Valentine's!

I can't make the title of my blog about loving me, and sign off with kisses and hugs every week, without having a V-Day post! Ok, so really I forgot to post on Sunday, but I mean, I can be festive too :).

Let's start off with the bad news and get this out of the way. Turns out that hula dancing is a real serious thing here on the island, and people who take dance lessons are expected to do so for years and really, truly learn the art of hula. Imagine the dance teacher's surprise when I told her I was only here for a few months. Whoops....it's ok though, because some cheesy dance company offers hula lessons for free to the tourists, so Plan B is in action now: take a few of those.

Ok, great, I feel like that's a load off my chest. This weekend I went on another adventure, duh. Although this one was short-lived, it was AMAZING. I hiked up Mukapu'u (a lesson on pronunciation later), about an hour hike, sometimes what felt like straight uphill, to reach the top of a coastline mountain. You literally feel like you're on top of the world when you're done. It's totally worth the soreness it causes the next day. I felt like such a badass doing it (read: it took me LESS than an hour to get up there), until I told my boss what I had done this weekend, and he informed me that some of the kindergarten classes do that hike for field days (read: it takes those punks all day to get up there). Consider my ego deflated.

Here are some pics of the gorgeous view:

This view came up not even like 1/4 a mile in. Amazing, right? Yes, that's a cactus in the picture too. I couldn't leave out a little piece of home.












An awesome view of just the calmness of the ocean a little higher up. It literally looks like the world ends on the horizon, and you can just see forever.











There's a whale watching spot about 3/4 of the way up, where you can see whales, if they've migrated during their season (Nov.-May). Luckily, it's been unseasonably warm and some came in early (apparently November really means late February). We saw one showy little guy who kept flapping his tail at us, and his pec fin, but I couldn't get a picture of him. There was also the weirdest tour group ever, where I heard the guide giving all sorts of information on whale sexy time that nobody wants to hear when they're tired and out of water...but neither of those stories have anything to do with this picture. It just seemed like as good a place as any to put them. These two little islands can only be seen on clear days (no volcano fog) from the top of the hiking trail. Ta da! I win! They're home to native Hawaiian birds that can't be found anywhere else, like the Dodo Bird...wait, crap, I think that's somewhere else. I'll look it up and get back to you guys. Anyways, humans aren't allowed on them. So there.

I'm on top of the world!!!














Also, remember that time I was afraid of heights? And it was windy? *Gulp* (yes, jerks, this is zoomed in! I know it doesn't look that high)












There's the lighthouse! Oh yeah, this is a lighthouse hike. That's the whole point of it. But the lighthouse is no longer active. Something about the fact that even though it was on, ships still kept crashing into the rocks. Guess it was kinda small. Hawai'i is full of little gems of history like this, that you don't find out until you get to the top and you're either distracted by the view or too tired to care. I was definitely, definitely....the former. Yeah.












After my hike I was driving home and I received a sign from above! Yes ladies and gentlemen, I was drawn into the parking lot of the only Whole Foods on the island. Cue the angel music. I had an amazing lunch, and let me just say you know it's bad when you get excited about the fact that the salad bar price at Whole Foods Hawai'i is the same as on the mainland... :(.

Ok, quick vocab lesson before I go. In Hawai'i, all letters are pronounced, no matter how repetitive. Look back at the name of the hike I took. It's muka poo oo. The name of my street is Liliuokalani Avenue...try saying that 5 times fast. My favorite though, is the highway we take on an almost daily basis to kids' houses. Kalaniana'ole Highway. Naturally. Also, w's are pronounced as V's, so technically I'm in Havai i. And yes, you pronounce the second i, or people shank you. Just kidding. Sort of.

Ok, this upcoming weekend is a big one. It's a 3 day weekend because Hawaiians love celebrating all national holidays that should be observed (President's Day) as well as 6 very special Hawaiian Holidays, so I'll have another 3 day weekend sometime in March. Yay island life! This weekend I'm going to the zoo, hiking up to the waterfalls (which are not lame after all), going to Pearl Harbor, and taking a tourist hula class. Yay!


You Know You Love Me,

XOXO