18 posts tagged “travel”

After a busy weekend of movies, a concert, and a lot of reading, I’m rather happy to have an extra day to just do more of what I love. Reading, for example. If words were food I’d be considered a glutton. For RSS Feeds alone, I read 487 websites. I go through 3 business magazines, 1 graphic design magazine, a weekly literary magazine (New Yorker) and 2-4 food magazines. I read an average of a book every two weeks on top of that. This long weekend made me feel relieved to catch up with all that information.

The Police concert was awesome. The last time I watched Sting was over 10 years ago and that man doesn’t look like he aged even half of that at all. If it were not for his Lost-like beard, he’d look the same. Can I just say that he is still one *expletive* *expletive*? Hahaha. Great energy among the crowd. Two encores. We had such a great time. Yay! I can’t believe it’s been a long time since we watched a concert. This year is beginning to look like a year of concerts.

I’ve been trying to get back into the regular habit of writing on my regular journal and gratitude journal. The craziness of travel sets me back in that arena, although I do get a lot of writing done on the plane. Do you have a journal? When do you write on it?

I leave for Seattle on Sunday to see my parents and then head over to Vancouver. Oh to spend summer in Vancouver makes me giddy all over. Having grown up in the tropics, I thought that I would never get tired of sunshine and the heat in Arizona if I should stay longer than a couple of weeks, but I got ahead of myself. There’s no place I’d rather be than in Vancouver, my home of 8 years.

This week is going to be about re-organizing again, packing, and cooking stuff for the boyfriend. Then, it’s another life back in Vancouver.

Have a great week, everyone!

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.

Some hotels have good service. Others have excellent service. Then there are a few who give exceptionally memorable service that stands out and is talked about. When I hear “Four Seasons”, it brings a good memory of the service I/we received. The price you pay is worth every penny of the almost-anal attention to detail and warm service.

To be sure, almost everyone who stays at Four Seasons has a personal testament to the service: the concierge who donned fins and a snorkel to find a wedding band lost in a lagoon; the hotel operator who spent 45 minutes on the phone directing a lost guest all the way to the hotel’s entrance; the man who asked room service for a martini shaker, only to find a tuxedoed server standing at his door-accessories in hand-ready to do the shaking.

Then there was the time Arthur de Haast took his wife to the Four Seasons George V Paris to celebrate the couple’s 21st wedding anniversary. When they arrived in their room, they not only found a bouquet of red roses waiting, “but there were exactly 21 of them,” recalls de Haast, chief executive of investment adviser Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels. “My wife counted them.”(Only later did he admit to her that the idea wasn’t his.)

Four Seasons is hardly the only hotel operator to track customer histories and preferences in order to bolster service. “But most fail to deliver,” says de Haast, “because their people don’t pay enough attention to detail or follow through with the same level of consistency.”

In an industry that suffers worker turnover that can approach 100 percent annually, Sharp learned early on that the only way to achieve such consistency is to “hire for attitude, not skill,” then train workers thoroughly and treat them with the same respect he expects them to show hotel guests-a golden rule he calls the company’s “ultimate secret” to success.

He cites as an example the company’s opening of its first hotel in Hawaii in 1990, the Four Seasons Maui at Wailea, where workers with relevant experience were hard to recruit. “We signed up a lot of laborers from the sugar-cane and pineapple fields, workers carefully screened for positive attitudes,” he recently explained. “And within a year, they made Four Seasons Maui No. 1 on the island,” according to a ranking in Condé Nast Traveler magazine.

Pursuit of happiness. To that end, all job applicants are first subjected to at least four rounds of interviews, the final one by the hotel’s top managers. Rather than poring over résumés or drilling candidates on their skills, “the question we try to answer is, ‘Are you an innately friendly, happy person?’” regional Vice President Thomas Gurtner says of his queries for the 4,000 people who applied to Four Seasons’ Westlake Village hotel before it opened last November (only 10 percent of whom were hired). “I can teach you to be a doorman or a bellman or a bartender. But if your mama didn’t teach you to be nice, then I can’t either.“

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Alternate view: through a digital camera.

I find that my Lomo works better if there is sunshine. It’s like me. And I will be drenched in glorious sunshine in the next few months.

I have to look forward so as not to be too overwhelmed with the details of the present. Sometimes I can get really bogged down with those damn details and I find myself tripping over, not seeing what’s beyond the nearest point in front of me. I really have to watch out, check my pulse. Think of the positives and step way back to see a different perspective: the bigger picture. Think positive! Feel positive!

These are photos I took from our trip to Canyon Lake last September. I look forward to taking more photos of these contrasting landscapes (compared to Vancouver), clear blue skies, and beautiful heart-wrenching sunsets. And I will be waiting for rain, instead of wishing for the next time the sun will kiss my cheek or peek out to tease me. I’m screaming EEEEEEEEEE! kind of excited! :-)

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. :-)

Sometimes, there can be rewards for getting up at 4:30am for a g*dforsaken 7:30am flight. SOMETIMES.

I can easily get caught up in my own worries, own concerns, own world. Me, Me, ME. When I do feel that way, I get so stressed out. Oh, what a small world I have that it revolves around me. I just want to go to an open field and scream my lungs and frustrations out.

I got into a conversation with a stranger the other night and we ended up talking about heights: how much he loathes and avoids heights, and how much I embrace heights and the idea of falling. He said I am like his wife, who will jump off cliffs and walk on high suspension bridges. He was absolutely curious about my love of heights and freefall.

I love space. I love letting go of all my cares. I love jumping into the unknown. I love freedom. I love the feeling of no boundaries. I love feeling the wind racing through my face. I love space. In my mind, I get to hug the earth when I am at high elevations. Being on top and seeing everything brings a different kind of calm inside me. When I think about it, my penchant for height says a lot about who I am and someone will never fully understand me without knowing this.

Admittedly, I am a person who likes the spotlight, eventhough I will tell you I do not because I am shy. Secretly, I revel in it. I’m a Leo, can you blame me? As I was saying, I can psychologically pirouette myself in my own grand production and forget about everyone and everything else. I’m at a point where my (small) world is beginning to feel like it’s closing down on me and I find myself asking: What does it all mean? What am I doing with my life? Does it matter? What will happen to me in a year? In a decade? When I grow more grey hair than dark brown…? gasps It is scary.

But things have a way of unfolding and solving themselves, don’t they? I do believe that life gives us signs and we just have to be observant. Either from cabin pressure or the pressure of having to live with myself for a few hours without no escape, flying tends to make me ponder about my life…a lot. It forces me to think deep and face my demons from the closet. The breathtaking views of the world around me, of the land under me, of what more there is aside from me, reduces me and my concerns to flecks of dust. My worries were gently assuaged by seeing things in a different light.

That part, I am sort of relieved about right now. However, missing my beau and my life the past three weeks, is something that wasn’t remedied. It seems that no amount of awe-inspiring scenery, shopping, and intake of comfort foods within the last 24 hours could remedy my aching heart.

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