Hawaii!!

I just got back from Hawaii yesterday. I had such a great time!! It was so beautiful and I have a love affair with sunsets, and Maui was full of beautiful sunsets. You can also see more pictures on my flickr page.

And then there's my dad, sister and I on the same beach. We were so busy meeting relatives on Oahu, that the first beach we made it too was 4 days after we had arrived in Hawaii!! Craziness.

The main reason we went to Hawaii was to meet some relatives that we never knew we had on my dad's side, but it turned into a Hawaii vacation too. We flew into Honolulu because my dad's cousins live in Aiea on Oahu, but then we flew to Maui to visit my dad's friends too. We ended up going all over the place, even though I was really sick the whole time and couldn't stop coughing. I didn't get much sleep either, but you can't really tell in the picture, right? I look happy, right? not like I want to die? good.

There's my sister, Katsumi, and I on the beach in Maui when we were visiting some of my dad's old friends who live there, Mike and Roz.

It was so gorgeous. I mean, look at that:

And the water was so warm!

We saw a turtle and when it came up for air I got a picture of its tiny head.

And there's its butt.

Here's zoomi losing her composure. I'm totally cool. Before:

After:

We also went hiking a little and took a break in the river. The picture below is me and my dad with our feet in the stream. I forget what the name of this place was. oops.

There was also snorkeling and much merriment. Hawaii is really a great place, but I don't know if I'd want to live there. I like Japan. I like Tokyo more specifically, and I'm glad to be back. But Hawaii is definitely a really great place to visit and now we all have a wonderful excuse. I met so many people! And they are all related to me!! It's weird. I used to be able to count my blood relatives on one hand, now it's challenging just to keep all their names straight. And they are all so nice, and the kids are adorable, and they know things about my dad's family that none of us knew, they have pictures of my dad when he was really young, and they are nice. I like nice; it's nice. (^_^)

And now, indulge me while I spam my blog with sunset pictures.

Stealthy Super-Sized BUG and the Subsequent Series of Strenuous Situations

So a few days back, Sam wasn’t feeling good and didn’t want to leave the apartment and I was feeling antsy so I called up my friend and hung out in Shibuya all night. We walked all through Yoyogi Park, which is HUGE, and out through Harajuku, and back down to Shibuya station. It was a great night, just talking and whatnot. I found out that every weekend there are festivals in Yoyogi Park! Gotta check that out. Anyways, my point is not to brag that I had a good night and you didn’t, my point is to set up the true feeling of exhaustion that I felt when I was walking home.

So I said goodbye to my friend, jumped into a packed train to Shinjuku and from there transferred to the Chuo-Sobu line to get to my apartment in Nakano. Right outside the station, I meet up with Sam, who surprise! has been out almost as long as I had. Apparently a bug about 4 or 5 inches long had decided to show itself shortly after I left, and Sam had flipped out and ran out, leaving her phone and pretty much everything. So she couldn’t contact me and had decided that a good way to solve that problem was to pace from the station to our apartment, a good 10 min walk, until I got back.

So I’m dead tired and can think of nothing better than to flop on the floor and fall unconscious right there, wherever there happened to be, but noooooooooooo. I end up staying up until 2 in the morning looking for this stupid bug and I still haven’t found it!! It’s been 3 days!! Sam decides she can’t even step foot in the apartment for fear of the deadly bug so I get all her stuff, walk her to the 7 eleven to get cash, and then to the internet café to look up the nearest hotel, and then to the hotel, and then I got to walk back to the apartment alone late at night with vigorously complaining feet.

If only I could have just found the stupid thing and killed it. Instead, Sam is now moving into a weekly mansion, while turning down our landlord’s offer to fumigate the place. So now I’m living by myself (or maybe not entirely by myself), which is fine by me. I like the apartment. I think it’s cute. ^^

But that was just another headache for me, one that I didn’t need right before and international flight.

Today, I left my apartment at 3 in the afternoon, got lost in the train system trying to get to Narita Airport, arrived at the check in desk 2 min shy of the deadline but they opened it back up for me because China Airlines is the best ever, and just managed to make my flight from Narita to Honolulu at 7:45 pm. That’s about 4 hours of train-ness. Ewwww.

Then, my plan was to sleep the whole way there, but just when I was about to sleep, they turned on the lights!! So no sleep for Hiroko. The lights were really bright. Even with my eyes closed and hair in front of my face it was still like the freakin’ Hallelujah chorus.

But then I got my bags and got through customs in less than 20 min and connected with my newly found relatives, who incidentally are the nicest, cutest people in the world, confirming our blood relation. ^^

Had some really tasty quintessential American food (complete with onion rings!), and now I’m just relaxing in front of the fan. Haha. It’s hot here.

So it has gotten nicer, but this truly is the day that never ends. I left Narita at 7:45 at night on June 3^rd and arrived in Honolulu at 7:33 in the morning…on June 3^rd. Combine that with the lack of sleep from bug hunting and bad time management skills in terms of packing, plus Hallelujah chorus lights and you get something very close to the day that never ends.

I blame the bug.