JK's Travels

Maui, Hawaii

2010-08-07T21:13:00.000-07:00

July 8-13

July 8-13

Nicole, Nicole and I took a midsummer trip to the island of Maui, the second largest of the Hawaiian ISlands for a week. I had never been here before, and this was Nicole's first trip to Hawaii, so it was bound to be an amazing adventure!

We all arrived seperately, and since I was last, the girls came and picked me up at the Kahului Airport (OGG) in our awesome rental car. We spent the night cruising around Kihei, getting to know the south side of the island, and hit up Lulu's for drinks.

We stayed at the Aston Maui Lu Resort in Kiehi, on the south side of the island. For the price we paid ($80 per night) it was a great motel-style accommodation, right on the beach!

We spent much of our beach time at "Big Beach" in Wailea. Big Beach is what you dream of when you are looking for an uncrowded, beautiful, clean beach with waves to play in!

Snooki's island attire.

Touring around Hilton's Grand Wailea, and wondering why we didn't drop the 4G's to stay there for the week...

We stopped off on the side of the road and got coconuts from Big Mama. I'd watch out for her and her machete if I were you...

Snooki's Birthday Celebrations:

Friday night we met up with Jasen, Ian, and Chris, three boys that we had been introduced to through a friend of Nicole's. We met up with them at Sansei's sushi, where we introduced ourselves to the rest of Maui singing, "Don't Stop Believin'" on the stage.

After Karyoke/Sushi we went across the "Triangle", to the Tiki Lounge, where we started the party! This was definitly where we needed to be on a Friday Night in Maui, and had a great time!

The Road to Hana

After our crazy night out for Bavard's birthday, we all got up early and started on our journey to Hana.

Nicole, Jasen, Nicole, and I at the beginning of the Road to Hana.

First we had to bushwack our way through the bamboo forest, one of the most amazing places i've ever been. Tall, towering bamboo shoots created a shady forest and a breathtaking hike.

When we got to the end of the bamboo forest, Jasen failed to mention that we were going to have to swim across a lake to a falls where we could go cliff jumping. After a little pursuading, we finally got everyone in the water and paddling to the falls.

A stop on the side of the road..nice view.

Red Sand Beach

Our last stop on the road was at Venus Pond. This was one of the most incredible natural havens I have ever witnessed. There were only a few other people there, and we spent our time jumping off the rocks, exploring caves, and swimming in the deep pools. Definitely worth the journey to!

Haleakala Sunrise

Same Day Sunset

Colombia

2010-04-04T18:44:00.000-07:00

March 24 - April 2

Medellin

We arrived in Medellin after a 12 hour excursion from San Diego, with a four hour layover in Miami. The best parts included a guy sitting practically on my head talking on his phone while i was trying to sleep in the airport, a lady yelling at me for sort of almost running into her daughter, and three wack guys behind me on the flight. We got there, tired but ready to see Colombia!

The drive to Sonia's apartment was beautiful! I was amazed at the scenery to be quite honest. From first glance Colombia was nothing like I pictured.

First we went to Sonia's apartment, which is apparently located in one of the upper strata neighborhoods. She explained that each neighborhood has a strata rating, from 1-6, and the one she lives in is a 5-6. Such a nice place, with mini-golf, a trampoline, a pool, workout room, basketball courts and a playground.

We then took our first ever pole-dancing class, something I definitely never imagined myself doing. It was fun and obviously hilarious. It was at "Pin-Up Girl Acadamy"...of course.

We then had dinner and drinks in Parque Llera, at a place called Mendell. It was a really nice night and we stayed out talking with Sonia and her friend Lynn before finally getting some sleep for the first time in forever!

We woke up super early (after finally having slept, thank GOD), and then went to the SOUTH AMERICAN OLYMPICS! Sonia's entire school went to the games and she invited us along with them. We watched the swimming time trials. It was so much fun. The best part was when Manda and I were in the bathroom, and these little girls realized we were from Estados Unidos, and then proceeded to make us take a million pictures with them. Afterwards, they were trying to ask us questions and we didn't really understand, and then one asked "tourista?" and we saiid Si!!! Then all of their faces fell and we realized they had thought we were Olympic athletes. hahahah. Pretty nice thing to be mistaken for though I suppose...

