After a good night sleep on the ship, we arrived in Honolulu, Hawaii the next morning around 6 I believe. When I awoke we had already pulled into the dock and I headed to breakfast around 8ish because I had an FDP trip to the Polynesian Center at 10:30. After I had breakfast with my friends I headed down to the gangway and met my group to go to the center. It is clear across the island and took us about 25minutes to get there. Once we were there it was definitely different than I had expected.
It was something you could kind of compare to Epcot where there were separate areas for different sections of the world and sort of an amusement park feel. I was pretty interesting to stop and see each section. We toured around for a while on our own until lunch time. We were served a pretty good buffet style lunch which was once again accompanied by poi-which I decided to pass on. After lunch we watched a bunch of performances similar to the ones we had seen at the luau but these had drums and a few other different aspects to them. The men playing the drums were in typical Polynesian dress- it was pretty cool. Definiely not what I would typically think of when I think of Hawaii.
At around 3 (I think) me and a group of people decided that we had enough of the Cultural center and we signed ourselves out and decided to take a cab back to Waikiki beach where me and another kid were meeting our friends. He was kind enough to pay the entire cab ride back to the beach (which wasn’t cheap)!
After I got to the beach I met up with my friends and we had all decided we wanted to try surfing. I’ve never been before and I had such a good time. We rented a board for $10.00 for one hour. Me, Lis, her roommate Kerry, Steph, and Kelsie all paddled out to the waves after a brief instruction from the owner of the shop and a quick photo session (proof that we really did attempt). As we got out to the waves, I caught probably 4 or 5 waves and attempted to get up, but failed pretty bad. One of the waves I got I wiped out pretty bad and got a cut or two on my foot from the rocks on the bottom of the ocean. Minus the few cuts and the bruises I got on my hips from paddling out on the board, I had SUCH a good time. I want to try to surf again until I actually get the hang of it. Definitely something I would want to try to pursue.
After surfing we were pretty tired and decided to take the public bus back to the ship. Unfortunately we got on the wrong bus and had to stay on the one we got on for about an hour when it should have only taken us about 20minutes. Oh well. We did get help from a local man on the bus. That’s something I had noticed about Hawaii, everyone is so nice and friendly and willing to help. So, we got back to the ship and got ready for the night.
After we were ready we met Steph’s friend down at the dock area who goes to HPU and he picked us up and took us to the downtown area. We walked around and met Steph’s other friend who goes to HPU at a street corner. Weird thing is, my friend goes to University of Hawaii and while we were waiting for Steph’s second friend I saw Alex, my friend, walking across the street. Talk about small world (and it gets even smaller). So after we met Steph’s friend, we headed up to the friend we mets other friend’s apartment.
We all met each other down in the lobby where I found out the 2 people who live in the apartment are from Durango and know a ton of the kids I know back in Durango and the girl even said she’s neighbors with a kid I know back in Durango. SUCH a small world! SO anyway we hung out at that apartment for awhile then walked downtown and met up with my friend Alex and hung out in his dorm for a while and after that we headed down to the bars. Not everyone is 21 so just me, Lauren, Alex, and his friend Drake went. After we were there a while we decided to walk on the beach. We got to the beach and saw Steph, Lis, and Steph’s friend Trav (small world again). So we all met up and hung out for a little on the beach. After a while me and Lauren and Kelsie decided we wanted to leave so we went to catch a cab and saw 2 other SASers and shared the cab with them (cheaper cab fair). And that was the end of that night.
I woke up on day 2 of Honolulu to my room phone and Kelsie on the other end telling me it was 8:20 and time to get breakfast. (Breakfast ends at 8:30 so we pretty much cut it as close as possible to get something to eat in the morning because we aren’t exactly morning people). Anyways before we went to eat I asked her if we could stop by the purser’s desk just to double check what time my FDP was that day. Turns out, it was at 8:45am and you’re supposed to be down at the dock area 15 minutes before the trip leaves. So I booked it to my room changed real quick, grabbed what I needed for the day and headed down to the buses. I found my bus but forgot the ticket I needed in order to get onto the bus for the specific FDP I was on. My teacher, Dr. Schwartz, who is a practicing psychologist and he’s Jewish (so obviously he’s cool) told me anyone who is willing to give up the beach to go to the Hawaii State Hospital (a mental hospital) is welcome on the trip. Good thing!
