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#41

Here was my Hawaii trip for you all.

June 15: Packed up, left for airport, arrived at Kauai at 8:45, arrived at Condo at 10:00. Someone forgot to tell me Hawaii was very hot, even at night. Got settled in, greeted everyone that was still awake, slept.

June 16: Woke up at 6:00 AM, body not used to time changes. Walked with whole family for about 2 miles and back, chilaxed for a bit, swam in pool with cousins for a couple of hours (dunked one of my cousins every 2-5 minutes because she was so gullible, easy, and fun) Got shaved ice (i got graped-flavored ice with chocolate ice cream), ate barbeque, watched part one of a chinese war movie with family.

June 17: Woke up but did not walk. Just watched Deal or no Deal and CSI NY for a while untile everyone was ready. Went Kayaking, very hard work for my upperbody, especially my arms. Kayaked for a arduous 2 miles before arriving at a spot where my family and I ate lunch. Across the river was a rope swing and a 9-10 ft high cliff jump (flopped twice, did a 900 once). Played with my cousins. my twin bro just watched (he hates swimming and the water) Later, played in the pool. Got a serious sunburn on my shoulders. later, i swam in the pool with my cousins again, along with some other friends. Later that night, tried on my snorkel gear. Watched So you think you can Dance

June 18: Went to Poipu (if that is how you spell it) beach to snorkel. I haven’t snorkeled in years, so i swallowed about a liter or salt water before I got the hang of it. After an hour of snorkeling, I played in the sand with my cousins. We made our mini Grand Canyon, burried one person, and made another a sand-merman. Afterwards, i had myself another shaved ice (or snow cone). Later, I swam in the pool again with a few of my cousins while everyone else went shopping. Afterwards I Did nothing, didn’t leave the condo, but the rest of the family arrived. So i spent about 1-3 hours playing mario Party 8 with them. Watched So You Think You Can Dance

June 19: The absolute highlight of my trip, I went zip-lining. The idea sounded fun, but doing it was even funner. First off, before I got geared up, I had my first coffee ever (pure coffee, not fraps or caps,) My cousin’s girlfriend told me that some of the the best coffees come from Hawaii. After I got geared up, we traveled to the ranch where acres of cow farming, jungle, and zip-lining tracks all came together. Before we bagn, it began to pour 9really hard. no one told me that it rain so heavily in Hawaii). Anyways, the courses ranged from over 120 feet to over 1200 feet. While zip-lining, I looked all around and enjoyed the beautiful jungle-like scenery of Kauai. Tall trees, green plants, a calm, tranquil river, it was so beautiful. words can not describe it. Te ziplining was so fun. I went pretty fast, but since I am a skinny stick, I didn’t go at max. speed. After a few courses, we broke for lunch. We were taken to a secret spot where there was a waterfall, a 8 foot cliff for jumping, a 20 ft lake for swimming and raft tubes. I spent 1 hour of swimming before eating lunch. This was indeed the best day of the whole trip. Afterwards, I went swimming in the pool.

June 20-21: Nothing in particular except swim a lot. It was father’s day so every uncle and my grandpa got cards. And we all watched Mythbusters for hours. If you remember my sunburned shoulders? Well, they started to peel. Kinda gross, but that is what I remembered. Oh, and I made some cool new friends who live in Portland Oregon, my family and I watched part 2 of the Chinese war movie, my older cousins treated the youngs to ice cream, and I finished my latest music video.

June 22: While half of my cousins and my twin bro went to Waimea Canyon, the other half and I went snorkeling at Hanalei. The water was deeper, the fish were bigger and it was amazing. I got to feed the fish, but I think I held the fish food a little too close so a whole swarm of fish attacked me. It tickled and scared me at the same time. In addition, the rocks and coarl reef were very unforgiving as I cut my arms in 4 places and got a cut across the left side of my stomach. It stung a lot and bloos was dripping out. The tide came in fast and washed a lot of our stuff, including clothes, towels, shoes, even my ipod. Thankfully, my cousin helped fixed it for me. After snorkeling, I went and got another snow cone. However, when I took off my shirt because it was wet and itchy, everyone saw my peel got worse. After that I went swimming again, and had a poolside BBQ with my family. We spent the rest of the night watching TV.

June 23: The last full day. I went biking for a couple of miles and back. it was tiring but it was fun racing one of my cousins who plays high school football. I lost, but it was very close. I ran back to the condo so afterwards, my legs were feeling on fire. I spent the next 2-3 hours swimming with my cousins. Dinner that night was special. It was a feaast celebrating quite possibly the best vactation ever. TO conclude the night, I packed up my suitcase and treated all my cousins to ice cream.

