Hawaii

So yesterday we went to Hawaii which was awesome. The worst thing is that we only got to stay for a day, but Honolulu is an awesome city. We started the day by walking from the Port of Honolulu to Waikiki Beach. However, it wasn’t a walkable distance, which we realized for a while. We started walking by the shore, which was all rocks. However, we then saw a staircase which lead into the water, so we just went in which was awesome. The water there was so good, way better than the water in the ocean out on Long Island obviously.





So after we swam there we caught a bus to Waikiki. We were then hungry so we looked for a spot to eat at. We then saw this big Japanese festival so we decided to hit that up. However, that was a bad idea. It was really packed and the places at it only took exact change which didn’t work for us. Furthermore, we lost two people there in the crowd so our group dropped down to 4 people. Guess we just weren’t very organized, guess that’s a lesson I learned for the next countries because you don’t want to lose anyone in Ho Chi Minh City or anything, but luckily the two of them were still together. Okay, so after we spent 10 minutes looking for the two of them, we went to find a restaurant. We walked for around 45 minutes finding a place, but after we couldn’t find any authentic Hawaiian food, we went to a place called Zippy’s. It was absolutely terrible, don’t ever go there. I got some food that looked good in the pic but when I got it, it not only looked sketchy but tasted it too. Okay, so after that we went to an awesome shaved ice place which made up for the crappiness of Zippy’s.



After that we hit up the beach in Waikiki. The water was so nice, it was really warm and clean. However, I had no idea that all of Waikiki Beach was on a coral reef. None of the beaches were sandy at all. The beaches are very small, and then 3 feet after you walk in, its all coral reef. I heard the beaches are way nicer on the North Shore, but the water is still great at Waikiki so it was all good.



We first hit up one spot in Waikiki, but we wanted a sandier beach, and some local told us to go towards the Pink Hotel where it was apparently sandier. We got lazy, so instead, we just hit up the Westin which was half way there. We just snuck into the Westin (which looked really nice) and just went to where the beach was in the back. It was the same in terms of size and coral as the first beach (which was a coral reef) but it was still nice. Then we wanted to get towels, so we walked up to the towel desk at the Westin and tried to get them. The lady asked us if we were staying at the hotel, so I lied and said “yes!” She then asked me what the room was, so I said I didn’t know. She then asked what name the reservation was under, so I said “Johnson.” She then asked for a first name. Luckily, Swain was looking at the same sheet she was (which had the names of all the people staying there) and then when she saw a Johnson, she asked for a first name. Since Swain was looking at the list, he saw that there was a Daniel Johnson staying there so he said Daniel. The lady at the desk then said nice guess and gave us the towels (don’t worry, we actually did return them though, so we didn’t steal from the hotel or anything.) We then just chilled at the beach for a few hours, then we met up with Chris who is another guy on SAS and the five of us went back to near the ship to get dinner. We then went to dinner and happy hour and then went back to the ship. I got through security at 8:20, which I thought would be fine because we were supposed to be back on the ship at 9 (the ship was scheduled to leave at 11, but obviously we have to be back earlier than that. Anyway, the ship has a rule saying we have to be on the ship at 9, otherwise we get “dock time.” I cleared security at the port at 8:20, but then there was an insanely long line to get on the ship. I ended up not even getting back on the ship until 9:27. According to the rules, I am supposed to get 6 hours of dock time for being 27 minutes late, which means that in Japan, I am supposed to have to stay on the ship the first six hours we are there as a punishment. However, the line was really long and if they actually give out this punishment, it means a lot of people are going to get dock time. I’ve heard rumors that they will either cut down on the dock time or not give us any at all because the lines were so ridiculous so I really hope we don’t get dock time. It would really suck to miss out on 6 hours of Japan because of the lines.

Overall, I had an awesome time in Hawaii and I just wish we had more than a day there. It was a really awesome place and the people there were really nice. I would go back there in a second, its great. I wouldn’t recommend Waikiki if you just want to sit on a beach (apparently the North Shore, which is around an hour away I think, is better for beaches), but Honolulu is still really nice.

Now we have been at sea for a day and we have seven more after this until we get to Japan which I can’t for!!! Of course, I really hope I don’t get dock time, but I don’t have any control over that so we will see what happens. My plan for Japan is to travel with Eric (who I go to school with at the wonderful University of Arizona) and hit up Tokyo, Kyoto, maybe Osaka, and Kobe (where we leave from). We also plan on chillin with one of our friends from school who is studying abroad in Tokyo for a year.

As for other news, we are “retarding” our clocks for the fourth time tonight. In a few days, we will lose a whole day when we cross the international date line. I still keep making jokes about the fact that they say we need to “retard” our clocks instead of using any other word (don‘t they realize that we are in college and will think its funny that they tell us to retard our clocks? When I hear the word retard, I don‘t think of turning back a clock), which I know is immature but I still think its funny.

Also, classroom #3 is the spot to watch global studies (which is the class that everyone on the ship takes, its everyday at 9:20 and they don’t have enough room in the union so some people have to watch it in other rooms on TVs) and pre-port meetings. I never go to the union for that stuff, I only hit up classroom #3, which I also sometimes call “the tres.” It’s the spot to watch anything, its way better there. Plus, the people who run the telecast like to mess around sometimes, and you don’t get to witness what they do unless you watch in the tres. For example, on the first day of global studies, they put a heart around someone’s head. And they tend to like to do things like use a superman logo to make a transition from one cut to another of someone giving a speech, which is completely unnecessary but really funny.

Also, thanks to the people who commented on my last post, they definitely gave some good advice. Its pretty cool that past alum actually read this thing.

And in sad news, my sports teams are playing like absolute crap. The Mariners have lost nine in a row, but at least we are still in the wild card hunt. We really need to step up our performance though. Also, Arizona football lost to BYU this weekend which is embarrassing. We are supposed to be a team on the rise and we lost to BYU which isn’t in a BCS conference and lost a bunch of their top players. This is Mike Stoops’ fourth year as Arizona coach and he really needs to step it up if he wants to keep his job. We can’t put up 7 points on a mediocre BYU defense. Its an embarrassment to the university to lose to non-BCS teams, especially ones that have lots of new starters. My Arizona Wildcats really need to step it up.