For some reason when I found these photos today, the song "A Long December" popped up into my head which only contributed to my reverie. I have been missing our old home. I miss this ratty tree that shielded us so well from our neighbors across the way. I miss the muddy little creek, hidden by spindly trees and prickly brush, that curved around the back of our house. When we moved to the East Coast I never thought I could hold such strong feelings for my new environment, and yet that is where I often find my mind drifting these days. When I think of 'home' it is this version of home, this house with its weathered deck perpetually littered with crunchy brown leaves, that my mind returns to repeatedly. I think of the chilly air, the gently rustling leaves, and the faint smell of cigarette smoke wafting over from our neighbor's backyard patio. I think of our kitties -- all three of them -- happily lounging outside all day, from late morning until the sun set low in the sky. And just like that, I have snapped all the way back through the dimension of time and space to the exact moment when I stood on the second floor, feet firmly planted on our old cream-colored carpet, leaning precariously over the rusty railing of our bedroom window to capture those few ordinary, precious, fleeting, golden, moments.
I don't mean to keep posting old photos but I can't help it. Something about this season; this time of year. Every time I start updating my blog with more recent photos I get sucked right back into snapshots from a previous time, place, and life. These photos pop up like an old friend I haven't seen in a while, and I cannot help myself but to stop and sit a while to revisit old memories. No wonder I never get around to posting photos until years after the fact.
For some reason when I found these photos today, the song "A Long December" popped up into my head which only contributed to my reverie. I have been missing our old home. I miss this ratty tree that shielded us so well from our neighbors across the way. I miss the muddy little creek, hidden by spindly trees and prickly brush, that curved around the back of our house. When we moved to the East Coast I never thought I could hold such strong feelings for my new environment, and yet that is where I often find my mind drifting these days. When I think of 'home' it is this version of home, this house with its weathered deck perpetually littered with crunchy brown leaves, that my mind returns to repeatedly. I think of the chilly air, the gently rustling leaves, and the faint smell of cigarette smoke wafting over from our neighbor's backyard patio. I think of our kitties -- all three of them -- happily lounging outside all day, from late morning until the sun set low in the sky. And just like that, I have snapped all the way back through the dimension of time and space to the exact moment when I stood on the second floor, feet firmly planted on our old cream-colored carpet, leaning precariously over the rusty railing of our bedroom window to capture those few ordinary, precious, fleeting, golden, moments.
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For those old enough to remember, there will always be the time before and the time after. Everyone knew someone. Everyone was affected.
Maybe it was less the actual event than it was experiencing the same collective moment on a shared timeline. The time before symbolizing an era when we were young and carefree and innocent. Though maybe it was never like this. Maybe I'm over idealizing life before 9/11. Maybe 9/11 made us all realize what was always there. My experience of New York falls in the time after -- my first trip to NYC was a couple years after 9/11 when there was still a huge hole in the ground. Time had passed but the memory was still so fresh. We were still hopeful; still at the beginning of a new timeline; still believing we could put it all behind us and be better people; a stronger country. I don't remember a New York with two twin towers and yet that's still what I see whenever I look at the skyline. I always see that empty space. I always wonder what could have been.
On a slightly more upbeat note, have you seen this video about the last known living 9/11 rescue dog's birthday in NYC? Working/service/rescue animals are such unsung heroes. Love.
The remainder of our trip was spent in the Honolulu/Waikiki area spending time with family and doing typical Hawaii tourist stuff. We got a great deal on a sweet room at the Embassy Suites and after so many days sleeping in a van or tent it truly felt luxurious. One of the first things we did was take LONG hot showers. Afterward, the tub was filled with sand.
It was funny pulling up to the hotel to have our VW campervan valet parked. The valets were oohing and ahhing over our van and asking us all kinds of questions. Ha! One guy asked us about our time in Hawaii. We told him we had been camping in our van all around Maui and Oahu. He replied, "oh, so you have been camping in this van the entire time? Man, that's the true Hawaiian way...the nature...the water...cool man, cool..." He trailed off and became so excited talking about camping in Hawaii that he soon was at a loss of words. And when his words failed him he gave us shaka, waving his hands animatedly back and forth accompanied by a huge grin. We still think about that guy with a smile. Camping + Hawaii = Shaka.
