ALOHA

After a few days of making a mad dash after work to Macys or Walmart or Sam’s we officially have a stocked kitchen. After an exciting weekend of exploring the island but foot or mass transit our car arrived today! Such a relief, I actually walked to work today because we forgot to get enough money out of the ATM for both of us to ride to and from work. It’s $2.50 each way each time and they don’t give change. So I just woke up extra early and walked the 2.2 miles to work. It was really a pleasant walk and I took my time and still got there in 40 minutes. 

On Saturday we woke up and walked up punchbowl, it’s the closest “mountain” to our apartment, probably 3/4 a mile away. At the top we expected to find the National cemetery of the Pacific (which we did) what we had not realized was that we’d also be getting such an amazing vantage point of Honolulu. There weren’t many people up there and the walk was really peaceful. There was a somberness to the whole place. There were thousands of graves and tributes to soldiers who’ve died, mostly during WWII. After that we hiked back down and got our things ready to go to Hanauma Bay. It’s a volcanic crater that the wall along the ocean collapsed and it’s now a really shallow bay. We got to swim with these amazing fish and even sea turtles. We’ll definitely be back there many times. John really enjoyed his first time snorkeling!

We had already decided that Sunday we’d go to church just down the street to see how we liked it. So we read on the sign the the english service started at 9am. When we walked up to the doors they handed John a church bulletin and then we both looked down and realized there wasn’t a word on the page we could read… It was all in Korean. They saw the confused look on both our faces, laughed and ushered us towards another small chapel. When we got inside we instantly felt as though we didn’t fit in. Not only were we the only Caucasians (we didn’t mind that part) we were the only people in the room over the age of 15!! They sent us to (what we assume was the only english service at the time) the middle school/ high school worship service. We couldn’t help but chuckle when they began with “We know you have all had long weeks and we know how difficult middle and high school can be, but let’s just put that aside….” Best part was that they gave us a goody bag of candy to thank of us for visiting their service. All that to say that it was a very welcoming church and right up our alley, If only we can find the young adults english class!

So as we start this new week, my second- John’s third week of work we look forward to what’s in store for us! Here’s my setup at the office…

And here’s the view out the windows at my desk.