June 24: The plane trip back. Fell asleep 3 times but the ride seemed shorter.

Well, I hope you all enjoyed my trip. I am dearly wishing I could go back next year. A message to my family: Mahaloha.

#42

Wow, that sounds awesome! I’d love to go to Hawaii someday. My dad actually went there on a business trip on monday, I think he left this morning to visit my sis in Michigan. I absolutely LOVE swimming, but I hate the sun. It’s a shame because I hate indoor pools. Go figure,… swimming outside at night is the best. :stuck_out_tongue:

It’s pretty awesome that you remembered so many details of the trip. I don’t get to travel that much, kind of a bummer, as I really wanna see a lot of places. :\

Thank for sharing TSS, sounds like you had a great time!

#43

I remember the details because it was the best vacation I have ever had. And no I ain’t exaggerating. I am for real when I say it. I had an incredible time there.

#44

Well, good. I wouldn’t doubt it. Hawaii looks gorgeous, and I hear that they’re really friendly there as well.

My best vacation was either my concert band’s trip to Disney World for a national band competition (my school’s jazz band actually won FIRST place. Concert band got about 4th or 5th, I believe) or my trip to Holiday World with my brother for our birthdays 2 years ago. Both trips were so awesome. I’m hoping to go back to Holiday World with my brother again this summer.

#45

I went to Disney World a year and a quarter ago for a national choir competition as well ffdude1906. My school also took 1st place. So I think it is the same thing going on there.

But my trip to Disney World with my Choir would rank 2nd on my all-time best vacations list.

#46

Yeah. Your school get one of those gold Mickey head trophies and one of those yellow and red thingys with the treble clef on it? I went in 07, so I think you went a year after (bummer, that’d have been really cool if we were both there). They held the awards ceremony at the theater where they did the car show, and did the colorguard competition.

It’s really cool to go back after like 10 years, there was so much amazing theming to the park I hadn’t noticed before. I never really got an atmosphere like that from any other park (and I’ve been to LOADS). It’s pretty magical actually, the work they put into everything is awesome.

I’m a huge thrill seeker, and Epcot was my favorite day! There were so many amazing things to see there. I bought a sake set from the Japan area (my favorite area, :stuck_out_tongue:) It’s a shame it’s so unpopular, it’s beautiful there.

#47

Can’t wait for college in two days!!!

Probably i’ll be busy a whole week next. So, you’ll get the catch. I’ll not be in the forum for a while. Yeah, i know, nobody will miss me.

– wannabechef91 - i am who i am.

#48

Oh wow, TSS, that sounds like the best holiday ever! I’m incredibly jealous, Hawaii is definitely a dream destination. And you have a very good memory! I like to keep a diary when I’m on holiday, but I’m sad. :laughing: Thanks for telling us about it and I’m glad you had a good time! :smiley:

#49

Oooh, I’ve never been to Canberra or Thredbo for that matter, thedriveintheatre. Did ya have fun?

Nice write-up, The Star Swordsman. Hawaii sounds very tropical and like there’s lots of things to do. I hope your sunburn is better now. =)

What’s at Thorpe Park, lizardgirl?

#50

Rachel- Thorpe Park is a rollercoaster park, so there are lots of big, scary rides. My favourite one is the rollercoaster that goes backwards. In the dark. :laughing:

#51

Which one? I know of like EVERY coaster in the U.S., my brother is humongous fanatic, he works at Cedar Point (pretty good park) and goes to like a different park once every 2 weeks. I don’t know if he’s been to Thorpe, it’s possible, but I haven’t heard about it.

#52

ffdude1906- I live in England. :laughing: It’s pretty good as rollercoaster parks go over here, probably the second best one in the country, but I doubt it’s anywhere near as big as the biggest ones in America.

#53

lizardgirl - Oh, we have one of those at Movie World, except it fits four people - the Scooby Doo coaster. That sounds like a lot of fun, though! Make sure to throw your hands up and make a goofy face when your picture gets taken. Weeeee!

#54

That’s a nice trip report, TSS. I’m sure parts of Hawaii (especially that zip-lining bit) reminded you of Nomanisan. :wink:

Yes, I most certainly did, Rachel. Thanks for asking! :smiley:

Well, I’m back, folks and in the words of Bill and Ted, I had a “most excellent adventure”!

