I have finally arrived in Hawai'i! And let me tell you, it is really what it is cracked up to be. This island is absolutely gorgeous. I got here Saturday afternoon around 4, which felt like 10 at night to me (Jet lag has been KILLER). At about 9, my mom and I headed to a friend's house where we would be spending the night until I got checked in. The first night was fine; we were in bed around 10 and got up around 8. Pretty standard times. We went to church with our friends that morning. Church in Hawai'i is so cool! People who give talks ALWAYS start off by saying "Aloha brothers and sisters". I think that is so fun! At the end of sacrament meeting, the entire ward sang "Aloha 'oe", a Hawaiian farewell song, to a sister who was moving out of the state. That was so cool to hear/be a part of. They have the lyrics to the song pasted inside the front cover of the hymn book so we got to sing along with them. I went to sunday school with my friend we went around the room and said our names and how we liked our shaved ice. By the time it got to me, I had nothing to say because I hadn't had shaved ice before. There was a lot of discussion afterwords about how much I was missing out on and a few suggestions for good places to go around Honolulu. After sunday school, I went to relief society. They gave my mom and I knit leis since we were visiting. Once they heard I was going to BYU-Hawaii, they offered me advice and places to do laundry for free haha.
Once we got home, I ate, called Logan, and decided to take a nap. Well, I would recommend NOT taking a nap if you're super jet lagged because that nap turned into me not waking up until the next morning. I ended up waking up at 4 in the morning Hawai'i time because I was so stinking jet lagged!! It was definitely not one of my most pleasant mornings. But, by 8 we were out the door on our way to do some exploring.
We first went to China Walls. It's a beach, but it's not one of those sandy beaches that you see in post cards. In fact, there was no sand that I could see except for underwater. It was basically a bunch of rocks and cliffs that you jump off of into the water.
That's basically where we jumped off from. The waves make it crazy because they'll come and the water level will get super high at some points, and other points it will die down, and at other points it stays pretty normal. It makes getting back up kinda tricky because you have to time it perfectly with the waves. I definitely left with some scrapes and battle wounds from trying to climb up the rocks. We also tried to snorkel here. I hadn't snorkeled before then so it was all new to me. And of course I thought it was just so amazing and the coolest experience ever because there were some exotic fish and some coral. But apparently the visibility was low and not many fish were out so it was a pretty poor snorkeling day at China Walls. (I still thought it was good). To top it all off, we spotted a sea turtle swimming at the surface! He was the cutest thing ever! He would just pop his head up and bob for a bit and then he disappeared. Here's a picture of a sea turtle because I think they're just the cutest things and I'm sad I didn't get to take a picture of the one I saw today.
Our next adventure was to do some more snorkeling. We went off near the Kaiwi Shoreline trail to this neat little beach. The visibility there was amazing! We saw so many exotic fish darting around. It was overall a really neat experience. Afterwords, we grabbed some shaved ice. I had to know what exactly I was missing out on I guess. We went to this cute little shack/hole in the wall place down the road a bit. I got lilikoi, or passionfruit, with ice cream on the bottom and a snow cap (condensed milk) on the top. It was absolutely amazing! There really is a difference between shaved ice and a snow cone. Holy cow it was so good. I could definitely get used to those.
Finally, 3 rolled around and we were headed to campus to check in. I got all checked in, and had the rules reviewed. It's kinda crazy here in Hawai'i. If we get locked out after 3 times, we have to do community service! And if we don't pass our cleaning check we have to do community service. There are a lot of rules and a lot of the consequences end in either fines or community service. Which is pretty new to me, especially coming from Provo where it was totally laid back with that kind of stuff. I'm starting to kind of adjust though with Hawai'i life. Jet lag is going to stick with me the next couple of days so I'm going to be taking a few naps here and there but what else is new. I'm excited to finally meet everyone in these next few days as orientation starts up!
♡,
Nina
No comments:
Post a Comment