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carpe diem

Sometimes it’s a relief to fall into the hands of someone who trusts in serendipity with their whole heart, grasping any opportunity that comes your way. The Dallas Canadian, our Airbnb housemate, was the very man to nip our indecision in the bud, I don’t have any plans, let’s drive and see where we end up. If it hadn’t been for the rainy day we would have been long gone on the agonisingly slow 2 hours bus ride to Honolulu at 7am.

We found ourselves at a little organic farm for lunch, taking the back roads, relief from the highway. Vegetarian burgers and hawaiian salad, all courtesy of our new friend, he told us we could just Pay it Forward. He was an interesting guy, an ideas man, brain never stopping, only slowed enough to avoid sudden overload narcolepsy by ADD medication. A self confessed Sensitive with a capital S to the supernatural, an IT genius, Republican and a dedicated dad. After the meal, like he promised, we just drove and when Pearl Harbour slipped into the conversation we were suddenly on our way there. They had run out of tickets to the main event, a boat ride to the USS Arizona memorial, but as we wandered towards the ticket booth the clerk waved three free tickets at us, something electric was definitely in the air.

So many years later oil still leaks from the wreck below, a shimmering rainbow above the grave. Plastic dollar ponchos flapped in the breeze, suprisingly beautiful against the steal skies. It was a different world to the one where bullets and bombs rained from the skies, water lapped and names glistened in marble, solemn and peaceful. It’s not something we would have thought to do on our own, but it gave us an incredible appreciation for the history of the place, beyond the soaring towers and tourist filled beaches.

aloha, we’re not in australia anymore

February 8, 2014 2 Comments

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6 MONTHS OF ADVENTURE BEGINS HERE

A sprawling city, highways and that sweet damp heat, Honolulu was both a stranger and an old friend. My mind quickly calling up a flood of childhood memories of Jakarta to quiet nerves in a new place. A place where beauty and desperation are entwined in a lover’s embrace. The tide of homelessness after the GFC washes around the towers of affluence, both starkly alien and disquieting. The ubiquitous Starbucks is our first port of call, the traveller’s bastion of free wi-fi. We hear someone order a tall 5 shot, caramel, frapuccino extra sugar, we’re not in Melbourne anymore.

Then out on the bus to the leeward coast, out the window resorts give way to ramshackle housing, many half built and then locked up with tarps and pieces of plywood. Roosters, dogs, chainlink fences, rusted cars and behind them the most glorious craggy hillsides moss green and rich red earth. Ocean to the front, hills to the back, but people are struggling. We go a stop too far, no one is on the street. We walk past houses and see everyone gathered around TVs drinking beer, there are even people watching TV in the park. What is going on? Then it clicks, it’s Superbowl Sunday, Americans on couches everywhere unite under one love. Suddenly it doesn’t seem so eerily quiet anymore.

We don’t realise we have been holding our middle class breaths until we reach our accommodation, a simple but lovely double storey weatherboard with a lush garden. No one is there yet so we explore, there are at least six cats sprawled around, which is oddly comforting, and a garden full of ripening papayas, bananas and star fruit, a temperate dwellers dream. There is a dark pool and we peer in and are met with the sleepy gaze of one, then two tortoises, all long nails and shimmering neck, scrambling to reach us, they are disappointed when we don’t have any food to offer them. After our enthusiasm blanches when we try a “gathered” mallow meal from the garden, we venture out, jet lagged and lazy, we get as far as a 7Eleven to cobble together a meal. On the way back, locals smile and greet us as we wander along the highway, we are getting the feeling that Hawaiians might just be the friendliest people in the world.