8 posts tagged “hawaii”

Waipi’o Valley

Twin falls

Wild Horse

A Hawaiian bird with a name I can’t remember

Taro Plot

One of the many rivers in the valley

Wild horse getting ready to peek inside my window to look for treats

Lush forest

More lush green forest

Sunset in Kona

This is my current (’office’) view. Isn’t it criminal to have this?! Prime, front row seats of the Pacific Ocean. To the left is Waipi’o Valley.

Anyway, as I was saying in the title. This place is gorgeous beyond words, no doubt about that. However, with beauty like this there is a price to be paid. Like living in a land where there are mosquitos, tiny frogs that croak like a manic high-pitched bird, and all sorts of weird(-looking) creatures.

Last night, one of my worst fears happened: a six-inch centipede CRAWLED on my back. I was sleeping but I woke up just before midnight because I had this weird sensation on my back. I jumped out of bed and who was trying to get in bed with me? The effing centipede! That sucker was fast and I couldn’t find him after 2 tries. SHIT!@!#! I have such a phobia for it that I once I see it I couldn’t move and life my arm to swat the darn thing with my slipper. GAH!

Believe it or not I stood and walked around the bed for almost three hours trying to find–yet avoid–it. After much cold sweat in the middle of a night-long tropical downpour, I decided to leave the cottage and sleep on the couch at the main house. I was that freaked out!!!!

It must be one of the scariest moments of my life. I’ve always loved National Geographic, but geez, I don’t want the wild THAT up close and personal. Oh boy, what a treat. :(

In other news, yes, the wedding was perfect in all its imperfections–do you know what I mean? There were things that didn’t go exactly as planned, and anyhow that’s how all weddings go right? The ceremony, which was initiated by a Chinese monk (my best pal is Chinese), was solemn and intimate. There were some exceptional photo opportunities right there at the park where they had the wedding. Afterwards we all went sailing. It was an early afternoon wedding so we were out of the dock by 4:30pm. It was beautiful! The bride, who loves sailing, was in her element and she was beaming like I’ve never seen before. I’m so happy for her! The sail back had the perfect view of the sunset and they have photos of the Hawaiian sunset beside them. Can it be anymore picturesque? We also had lots of champagne while we were out to sea. Haha. We also watched the fireworks before the reception dinner…it’s one of those things that are part of the traditional Chinese wedding. The whole matrimonial event was lovely and memorable, and everything worked out well. I’m so glad to be a part of it. :-)

I’m back here in Kona and enjoying the view. The newlyweds are only coming back from Honolulu this afternoon. I’ve already seen a bit of the island, thanks to the groom’s best friend who showed me around. Not be forgotten is my consumption of an unhealthy dose of good Kona coffee. Oh my. I should remember to bring home on Saturday. Hehe.

Things here are great. However, I do miss home. Aww.

Up at 5am, out of the house by 7:15am. The airport is more than an hour away from where the house and cottage are, so we had to leave early. Plus, we had a lot of stops, like pick up mail, check on their gallery and drop off the trash. Yes, you heard that right: drop off the trash.

Our plane to Ouahu was late, but we got there almost on time. Go figure. We were picked up by my friend’s fiancé’s friend and we went straight to Chinatown to fill up on dimsum for lunch. Glorious food. Brought me back straight to Vancouver! I love it. Then we drove to meet their jeweler to pick up their wedding rings. After which, we tried to check in at our respective hotels but we were too early. What the fudge. We ended up at picturesque Kewalo Basin Park, where they will do the photos after the wedding ceremony, right before we pop the champagne and sail off before the dinner reception. My god, it’s beautiful!

We needed to rest a bit in the afternoon, so we checked in and decided to meet up later. I took a whiff of my crack: Internet.

For dinner, we picked up plate lunches (plate lunch for dinner…haha) and we ate it the the park. Wonderful view, good food, good company.