SALENTO
The journey from medellin to Salento was basically a bus ride from hell. We were on the most windy roads for 2 hours, the entire time I was thinking, someone is going to puke...and then it didn't seem like anyone did and it finally calmed down. But when I went to the bathroom about ready to pee my pants, I realized someone had made it to the bathroom sink. But it was either brave the dirty bathroom or seriously urinate in my bus seat, so I spent the worst 1.5 minutes of my life trying to pee for what seemed like an eternity, without puke sloshing out of the sink onto me. What made it even better was the window OPEN in the bathroom so when I stood up trying to pull my pants up, I barely cared that everyone outside could see me, I was much more concerned about avoiding the disgusting bodily fluids that were trying to attack me!

Other than that, the ride was beautiful. We got to see a lot of the Colombian countryside, which consisted of rolling green tropical hills, absolutely gorgeous.

Salento was a much more traditional and small town compared to the big city of Medellin. It is centered around their town square, that becomes alive during the day and night with food and product vendors, in addition the many surrounding restaraunts. We stayed at The Plantation House, my first ever hostel experience. It was THE cutest little place, nestled in the trees, but with amazing accomodations. The owner, Tim, owned the Plantation House, as well as the coffee finca down the street.

The first night we were there we made a little group of friends at the hostel, and then went to a local bar where a game called Tejo was played. This was a modified version of horseshoes, in which there was 2 clay pits about 10 yards apart from each other. The goal was to throw the chunks of metal at the packet of gunpowder and get it as close as possible or hopefully hit it and make it explode. None of us were very good compared to the locals playing next to us, but it was fun anyway.

La Valle De Cocoras

The Valle de Cocoras is the valley of wax palms. We got horses at the bottom and then rode them about a third of the way up, before hiking another hour to the top. It was so pretty there!

Cafe Finca

The owner of the plantation house also owned the coffee finca down the road and gave us a tour. This was probably one of my favorite parts of the trip, because of my well known obsession with coffee in general. He gave us an overview of the growing, harvesting, drying and roasting techniques.

Manizales

Our stay in Manizales was brief, and was the only day it rained on our entire trip. It was not bad though, because we ended up going to a hotsprings where we soaked and drank wine for hours and hours with our new friends Anna and Howard. It was a very relaxing atmosphere and the hotel that the hot springs was at was so cute.

Guatupe
We spent a day climbing the big rock near Guatupe and then exploring the city itself. This was one of the most breathtaking views!

Typicos, the typical Colombian meal including beans, rice, avacado, arepes, and chorizo.

Cable Cars
Medellin has an amazing metro system, which includes cable cars that extend into the mountainous poor zones (slums), in order to create transportation for people living in the slums to be able to work jobs in the city. We took a ride in them just to take a look, and I was amazed at how devastating their slums really are :(

Chiva!

The last night in medellin Sonia arranged a chiva, aka Colombian party bus to drive us around to the different "parques", and party on. Unlike party buses in the states, it was more of an open trolley bus (making it incredibly easy to fall out of, not unlike the unsafe situations for all of the other modes of transportation). But it was so much fun!!

Roadtrip 2009 - Part 3

2010-01-31T13:43:00.000-08:00

October 2-10

Since I really had no home/job at the time, it wasn't difficult for Jesse to convince me to embark on my third..yes third cross country road trip to help him move back to NY.

We started out the morning of the second, and drove through to Van Horn, TX where we stayed the night. Van Horn consisted of 483290483024 hotel/motels, and two places to eat...Wendy's and McDonalds. But yet it possessed the ability to change a young man's life. This is where Jesse fell in love.....with the Hampton Inn. Seriously though, I think if he could he would just live there and never walk outside the doors.

Austin, TX
The next day we set out to Austin, where we went directly to Blaise's house, where Cook had been visiting. The first thing we did of course was head out to Salt Lick..the most ridiculous BBQ ever. The parking lot at this place was practically 3839 square miles and even had traffic control. It had an incredibly local and authentic family-like feel to it, and made me feel like we were about to indulge in an experience we could not find anywhere else.