We snorkeled in Hanauma Bay. The bay itself was beautiful and calm but we thought the snorkeling to be a lot better along the North Shore -- lots more variety in sea life, a LOT less people, and free.
We met up with Sly's brother and family several times for dinner at Shiro's Saiman, drinks at the Moana Surfrider, and breakfast and coffee at a wonderful farmer's market. One afternoon we tried to boogie board in Waikiki and instead ended up leading Coco around with our boogie board leash and eating frozen yogurt. It was Coco's first time eating Red Mango and she ate it so fast that she got brain freeze and started to cry. Her dad kept telling her to spit out the ice cream but Coco refused because she liked it so much. :-)
Our travel style is typically pretty low-key. We love being outdoors, camping, cooking our own meals etc., however, we do like to go all out when it's our last night in town. After weeks of cold showers and spam and ramen a fancy dinner we appreciate a fancy dinner, air conditioned room, and crisp linens that much more. Plus it always gives us something to look forward to at the end of an amazing trip.
We had reservations at Alan Wong's signature restaurant for our final meal in Oahu. We called a cab to pick us up and instead a limo arrived and whisked us off to the somewhat hidden restaurant. Both Sly and I ordered the seven course meal -- so good, but so much food. The dessert course alone consisted of five individual mini desserts. I could have eaten just the dessert course and left full. We powered through each course and when we thought we couldn't eat another bite...we ate more. If you're in Oahu and enjoy food like this, I would definitely recommend a visit.
Before returning to our hotel, we popped into an ABC store and picked up some local beers. We sat on the balcony together, watched the glittering city lights, took corny prom photos, threw back a few bottles and remembered all we had seen and done in Hawaii. As much as we love trying new and fancy places to eat, this was definitely more our speed.
Prior to visiting Hawaii I always resisted visiting because I thought it would be overly touristy/gimmicky/resorty. There were definitely pockets of those things but in my mind it didn't detract from the overwhelming natural beauty. I mentally kicked myself for not visiting sooner -- especially since it was such a short trip from SF. Seven years ago, younger and maybe a bit more naive, I thought we had all the time in the world for many more trips back to the islands. We always told ourselves that we'd be back. We lived so close, of COURSE we would be back! Then we moved to the opposite coast and I kicked myself for never returning. Several of our friends were married in Hawaii after we moved to the East Coast but bad timing, long flights, and cost of tickets meant that we weren't able to attend. When it came to vacation, there were all the OTHER places in the world we still wanted to see -- places that weren't as far or where tickets weren't as costly. I started to think this would be our only trip to Hawaii -- our one shot -- and I was okay with that too. It had been an amazing trip and we both knew we were lucky as hell to have ever gone in the first place and thankful that we experienced it together. Never in a million years would I have guessed that we would return seven years later traveling from another country... But that is another story for another time...
I originally intended to roll right into our most recent trip to Hawaii, but after dragging these old memories out for weeks I might have to put that on hold before I drive myself and anyone left reading this blog absolutely nuts. We now return to our regularly scheduled Korea posts...
From the North Shore we had this idea that we could drive all around the North part of Oahu until we reached the other side -- the Leeward Coast. Once again, our poor planning and reliance on a nonexistent Google maps meant that we drove West all the way around the Northwest tip of the island and juuuust as we thought we were going to hit the highway that would take us down the Leeward Coast...the highway ended. YOU SHALL NOT PASS! I swear we looked at a version of a map that made it seem as if a road continued around Kuaokala but I think we must have mixed up a trail map and a road map because nope. (Note: I googled this actually there *was* once a road that connected the 930 to 93, and even googling images of Oahu road maps STILL shows that a road exists around that point. Several travel sites have mentioned that the road has been closed to the public for about 25 years or so because parts of the road were washed out. You can apparently get on the road via off-roading vehicle + a permit. Nice one. You can still hike/bike without permit around Kaena Point.) After literally hitting a road block, we backtracked and drove through pineapple fields until finally reaching the Eastern side of the island.