So anyways I got onto the bus and headed up to the hospital. The hospital is located on the Windward (I think?) side which is the wet side. It’s almost like a rainforest. It’s very lush and green and it was raining the entire time we were over on that side. It’s not a cold rain like Colorado though. It was still fairly comfortable to be outside-pretty nice.
We got to the hospital and were greeted by a man named Doug who was a volunteer something or other. He showed us up to the cafeteria. But before we headed over there he gave us pens as souvenirs, with the side note of “don’t leave these anywhere on the grounds for the patients to get a hold of”. This is when I realized I was truly at a mental hospital and this wasn’t a joke.
We met the head psychiatrist at the cafeteria along with the head psychologist? I’m not sure her role exactly. He told us all about the facility and some of his craziest cases which let me tell you, are so insane.
They let us know that almost all of the patients emitted to the facility are court ordered and range anywhere from a 7-11 theft to a convicted murderer (pretty intense huh). The majority of the patients are male, though there are females, and they tended to be in the age rage of around the 40’s but those who are 18 and above are allowed and they had a patient as old as 87 and he was there until the day he died (he had memory loss and became delusional). We were also told we were not allowed to have contact with the patients for safety and confidentiality issues.
So mid cafeteria conversation the whole place which is divided into separate buildings (like the Fort Lewis campus almost) has a fire drill. So, we exit the building and are all standing with a giant group of the patients. Let me tell you, it was quite interesting. They were very well behaved for what they may have been convicted for. It was funny to watch the people guiding our group frantically trying anyway possible to get us to move away from the group of patients (or clients as they call them). So we moved on and continued with our tour. The whole thing was very informative and interesting. Also, apparently an episode of Lost, which I don’t watch, was filmed in one of their buildings.
After the main tour we were taken down to what they call the Aloha Garden. It’s a really beautiful lush area where they grow tons of fruits and veggies that are used in the patient’s food. And if they are allotted time and are okay behavior wise, the patients are allowed to work in the garden (which was featured on the TV show America’s Dirtiest Jobs, I guess). It was a really pretty area and not what you think of when you think of a mental hospital. They said a lot of the patients talk a ton while working in the garden unlike when they would be in counseling sessions-which would seem likely to me- seems effective.
Then we were given a sample of some of their home grown food-which the patients had earlier prepared for us. It was guava jelly on crackers, poi (yuck), and homemade lemonade. It was all really good minus the poi that I, again, opted out on. So after that we were walked back up to the bus and left that side of the island.
After I got back to the boat I headed to my room and changed really quick and made my way outside to wait for our free shuttle that took us to walmart. My camera broke the day before and I needed to get a new one as soon as possible. I was also feeling kind of home sick so I decided to meet up with Alex again (who lives back in the Valley too). We met up at walmart and took the bus back to his dorm so he could drop his school stuff off. I let him know I hadn’t had lunch and he took me to this place by his dorm which has this stuff ive never seen anywhere but Hawaii. It’s like yogurt ice cream but it has real fruit in it too and bits of granola and honey in it. It was so good and definitely needed. So we got that to go and ate it on the way to the beach. We decided to just hang out at the beach for a couple hours. It was almost time for me to head back to the ship and I decided I wanted to be a typical tourist and I got a Hawaii shirt from the international market. I caught the bus back to the dock with Alex and headed back onto the boat. I made it through security and scanned my ID card onto the boat with 10minutes to spare (with the consequence of dock time if I was even a minute late).
I met up with my friends and we sat outside on the 7th deck the watch the sunset and us pull away from Hawaii/the United States.
Now we’re off to Yokohama, Japan! 11 days at sea is gona be rough. (technically its 12 days) but we lose a day crossing the international dateline. So that means this year I won’t get a February 3rd. Weird!
I’m finishing this blog on Feb.1st and I’m, believe it or not, feeling pretty homesick! I love to get emails and hear how everyone is doing.. so keep in touch! jamarshall@semesteratsea.net
xx
ps. my blog title comes from my GS professor. He says people travel for different reasons. Some in the military to protect and fight or battle some for business. But on this voyage, its our job or profession to Learn. It's true. I'm on here solely to learn.
Not just about countries and their cultures, but also
to be independent
textbook/school learning
to cope fully on my own
among many other things!
-its definitely been a challenge. but theres no turning back.
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