That night we spent out on Fifth Street, where all of the fun was to be had. Unfortunately I did not have my camera available at this time so there's no pictures :( We went to a bunch of fun places and spent most of the night at a club with a DJ spinning Techno mixes. It was a great time!

New Orleans, LA

We spent all day driving before we made it to New Orleans, unfortunately after nightfall. We just got a hotel, and then had dinner at the restaraunt downstairs. We were not so impressed with the hotel because it's TV was facing away from the bed and there were a few unwanted mice vistors! hahaha...kind of funny though.

The next morning we hit St. Ann's Street in the French Quarter. Let me just tell you what we did here in one short word. Ate. We ate so much I wanted to die.

FIrst stop: "Coops" - where we had our go at rabbit and sausage jumbalaya and gumbo. It was a dingy little pub, but the people were extremely nice and the food was good! We couldn't finish it all because it was our first of 3 meals within approximately an hour.

Second Stop: Po-boys. Everybody raved about the Po-boys in NOLA...but honestly, not that impressed. Pretty much a regular sandwhich....haha. So we didn't eat too much of it, because the best was about to come last.

Third Stop: Willie Mae's Kitchen: This was a result of watching the Food Network til all hours of the morning and randomlly seeing this joint on there. We had fried chicken and red beans. SO GOOD. But at this point I really thought I was going to die.

After all of our gluttonous behavior, it was time to get back on the road.

Pensacola, FL
Here we met up with Jesse's good friend from NY, Jon Valdez. We had dinner on the oceanfront, and then picked Mr. Waffle up from the airport. Then we headed over the bridge to Pensacola beach and hung out at a little bar and played pool.

Atlanta, GA
Just had a quick stop in at Atlanta with Jesse's other friend from home, Kim. We had a sushi dinner with all of her friends, and then spent the night at her apartment. I'll have to check out Atlanta again when I have more time!

Obviously we had to stop at a "Waffle House" for waffle.

Charleston, SC
I think it's safe to say we were all very satisfied with our stay in Charleston! It was a little out of the way from the direct route, but proved to be worth it!

This is how rude the boys are to me..stuffing me in the back like I'm an illegal immigrant.

New York City, NY

We finally made it to NY and had the most whirlwind tour ever. Spicy met us in the city and we went everywhere, Seaport Village, Battery Park, Greenwich village, MSG, Central Park, and of course Times Square where Heather was nice enough to get a hotel set up for us at the W. We had an amazing night with a bunch of Jesse's friends in the city, and were back on the plane to SD the next day.

Roadtrip 2009 Part 2

2009-11-22T09:03:00.000-08:00

August 24- September 1

Austin - New Orleans - Pensacola - Orlando - Miami - Outer Banks

Austin, TX

I started out the cross country road trip to drive Gene back to Philly in Austin. Since I had the wedding to attend to, Gene and Sherri started out the drive in San Diego, and then I flew into Austin, TX and met them there.

We first met up with a friend of a friend who lives in Austin, Blaise. We hung out at his house and started the night out with him DJing.

Then we went out for a night on the town. We went to a place called the Chuggin Monkey, where there was a good live band playing. Since it was a Monday night, there wasn't too much going on around town, but we had a great time anyway!

New Orleans, LA

We got up the next day to continue our journey onto New Orleans, Louisiana, where we stayed with my friend that I had met during my short stint in Tennessee, Vicki. We went to her house and her mom made us a great dinner of jamabalaya. Then we all drove down to the French Quarter. It was a good place to see for sure, but definitely sketchy! We had a good night out, Sherri won $100 at Harrah's Casino!

Sherri, Gene and I in the French Quarter - Bourbon Street

Sherri and Vicki singing, "Bootylicious"

Drive Through Daquiries..only in New Orleans

Pensacola, FL

We stopped in Pensacola for just a few hours between New Orleans and Orlando. Just swam around a little bit and Gene and I went for a run on the beach.

Orlando, FL

Gene's good friends, Chris and Matt live in Orlando, and so we decided to make a detour from Pensacola down to central Florida to visit them! We spent a night out bowling with Matt, Chris and his girlfriend, Erin.

