Sightseeing & Sundries

Up and at'em at 7am, I have a full day ahead for me, filled w/work, rental hunting, and a bit of sightseeing thrown in for good measure if can fit it in.

So, off to work I go, there's a Starbucks near by, I can actually see if from the 20th floor of Renee's apartment. While working I multi-task searching for rentals. I'm strictly using craigslist.org as my resource, I'm focusing on downtown Honolulu/Waikiki area, I wish to rent a room that'll run me between $800 and $900 a month. And that's just a room, mind you. If I wanted to rent an apartment, I'd be spending a whole lot more. Renting a room will work well for me, I'll save money and it'll be month to month. I plan to just stay 3 months. That fact works against me though, but I'm pretty persistent, something will come up.

At around 3pm I call it a day, jump in the car, then head up the leeward coast (west) of the island. Leeward meaning the side opposite from the prevailing wind direction. I learn something everyday, didn't know that term.

I quickly find that navigating Hawaii is a little confusing. It appears practically all names (street, cities, towns, etc.) are all Hawaiian in nature. It's all about vowels, you always stress the vowels when you pronounce Hawaiian. Here's a sampling of what I see as I tour up the coastline: Kamehameha Hwy, Moanalua Rd, Kapolei Regional Park, Ko Olina Golf Club, Waianae, Makaha, Ka'ena Point State Park. I think it's a great idea to use Hawaiian, but it's a little hard on the tourists I think, myself included. I'm not complaining though, it's a small price to pay for paradise!



As one would expect, beaches line the coast as I make my way northward. I stop into Ma'ili Beach Park to snap a few pictures and step into the Pacific. The beach is clean and inviting. Mostly deserted because it's a weekday and later in the afternoon, I spend a little time soaking up the scenery.



Back in the car, I continue northward. As I drive on, I notice the existence of more and more "tent" cities along the beachfront, apparently the homeless inhabit this part of Oahu. Along with the tent cities, I see piles of rubbish, old tires, discarded, broken furniture, bags of trash. People just pull over and shovel out their junk. Abandon cars line the road in a few sections, some of them partially stripped. I'm rather amazed by it all, not something that I would have expected. In Detroit, yes, but Hawaii?

In short order (because it's a small island, after all) I reach my northern most destination, Ka'ena Point State Park. It is here that the paved road ends and an unimproved road begins. I walk around a bit, snap some pictures, enjoy the scenery.



It's growing late, the sun is low in the sky, time to head back. I reverse my route and head south. 1/2 way home I decide to grab dinner at a Taco Bell. Have you ever gone through a drive-thru, placed your order, pay at the window, then leave? Leave without your food? Ha, well I did. What a moron. It must be the whopping 2 hour jet lag that's affecting my state of mind, eh? So there I am, a couple of blocks away, considering whether to just keep on driving or face the gauntlet of laughter and finger pointing if I go back to Taco Bell to retrieve my forgotten food.

I'm hungry, I'm tired, I shamelessly go back, retrieve my food, then get the Hell of of there.



Well, that's pretty much it for today. I head back to Renee's, kick back, relax, do mostly nothing. I have the place all to myself, woo hoo! Renee and her friends are off golfing/camping on the other side of the island.

Just before going to bed I decided to surf the Internet. I run across a website showing pictures of people with odd colored eyes, one eye is a different color from the other. This condition is called Heterochromia, quite fascinating, actually. Looking at the detailed eye imagery, I wanted to take a picture of my own eye. After some trial and error, my final shot was using the flash, big mistake. I end up creating a "dark" region in my lower peripheral vision. First there's forgetting my Taco Bell take-out, now there's hopefully just temporary eye damage, what's next, they say bad things happen in three's...