us if he could come along. Of course we told him yes so he ran on the
ship to put his stuff down and came off like 5 minutes later (2nd
deck win- when the gangway is on the 2nd at least.) He told us that
he had just back from hiking the volcano. He and his group had gone to the
volcano to find the lava the night before. They had gotten there at 4, didn’t
find the lava until 11, and then didn’t find their way back until around 4 in
the morning. So he didn’t sleep for a good 48 hours.
After
Jim joined us, we headed to the big farmer’s market again. On Wednesday it’s
about triple the usual size, so it was pretty cool. We had decided not to get
breakfast before we left the ship, so we made a breakfast of the fruit from the
vendors. I ate almost a whole bushel of apple bananas by myself and a whole
bunch of other fruit. It was all so good it sucks we can’t take any fresh fruit
on the ship. All of the fruit on the ship tastes the same except for the
pineapple, of which there is very little. When watermelon tastes like
cantaloupe, you have a problem.
After
the farmer’s market we wanted to find a post office and a place with wifi to
upload some pictures. We found this really big post office with this fountain
in the middle. While we were waiting on Jim to finish sending off some post
cards, Keani dropped her water bottle in the fountain. The guard/ police
officer standing nearby walked up right
after she did it so we all thought we were going to get in trouble because it
was like sacred water or something. He just told her to be sure to wash her
hands and her bottle really well because homeless people like to bathe in it.
We
managed to find some Wi-Fi in a coffee shop right across the street. The shop
owner, Terri, was really eccentric, to say the least. He gave me crap when I
used a $20 to buy a soda, but I wanted some smaller bills. I also asked for a
chocolate chip muffin which he told me I couldn’t have. When I asked him why he
told me it was because he didn’t have any chocolate chip muffins, that it was a
blueberry muffin. I ended up getting a chocolate chocolate chip muffin instead,
which was delicious. I found out that people but butter on muffins? I’ve never
seen anybody do it, but the group I was with did. I tried it and thought it was
absolutely disgusting.
While
we were uploading pictures to Facebook (which took SO long), Terri came over to
talk to us. He was asking us about Semester at Sea, what we were studying, and
what classes we were taking. When he asked us if we had any cooking classes and
we told him no, he was appalled. We jokingly suggested that he could give us
one, not meaning him to take it seriously, and he told us to go to the kitchen.
5 of us made this huge, delicious lasagna in the kitchen (and made a mess in
doing so.) Terri was hilarious the whole time, telling us to dig in with our
hands and not be afraid to put too much cheese on it. He made sure that we knew
you had to tuck in the edges and let it cool for two hours or it would fall
apart.
After
we put the lasagna in the oven of the hostel right next door, we decided to go
walk around some more. We went to take Jim and Imtiaz, who had joined us in the
Farmer’s market I think, to get some shaved ice from the place we had gotten it
the day before. I got mine with the ice cream this time. The syrup seeps into
the ice cream and makes the ice cream taste amazing when you get to it. The boys
really liked it, too.
Uh
oh! Where’s Jordan?! What a nightmare. We lost one of the girls in the group.
We conducted a search for her including asking the people on the sidewalk and
showing them a picture, giving and getting the numbers of several shopkeepers,
and a personal phone call and text message from Tom Jelke, the executive dean.
Not something that I want to remember. We did decide to go back to Bear’s
Coffee and eat the lasagna we had made. Even though we still had to pay for it,
it was really good.
After
we heard that Jordan was okay we decided to head back to the ship. On our way
walking back we had to say goodbye to all of the shopkeeper friends we met
along the way. Both Terri and Auntie Bev gave us flowers though Auntie Bev told
us that Terri’s were for old women and gave us ones that were more suitable for
young women and men. When we made it through security on the ship, we were
greeted by some of the children saying “Aloha and welcome back to the MV
Explorer.” They are so cute and so lucky. According to the board that was near
the gangway, some reasons to get on the ship early were: 1) It’s gonna rain,
2)The line to get back on the ship will be long, and 3)Dock time stinks. (Dock
time is where for every 15 minutes you’re late to the ship, you’re held 2 hours
in the next port on the ship.)
When
I got back on the ship, everybody was doing Facetime ship tours with their
friends and family. (I’ll make a tour video and post it on our next study day.)
Also,
when I walked by the library, I had saw that the books were tied down. The
first day we met the librarians, Ellen and Olivia, they told us that the crew
had told them that if the books were ever tied down that you should go and take
your seasickness medication right then. They do that whenever they are
expecting big waves so the books don’t go flying. We’ll see how it goes.
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