There were pros and cons to this side of the island. On the one hand, there didn't seem to be many tourists -- even less than we saw on the North Shore (at the time, anyway) and it felt the least developed of all the areas we visited in Oahu. On the other hand, a lot of the beaches were completely filled with what seemed to be long-term permanent campers that inhabited make-shift beach tent cities. Row after row of tents and folding canopies were crammed together like sardines on every square inch of sand and big black garbage bags full of trash littered both sides of the coastal highway. If not for the natural beauty of the ocean and mountains, it would have felt almost post-apocalyptic. It turned out that these were large homeless camps which was pretty crazy and, considering all the restrictions on beach camping that we encountered, interesting that it was overlooked on this side of the island. The Leeward Coast couldn't have been more different from Waikiki or even the North Shore. It was quite literally a different side of Oahu that we did not know existed. I don't know if these homeless camp-cities still exist anymore -- some more updated info I have read said that the beaches were cleaned up (where did the people go?) and others say that the camps were still there. The photos I have found online don't even look remotely close to the number of packed in tents that we saw back then. Sadly what hasn't changed since 2008 is that homelessness (or houselessness?) is still a big issue on Oahu and the other Hawaiian Islands. But back to our travels, which now seemed so trivial. I think we had an entire Road to Hana part 2 style checklist of all the stuff we wanted to see on the Leeward Coast but after seeing all the tent communities our spirits were a bit deflated. We made a few stops, mostly at unoccupied beaches. At Yokohama Beach we got our snorkeling gear out and surveyed the water. Big dark clouds hovered over an eerily empty beach. I chickened out. I may not like being surrounded by other tourists but I certainly do not enjoy snorkeling when I'm the only person in the water. No way. Our final stop was Kane’aki Heiau in Makaha Valley. According to wiki: The ancient gods of Hawai'i made specific places on the island sacred. One such ancient Hawaiian heiau can be found deep in Makaha Valley and is one of Hawaii's best maintained archeological sites. The Kane'aki Heiau was built in the fifteenth century and was known to be both an agricultural heiau and a war temple. As a war heiau human sacrifices were performed on the first prisoners of war.
Getting to Kane’aki Heiau was in itself interesting. I believe we had to drive on and through private land (again) and past some kind of security guard/gate? Somehow we figured it out and once we found the place realized we were the only people there. And once again we both had this feeling of where the heck were we? It felt as if we had walked through a jungle (or parking lot) and emerged on the other side in some lost ancient world. (NOTE: I'm not sure if this is open to the public any longer, at least not via the security gate entrance. It seems (like SO many closed places/trails/routes in Hawaii) to be a way to get there it via a back entrance.)
If there was ever a place made for us, it was the North Shore of Oahu. Ruggedly beautiful and at the time, not very touristy, with quaint turn-of-the century towns, empty beaches, and the best ever snorkeling. Just a little over an hour's drive away from Waikiki the North Shore felt more remote than it actually was, with a laid back, slower paced beach town vibe and stunning natural scenery, There wasn't much "to do" on the North Shore, but we managed to keep busy...
We ate...
breakfast at Ted's Bakery
glorious hot dog from Ted's
so many choices, so little time
Ted's famous coconut chocolate cream pie.
giovanni's garlic shrimp truck
mixed plates at l&l drive-in
matsumoto's shaved ice (with sweet red bean filling and topped with condensed milk)
We swam with turtles...
another one of my all-time fave photos
We saw even more sea turtles...
I love sea turtles.
On a sad note, several months prior to our visit, one of the largest female turtles that frequented this beach -- Honey Girl --was brutally and senselessly slaughtered by some sick f*@!(s). Obviously thinking about it seven years later still pisses me off. Sea turtles are some of the most gentle and beautiful sea creatures. It was such a privilege, not to mention total life list box check, to be able to swim with them and see them up close in the wild. Rest in peace, Honey Girl. Let's hope karma is a bitch.
For more information on the (threatened) Hawaiian green sea turtle (honu), to become a Honu Guardian, or to "adopt a sea turtle" please click here. |
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