I'm currently sitting in HKIA waiting on my connecting flight

the update so far.

DAy 8- Haleakala Crater in Maui... beautiful 12 mile/20k hike through the crater...!!!

let's just say the hike, was too bad... but my socks were..

As a result, I obtained some blisters.

That is NOT A tan, but the dirty of the crater..... those were def. huge blisters that stung for days upon ends...

All in all it was a great time.



DAy 9 -12 (big island adventure)

We flew over to the big island and went from KONA-Kona coffee country-South point- green sands' beach- volcano national park- volcano village- thrutston lava tubes- pahoa- east coast- hilo

here are some pictures to share with you during our adventure.

Lavender...Big/Little/Turtle town, Haiku, paia, car return...

Day 6

The day started off at 8am, where we made breakfast and had a good time trying to find our way up to Ali'i fields of Lavender...

This field was located in Kula, Maui.

The girls and I had a great road trip day........... not only was the smell of the lavender sooo sensational, it was very relaxing. To top our visit off, we went to the gift shop and all purchased lavender scones!

As you can tell by the photo, the lilikoi (passion fruit) was "da bomb" as Martha would put it.


Then we drove to the big beach, little beach, makena beach, kihei, wailea.......etc..

the only hitch......./problem... was that we had to SERIOUSLY back track.... overall it was an enjoyable day.


(This was the sunset @ the roadside beach in Kihei)

Day 7 (last day of rental car)

Martha woke us up early so we could drive through upcountry maui. This included a stop in Haiku....
WOW, all I can say is beautiful, quaint, and relaxing.

With lush vegetation everywhere it's was soo great to drive through the rainbow eucalyptus


(one of the many roads that was up in the haiku area.)

We then did a great hike.......... ooo did I mention that on Day 6 I was coming down the rubbled hill and I popped out/back in, my right shoulder.... and it was tres tres sore... (another story)

AFter our 2 mile hike we returned the car... and got a good time dropping off @ airport/going back to the bunglaow.

Near wailuku there is this awesome record store named "requests" it seriously had all the bands that I listened too and many more, it even had emm gryner.

At night, it was taco night and free keg @ the hostel.... good times had by all

Hana, and Central Maui

Day 4

Went on the tour from the bungalow.....
this trip started bright and early at 8:30am until night fell

It was the trip to HANA!!!

First off we started to do this crazy.. (not so crazy) hike in a bamboo forest where we went to see Waterfalls...........

Over to the right you can see Susan and I posing in this enchanted surrounds.

Then we headed along Hana highway
This highway is tres tres hard-core.... there are many twists and turns and sometimes there are even one car only bridges........

(this picture was care of the internet...)




Afterwards, we headed to Hana and then down to Black sand.... Where there were crazy lava tubes and cave snorkelling... it was CRAZY..

not only was blacksand beach fun, the wait for the washroom was equally enjoyable... (insert fake laugh)

Then we headed to red sand beach (which was located behind private propery) There we decided to take some cool pictures and play in the sand and do beachie stuff... Except it was cold and the waves were quite harsh... which was cool.

That was pretty much what we did for the entire day/night

The drive back to Hana was killer and it was the same windy-ness that was on the way there...

DAY 5

Was an awesome killer day. We actually spent the "whole" day as a group... This group consisted of 4 wicked Toronto girls...

Anna- who is my twin A... (except she's Greek)
Susan- who is MAD cool for coming on the trip after I told her about it over some coffee.... She's my Hawaii buddy
Martha- who was Anna's swimming buddy, and a crazy driver who takes MAD photos...
myself- who is crazy for embarking on this trip

We decided that we were going to go SURF....
so we headed out to Lahiana and caught some waves and tried to surf, paddle, and pee in the water.

I had a blast, but susan got hurt and was out for the count...

After that it was about 3pm and we headed to Paia/Ho'okepia Bay so that Anna could potentially buy another board/ surf one last time before she went back to O'ahu....

We decided to stay in town, since we are newbies that don't know how to surf properly....

PAIA is such a lovely town... great atmosphere and reminds me a bit of kensington (the stores) and a little community town....
=

Above is us at Paia fish markey... having the best fish quesdilla around and it was SOOOO good.

Then we drove Anna to the airport (not only was that another story... but it requires more pictures)...

Anna got out of hte car but then realized that we didn't park near Hawaiian airline... so we had to fit 2 boards, 4 ppl and luggage.. into our retro 1997 Toyota GOLD corollla....
it was SWEET....
then we called it a night....

Iao Valley

Day 3

The day started off well.... 5am flight... which meant that lovely Anna drove us @ 3:45am.... it was quite killer...

Then I arrived at the airport in Maui, and proceeded to wait another 3 hours for our shuttle bus.

Once we arrived (10:20am...) we were told about this amazing tour.. to Iao Valley. So we chucked our stuff into the room and proceeeded to join this tour...
def. unprepared in terms of sunscreen and food.... but it was alright.


Iao Valley State Park, where you will enjoy a beautiful rainforest hike in one of Hawaii's most significant historical sites. You will stop at Kepaniwai Cultural Park, and swim in the sacred Iao Valley Stream.


Very tough hike, but it was fun. got come dirt on the bum... but that's what is expected...great mud sliding which is always HOTT.


mentally, physically and emotionally tired....


LAST note: most people in the Hostel are some-friendly and cool to talk to... I'm sure that it'll be a fun time on Maui.... we have a car from Mon-Fri AM... so I'm guess that it'll be fine as SAT we're going to Halekauwa, where the sunset is spectular.... I'm super stoked for that.


Tentatively...

