Honolulu Day 1

We arrived in Honolulu, on the island of Oahu on Wednesday morning. I participated in another FDP, this time to the Waikiki Aquarium. There was a scheduling problem, however, so for the first hour and a half of the trip the students were set free to wander around Waikiki.  I spotted this guy (who's name I have forgotten) who was walking around with four parrots so a few friends and I went to talk to him and pet his birds. They were beautiful birds, and unbelievably mellow! He just plopped one right in my hand and the bird seemed more than happy to chill there. He put the other three on my shoulders and each of us did a brief photo shoot.

Then we found this woman, Sunny, who is from Singapore and was making these beautiful candles by hand. I watched her carve a few and bought three of them to bring home as gifts, unfortunately they were confiscated when I tried to return to the ship. Apparently you are not allow to have candles or any form of wax because they are a fire hazard. Its okay though because I still got a few pictures and got to talk to the woman who made them. It was a little frustrating to have them taken, but I really can't complain much about anything. After all, I am sailing around the world.

After the candles, we returned to the aquarium for our tour. The first hour or so was spent looking at all the different fish and taking lots of pictures. Then we sat down with an environmental lawyer for a two hour talk on the laws and politics of the oceans. She had so much to say that I had trouble absorbing it all, especially since I do not have much background in this area. She gave me a lot of booklets, however, that I will read and share information from if I can find time between  my classwork.

After returning to the ship, I met a group of students from the hiking club I started and we hopped on a public bus to go to Diamond Head. Diamond Head is a 150,000 year old crater on the island of Oahu and there is a lovely, but short, trail that goes to an outlook above the crater. There were about 10 people in my group and on the way up we ran into another group of 15 that was on their way down. We happened to meet right at the perfect outlook for a photo and we had another hiker take a picture of the massive group of Semester at Sea students atop Diamond Head.

When we got to the top there were amazing views! We could even see whales breaching in the distance! We took some more pictures of each other atop the structure labeled “keep off” (of course) and then began our descent. There was a cement room near the summit, however, and I decided it as the perfect location for an impromptu dance party! So I put on some dance beats and we rocked out for five minutes or so. All the people passing through seemed a little dumbfounded except this one Asian guy who showed up with a video camera and started filming us! I'm really curious to know where that video ends up... I would love to see it...

Then we got to the bottom and Jenna, Emily, Mike and myself split off from the other members of the hiking club to go buy some local beer and sit on the beach to watch the sunset. The colors were spectacular and the way they reflected off the ocean looked unreal, almost as if it was something out of a virtual reality game or something. After drinking a few beers made by Kona Brewing Company, we went to the streets of Waikiki to find a place to eat.

We stopped to talk to these two guys playing guitar on the sidewalk and they told us of an amazing burger place just around the corner. The four of us each got a veggie burger with teriyaki, avocado and pineapple and they were delicious! (and well priced) It was way better than going to the other places we passed along the way which were all packed with SASers. The locals definitely knew where it was at!

After enjoying our burgers we set up our sleeping bags on the beach, prepared to spend the night outside yet again. There were a lot of other students that accumulated on the beach as well.  My friend Zach brough his slackline and I tried to balance on my own, but I never got over my dependence of another person's shoulder. Some students were climbing this Banyan tree and when I went to join them I noticed they had knocked down a birds nest and there was a dead baby bird on the ground. It was really depressing to bury its soft, warm body and I had trouble sleeping after that, especially since none of the kids in the tree took is seriously (I think they were all too drunk to care).

I tried to put it past me though and crawled into my sleeping back to get some rest. At around 3am, however, I was woken up by a flashlight in my eyes and a police officer telling us to move. Apparently you are not allowed to sleep with bedding on the beach (although he made it seem like its legal so long as you don't have bedding.... interesting...). So we hailed a cab and headed back to the ship to get a couple more hours of sleep before waking up for my 8am FDP