It's been a busy few days so I apologise for the delay in updating the blog.
Quite by coincidence Nicqui and I were leaving Hawaii on the same day at the same time so Thursday was our last full day there.
Wednesday night we went to see a Hula show at the International Market and later ended up going out for a drink with Ryan at about Midnight. I left the both of them at about 1.30 am because I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer.
Thursday morning I woke up very early and went for a swim and lay down on the beach until it started raining. Hawaii is so tropical it rains everyday but never for longer than a few minutes and then the sun is out again. Sun showers are common too.
Nicqui joined me down the beach a little later and we sunned ourselves until it was time to grab some lunch and showers in preparation for our afternoon adventures. She was going parasailing and I was doing a tour of the island by helicopter.
It was awesome. It made me want to go back one day just to do the same over the Big Island of Hawaii where they still have active volcanoes... the thing is with that you have to time it just right to get lava flow activity. Who knows, maybe one day :)
I have uploaded the photos but they didn't turn out as good as I hoped they would. Unfortunately it gets very cloudy over the mountains. Add to that the glare from the sun and the motion from the helicopter and it's very difficult to get good pictures. It looks like the Valley of the Rainbows, the pineapple plantation, and the waterfall pics didn't turn out. We flew over all these locations used for movies... the list was pretty endless but I can only recall a few. We flew over Gilligan's Island (for real!!), the Magnum PI estate, Godzilla's footprints, the setting of Jurassic Park and I can't remember the others, sorry!
The pineapple plantations looked amazing from the air, as did the mountains and valleys. Especially the Valley of Rainbows... now I know why it's called that! It's literally encircled by a big rainbow and we managed to fly right above it and catch the whole thing. We also flew over a large green rectangular patch of greenery with a cluster of trees to one side. It is a sacred site, the place where the Queen gives birth to her children.
I also learnt a couple of interesting facts... 1) O'ahu means 'Gathering Place' which is fitting since it's the busiest of all the islands.
2) Gambling is totally illegal in Hawaii. Apparently if you played lotto on the mainland and won, you'd have to hand over the money to the government and go straight to jail.
When I got back from my ride, Nicqui and I met on the beach again for our last dose of Hawaiian sun and then we had to go back and do all our washing and packing and get ready for our last night out there. We all went out to dinner (boys included) at Moose something or other (www.moosewaikiki.com I think?) then went upstairs to the pub then onto the dawg house which again was sleazebag city. We left there about 3.30 am and walked back to the hostel. I think I managed to get about 3 hours sleep before I had to be up at 7.30 to shower and finish packing my bags and do all that last minute stuff since the airport shuttle was picking us up at 9.15. And then it was on to Honolulu Airport... I think in a way it was pretty lucky we'd hardly slept because otherwise the goodbyes would have been sad but Nicqui and I still got to hang out at the airport for a couple of hours after checking in. She said she was really teary on the plane all the way to LA. I was a bit teary by the time I got to Vancouver. Hmm, so maybe the lack of sleep wasn't so great after all hehe
I met a guy from Calgary on the plane and chatted to him a bit.
Arrived in Vancouver at 9.30 pm. By the time I cleared customs and Immigration, collected my bags and found the bus it was pretty late. I think the bus dropped me off around midnight and I had to walk about a block and a half to my hostel. It was bloody cold after Hawaii!! I'm staying Downtown in the West End and there's quite a big gay community here so as you can imagine, it being Friday night the girlie boys were out in force and gay pride flags flying all over the place.
I was very pleasantly surprised with the hostel. The rooms are a bit small, mine has two bunk beds and the dorms are single sex only unless you're a couple so I'm sharing with 3 girls. I've spoken to a couple of them and they're lovely but after Hawaii I'm enjoying a little bit of solitude since hopefully Tuesday I'll be on the move again and meeting lots of people. Yesterday's a bit of a blur. I started sussing out mobile phone options etc and getting to know Vancouver. Went out for some brekkie and caught up on my emails, walked down to Yaletown, did some grocery shopping and called a couple of people.
Today I dropped my Hawaii photos in for processing and went and got the Aquabus (a tiny little boat with rainbows painted on it - looks like a tiny tugboat... so cute!) down False Creek to Granville Island. Walked around a lot, met and had lunch with a couple of Vancouver girls who were really lovely. They invited me to walk with them but I declined because I needed to get back into the city. On the way back the Aquabus driver gave us a bit of a commentary. There are people living in floating houses on False Creek. They're moored of course but they are built on something like a raft and they move with the tides. Apparently the last one sold for about 450,000 dollars but with the 2010 Olympic bid the prices might go up. When one of the houses in the front row sells they have a lottery draw to see who gets to move up front to replace them. Funny stuff!
