24 Months

Amazing but true, as of today we've been in Hawaii for two full years.

I think it feels even longer than two years. We live pretty full lives here and as I reflect back on all we've done and seen, it hard to believe it all fit into 24 short months.

For kicks I thought it'd be fun to summarize the last two years in sets of two. Let's see how it goes...

• Two one-way tickets from Oakland to Honolulu
• Two suitcases each
  
• Two apartments to choose from
  
• Two weeks and then two job offers
• Two cheap cars to obsessively debate between
  
• Two jobs and the tourist mode abruptly ends
• Just the two of us hanging out a lot and exploring our new home
• Two new friends on the recommendation of our mainland friends - Gordon and EdandKimberly (they counted as one)
• Two purchases of snorkeling gear
• Two microwaves (one just stopped working)
• Two rattan chairs that Bryan worked magic on to stuff them in our car
• Two orchid plants that have never bloomed again
• Two sulus purchased in Fiji
• Two near-breakdowns caused by cockroaches
• Two trips to Hilo for Bryan (oops, three!)
  
• Two families that love us enough to visit
• Two friends that visit - Carolyn and LauraandDan (they count as one too, at least for this list)
• Two work karaoke nights (oops, there were actually three!)
  
• Two paddling seasons
• Two Molokai races
• Two basketball teams
• Two softball seasons
• Two birthdays each
• Two Thanksgivings and two Christmases together
• Two rooftop BBQ parties
• Two Halloweens with awesome costumes
• Two UH games, two new UH superfans
• Two pairs of shoes with shiny jewels
  
• Too many trips to the beach, swims, sunburns, papayas, poke meals, to count.
• Two haoles at home in Honolulu.
  

Also, for those keeping track, today also signifies exactly five years since we first met.

It's a Small Town

On Friday I joined a few friends for a few drinks at two select parties downtown. A good time was had by all and in the span of three hours I ran into roughly 25% of the people I know in Hawaii.

I saw a friend of a friend who I had met once or twice.
I recognized a girl and her husband from a party we attended around this time last year in Lanikai.
I ran into my yoga teacher, cheek-kissed hello and introduced him to my friends.
We chatted it up with a friend's roommate named Chip.
I spotted a guy I met floating through the ocean during Flotilla.

Then we changed venues to go to an ad party. And there, I encountered half of our men's paddling team. Plus an old co-worker or two.

Needless to say, I felt popular and very in it. Yay!

Like Sand Through the Hourglass

Yesterday marked 18 months of living in Hawaii, and of Bryan and I living together. 18 months is a pretty significant amount of time. It feels like it flew by. Like maybe it should be 11 months or 15 months. But not 18!

I remember last year around this time when Laura reminded me we'd been in Hawaii for six months. Blew my mind! I couldn't believe it was six months already. And then in two blinks of an eye, it's 18 months. Makes me wonder if soon it will be 36 months, or seven years. I feel like anything could happen at this point.

After 18 months, not many things feel new. We tend to do things we've done before, and have experiences we've had before. Frankly, I think it's making this blog boring. And it's making life feel 'normal'.

Rather than reflect back on the last 18 months, I think it's better to look forward. The other day we were talking about all the things we'd like to do before we leave Hawaii.

Learn hula. Hike more. Travel to Asia. Get certified in SCUBA. Snorkel more. Actually use the surfboard I bought. Do the Road to Hana. Visit Tutu more. Camp more. Movies on the Beach. Crazy sushi place. Golf. Kahuku Shrimp. Swim with the dolphins. Napali Coast.

In It

On Friday I met some friends for an evening boat right. Our normal sailboat had engine problems so we moved on over to a friend of a friend's yacht. Soooo nice! A wonderful night of wine and good friends.

On Saturday morning I met a friend for surfing. So awesome! We had a blast and I'm now completely comitted to taking up the sport. I'm planning to buy my friend Kate's board when she leaves the island.

This is what I wanted out of living in Hawaii. Ocean, fun, friends, new experiences. It's all sort of clicked lately. I feel like I'm 100% in the experience.

We're Official

We've signed a lease, accepted jobs, bought the car, the slippahs, massive amounts of sunscreen and a few months worth of bus passes. But it wasn't until today that we became official residents of Hawaii. This morning we got our Hawaii driver licenses! And not bad pictures at all. Hooray for us!

