Hawaii the land of rain and mud...

Hawaii was our first stop on the Around the World Trip! As a child I pictured Hawaii as a colorful sunny island where every one dressed in hula skirts and coconut shells. Sadly my week there proved all of those pictures wrong. We landed around midnight and after a long flight were anxious to get on a bus to find our hosts home on the other side of the island. As we waited for the bus a few concerned vacationers asked if we needed help. Maybe it was the fact that we were sitting on our pack backs falling asleep, or maybe they noticed the old drunk man who was scooting closer every minute. Either way we declined sure the bus would arrive soon. After waiting for what seemed like forever a bus came and took us a few miles down the road where we waited again. Although told it was a bus stop the dim yellow lights in the parking garage made it look more like the ideal setting for a murder or kidnapping than a place to wait for a bus. Good thing my travel partner and best friend has a way of making friends with everyone. So before we knew it a nice man was sharing with us his life story, telling us how to stay safe, and gave us directions to our host family. Good people really do exist everywhere- even in creepy bus stops in the middle of the night! Once on the bus we met a few "nice" men who worked very hard to convince us that leaving Hawaii is never necessary and that is why they had never even visited the other Hawaiian islands. Interesting chaps- slightly intoxicated but they had good intentions. Little did they know that staying one place goes against all I believe. If they were sober and it wasn't passed midnight I might have attempted to reverse their thinking- but oh well not my battle.

*empty rainy beaches*

After arriving we learned that this was the one week of the year that Hawaii decided to not be like Hawaii. It rained every day and the water was rough. Not a problem for us- we donned our trusty ponchos and headed out to see the wonders.

We hiked, or walked a long distance in mud, swam when the sun wanted to come out, played with turtles- before we saw the sign that said not to, met a lot of amazing people, and enjoyed nature every minute of the day.

*SUN*

Although we didn't do anything touristy Hawaii offered a wonderful break in our across the world flight to Singapore. Thank you Tuellers for hosting us and Sun- well hopefully next time you will want to hang out a little longer.

*we are really good at waiting for buses*

*my best friend has mad hops*

*the first of many awkward photos*

In Jaimie's words :)

6/2/11

Hey everyone! So we made it to Hawaii - long flight man - and since when do they not feed you a meal on a 6 hr plane ride that takes place right around dinner time?  So we filled up on peanuts and pretzels and those super salty V8 bloody mary tomato drink mixes...mmmm.  We landed around 8, caught a bus at 8:30 ish.  Got off at the transfer station and waited for about 2 hrs for the next bus to take us to the place we'd get off at near BYU campus and temple.  When we were waiting this big big black man in a baby blue shirt and white dread locks sat next to me.  I said hello and asked how he was doing then cami and i kept talking - and well you know how we are when we get together -especially you jonathan, it's like hyperdrive.  You'd think after living together and seeing each other every day tht we would run out of things to talk about...we dont.  Eventually, the man taps me on the should and says, "can I ask you something?  Now you don't have to answer if you don't want to...but why is it that women always have soemthing to say?  They are always yapping.  What do you have to talk about all the time?"  We just laughed and laughed.  I told him that women can't express themselves as well as men we we just take five minutes to explain something when men can get the same point across in one or two sentences. :)  He just laughed a big deep chuckle and in no time he was the one yapping. ha! I think everyone likes to talk, some people just need an ear.  He was an extremely nice man, probably around 55, from virginia but been in hawaii for the last 10 yrs.  was in the navy so has traveled all around the world his whole life.  He asked when we got in to hawaii and when we ssaid just an hour ago he says, "oooooh!" and while giving us a hug and kiss on the cheek says, "well welcome to hawaii!"  We got to talk to him a bit about the church as well which was awesome.  We had another experience on the bus as well and as soon as we got off the bus cam and i looked at each other and cracked up about how much this is exactly like the mission again, getting off at the wrong bus stop and having to wait 2 hrs for hte next one but getting to talk to a man about the gospel bc of it...awesome.  Ed rode with us on the same bus all the way to the stop we needed to get off at and told us exactly where to go.  We walked to the house we're staying at where a friened of cami's is living for BYU hawaii and they are leaving today to go back home.  It's great here, friendly people, we're so well taken care of and really live a very charmed life.  My hair loves it here too-crazy curly - thailand and india will have even crazier humidity - don't be surprised if I come back w/ dreads :) ha!

Love you guys SO MUCH!!!