Afterwards, us two girls headed off to the Ala Moana Center to book hair, makeup, manicures, pedicures, massages, find a ring box for the wedding bands, pick souvenirs. Everything is last minute, but boy did we accomplish all of those in a record time of less than 2 hours! We rock, if I may say so! And you bet we were we pooped at the end of the day…which is now.

Tomorrow we’ll have our manis, pedis, and massages. I can’t wait! I’ll get the souvenir tags taken cared of, too. Hmm…what else do we need to do… Dinner party the night before the wedding. So busy!

My brain’s just fried at the moment, and I’m so tired. I just want to document most of these events so that I’ll hopefully remember most of it, and journal it in a nice booklet to print later for them.

I haven’t taken a single picture with my digital camera. It feels so different to just BE in the moment and not worry about capturing the moment. There are very important events in life that forces you to be present and take part in them fully. I think these are one of them. Although I will start documenting stuff in pictures tomorrow!

Alrighty kids…bed time. Wish you were all here to enjoy Honolulu.

Hawaiian word for the day: PAU! It means Finished!

[supposed to be posted Oct 24, 12am]

I’m here somewhere in Kona. Hello 3-hour difference. I have 2 ticking clocks in my head now, and I’m starting to get confused considering that I have to ‘be’ actively mentally present in both.

I opened my checked-in luggage earlier and realized that my stuff was “randomly searched” again. I was so pissed and disappointed when I found our perfectly-wrapped wedding gift (compliments to Pottery Barn) was weeping because it’s now bare, with its plain ivory colored box. Argh.

Another thing I detest about these searches is that they SCOUR every nook and cranny of your stuff and just try to fit everything back in there after manhandling your privacy. The first time my bag was “searched”, when I ran out of ziplock bags to organize stuff, all my underwear were scattered at the top of the bag. Can you imagine random strangers touching such intimate stuff? Off to the wash they went. Harrumph!

The cottage/house I’m staying at is SO beautiful. I’ll take pictures tomorrow, hopefully, if not, I’ll do that when I go back here on Saturday. All I can say is that the property overlooks the vast ocean, when you glance to the side you’ll see the cliffs, further forward is the horizon. Oh my goodness!

When we arrived, I helped a little with filling the trough for the horses. They happily galloped in the grass. They are gorgeous and friendly.

There is no cellphone reception here, but they have wireless internet. The place is overwhelmingly breathtaking…this would be perfect for a retreat!

More later…gotta get sleep. We’re flying to Honolulu tomorrow morning.

It’s supposed to be the hottest day in Vancouver today. Think cool thoughts. God, I could just swim here right now –

[Notice the dolphin flippin’ in the background?]

I just remembered that I haven’t uploaded 95% of my photos from Hawaii. Ooops. Oh well, that’ll do for now. I really need to kick some ass and pack my stuff. I keep saying that don’t I?

And I’m back in freezing Vancouver. Goddamn freezing Vancouver. BRRRRRR. Shit, shit, shit. We should have stayed longer. It’s supposed to be spring now, right? WTF?!?!?!?!

I still feel afloat and being carried by the waves and currents. Awesome. It goes to show how much time I spent in the water. Haha. We were beach bums and I am toasted.

Special note: For those who are going to Maui and want to experience the zipline…it’s fully booked till April 9 when I checked last March 17. I wasn’t able to go. :( Don’t be like me and think that a lot of people won’t do that, and it would be easy to get a last minute booking. So wrong.

Anyway, I’ve got over a thousand photos to go through. I was too excited to get my films developed from underwater shots, though. I waited for them last night. And I got them in a CD, too. Thank goodness for that option so I can Photoshop the images and turn them into how I really saw the water and the fishes.

Here are a few shots I took from “Turtle Town” [Maluaka Beach, Maui, HI]. These are, obviously, turtles. I think we were at 40-60ft depth…not sure.

Turtle coming up for air. So cute!!! To the right is the catamaran.

Wheeeee!

They are so beautiful to watch underwater. So graceful.