Who's Crazy

Hey everybody,

We had a silly day on Saturday. After our first week of work it was nice to feel a little separation between work days and the weekend and combining this with about a month of solid rain here-we were feeling in a silly mood (see exhibit-A: Jenni in box and exhibit B: My chop-stick faux pas dropped egg roll that bounced off the chair onto the floor).

After working on getting some blinds installed here and checking out a interior designer's boutique garage sale, we went for a swim in the lagoon in front of the Ala Moana mall. It was a little cooler than we were hoping but it was nice to get into the water. The rain started up again so we grabbed some Vietnameese coffees and some Pho soup and watched 3 old episodes of Grays Anatomy. It may not have been anything too wild, but it was a good day.

Later,

Bryan

New Jobs in gear

Hey,

Hope all is going well out there for everybody. I really enjoyed the birthday salutes as I join the 30-30 club. Jenni and I both started work yesterday. My job's going well and Jenni is getting used to her work environment-hopefully it will be going well soon. It's really wierd and cool that we ride the same bus to work and work 2 blocks apart. Today's grilled dish from the roof deck was swordfish.

Andy and Jason I owe you each a beer

Peace,

Bryan
Also a famous chef

Hitting the waves-literally

After noticing the fun Jenni was having in the outrigger canoes-Bryan decided to give it a try. It wasn't easy considering it is a sport based on core and upper body strength and rhythm but when they hit the waves and saw a little Hawaii sunset action-he knew it was a good thing.

We have found a car!! It wasn't easy, between hard negotiators, no-shows and just plain oddballs we met through the classifieds and Craigslist we think we have a winner of a car. Tomorrow it's ours. Special thanks but no thanks to the lady with the crusty Terecel that does inspirational speeches and swims with dolphins.

Sometimes between the hard decisions like choosing jobs, appartments, garage sales, and furniture sales we have found inspiration in the words a nice lady working at Subway said "you cannot worry about making the wrong decision-you just have to make the best one you can with what you know."

Jobs, Car Shopping, Taking up Sports and Making Friends

Hey there, so it's been a while since we last posted. We've been BUSY! Hard to even say what we've been busy doing...feels like everything all at once.

Bryan had a few days of freelance work last week with a really cool design firm. And then he got a full time job offer from them! He's really excited about it and they seem like very good people to work for. Jenni also got a full time job offer that she accepted but is a little less excited to jump back into the working world. More work details to come once we're actually in the jobs...

Jenni's more excited about her new sport - outrigger canoeing (see pic). She had her first practice today and loved it although is worried she's no good at all. Oh well, it's fun and it's good for you! Plus, it's a good way to meet new friends.

Leave it to two San Franciscans to make friends over Craigslist... so far we met Vincent and his partner (his word, not ours) Theresa when we bought their couch on Craigslist and got the low down on Yoga in the Park that happens every Wednesday. And Mike sold us his desk and was nice enough to deliver it for us. Jenni met Julie, a recent arrival from Texas and catering manager at a hot restaurant downtown, when checking her ad for furniture. It's like a bonus system: buy Craigslist furniture, get a new friend. Actually, everyone we've met here has been incredibly nice and friendly. It's probably the best thing about being out there. That, and wearing flip flops 24/7.

We're also car shopping. A completely exhausting experience. We've narrowed it down to two cars - a Mazda and a Honda - both silver. Bryan has done most of the work and spent the morning with the mechanic as he did the once-over on the Mazda. If we can swing it, he'll be checking out the Honda tomorrow and then we'll make our choice. The Mazda once lived in the Sunset in SF and still has its parking permit on the bumper. It would be pretty fitting for us to end up with a car that understands our SF driving.

We're temporarily out of a camera (long story) so you have the excuse the generic image above and the lack of pictures of us. But if we had a camera we would share pics of two of our highlights of the week: grilling teryaki chicken on our roof deck and our night out at the cool jazz club our neighbor plays in - it feels very Manhattan or Chicago.

Have we mentioned it has rained every single day that we've been here? It must be some sort of record! We still have our San Francisco non-tans and must stand out as newbies everywhere we go.

Living in an empty apartment isn't fun.

Without any furniture or cooking supplies we've settled into an interesting life that's sort of like camping. We sit on bed pillows on the floor trying to find an available wireless signal to communicate and entertain us. Mostly we watch Sex and the City DVDs (thanks Kim!). And we snack on items that require no real silverware or heat. It was fun and silly at first and is now pretty exhausting. We hope it's one of those situations we laugh about in a few months.