I have to try to replace those damn pants I ripped in Hawaii because right now I've only got my jeans and another pair of pants that is too thin for the rockies. My hunt will have to continue tomorrow though because before I knew it it was 6 pm. I headed back to the hostel to plan the next leg and then got talking to my roommate. Turns out she's going on the same 6 day Rockies trip as I'm going to try to book myself on tomorrow. I hope I get on because pick up is on Tuesday morning and I don't want to be stuck here for 3 more days till the next pick up!
Anyway, it's 9.30 pm and the sun is just setting so I'm going to go grab myself some dinner.

Toodles!
xx

I forgot to tell you the highlight of the car day trip to the North Shore! Towards the start of the trip we stopped at some beach park to take some photos and I got out of the car, started walking towards the water and Roly screams out "You ripped your pants!"
then everyone starts pointing at my ass and laughing so I reach my hand around the back and feel a tear... that stretches from the middle of my bum all the way down to the back of my left knee! hehehe
Of course then I had to bend over so everyone could take photos, we were all laughing so hard. That's what you get for buying cheap shitty cargoes even if they are meant to only be for travelling. It was lucky I'd brought my board shorts with me or I would have had to walk around in my bikini all day! *shudders*
The next day we didn't have to drop the car back until around 1 pm so we all (except Ryan because he needs a lot of sleep) went down to get our free toast and tea and piled into the car to trek up Diamond Head Crater. It was great. I had to take it a bit slower because my lungs are still crap from the operation and stupid me forgot to take my asthma spray with me, but I made it to the top and the view was gorgeous. Also I'm happy to say I had absolutely no trouble trekking back down and that was the bit I was a little worried about since my knees don't like going down stairs. Took a couple of photos but haven't been going snappy mad here because I don't want to end up with hundreds of photos of the same thing.
When we got back, Nicky and I left the boys and went and got some lunch then planted ourselves on the beach for a couple of hours. I talked to this really cool old man who told me he was married to his wife for 60 years and he wouldn't part with her for the world. He said "not because I chose her mind you, I didn't even know here"... then quieter he added "I got her pregnant". I liked that story. I like to think that love can grow like that but I think it's rare and it really takes commitment.
Last night Nicky and I went to the Marriott for dinner and to see a live band that was playing there. It was beautiful. On the balcony in the sun with our mocktails and some soothing tunes.
This morning we got up really early to get a bus down to Pearl Harbour, to the USS Arizona Memorial. It's free entry and when you get there there's usually a tonne of people lined up. As you get to the gates you get given a ticket with a number on it and told the time of your tour. We got to the gate at 8.30 and just got in to the 10.30 tour so you can imagine how many people go through there each day. Apparently they have to turn back up to 1500 people a day. The two hour wait went pretty quick because they have museum exhibits of the attack etc. Interesting stuff. I found it really sad though. I felt stupid and disrespectful standing on this memorial over this ship that had entombed over 1000 men. Those bodies will never be recovered. Amazingly the ship still leaks 2 quarts of oil a day and you can see it on the water.
Because we'd booked a snorkelling trip to Hanauma Bay for this afternoon we had to rush back to the hostel so we got a shuttle instead of the bus. Traffic in Honolulu is insane and their speed limits are really low which doesn't help. It's kind of weird actually, you have to wear a seat belt at all times yet motorcyclists don't have to wear helmets. I know I haven't really taken the time to explain a lot about Hawaii and my impressions of Oahu but I'm on limited time so hopefully I'll remember detail and be able to share it with you later. Just one tip I can think of right away: some people tell you that instead of booking a tour of the island you should do the island circle on the bus for $1.25. Those people are completely cracked. Sitting in traffic here when you could be at the beach is complete crap and why do it for the sake of saving 10 bucks... don't forget buses are constantly stopping to pick people up and drop them off and even to get to Pearl Harbour this morning took almost an hour and a half so an island tour on a bus would be one painful day.
Back to today's events though. The shuttle dropped us back to our hostel and we grabbed a sandwich, juice and fruit for lunch and got changed in time for the next shuttle to pick us up to take us snorkelling at Hanauma Bay. That was great, swimming amongst all sorts of gorgeous fish. We spent about 3 hours there and then came the shuttle to pick us up.