He was swimming up. I was swimming towards him. Fearless!!! Haha.

Lots more photos to come… Check out my Flickr for regular updates. Just click on any of the photos.

YES, I HAD A GREAT TIME!!! WOOHOO! NEED TO GO BACK THERE SOON. :-)

Haleakala Crater, Maui, Hawaii.

So many BEAUTIFUL places to see and experience here. <3

Right after new year, someone in my LJ asked if I still make jewelry. Yeah, do I? That made me ask myself as well. And the awful truth is, it has been months since my bead box has seen the light of day. After brewing over the thought for a few days, I looked online for beads. I remembered that one of the things that made me stop beading was the frustration over lack of materials, of beads that I get inspired with. There’s only so much I can do with what I have without having to poke oneself in the eye and make it bleed just becase I’m bored of them. I wanted other things and I didn’t know where to find them.

That night I looked over 100 pages of beads on sale at Etsy and found ones that I like (LOVED!) and it was love at first sight when I saw the blue flowery beads that I had to have it. I had to buy them right that second! And I did, along with other stuff which, hehe, made me shop too much. Those blue beads reminded me of Maui. I thought of D’s mom and dad, because they go there every year. I thought to myself that those would be perfect for his mom. She loves that place. I bought the beads because to me, it nicely represents Hawaii and I was thinking of making something for her with them.

Fast forward to this week. Throughout our friendship–A and I–we’ve always talked about traveling together. Sure we went to Victoria. But that wasn’t much traveling, so to speak. She recently brought up Hawaii, like I mentioned previously, even if she just went there during the holidays. I thought about it, thought about finances (eek, tax time!), RRSPs, etc…things that I should be worrying about around this time of the year, because as a small business owner, there’s nothing more daunting (for me) than gorging out my wallet to give a big lump sum to the government. Whatever, right? This trip is long overdue and I felt this was the right time to do it. We’re both not married, not tied down by anything (kid, pet, clingy boyfriend), she’s not working at the moment, my work allows me to travel (and I haven’t had a real vacation in almost 2 years!)…SO WHAT THE HECK, LET’S DO IT!!! Let’s go to Hawaii!

I don’t know what the hell went on but we just decided rather abruptly that we’re going and that we’re booking our tickets, hotels, etc. ASAP. As I’ve always said, sometimes things happen when you just do it, instead of planning forever and a day and/or dreaming about it. So yesterday, we spent a good part of the day sitting on our asses in front of the computer, looking for tickets, for accommodation, car rental…places. Islands. I called my mom to tell her about what’s happening. She told me she was just talking to my dad about their timeshares and that I should use it because they have accummulated points throughout the years and some of them are expiring in June. What luck! After calling so many times to check on places with the dates that we want, we ended up with reservation for 4 nights in Kauai/Lihue from those points! Yay! But we still wanted to go to Maui and there aren’t available properties to rent because it’s the high season, so we (rather A, mostly) looked on our own. Thankfully, we found a good deal. After we got the accommodations sorted out, A booked our flights through her travel agent in Richmond. I’d say it was a awesome deal. The only thing we need is a transit from Lihue to Kahului, and car rentals, and we’re done. Sweet!!!

Back to the beads. When I got them, I’ve been dreaming of Hawaii, not knowing that a couple of weeks later I’ll be going with my good pal who’s always a treat to be with! =)

Last night, out of excitement and overdose of pizza, I was inspired to make something out of my ‘Hawaii’ beads. It’s just the perfect time to do it, you know? I’d hate to be sentimental, but well, things fall into place in due time. As D’s mom said, we just need to be patient. I guess that goes for how it is when I make something, each piece that I make seems to be some representative of something that has come full circle for me, and that helps be in a state of creativity and create things, and finish them and be satisfied with how a concept in my head is represented in tangible form, a thing that I can be happy about.

Materials:
focal lampwork bead (the one w/ flowers)
glass beads
silver beads
sterling silver wire
sterling silver lobster clasp