We departed on an early train on Tuesday (we took Countrylink) to Canberra. The scenery was beautiful, the train passed through small towns and huge expanses of the outback, the desert setting reminded me of my U.S. trip along Arizona a few years ago, and some scenes from Cars. We spent a good half of the day on that train ride, and we checked into a hotel near the station. We then went to Canberra Centre, which is like the main mall in the city and did a little shopping before eating Indian food for dinner. Riding the public buses and taxis around Canberra reminded me a bit of Washington (although my impression is mostly from TV shows and movies, as I have never been there). Throughout our exploration of The Capital of Roundabouts, we actually realised the folks here were friendlier and nicer than in Sydney. Must be the ‘small-town’ hospitality.

On Wednesday, my siblings and I paid a trip to the most important building in the whole of Australia: Parliament House! We actually sat in the House of Representatives, and guess who we saw… that’s right! PM Rudd himself! We sat in the open air public viewing booth, and were within spitting distance of him (although I would advise against it, laugh out loud!) If you’re not interested in Australian politics, you might want to skip to the next paragraph. Anyway, in that one hour we spent in that chamber, they were discussing the Utegate scandal. Opposition as usual kept bringing the topic back to that E-mail, even if they knew by then it was fake. There was a bit of talking about the G8 summit and something about detention and immigration, but mostly they kept fudging about Ozcar. Watching them shout rebuttals and bicker reminded me of schoolboy arguments. Mr Rudd mostly looked frustrated and shook or nodded in response to the various speakers’ statements while Mr Swann was similarly quiet. There was an MP who kept pressing the Ozcar issue, not sure who he was. As for Mr Turnbull, we could only see the back of his head. Labor MP Anthony Albanese shoulda been a stand-up comedian, he kept ribbing the Coalition, referencing Mark Latham, and delivered a ‘zinger’ that went like: “There’s a fundamental rule of politics, if you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.” Or something like that. :laughing: Then we went to the House of Senate, and it was literally empty! There was the Deputy President listening to two lady MPs quarrel about the construction industry or something. After that, we walked down the Mall and popped into the Old Parliament House, followed by a jaunt to the Supreme Court and to the edge of a massive lake that overlooked the War Memorial. After a few photos, we returned to the hotel.

The next day we took a bus trip to Lake Crackenback, Snowy Mountains. Fantastic road trip, saw a couple of sheep and kangaroos, some copses of rocks and trees that reminded me of Lord of the Rings, and lots and lots of empty land stretching for miles around. It got better as we approached the mountain range, the bus stopped at a hotel opposite this gigantic lake at the base of the mountains, I don’t know its name. We stayed in this fantastic lodge that overlooked a miniature lake. Played a few holes of golf and a couple of shots of archery, all complimentary.

On Friday, we took a shuttle bus to the base of Perisher Blue, whereupon after we rented our ski equipment, took the tram to the skitube. After a morning’s lesson through Skiing 101 and a hearty lunch of spaghetti, my siblings and I dived off the deep end and actually tackled an entire ski route, Happy Valley. It was far from happy, though. We kept falling down (me mostly, due to my overconfidence) and there was one point we were at a sheer cliff face and we had to chicken out and remove our skis and walk on our boots down. After 45 minutes of hurtling down the slopes, getting our arms yanked out of sockets by the ski tows, and peeling our faces off the ice, we finally made our way back to the tram to take us down again. We fed ducks in the evening, and watched the evening news, whereupon we learned of MJ and Fawcetts’ passing.

Yesterday, we took the tour bus back to the train station and sat on the train home. We arrived back in Sydney at 9:15 pm, and went straight to bed after reaching home.

And that’s how my Canberra/Perisher Blue (I mistook the latter for Thredbo) went. :wink:

#55

Rachel- Haha, not so sure about that, despite how much I enjoy going to Thorpe Park I’m not great on rollercoasters so I’ll just be trying not to be sick. :laughing:

Sounds like you had a really good time, thedriveintheatre! That’s amazing that you actually got to see the Prime Minister of Australia himself. I don’t know much about the politics side of things, but clearly he’s a very important person. :laughing:

Haha, Lake Crackenback. That’s a very interesting name. :laughing:

And skiing sounds like fun, though very difficult. I’d be very scared at the cliff-edge, especially if you feel like you’re not in control of your skis.

#56

lizardgirl, thedriveintheatre, I got to go skiing in Alaska during spring break. I’m really not into sports or athletic activities, but snow skiing is one of the FUNNEST things I’ve done in my life. It’s pretty tiring, but wow. I LOVE it. Alaska was really beautiful, but everything is like 30 miles apart, we spent most of the time in the car, and a most of the towns are really small. Anchorage is only about the size of a large suburban town, or a big city’s downtown. Skiing was the best part, by FAR.

Sounds like you had a great time thedriveintheatre! What was your favorite part of the trip? I’d like to go to Australia someday, seems like a great place.