I know a certain girlie in Sydney who is going to want to jump straight on a plane bound for Hawaii when she reads this next bit!
About 10 minutes into the shuttle ride back I started not being able to breathe and suddenly started having pain as bad as the one that landed me in hospital in Sydney. I didn't know what to do because I didn't know how that could be possible and besides I was suddenly in so much agony I was delirious. I didn't know what to do, I almost grabbed for the door handle to open the door and jump out into the moving traffic. Nicky tried to comfort me but it was no good, I had to get out of the van so the driver pulled over as soon as he could and Nicky told him to go ahead and we'd get a bus back as soon as I was feeling better. Me, I was just conscious enough to know that I was in the Macy's car park on a patch of grass just by a main road. All I could do was crouch down and lean against a pylon. Poor Nick didn't know what to do. Luckily the HPD (Honolulu Police Dept) pulled someone over to book them - the lucky woman got let off the hook because the policewoman got distracted by me. She insisted on calling an ambulance just to get them to check me out. Looking back on it now it was quite funny... she thought I might be dehydrated with sunstroke and I remember Nicky saying to her very plainly "We're from Australia. We don't come to Hawaii and get sunstroke" :)
So the cop called an ambulance but it turns out there was a huge accident on Waikiki beach where a driver had a heart attack and ploughed into 7 pedestrians with his big american 4 WD... 1 Japanese tourist got killed. The accident was obviously causing huge delays with ambulances.
In the distance we hear a siren and Nicky says 'don't worry it's not for you, it's the fire brigade'. Next thing this fire brigade truck pulls up right next to me and in my delirium I make out a guy sitting next to me asking me all sorts of questions and taking my pulse and putting an oxygen mask on me while another guy took my blood pressure on the other side. God bless those firemen! They came to stabilise me whilst we waited for the ambulance to arrive (yes I got photos! hehehe). Next thing some other guy is leaning over me asking me more questions and taking my pulse and feeling around my tummy... he was an off-duty medic who happened to be walking by. Then came the Emergency Response Unit which I guess is the team that backs up the ambulance guys?? Dunno. I felt so damn embarrassed... I mean what a drama queen! All these Emergency Response teams just for little old me!!! Nicky told me later that at one stage there were actually 3 cop cars on the scene! hehehe
So the ambulance guys checked me out and decided that I should really be checked out by a doctor just to make sure so I got rushed to Emergency for the second time in 6 weeks, except this was my first ever ambulance ride... in Hawaii!! With sirens and all!!
The Emergency doctor checked me out and we decided that since the pain was subsiding I should skip tests this time as it might have been a freaky once-off incident. She made me promise to go back though if it happens again while I'm here. When I told her the pain was the same pain I had with my gallstones but that that was impossible because I didn't have my gallbladder anymore, she said it wasn't impossible. Occasionally it happens that one of the stones gets lodged in the bile duct and goes undetected during surgery. She did say that it was pretty rare though and that normally I'd go yellow pretty much straight away. So here's hoping it was just a one-off eh!!
So they gave me some anti-spasm medicine and strict instructions to have only clear liquid and no food till tomorrow, then I was free to go. Touch wood, they were so good to me... all those people were just so genuinely concerned. I had no ID on me and only 10 bucks in cash and no real address to speak of but they took care of me. They let me phone through my insurance details to them when I got back to the hostel. God I hope this doesn't end up costing me a fortune. Still, I don't see what else I could have done.
Another example of people here being so nice: we had to get the bus back to Waikiki from the hospital and here you have to have exact fare to get on the bus because the money goes into a machine and the driver doesn't carry cash. Of course we had no money except my 10 dollar note and these lovely people at the bus stop gave us our bus fare!! (2 bucks each)
When we got back I was feeling a lot better and I'd promised Nick we'd go down to the International Market to see the Hula show, so we did :)
And tomorrow is another day, and who knows what adventures it will bring :)

Aloha!

I woke up early this morning so walked down to Starbucks for a coffee (Starbucks coffee sucks butt by the way) and figured I'd catch up on my e-mail and blog. Looking around now it seems all my roommates are finally awake and had the same idea.
On Sunday we had a very lazy day. I had very very sore feet for some reason. They were completely swollen to the point where they blistered in some parts and I couldn't even move my toes. As you can imagine, that slowed me down somewhat but since everyone else was hung over I had no demands on me. I did manage to go for a swim though and on Sunday night 3 of us went to the movies to see Shrek 2 which was great, maybe even better than the first.
