Aloha from the Islands

Aloha from the Islands!!

Stepping Stones

Yesterday night RENT opened in Honalulu once again after having crossed some major water. The trip from Japan to Hawaii was turbulent and personally I can't wait to be travelling between closer cities by bus. Travel is so hard on the body and mind but when you arrive at a beautiful island like Honalulu it makes it worth the travel. Most people slept off their jet lag on the beach the first day that we had off here. :) Not too shabby. The water is a gorgeous clear blue-green as you can see from the picture above, and the palm trees here remind me of my home in California. The weather is great and the locals are chillin'.

I'm really glad that the tour just came from Japan because I've noticed that Hawaii is truly a stepping stone between Japan and America. It's a beautiful cultural cross between the Japanese tradition and the relaxed California surfers. I'm quite thankful that I can still get Japanese food at any of the thirty Japanese restaraunts down the street but I can order in english!! Communication through body language only gets you so far and my poorly spoken Japanese didn't get me very far in Japan -although everyone was quite patient with me. I have a newfound appreciation for Japanese culture now and a little insight to take back with me. I picked up Arthur Golden's book Memoirs of a Geisha in Japan and I can't put it down. Now that I've seen the land that this very well written book takes place in, I'm all the more intrigued. I reccomend it even if you haven't been there yet. The world is small, visit Japan one day.

So, now I must discover Hawaii and I plan to begin tomorrow. We've had a busy schedule so far but tomorrow we have the daytime off. In a few hours I will be going on a morning cruise for breakfast and scuba diving. I'll let you know how it goes.

By the by, the NEW message board is up!! Be sure to check it out and drop a note for your friends or ask me a question. I'll be posting there too. If it acts funny, click refresh (we're still working out the bugs). Thanks and take care everyone. Happy August!