MON- Iao Valley
Tues- HANA!!! (all -day)
Wed - Beach date/surfing time (drive Anna back to airport)
Thurs- snokerl with sea turtles.. (field of Lavender), Hula lesson..!!!
Fri- Return car.... beach date.
Sat- Haleakala (which is 10, 000 ft. peak that is apparently amazing) - all day too... :D
Sun- going over to the BIG ISLAND...

(which we will rent a car and drive from Kona- Volcano nat'l parl - Hilo) 3 days.... back to Honolulu on the 22nd....)

Cheers!

Chinatown, Downtown Honolulu

Day 2

Got up early and went to the beach for some much needed swimming....
Got back to the Hostel and had b'fast, which was delicious in terms of hostel offerings.

10am- Chinatown excursion.
Visited many temples, and browsed the markets... HAD awesome pastries at RUBY's...

(insert photos)

1pm- Headed Downtown, and say the various state buildings and ugly buildings.
2:30pm we walked all the way to Ala Moana Shopping complex....
4pm Anna joins us for much needed love
(insert Coach story, and T&C)
6:20pm, Hilo Hattie. "I heard it has quality stuff"
just caught the ending of the sunset..... :(
7ish.. got on bus for the hostel/hotels...
8pm. POOPED from a lot of walking

plans ahead:
3:15am wake-up... for 5am flight to Maui, Kahlalulu
MAUI for 6 nights, followed by BIG ISLAND for 3 nights/3 days, 2/3 days in Honolulu (O'ahu)

Landing, North Shore

DAY 1

arrived at 5:30am, and Twin A picked me up at around 6:00ish.
She was soo nice.... plus I brought her a surprise c/o her mudda.

Booked it back to her Manoa apt... which is wicked awesome.
AFter a much debated sess, we finalized on doing a deluxe island tour going all the way to the NORTH SHORE.... (sadly, I did not find out where LOST was filmed.)

So we did the coastal tour and say all the beaches on the East shore (Sandy's, Anna's beach etc...)
then we travelled all the way to Wai'ame Bay, passing Turtle Bay...

But before going to the beach we had quite yummy sandwiches at Hale'wai Bakery....
SOO GOOD. (insert photo of Roasted Veggie sandwich) - only $5 USD.... quite messy, but quite filling.

Then we drove back to Wai'ame Beach and tanned, swam, snokerlled for 4 hours....
AFter such a long day at the beach we needed some well deserved SHAVED ICE at Maimatio (sp... will fix later)

AFter that excursion, we drove back to WAikiki, and checked into Hostel....

chillin' in 100F

(currently)
Sitting in LAS (LAS VEGAS airport..) didn't feel like going to the strip for 1 hour and mooching internet to tie off loose ends that I promised to do prior to my departure, sounded much more appealing...

Thanks to ALL of those who wrote me plane letters*, I have only gotten through a couple.

*plane letters- are a form of love... lol, it's purpose is to entertain the reader on their long travels. The content will vary from - interesting facts about the place of visitation, random stories, how much the writer loves the reader... etc....
(if you'd like to write me a plane letter for my trip over to ASIA... I'd LOVE to read it... (b/c obv. I'm THAT needy, and require the spot light to be here..) please send to panda.claws@hotmail.com before AUG 23rd (9pm EST).

wait, isn't that the point of my blog... to create attention to myself...

MY travels so far....in specific details... as to not have to repeat myself when I come back, and so that people don't have to meet w/ me face-to-face ... (achem)

SO I'm brought my backpack that I purchased from MEC (of course) it weighed like 40lbs..... plus a something a little extra that was 53Lbs.. the nice dude at the US airways counter was super nice and let it slide.... w00t.
9pm departure- connecting in LAS for 3 hours then off to HNL for the 2:45am flight.

ON THE FLIGHT HERE: the guy in front of me had some sort of weird DVD/flim he was watching (maybe game tape) b/c every minute there was a whistle blast..... not much sleep on that flight

As I was walking through the airport, I noticed that there are slot machines EVERYWHERE... maybe I'll try my luck after this post.

BUT was I was going through security (which wasn't too bad) but they made me throw out my water..... grrrrrrr, and they totally searched my carry-on..... it was quite entertaining....

on a tangent--> I could totally see myself being on amazing race....

but the lady went through my bag b/c my electronics (all my wires and stuff) they thought it was dangerous.... which it could be...

Cheers
PC

night before

I'm getting really really really stoked....

just semi-finishing my packing ..... it's an attempt.

My plane flight leaves at 9pm tmr.... YYZ-LAS-HNL
should arrive at 5:35am

For those of you that know me: I've been growing my hair for a while.... basically out of laziness I haven't had time to cut, then it just kept growing and I didn't know what to do...AHHHHHHHH!

the picture to the left -----------> states that Louise braided my hair and it was cut at 1' 4'', but being as it was braided it was probably much longer then that....

This was me donating the hair.... at contential hair.

it's such a great thing to do. I mean it's not like you'd use that hair, and it'd go to the dump-ster... this way I'm using my three R's: Reduce garbage, Recycle my hair, Reuse it in the form of a wig...

SWEEEEET!

pre-departure

Welcome message:

Hello to all that have decided to par-take on my journey for 6 weeks.

Here is the details if you aren't in the know...

Leaving Aug 10th- Sept 25ish...

Hawaii, Asia and back.

I might get lazy with this blog, but I'll try to update regularly......... or "I'll just keep the mass e-mail " thing going...

Here's I'll post my e-mail to contact me:
panda.claws@hotmail.com

Prediocially I'll post up my new cell number where I can be reached.....
If internet if good, I'll post up photos.
If NOT, then sorrie......