Yesterday we hired a car and all 5 of us piled in. Nicky and I are the early risers so we went around town scouting a good deal and by the time the boys woke up and got ready I think we set out at about midday. We had this idea that we'd just get in the car and everything would be really easy to find. Wrong. Everything here is very badly sign-posted and we ended getting lost. We did manage to make it to the North Shore before sunset though and watched that from a beautiful beach down there. All in all the experience was worthwhile even though we all had cramps in our legs and numb bums by the end of the journey. Last night we all slothed out in our room and stuffed our faces on pizza.
It seemed like I had heaps of time here and now I'm realising time is running out and I haven't even bummed out on the beach sunbaking so there is no tan to speak of except maybe on my arms! I'm going to have to do some serious time management from now on ;)

So I thought I was sharing my room with one English guy and I was wrong. I'm sharing it with two... actually, now three. Don't worry all you Aussies out there, I'm being a proud ambassador for our fine country. They all just got done travelling in Asia and Australia so they have an extra appreciation for our fine culture and last night were even starting up the 'ozzie ozzie ozzie oi oi oi' chants in one of the bars we went to.
Maybe I should start explaining from a little earlier on.
After I got done updating my blog yesterday I went for a walk to figure out the lay of the land. It turns out we're literally a block from Waikiki beach and it's buzzing around here. I went walking all over the place and stopped at a Starbucks for a latte and a salad roll-up whilst leafing through the free tourist guides they have everywhere here just like the ones up on the Gold Coast in Queensland. I went to a filipino fair, then to a street art show, then to the Waikiki aquarium which was very small in relation to Sydney's aquarium but it was a great display nonetheless and well worth the 7 dollar entry fee. Ironically my favourite exhibit was the dragon sea horse from the South of Australia.
Coming back from there I met this old Hawaiian guy - Uncle Joe. He came up to me to admire my greenstone pendant and we got talking, then he took me over to meet this Tongan friend of his who does carvings out of beef or whale bone. Very nice people.
I should tell you whilst I remember, the greenstone pendant is a big hit here and a huge talking point but people seem to be having trouble figuring out where I'm from. On the plane the Canadian guy I met thought I was Canadian. How, I have absolutely no idea. And yesterday, the carver thought I was Native American. Very strange.
Anyway, so after leaving Uncle Joe and his mate I decided it was too bloody hot and I needed a swim. I went back to my hostel room to dump some stuff and pick up my towel and that's when I discovered I had 2 roommates - they were lounged in my room watching TV. Said hello, introduced myself and went off to the beach. No sooner had I laid my towel down that I looked up and saw Nicci sitting on the wall. Turns out she'd been hoping to bump into me too... I think by then we were both dying for some girl company. After my swim we went and had an iced coffee and walked around Waikiki and the International street market where I have to confess I bought a few little things. Because I don't have any room in my backpack, anything I buy has to either be small or something old has to be chucked out. I bought some silver jewellery which was too hard to resist because it all seems so cheap here and you can also barter so I reckon I saved myself about 50 bucks doing that. My best buy was a red coral and turquoise choker that I managed to get for 20 bucks less than they originally wanted. It's beautiful. I don't feel bad though, this stuff will last forever and I had planned on letting myself splurge just a little in Hawaii so it felt like a proper holiday. Nicci had the same plan. Oh yeah, since we decided we were going to go out on the town that night I also bought myself some lovely little princess sandals from Macy's but that's ok because they're little so will fit just fine in my bag. (I feel like I'm rambling).
Eventually we decided it was time to go home and shower and get changed to go out. Back in my room the boys had started their drinking and were keen to get out so we told them to tag along. It took us a few hours to get out of there by the time we'd all done talking and at about 10 we set out to grab a bite to eat and then went to a bar called Legends where I got mocked for being the only Aussie alive who doesn't drink hehehe
Lucky Nicci was there to represent our fine nation in the drinking stakes and she drank enough for both of us. Everyone was very amused by me though... the fact that I don't need alcohol to act like a complete retard when I'm out. From Legends we went on to the Dawg House because we could boogie there and it was 'the' place to be. Geezus, what a meat market! At first that aspect was quite funny but after a while the fun wore off and you just wanted to punch people in the face. Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you the names of the 2 roommates... Rolo and Tony. Tony ended up getting kicked out of the dawg house at about 2 am and we still have no idea why. That door bitch was nasty... and very butch. One minute he was talking, the next she tapped him on the shoulder, grabbed his glass and tipped it out, then grabbed him by the nuts and marched him out. Ouch.
