(Originally published May 13, 2008)(Pictured: The Galapagos Reef Sharks waiting to snack on me. DON'T PET THE SHARKS!)
Today, Saturday, May 3, my girlfriend Lou and I set out on our adventure to get from the mean streets of Bradford, Ontario to Honolulu, Hawaii. We left bright and early at 7:30am, as we had to go downtown to collect some monies owed to me (male prostitution) before heading to the airport for our 11:30am flight. Everything went okay on our flight, and we made it to Vancouver in about 4.5 hours (4:30pm Toronto time, 1:30pm in Vancouver). We had a ridiculously over-the-top gay flight attendant who proceeded to buff his nails in front of us....Interesting fellow that Calvin was. He also proceeded to place his hands all over Lou after a water spilling incident. Scandalous to say the least. We had a bit of a layover in Vancouver before leaving for Hawaii so we passed the time in Milestones. Our flight finally left at 6:30pm and arrived a mere 6 hours later in Honolulu, for a local time of 9:30pm island time, or 3:30am if you were still keeping score on Toronto time. We shared a ride from the airport to our hotel with some couple from Calgary in this limousine that looked like it was straight out of some 70s porn shoot. Classy, San Diego, classy! We finally made it to bed at about 1:30am, our as I like to say, 26 hours after I first woke up that morning!
Sunday morning we were both still jet-lagged (actually I was jet-lagged the entire trip) so we decided to take it easy and head for the world-renowned beaches of Waikiki. We lazed around there for a while, and I realized just how afraid of crabs I really am. Frightening creatures, and definitely on par with E.T. as far as nightmares are concerned for me. That afternoon, we decided to walk to Diamond Head, which is probably one of Hawaii’s 3 most famous landmarks. It’s a big volcano/crater/former naval lookout that looks over the south end of the island of Oahu. One problem though, we never made it! Due to the fact that I`m an idiot, we got lost and walked forever before finally giving up. Only I could get lost on my way to a mountain. On the way back from our failed voyage, we visited the Waikiki Aquarium, which is one of the oldest aquariums in the United States, and maybe even this Solar System! Surprisingly, after all of this, Lou had not yet killed me and decided to join me for a pig-out fest at Chili`s that evening for dinner. I then took my bloated ass back to the room and passed out by about 7:00pm. Party like a rock star!
Today I decided it was in our best interest to take the bus to Diamond Head. After waiting forever for the bus to arrive, we finally caught it to the crater and started our ascent. The hike is about 2.2 km round trip from the base to the peak and back again. Lou managed to do it in her Crocs, although I was afraid I was going to have to piggy back her for the last 2.15 km! After finishing our life-threatening journey, we chowed down on some shaved ice (Hawaiian delicacy, although to be quite frank it was just a glorified Sno-Cone). We waited for the bus to pick us up forever, but eventually caved and just split a cab with a bunch of other people after we realized there were some major problems on this particular bus route! Seeing as how it was Monday night, we decided it would be in our best interests to get a little bit drunk on our hotel balcony with cheap wine and beer and then go out for some late night dinner at Round Table Pizza. So we did just that, and I was tucked in fast asleep dreaming of Tuesday before 10:00pm even rolled around.
Tuesday morning I kicked the trip into high gear. Today I had booked a trip to the North Shore to, how do you say this, swim with sharks! I was picked up at about 7:15am at my hotel and was on a boat heading out to sea before 9:00am rolled around. The tour thing was called Shark Encounters and was pretty bananas. How it works, is they take a group of you out (there was 10 of us) about 3 miles off shore in about 400 feet of water, where they have a shark cage (8 ft. X 8 ft. X 12 ft. deep) set up in the middle of the ocean. You jump in and they proceed to feed the sharks from a nearby boat and you think about how cool and ridiculous the whole experience is! While I was out there, there were about 15-20 Galapagos Reef Sharks circling around and snacking on meat and human ligaments! In the winter months, they get Tiger Sharks almost every day, and they are also the only people to ever film/see a Great White Shark in Hawaii (occurred in 2005 and made headlines around the world). One dude who was about 300 pounds and covered in tattoos puked overboard. Guess sharks made him nauseas. While I was having my crazy adrenaline rush that morning, Lou was back in Waikiki working on her tan like a real trooper should be! That afternoon after sleeping off my morning adventure, Lou and I decided to head on over the Ala Moana shopping centre, which is the largest open-air market west of the Mississippi (albeit, very west!). First though, we had to stop in at America’s favourite institution, Wal-Mart to pick-up a new digital camera as we broke ours the previous day on our trek down Diamond Head. I also picked up some stylish threads at Macy’s. The new wears definitely brought out my gangster appeal while accenting my luscious eye lashes and sophisticated gray beard. Goulet. That night we went for a nice stroll along the beach where my travelling companion was more fascinated with the homeless people and high-class hookers than the views! Oh and I set a new bed-time record of 11:30pm! Oh yeah!
May 7, 2008 will go down as the first day in history that I drove a Jeep and watched a TV special on Barbara Walters. This morning we rented an ’05 Jeep Wrangler and set on our way across the island. When we rented the Jeep, the roof was not on, which led to some major problems upon our arrival at Pearl Harbour. When we went to put the roof on we noticed we had no clue what we were doing and no windows in the Jeep to boot. Crap! Anyways, we left the Jeep in the lot and checked out the USS Arizona Memorial and some of the other stuff at Pearl Harbour. From there, we got back in our not-all-there Jeep and headed to the Dole Plantation. The Dole Plantation is home to the world’s largest maze (we struggled even with a map. Thank God for those punk kids everywhere helping me cheat) and delicious pineapple ice cream. Following that, we took a scenic drive up to the North Shore and then down the eastern coast (Windward Oahu as it’s known to those in the know). It was a very beautiful drive until we got caught in some rain with the roof down. After half-assedly securing the roof, we then had the roof almost rip off of the Jeep as we held on for dear life in the rain. If one positive did come out of the rain storm, it was that we did see a Hawaiian rainbow and had some good laughs after it was all over. That night Miss Lou and I stayed in with our good friend Mr. Chardonnay and watched some television. Official Brent pass out time: 10:15pm. Shit’s weak.
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