Miami, FL

While we were in Orlando, Sherri and I could not help but think that since we had already made it so far down into Florida, we might as well make it to South Beach! So while Gene and Chris were golfing one day we took his car and drove down to Miami.

The weather was great as we drove down to Miami, but seriously the SECOND we parked and got out of the car, the beach was being evacuated because of a storm warning and it just started pouring. We wanted to cry, but instead went and got some serious food and drinks.

Then the weather magically cleared up and we were able to spend the remaining couple of hours on the beach! Miami was definitely worth the extra 8 hours of driving!

Outerbanks, NC

Our roadtrip ended in Outer Banks, NC. Unfortunately I don't have a lot of pictures from this time because our camera died and I didn't have the charger! We stayed in a three story beach house with Gene, Tara, his parents, grandparents, aunt, and cousins. It was one of the most amazing places I've ever been! I had no idea that the east coast could have such phenomenal beach living! We ate tons of shrimp, laid out at the beach, went jetskiing, played at the pool and just relaxed for three days. I definitely want to make another vacation out there sometime!

Juneau, AK - Wedding

2009-11-21T15:33:00.000-08:00

August 16-23

One of my best friends got married this summer, on August 22. Megan Treston is now Mrs. Orsi, and my weeklong visit home to Juneau was filled with events to celebrate!

Megan's bridesmaids were Me, Nicole, Amber, Lesley,Katharine and Kelsey. This is the first wedding for one of our friends and we honestly had no idea what to do about it.

Bridal Shower
Only a few of us had ever even been to a bridal shower, let alone thrown one, so this was quite the experiment for us! We invited our close girlfriends and some moms to Amber's where we held the shower. We got ideas from some of our older friends who had already started going through these events, and came up with games and activities. It actually turned out extremely successful and we all had a lot of fun!

Us and Megan!

One of the games was a competition between teams of five, each trying to create the best wedding dress out of toilet paper. My team dressed Donna, copying Megan's dress style and obviously won :) Though all of the dresses were actually very good considering the material...

Although we looked delighted about digging into the cake at this point, Amber was not too happy ten pounds later the next day....hahaha

The Bachelorette Party.

Megan had 8 girls from Portland where she went to college come for the wedding, and them with the eight of us made for a huge party! We started out at the Twisted Fish for dinner where we had a group of 20.

We got two hotel rooms at the Goldbelt in Downtown Juneau to get the party started.

Out in Juneau

Although this may appear to be TJ, it's actually a bar called the Alaskan.

Lean on me...

Group shots!!

It was such a fun night out with the girls!

Rehearsal Dinner

The rehearsal dinner was at the Yacht Club and catered by El Sombrero!! They had a Mexican Fiesta Theme so we had a night full of margaritas, enchiladas, and of course, mustaches.

Kelsey displays other methods of using the mustache.
Nick and Megan playing a "How Well Do You Know Each Other" Game.

The Ceremony

The wedding was held at Chapel By the Lake, and it was amazing!! It was crazy to see our little Megan get married, but so awesome. I am so glad that we all got to get together and be a part of this!!

All of us getting ready at Megan's house.

Pictures with Seanna O'Sullivan.

The Wedding Party: Me, Nicole, Katharine, Kelsey, Lesley, Amber, Megan, Nick, Carl, Evan, Tom, Travis and Reilly.

Canyon Lake

2009-11-20T08:53:00.000-08:00

JUST WAKEBOARD!!!!!!!!!!

We drove up to Canyon Lake for the day, where Landon is originally from, about an hour northeast of San Diego. His stepdad took us out on the lake in his brother's boat, where we spent the day swimming and wakeboarding! It was so much fun, definitely need to do this again!

Canyon Lake: DP, Trevor, Landon, Jesse, Me, Geno and Cookie.

Flag Boy..I don't know about trusting this one with my life...

...Mostly because of poor decisions such as this...

Spicy and Me..We're on a boat!

Haha, who knows....

Lando and Trevor

Landon being such a good teacher...definitely gave me some good tips!

Apparently whatever he told me worked!

Jesse's up after much belittling from the peanut gallery

Lando

DP

Trevor

Geno going big.