So that was pretty much the end of the night for us and we made our way back to our hostel and to our room where we stayed up listening to Jet, Jeff Buckley and Coldplay till about 5 am.
This morning we got woken up by our new arrival Ryan... from Wales. Poor guy must have wondered what he walked in on since Tony was sleeping on the floor, the place looked a mess and must have reeked of alcohol. Oh well.
I have decided to stay on at this place. We're all going to hire a car tomorrow and do some touring of the island so I'll keep you updated.
Right now though it's time for a coffee and a swim!

I arrived in Honolulu last night around 11.30 pm after a 9 hour flight. I didn't cry at the airport leaving Mum and Gab in Sydney and I took that as a good sign that I was completely ready for this journey.
The plane was full of pensioners on a scenic package tour to Alaska and the Rockies and it was so gorgeous to see their excitement.
I sat next to a Canadian guy from Alberta who was on his way back from travelling around New-Zealand, Thailand and the East Coast of Australia. I had trouble understanding him some of the time and that's when I realised that it's true, Canadians sound nothing like Americans. I started telling him about the monastery near Bangkok where you can hang out with tigers etc. Turns out he'd been there and he showed me the photos.
Whilst waiting for the airport shuttle to take off I met a girl from Newcastle who's staying at the same hostel for a few days and then going off to New York to be a camp counsellor. Other than that I haven't met anyone yet. Briefly met the pommy guy I'm sharing a room with as he scampered out in his undies to go to the bathroom not long after I arrived... for the time being I'm alone in my room and he's alone in the adjoining one and we share the kitchen and bathroom which is on my side.
The hostel is really noisy... trucks and cars, I have no idea where they're coming from or why. I'm thinking of exploring a bit around here today and tomorrow and then possibly moving on to the North Shore the day after to get some peace.
Anyway, my head is all over the place and I need to go explore and find out where exactly I am so I'll write again soon!
xxx

Once again it's been a while and so much has happened.
I moved out of my house on the 17th April and was to spend a couple of weeks camping out at a couple of different places. I was also supposed to be going up to Queensland to spend a few days with my Dad before going away.
The lead-up to the move was such a busy time I felt as though I was floating somewhere outside of myself through the whole experience. I sold most of my furniture - that all went within a couple of hours of the ad going out. I got rid of so much stuff!! and then I packed it all and unpacked it all and got rid of more. I also sent some things up North for storage... my TV, DVD, PC, bed, hanging rack, favourite books, favourite clothes and jewellery, photo albums. So it's all gone.
Then I went to stay at my nephew's for a few days so I could spend some quality time with my Mum. Well, the night before I was supposed to move from there to my next camp I ended up in hospital. I'd been talking to someone on the phone, planning to drop a load of stuff over at her place within the hour. Instead when I got off the phone I had strange abdominal cramps and trouble breathing. I went to lie down thinking it might pass but instead the pain was getting increasingly worse. Within 10 minutes I was in absolute agony. I couldn't lie down, couldn't sit, couldn't stand up, hot, cold, nausea. It was no use, I had to be rushed to Emergency where they admitted me straight away and started poking me with needles and got me on IV drips, shoving tablets in every hold they could find and needles in practically every vein and within two hours I was lying up in a ward awaiting my fate. My poor Mum didn't leave me till 1 am. So that was all on the Tuesday night and I wasn't released till the following Saturday afternoon. And in that time they starved me and tortured me and eventually performed surgery to remove my gallbladder which was apparently full of stones and very inflamed. What a drama.
Still, I'm so glad it happened here and not once I was overseas. That would have been an absolute nightmare.
Anyway, as a result I'm not allowed to lift anything heavy for a month so my trip has had to be delayed and I had to ask work if they would let me stay back an extra two weeks to make up some of the money this has all cost me.
Since being released from hospital last week I have moved 3 times already, but that's another story altogether.
So I finish up at work on the 14th May now, Friday week. On the 16th I fly up to Queensland to spend that promised few days with my Dad, on the 20th I fly back down to Sydney and spend 2 nights here before flying out to Hawaii on the 22nd and then to Vancouver on the 28th. Beyond that I'm not sure but unfortunately a couple of things I had intended on doing might need to be postponed for now because I really need to be in Montreal by the beginning of July if I am to find a place to live. Who ever said life was boring???! Not me :)