Hey yo. I have spent the last two weeks on the beautiful island of Oahu, Hawaii. We've done so dang much and I want to tell everyone everything about it, but I'm pretty sure most people don't care, so I'm going to write it all down in my blog because no one reads it anyways! Excellent plan, huh?
To begin the journey, Ben and I drove down from Provo to Beaver, Utah to meet his parents and two siblings. We left Ben's car at his uncle's house there and joined the family in their suburban to drive to Las Vegas. Our first stop was the Bellagio Fountains, which I had never seen, and during which I threw up into a trash can for precisely the whole show. Not actually sure what was going on in my body, but I had definitely been through a lot of weird body things for that whole week previous - fever, chills, sore throat, headaches, weird rashes . . . the whole shebang. The family walked me into the hotel to recover, and after a few minutes I felt a lot better.
At the airport, we joined up with Ben's brother Jordan/Quinston (his family calls him the former; the rest of the world calls him the latter), his wife Janie, and Janie's family of 9 people. And so the chaos began.
The flight left at about 1 AM, so I spent most of it fitfully dozing and worrying about the weird rash I mentioned earlier . . . Seriously, it was weird. No, it was not an STD. I think I may have had an allergic reaction to some medication. Basically it was a bunch of abnormally shaped, raised areas on my skin that were surrounded by redness. It started out as a small one as my jaw. The next day, that had disappeared and I instead had a few on my chest. By the time we were on a plane en route to Honolulu, I had huge, foot-long splotches all over my thighs and stomach. Kinda terrifying. I also watched the first part of Tron. I can imagine that's a weird enough movie as it is, but watching it half asleep was something else altogether.
FINALLY we were allowed to check into our hotel. We relaxed most of the evening, snacking on li hing mui - pronounced "lee hee moy - a very salty-sweet dried plum treat. Ben and I walked up and down the street that night and looked at all the tourist shops and street performers on the beachfront.
Edit: Oh hey, guess what! I totally didn't finish this, and now I feel too lazy. I guess you only get to hear about my first day in Hawaii. Suffice it to say, it was lovely, guava jam is awesome, and I am back in America.
To begin the journey, Ben and I drove down from Provo to Beaver, Utah to meet his parents and two siblings. We left Ben's car at his uncle's house there and joined the family in their suburban to drive to Las Vegas. Our first stop was the Bellagio Fountains, which I had never seen, and during which I threw up into a trash can for precisely the whole show. Not actually sure what was going on in my body, but I had definitely been through a lot of weird body things for that whole week previous - fever, chills, sore throat, headaches, weird rashes . . . the whole shebang. The family walked me into the hotel to recover, and after a few minutes I felt a lot better.
Still haven't seen the show . . .
At the airport, we joined up with Ben's brother Jordan/Quinston (his family calls him the former; the rest of the world calls him the latter), his wife Janie, and Janie's family of 9 people. And so the chaos began.
The flight left at about 1 AM, so I spent most of it fitfully dozing and worrying about the weird rash I mentioned earlier . . . Seriously, it was weird. No, it was not an STD. I think I may have had an allergic reaction to some medication. Basically it was a bunch of abnormally shaped, raised areas on my skin that were surrounded by redness. It started out as a small one as my jaw. The next day, that had disappeared and I instead had a few on my chest. By the time we were on a plane en route to Honolulu, I had huge, foot-long splotches all over my thighs and stomach. Kinda terrifying. I also watched the first part of Tron. I can imagine that's a weird enough movie as it is, but watching it half asleep was something else altogether.
Visually, awesome. I also had no idea what was going on.
Finally, we touched down in Honolulu. I was in Hawaii! My mind was blown again that I got so lucky to go on this trip for so little money (Ben's parents took care of most of the cost . . . I only had to pay a fraction of the airplane ticket). We ended up having to wait for about two hours (it was around 5 AM Hawaii time) as the four parents bumbled around trying to get the rental cars back to us . . . We probably looked like something out of a movie. In fact, during the whole airport experience I felt like the family in Home Alone; we had 17 people running around that building ranging from age 9 to age 60.
Unfortunately, the lady in charge of our house rental accidentally rented the house out to someone else for a day longer than we had thought, and so we had to stay in a hotel in Waikiki our first night. That wouldn't have been TOO big of a deal, except it was now 8 in the morning, we were sleep deprived and smelly, and we weren't allowed to check into our rooms until 3 PM.
So we headed to the beach! Waikiki Beach is definitely a big tourist destination, but it was still early in the morning, so we had a few hours of good surfing (or surf-attempting) before the crowds came in. Ben and his brothers and dad were already pretty decent at surfing, so they helped me attempt a few waves. Ben had to push me to help me catch the waves, but I stood up twice! I'm pretty proud of myself.
This is me! With . . . a bikini and dyed hair.
Still not my picture, but we did see a guy like this on our walk!
Edit: Oh hey, guess what! I totally didn't finish this, and now I feel too lazy. I guess you only get to hear about my first day in Hawaii. Suffice it to say, it was lovely, guava jam is awesome, and I am back in America.