Gene wiping out.

My Boysies

Such a good day out on the Lake with my favorites! I'm going to try and get some video up here soon. I am sure we got some good wipeouts on camera :)

San Diego

2009-11-19T20:53:00.000-08:00

San Diego Summer 2009 - Why is this on my travel blog? Because I live where you vacation :)

Wavehouse

Just blocks from our place in Pacific Beach is Wavehouse, home of Mission beach's artificial waves. We decided that since my roommate Jamie worked there and could get us a deal, we would try riding the wave!

Gene, Sherri, Nicole, and Me
We did not want to end up on this.

I did it!

....but not for long.

Where Nicole spent most of her time. Haha this was hilarious.

Sherri was a pro.

Geno riding dirty

Travor, Gene and Austin about to surf at Blacks Beach

Just floating around Mission Bay

This is what unemployment looks like.

Del Mar Fairground Horse Races!

Hornblower Sunset cruise around downtown for Natalie's Bday

Downtown San Diego...so pretty.

The old gang reunited at Shore Club!

We all spent a night at Wavehouse and participated in the Tuesday night Beerpong tournament. Although I was the most inexperienced player, I obviously have natural skill, so it was not a surprise that I carried Gene and I to the win...

Jesse and Spicy tried real hard...

Nicole and Sherri also gave it their best..just wasn't good enough.

Champions!

Beaching it with Jesse and Spicy :)

Fridays at Johnny V's!

Me, Manda, and Shannon. Washington Apples.

California Staple: In-N-Out!

View hiking down to Blacks!

Since I barely had a job all summer it was mostly spent at the beach, or trying to find new things to do in SD when I wasn't traveling. Good thing I had other unemployed people with me all summer to make trouble with. The closest thing we did to having a job was working on our tan :)

Oahu, Hawaii #2

2009-11-19T01:35:00.000-08:00

July 2-7

At the time I was on my way back to San Diego from Korea, Jesse and his family were making a trip out to Hawaii to visit Mel and Bliss, the people we stayed at the first time we were in Hawaii this year. I decided that since it was on the way, I might as well make a stop and join them! I had not slept in over 24 hours when I met up with Bliss and Marie (Jesse's mom) at the Honolulu Airport.

Dole Plantation
We spent an afternoon at the Dole Plantation, one of Oahu's biggest tourist attractions. We did not do the maze, which I now regret after seeing it on the travel channel..next time for sure.

Definitely thought that pineapples grew in trees..

Dole Whips!

Diamond Head
On 4th of July morning, we started out the day by hiking Diamond Head, the world's most famous volcanic crater. It was a nice climb and had the most gorgeous view at the top!

At the bottom

Unfortunately the view wasn't very good....

At the top!

Polynesian Cultural Center
Mel and Bliss took us all out to the other side of the Island, to the Polynesian Cultural Center, where we spent the day watching shows, canoeing through the manmade rainforest, and partaking in an authentic Luau!

The pit that the pig was roasted in.

Life in Hawaii

Lunch at a shrimp truck

Waikiki!

Not a bad place to have a "stopover" if you ask me :)

South Korea

2009-11-18T21:53:00.000-08:00

June 11 - July 2

My dad sent my brothers, Cory and Isaac, and I to South Korea this summer to visit all of his family that lives there. I had not been there since I was about 4 years old, and I was so excited to get to meet the relatives I had never met, and to see where my dad was from.

We spent most of the time in Korea in Pusan, which is on the southern coast. My relatives in Korea are on the wealthy side, and many of them had apartments right on the beach! Here is a picture of where we stayed.

Gwangalli Beach. We stayed in that white and yellow building with my dad's oldest brother and his wife. Some of my cousins lived in the apartment right next door so there were always people to hang out with!

So here is the deal. Korea is much too big of a project to put on here, and since I have already created nice, organized photo albums with captions on facebook, I am just going to list the links.

Korea #1 In this album you'll find mostly just funny and different things that I saw while I was getting used to the culture.

Korea #2 This one includes a cruise around Pusan, Hanguk - Biggest Buddist Temple in Korea, and some random family events.

