aloha report, v2.0

aloha. today was spent with momma and poppa choi, snorkeling and then lounging at tunnels beach: yesterday was spent with my dad puttering in his garden like this: admiring the baby papaya tree and his pepper plants! then around sunset, i went for a walk: and ended up at the beach: happy like this:

thankfully, the rocky beginning of this trip was no indication of how the trip itself would go. Y's birthday party was splendiferous in every which way, except for in the morning after, which is when i overslept, didn't pack, ended up throwing flipflops and three bikinis into a rolling bag, and then got into a car for 15-plus hours of traveling while still unshowered and painfully hungover. and when i say painfully .... i mean painfully. i mean wondering how much tel aviv was going to charge me when i booted in the backseat of the lincoln town car hungover. i mean thinking i might cry if the security guys made me wait for one more second before i got to sit down hungover. i mean wishing i were dead hungover.

it was not very aloha.

but, upon landing, finally, in lihue, all icky feelings were washed away. my parents and a bunch of their friends whisked me away to kintaro, a fantastic sushi joint, so i ate all manner of delicious fish surrounded by happy korean people, all of whom were exclaiming just how BIG i was! for the record, i was the same height as all the men and had anywhere between 4 and 6 inches and up to 30 pounds on the women.

things have continued to get more aloha since then. i've spent my days putzing around the house, either reading or sunbathing out on the lanais—i actually chase the sun from the east side of the house, when i read on the lanai off of the downstairs kitchen, to the west side, when i read off of the upstairs living room—admiring my dad's garden, overeating my mom's food, and making little walks to the neighborhood store, neighborhood pool, or one of two neighborhood beaches. my second day here i had a deep tissue massage that was so relaxing, i swear i started hallucinating. since arriving on island, i've eaten approximately 12 tons of grapefruit, 6 tons of pineapple, 4 tons of kimchi, and today, 2 tons of kahlua pig from the mixed plate food stand in hanalei.

mmm. kahlua pig.

it's 9pm and time for me to go to bed. i'm sleepy and my skin's hot all over. i've been vigilant about the sunscreen but snorkeling today did me in — i'm a little pink on my arms and tummy and back. and i actually have a tan line on my back of the knot in my bikini! the knot! good lord. talk about a winner of a line. but. eh. this is what happens when one spends a morning on her stomach swimming in a reef with tropical fish. things could be worse.

status check, four days into vacation:
sunburn — medium
freckles — extremely high
tummy — full
mana — strong

until next time ... aloha!