Since we don't have paychecks yet we're hitting the garage sales hard. It's awesome when you get a good find and trying when you can't find a decent piece of furniture anywhere! We did score a microwave and hit Wal-Mart for some life basics. Hate to admit it but Wal-Mart is a godsend!

Tomorrow we're getting our wireless access. It feels like Christmas!

And things are pretty good on the job front. We both have verbal job offers. Neither of them pay great but who needs money when you live near the beach?

Hope everyone is doing well. We'll try to update more frequently once our internet is up and running.

We're in... an empty apartment

Ah Yes, we're finally in.

Check out our fat pad. It took some hard work and time sweating out the legal ease with the property manager but we are finally set up. We also now have a lux bed that the lady said would work - it was hard getting that fine line between low cash and plush enough so you can sleep at night. Check out out pad pics (and the roof deck-yea!). Try to imagine these rooms full of wonderful stuff because tomorrow we are hitting the negotiating table with the Saturday garage sales. Winner take all - or all that our puny Dodge Neon rental with squeaky brakes can carry.

Virtual Tour:
Pic #1 View from our front door (living room and enclose lanai - we like to call it the 'cubby').
Pic #2 View of the corner of our room from the door. Uh yeah, it's a small room. But look at the view!
Pic #3 That's Diamond Head folks! View from our lanai cubby.
Pic #4 Roof deck! Roof deck! Again, with Diamond Head...
Pic #5 Roof deck the other direction. With community furniture and BBQ we plan to use to the fullest

Now we're official!

After checking out more than 12 apartments and "cute" cottages - some under the freeway, some with stained carpet and one in a neighborhood we were strongly warned to stay away from, we found our Hawaiian home. It's a small but very clean apartment with a fabulous view and a kick-ass roof deck with a 360 view of Honolulu. Now, don't you want to visit?

To celebrate the signing of our lease, we went to a really good brewery restaurant with live music called Brew Moon. Bryan got to chatting with the musicians and was asked to join them on stage for a song of his choice. The crowd loved it and now we feel like we have six new Hawaiian musician friends. Check him out, he's in the center in the white shirt and white skin. :)

Next up after the lease signing was bed shopping. No fun. Somehow, it was even more stressful than apartment hunting. After years of fairly crappy beds in San Francisco, how are we suppose to know what we like in a new bed? We hit up four stores including trusty Costco (see pic for Bryan catching z's in the aisle). We probably tried out 15 of them and finally chose the best one that would be available tomorrow when we move it. According to the sales lady, we'll love it. We'll see.

Finally, we took some time to play tourists. The weather sucks, all relative, of course. We took advantage of the cooler temps and wind to climb Diamond Head. From the top, you get a really good view of Honolulu.

Tomorrow morning we officially get to move in so we'll send pictures once we're in there with our one piece of furniture - our bed.

Hawaii 5(days), Oh!

So we're been here like 5 days now, or maybe it's 4, we can't keep track. We've spent most of our time flipping through the paper or on Craigslist searching for apartments and jobs. It's a bit sad considering we're just steps from Waikiki. But, it looks like all our hard work has paid off because we have found two apartments that want us! We've been driving ourselves crazy trying to determine which is better than the other and we think we've made up our minds. More details to follow after we sign the lease tomorrow.

Other 5-day highlights include a movie on the beach last night. See the picture to get the idea. We dug ourselves a little seat, threw down our towels and took in the show. Not bad at all... We also found what I will from now on call "little Berkeley." It's a natural foods store and deli. I was psyched to find a deli but then bummed to learn that they only offer mock meat. Let me repeat, MOCK MEAT! Ick. But we ate it anyway. Mock turkey and mock chicken salad.

It's raining today but tomorrow we're meeting Brian (Jenni's brother) and will probably hit the beach. We need to start living the Hawaii life! And building our tans!

We made it!

With six bags each weighing the maximum 50 lbs., we made it to Honolulu. Overall, a very easy trip. It feels good to be here.

It was hard to say goodbye to all our friends in San Francisco. Thank you to everyone who joined us for our going away party. It was a fabulous evening and we have the Polaroids to prove it. It's great to know we have such wonderful people to visit when we make it back to the Bay Area.

And of course, you have us to visit here! Today we checked out apartments looking for one that might be suitable for visitors. Among some of the good ones, we came across this one literally under the freeway. Uh, yeah, we're not going to take it. We'll keep looking...

Pictures:
Us with our leis minutes apon arriving (Jenni's brother met us at the airport, a very nice surprise)
Bryan considering the house under the freeway