Korea's Got Seoul This is definitely the best of them all. My cousins, and my brother Cory and I spent a few days in the Capital of South Korea, Seoul. It was an amazing trip. Seoul actually reminded me a lot of NYC, so much going on at all times, never a dull moment!

Anyways, sorry that I could not lay out this amazing trip in one blog. Too much happened and I don't want you to miss out on any of it!

Cross Country Roadtrip #1

2009-11-18T16:21:00.001-08:00

May 12-17

Philadelphia - Chicago - Denver - Salt Lake City - Yosemite - San Fran

My friend Gene who goes to school in Philadelphia decided to come spend a second summer with us in San Diego. Somehow he convinced me (without much arm twisting) to meet up with him after I was in DC, and make the drive to Cali. I was finishing up my last semester at San Diego State, and rearranged some finals, and was able to confirm my attendance on this epic adventure!

I met up with Gene, his sister Tara, and friend Franklin in Philly. It was my first time there, so of course I had to partake in a Philly Cheesesteak. We went to Pat's to indulge right before hitting the road.

Our first big stop was to be in Chicago, Illinois. We left Philly at 8PM, and slept at a slightly sketchy hotel somewhere in Ohio, and arrived in Chicago the next morning. The only setback along this drive was Tara becoming nauseous and throwing up in a convenience store. Haha, we laugh about it now.

Chicago, IL

Chicago really was the windy city, we tried to not get blown away as we checked out downtown and the Navy Pier.

After exploring the city it was time for dinner. Of course we're not leaving Chicago without hitting up a famous deep dish pizza spot. We chose Giordianos, cheesiest pizza ever. My favorite part was when we were leaving Franklin saying,
"umm..is anyone else lactose intolerant?"

And obviously we couldn't leave without visiting United Center so that Gene and Franklin could molest the Michael Jordan statue. They ended up getting kicked out by security, and then we started off to Denver, Co.

A Night in Middle America

Our plan was to stop in between Chicago and Denver to sleep at some point, but once we started driving, we somehow convinced ourselves that it was a good idea to just keep on going. So we drove 17 hours through the night, hitting the rest of Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, and finally Colorado. We hit the most massive thunder/lighting storm in Illinois, water was getting into the car, and I could barely drive 2 miles an hour, but of course during all of this I was screaming that I couldn't see, yet somehow managed to get the video camera out and record what was going on...too bad that somehow got deleted!!!

This is what four people who just spent 17 hours driving through the nothingness of middle America look like.

After we took a much needed rest, we headed out to Boulder,CO where we hiked the Chautauqua mountain right next to UC Boulder. It was a good chance to let us stretch out and get some exercise after we had been sitting in the car for so very long!

After our hike, we cleaned up and had dinner downtown at a gourmet mexican restaurant. Then the boys wanted to watch the Lakers game, we went to a local pub where they explained to me who Kobe was. Then we found the future Gene...if you look past me in this photo you will see Gene in 50 years...:) jkjk

Salt Lake City, UT

The next, Salt Lake City. The first thing we did when we got there was find the great Salt Lake of course! We took a dip to test science and see if we could actually float..and we definitely could.

Here's what we looked like covered in Salt when it started to dry.

And then came what you might call my favorite part of the trip. Driving west from Salt Lake city we came upon the Salt Flats. Basically a salty wonderland that appeared to be snow, and was the most amazing thing I had ever seen!!

Yosemite National Park

We finally made it to Yosemite after a long night of driving through the rest of Utah and Nevada. It was a journey in and out of the mountains, but was definitely well worth the sights!

After Yosemite, we drove straight to San Francisco, where we went to Jess' house and met up with Jesse. We got in at about 3AM and at 5AM we were rudely awoken by this here bird.

We then took part in San Francisco's Annual Bay to Breakers. To some, Bay to Breakers is a 12K race. To most others, it's a chance to dress up in a good costume, or wear nothing at all, and drunkenly parade through SF.

Needless to say, this ridiculous event was an epic end to an even more ridiculous journey across America. To top it off, I ended up having to fly back to San Diego the next day to make it to my Venture Management final! Don't worry...I passed :)

Golden Gate Bridge: Me, Jesse, Gene and Tara.

