Gay bars and boogie boards

Aloha,
After a week of complete isolation we finally hit land. After some rough seas it was nice to finally reunite with land (though I must admit, I have fallen in love with ship life. On an average day I wake up pretty early (8ish) go to breakfast, have some class, work out (no, seriously), lunch, do some work/ sit out by the pool (which is slightly smaller than our hot tub…and used less frequently), and after dinner I generally win some board game (Scattegory, Tabboo, Catch Phrase, Apples to Apples, etc.), and then hang out some more by the pool. Life is a little rough, so I am going to need to ask for some sympathy (ps- It’s 80 degrees out right now).
I think I have told you guys enough about monotonous ship life, so a transition into details about my on sea excursions seems completely warranted at this point. On Monday the ship landed in Hilo. It was crazy finally waking up (all be it at 5am, when Customs woke up) and seeing dry land. Hilo is a rather desolate city on the Big Island. The whole Island houses 140,000 people, and Hilo has 40,000 of them (roughly the size of New City). Luckily upon disembarking from the ship we found a nice, trustworthy, balding, cigarette smoking, 2-tooth sporting, gut showing, native who offered to show us around. The trip was 6 hours so we figured what’s the worst that can happen? Well, we disregarded the answer to that question and went anyways.
In the end, fortunately, the trip turned out to be a great success. It was me and two of my closest friends, Pierce and Tahlor (With whom I’m also traveling China and Japan), along with a group of girls. Our first stop was Lili ‘uokalani Gardens. These were gorgeous Japanese gardens situated on the ocean. Turns out they are actually the largest Japanese gardens outside of Japan. Being that I am supposed to be becoming cultured I will refrain from any jokes at this point/
Next we went to Rainbow falls. While most of my friends were busy being enthralled by the awesome waterfalls and the beautiful scenery I paused and thought to myself, “Well, J-Dog, you’ve seen stuff like this in Ein Gedi…go trailblazing.” Low and behold, I listened to my inner voice and eventually found this amazing tree. It is native to Hawaii, but the name slips me (it grows sideways and the biggest one is a full block long). I climbed the tree, got to about 35 feet up, and my shoe fell off. Needless to say, I kept climbing, until my friends said it was time to go. I contemplated jumping, but in the end thought better of it.
Next we went to a shrine to King Kamehame, it was gorgeous, and fit perfectly into a paper I have to write, but past that you don’t need to know too many details (you can look on my facebook for pictures).
We continued on to Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut factory. It was very similar to every other food factory I have been too, except that there was a sign to watch out for wild pigs. Obviously, upon reading that sign I ran into the field and tried to chase one…unfortunately I couldn’t find any.
Next we went to Kilauea Volcano, steam vents, Jagger Museum, Halema uma ‘u Crater, Thurston Lava Tube, and the Klaukea Iki crater. These are all connected, in the same field. The scenery was remarkable. At first we were mid rain forest, and then instantaneously we found ourselves in desolate areas that had been completely destroyed by Lava flow. While several elements contributed to the areas eclectic landscape, the majority of variables were actually natural. The changing climate, the island isolated nature, and the volcanic origins combusted to form this amazingly diverse area. It really was one of the coolest sights I have ever seen.
We concluded our trip with a stop at a green house, a trip to a famous Hawaiian t-shirt shop, and a trip to Pizza Hut (yum). The day really was great, and our night just made it better. We took over same local club (bear in mind it was a Monday night), and they ran out of cups, only had 1 bartender, barely had music, but the company made the night fun. And oh yea, it was a gay bar.
On Tuesday I returned to the Volcanic fields. I was supposed to be on a hiking trip, but they claimed the Volcano was emitting too much Volcanic juices so we just did the same thing I had done the night before. Obviously, I broke off and with a friend Zach (another Kosher kid) found our own hikes. We went into a pitch black tunnel without a flashlight, climbed into a ditch, and ran into a steam vent. No, not necessarily safe but we survived and had fun.
On Wednesday, after a night long trip to Honolulu, we went to Pearl Harbor. After taking a half hour to find the bus we finally did. After the hour bus ride, we arrived, only to be told that the next tour left in 2 ½ hours. We walked around the outside areas, and went to flee market (where I got an awesome hangloose hat, and tried pineapple dipped in died plum—the greatest fruit ever invented), but still had another hour. We decided to ditch it and go to the beach. We laid out for a couple of hours, went swimming, and did some boogie boarding. On the whole it was a really great day.
Now, I am just sitting in a nice park writing to you all, but I have spent long enough and now I must go tan.
Wow, I wrote a lot—if you are still reading this you are probably named Mom or Dad. Love you. Our Hawaiian word to learn is Kolohe, it means naughty. Our inspirational lesson is “The point of Semester at Sea Is to turn the glow into grow. Turn the spark of excitement into the flame of knowledge.” That comes from Professor Don Goniac, my Global Studies teacher.
Until next time, shocka (hangloose)!