Jaimo


6/4/11

Man when it rains here it POURS...............and pours and pours....and pours. and thunders and lightnings.  We walked to the temple this morning donning rain jackets and army green ponchos.  Showed up at the temple wet, had to wait about a half hour if they would do a session or not seeing as how the power was a bit sketchy, then they let us in.  It was beautiful.

So now we're staying with cami's mom's old mission companion and basically what I have found out is that i am her. it's crazy how many similarities we have!  Regarding dating and relationships we're identical, she also got vertigo episodes that made her throw up, she made black bean and veggie burgers for dinner, AND we even had the same thing for breakfast this morning - yogurt and granola...crazy!  This family is awesome.

A couple things i've learned so far:

1.be nice to people and they'll be nice to you, especially when you offer them rice crisps on the bus
2.if there's a young woman who is teeny tiny w/ a big red suitcase and needs to get on the bus from the airport, let her on, even though luggage is not allowed-sometimes love takes precedence over law and rules.
3.dance in the rain-it's fun and water dries....eventually
4.when close to you, lightning is very bright, and man is it loud!
5.everything rusts in hawaii
6.soft serve ice cream is great!..oh wait, already knew that
7.cami and i can sleep soundly on a double mattress on the floor - all you have to do is fish tail it!  feet by the face
8.public transportation is the way to go! cheap and fun -and if you sit on the seats in the back of the bus located right above the engine it's nice and warm!

I think that's about it for lessons learned, tune in someday for more!  love you guys so much!

jaimo

6/8/11

oops! didn't mean to send that one!  hey you guys!  how're you doing? the hotel was great!  not nearly as nice or as friendly of people as at the worldmark ones but great central location right in waikiki and so close to the international market.  It rained every single day that we were in hawaii! can you beleive it?!  Not terribe weather though kind of comical :) we went on a hike to a place called maunawilli falls outside of waikiki - took like three busses to get there and a lot of asking the bus drivers but eventually we made it!  hike was super muddy - kind of fun  but crazy slippery - a couple times my shoe got stuck in the mud so deep i could barely pull it out and it made that great slurpy noise that mud is so good at making :)  lots of mosquito bites too - oh man we are covered - actually cam is really really covered on her legs - like chicken pox covered - me i'm not so so bad but still about 15 on each leg...yikes! and one right on the keester , that made the plane ride a bit awkward, eventually though i could stand it any longer and just put aside all dignity and put my hands down my pants to scratch...hey it was dark.  :)  But the hike was beautiful - such cool trees, i couldnt stop thinking of jurassic park - totally the same time of jungle esque trees - loved it. We got tot the lttle waterfall which ran into a small but really deep pool so we swam across, climbed up a bit on the other side and jumped in.  some more daring guys that were there jumped in from way high up...too scary for me man but fun to watch.  

we shared an awesome garlic shrimp dinner while watching some hula dancing at teh intl mkt. and walked around for a bit but after seeing a couple prostitutes and their pimps advertising them shouting out prices to sleezy men with googly eyes, we bacame a bit disenchanted with it all and went inside.  So next day we dont fly out until about 1:30 so we figure be at teh bus stop around 11 since we weren't sure when one of hte two that went to the airport would come by, but that should give us enough time.. so we decide to go to the beach for a bit bc finally on our last day the weather was pretty great, so we decide to go to the beach and we walk there and lay our stuff down and are laying on the sand for about 5 min when all of a sudden we start to feel sprinkled on.  we stubbornly lay there not willing to admit defeat until it just gets too rainy and within seconds its downpour!  so we wait under cove rfor a couple minutes and then head back to the hotel and it was nice and sunny again!  but really the weather has worked out really well for what we've done - We went beach hopping on our last full day in laie and took the bus to a cool town and got really great hawaiian shaved ice with ice cream at the bottom, SO GOOD! and then we walked to turtle beach where I SWAM WITH SEA TURTLES AND TOUCHED ONE!!!!! (that was beore we saw the sign further down the beach saying "do not touch sea turtles...they'll bite" or something like that - woops!  they were just there though, out in the open right near the shore so many of em! so neat! but it was raining all morning - then was sunny as soon as we left - really sunny and warm all day at the beaches and as soon as we got back on hte bus to go home it started sprinkling and by the time we made it in the house it was torrential downpour again, thunder lightning, the works. SO GREAT!!! God is good, and gives us great weather when we need it.  

so we're in singapore now, clean city, awesome to see rajan waiting for us at the airport at 2 am, poor guy, kids all at school now nd delphine is at work so i'll see them in a few hrs, really excted for that.

love you guys so much!

jaimo