Washington, DC & Gettysburg

2009-11-17T10:34:00.000-08:00

May 8-12
My good friend Bree currently lives in Washington DC, fighting for little girls' rights at the International Justice Mission. I paid her a little visit, and she definitely showed me a good time in the Capital!

Liberation Dancing

The first night I was there we went to DC-9 club and participated in something called "Liberation Dancing". Yes, it was just what it sounds like.

European Union Tour

We went on the annual European Union Tour and visited some of the different embassy's, including Romania, Greece and Spain. In the Spanish Embassy, they were having a flamenco dancing show, very authentic to go along with the tapas and olives that were served!

At the Romanian Embassy there were little girls painting our faces..it only took them 2 tries to get the colors in the right order...

Mr. Yogato

Mr. Yogato = amazing. It's a little fro-yo place that provides discounts for doing random things. You can get discounts on your yogurt for answering trivia questions right, beating level 17 in Tetris on the original Nintendo (umm, a lot harder than it sounds), or playing Boggle with Mr. Yogato himself.

Gettysburg

On Sunday Me, Bree and three of her friends, Heidi, Andrew and Austin decided to take a little roadtrip over to Pennsylvania to check out Gettysburg, where the famous Battle of Gettysburg occurred during the Civil War. We had a lovely afternoon giving ourselves a tour of the battlefields.

So happy to be able to visit Breeski! Love this girl:)

I definitely got more than the typical monument/site seeing trip to Washington. It was a cute little city that I could definitely spend some time in as a local! Thanks B.V.D.

Oahu, Hawaii

2009-11-16T11:03:00.000-08:00

Jan 29 - Feb 2

My first adventure in 2009 started my year out with an amazing trip to Oahu, the most populated island of Hawaii. My friend Jesse found an amazing deal, where we were able to book $245 roundtrip tickets from San Diego to Honolulu. This offer was too good to pass up, and within minutes we had booked our trip. By the next day, our friends had heard about the tickets, and then we had a group of five. Landon, Bram, Waffle, Jesse and Me.

We had the greatest Hawaiian welcome from Bliss, Jesse’s parents friend that lived in Hawaii. She met us at the airport with leis, porkbuns, Hawaiian candy and treats, maps and travel guides bookmarked with things to do. It was amazing! We then went to our hotel where we spent the first night roaming around Waikiki.

The next day, we went straight to the rental car place in the morning to pick up our car. What better way to explore a tropical island that stuffing 5 people in a 4-person Jeep?

North Shore

We drove up the North Shore, where all of the famous surfing spots are. We watched some surfers and got in the water and played around for a little bit. It was beautiful up there! Off white sand and crystal clear water that was so warm. The beach was lined with little bungalow beach houses, talk about prime real estate!

For lunch we decided we had to dine at one of the local shrimp trucks that are scattered around the North Shore. It was fantastic!

Lani Kai

Funny enough, Bram ended up running into a friend from University of San Diego,where he went to college. Her name was Erin and she was originally from Hawaii and had moved back after they graduated. She was so sweet and took us to Lani Kai, one of the most beautiful beaches in the world! It was very secluded and we spent the day picnicing out there with a group of her friends. Something we would have never been able to do without the help of a local!

Manoa Falls

After Lani Kai, we took a hike along Manoa Falls Trail. It was a muddy, foresty trail that ended at a gigantic waterfall!

Hanuama Bay
We spent an afternoon at Hanuama Bay. When we got there we had to watch a five minute video on protecting the sealife as we were snorkling. Then we got our gear and dived in. We saw lots of huge fish and sea turtles, but luckily no sharks :)

Surfing in Waikiki

Unfortunately for Waffle, he lost a bet with Landon, and had to try surfing for the first time during the Superbowl. We all rented boards and paddled out in the Waikiki bay. Landon and Waffle spent a few hours trying to tandem ride, but couldn't make it happen. Then Erin and I decided to give it a whirl and stood up on the first try! Sorry boys :)

Our Ohana

We spent the last night at Bliss and Mel's house, where we had a BBQ with their kids, Tarynn and Todd and some of Tarynn's roommates. It was an awesome end to the trip!