Hawaii 2/3/08

Hey everyone,

I hope you are all doing well. I can't believe I'm up right now. It is 7 am Hawaii time, and I've been up since about 530. Yesterday was a long day. By the time I actually reached my hostel I had been up and traveling for about 24 hours.

I was very pleasantly surprised to find the Phoenix airport so low-key. I suppose everyone who was going to the Superbowl was already there. It makes sense...if I were going to spend the money to go out there, then I would have arrived for all of the festivities!! Anyway, the airport was great...except for the signs upon landing. I had a little trouble finding which floor the check-in desk was for my next flight. The airport is huge!!! 9 floors and what seems like a million miles long...but very beautiful.

I then waited for about 5 1/2 hours for my next flight...the 7 hour jaunt to Honolulu. I arrived about 730 pm (1230 am your time) and grabbed a shuttle to my hostel. The hostel is fairly nice. Funny story actually...upon walking into my room, I met an Aussie by the name of Erin. Very sweet girl. The room we are in has 8 beds; however, there are only 4 of us in here. The two other people in the room are from Japan and keep to themselves in the other bedroom. Anyway, Erin left this morning to head home to Adelaide, but she was nice enough to show me around last night. The room next door has about 5 girls that she introduced me to so that was nice.

We then went for a stroll down the strip of Waikiki. Lots of people and shops everywhere. There is a store here all the ABC shop. It has anything you could possibly need from towels, sunscreen, sandwhiches, water, milk, booze, etc. You get the idea...I guess that's why it is called the ABC store. Although Erin joked that ABC store stands for All Blocks Covered because there is literally an ABC store at EVERY block. It is very convenient I must say.

So when I arrived, Erin had just gotten back from a luau down the way. Along the beach at Waikiki are sidewalks with statues all over the place. One statue in particular is of the guy who supposedly started surfing way back when. I guess it is good luck or something to lei him...thus...Erin and I did it! See our pic below!


We are cute! Funny story about this...these three Japanese men (younger) came over to us and asked us to take their picture, but instead they wanted the two of us in the picture with each of them. So here they are taking a picture for us. They were pretty interesting fellas!

Anyway, well...I will have to write more later. I need to hop in the shower and get my day started! I think I will be whale watching and hanging at the beach today! Tomorrow is scuba diving and Tuesday I think I will be renting a car and heading up to north shore. I hear it is beautiful and Jack Johnson was there for a body surfing contest yesterday! woooo hooo!!!

ALOHA everyone!

Talk to you soon,

Krissy