Hawaii: Damn It's Hot!

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JASC
Pre-departure
Kyoto pt.1
Hiroshima/Miyajima
Kyoto pt.2
Sapporo
Tokyo
The Journey Home

The plane touched down and I had to wait for almost everybody else to disembark from the plane (I got stuck in the back of the plane btw). The first thing that I noticed after stepping off the plane was that it was a bit too hot out for my tastes. I live in CT so I don't really have to deal with this tropical weather stuff. Add onto this the fact that I'm dead tired from being stuck on a plane for 10 plus hours and not getting much sleep. So I looked around the airport, which is quite nice I must add, I had no idea where the hell to go. Supposedly there was another JASCer on the plane, but I had no idea who it was until later. So I followed the line of people that were heading to the baggage claim hoping that I was doing the right thing. Luckily, once I got to the baggage claim I was greeted by Wright an AEC, and I was told that we were going to be waiting for a few more people. For simplicities sake, I'll get some JASC lingo out of the way. AEC is for the American Executive Committee, and JEC is for the Japanese Execu...well you get the idea.

I never knew how nerve racking it could be waiting for your luggage to appear at the baggage claim either. I was quite relieved to find out that the airline hadn't lost my bags =). After a bit, there were a bunch of us that had gathered with the AEC's that met us (Wright and Nancy I think), we all hopped onto a school shuttle and headed out to our lodgings at Hawaii Pacific University. HPU was on the leeward side of the island so there was a lot of rain, and the temperature was very mild, much more to my liking.

I was so tired by the time that we got to HPU that once I found out where I was going to be sleeping, I made a quick call home, and promptly passed out for a few hours.

I woke up and took a shower so that I wouldn't knock everybody out with bad BO. The first few hours of being at HPU were kind of odd but I quickly found out that I had nothing to worry about. The first person that I met after my nap was Colin, who was now suffering from a bit of sunburn. After a quick intro I made my way to the lounge area where other people were gathering. I'm usually a very reserved person around people that I don't know and this was no exception. However, this did change rather quickly once I found out how friendly and easygoing everybody was.

Enough of the background information for now. We did a few things while we were in Hawaii and I feel that they are worth more attention than my personal reflections are. I had my camera with me most of time, so I have photographs that I'm using to help recall my journey.

Being part of the Mutual Security Treaty table, it only made sense that we were going to be visiting some military bases and what not. And go we did. We went to a naval base/air force base (I can't really remember, if somebody could refresh my memory that would be great); we took a submarine tour on the U.S.S. Louisville, which was very interesting. I also discovered that I never want to go on a submarine on a semi-permanent basis. During the base tour we were also invited to have lunch there. The rest of day passed by uneventfully, I guess, it was kind of hot and as I've mentioned before, I'm a colder weather type of person. After the base we ventured into downtown Honolulu, and people ventured every which way. I wound up walking around with Larry, Beatrice, Holly and John. I remember we went to a Mexican place for dinner and then continued further into the city. We eventually wound up on Waikiki Beach at night and saw some people still swimming. I found this odd, but they have rather large spotlights to keep some areas of the water lit. I'll put pictures up once they get scanned in.

We were also invited to the residence of the Consul General of Japan in Hawaii for a brunch type deal and we all were able to socialize with some important people, my first experience in such affairs. I guess that helps to explain why I didn't know what to do.

The day finally came when we were ready to head out for Japan. We all loaded up into some school buses and headed back to the airport. Traveling in a big group can't possibly be easy to manage and I must commend the AEC for getting all of us onto the plane without any major issues (at least that I knew of). We took a Korean Air flight, which I must say was far superior to my flight from Newark. I have pictures of some people goofing around on the flight, good thing we were in the back of the plane, but once again I need a scanner to upload them to the site, I promise it will be done in the future.

We were finally on our way to Japan, via a quick stop over in Seoul to change planes.

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