Today is going to be the longest day of my life, legitimately. I’ll get into that after I talk about yesterday first.
On Tuesday the plan was to go Ziplining at Jungle Flight. William (from Florida) and his friend Mischa (from SF) were going to go with me on the trip. I was also able to convince Jewels, from the icing battle the night before, to come along. She decided she would join and hope that she would get back in time to make her flight down to the islands in the afternoon. On the van ride there, we all met Katherine and David, 2 pharmacists who happen to live just outside of Detroit. They were in our group while we were zip lining so it was interesting to hear their take on pharmacy, versus what my Dad has echoed throughout the years. When we arrived at Jungle Flight, we were outfitted by the guides with safety hooks and harnesses. I was going to wear my Go Pro camera on my chest, but they told me they could give me a helmet with the mount on it and it would work way better. Once we got going there were 34 zip lines in all. One was a “roller coaster” because it had a solid metal track that would allow for big curves and turns. The coolest part was probably the 1 km long line that sent you through the trees and into this open valley with mountains off in the distance. It was incredible! There was one part at the end which was very scary. We had completed all of our zip lines and now we were just repelling down about 200 feet to get back to the ground. They hook you into this pulley system and the pulley restricts how fast you can drop, way too slow actually. So he hooks me in and he mumbles some words, I take those mumbles as him saying “go”, so I step off with one foot and before my second foot leaves the edge of the platform, I hear “NO NO NO NO GET BACK GET BACK!!!” In that moment, time really slowed down. I was thinking to myself that I knew he hooked me in, so that couldn’t be it. I could not figure out why, but I spun myself around still with my toes of one foot on the platform and pull myself back up to the platform. There was nervous laughter all around and I think what happened was that I went too early and there was slack in the line, so worst case is that I would have fallen 25 feet and then the harness would jolt and then I would continue on my slow descent. I made it down safely the second time, but man did that first event seem like it was 15 seconds that I was dangling there parallel with the ground. In reality, (and my video shows) that it was over in like 3 seconds. CRAZY FUN THOUGH! Afterward, lunch was provided. Of course I got iced by Jewels again and have to drink the nasty warm Smirnoff Ice.
Once we got back, I went and found dinner with Tyler and we had made plans with Stamps hostel to go to a pool party in the evening. Right as everyone is getting ready to go, the rains roll in. We end up just going back out to the usual bars and this time Katherine and David from zip lining decided to join us. We taught them about the art of icing other people and they wanted to give it a try. Most of the time they did not quite get right, but it's the effort that counts. We stayed out pretty late even though I knew I had to get up early to start heading to Hawaii, but I wanted to spend time with all of my new friends before I had to head for the US.
Wednesday, today was the absolute longest day of my life. My Wednesday May 31, 2017 was 41 hours long. I packed up my belongings in the morning and noticed I had a small bump on the side of my left leg. It looked like a zit or ingrown hair of some sort, so I didn’t think much of it, popped it, and was on my way to the Chiang Mai airport. I flew from Chiang Mai to Bangkok, I had a short delay leaving Chiang Mai but I had plenty of time until my Bangkok flight. In Bangkok I hung out in the fancy airport lounge for a while. My travel credit card allows me entries into those types of lounges for free. I was then ready to head to my gate, but of course I read the board wrong and went to the wrong gate. I found another plane that was flying from Bangkok to Taipei. I hustled over to the correct gate, but I see it is delayed by about 30 minutes. This gave me big concern because I figured catching my Taipei to Hawaii flight would be difficult. They assured me I would be fine, but I really did not want to catch that last leg. It is on this plane that I see my leg starting to swell a bit around where I had that ingrown hair. I hustle to my gate in Taipei but see that this is delayed an hour, so I now take my time and have plenty of time go get to the gate. We finally took off for Hawaii after a 2 hour delay, with the second hour sitting on the plane. I think there were other planes landing late that they were holding for before we left. I only slept about 5 hours on the flight as my leg was sore now and the foot was starting to swell.
I finally get to Hawaii and the place is absolutely gorgeous. What is better and strange is that I left Bangkok at 5 pm on Wednesday the 31st. I landed in Hawaii at 4 pm Wednesday the 31st. I found a way to make up for lost time. I was originally supposed to hang out with my friend Jeremy Heimke who is stationed Honolulu for the Navy. When I told him about my plans he said that I could come stay and he could take some work off. I received a text from Jeremy a few days earlier saying that he was going to be deployed with his submarine and he would no longer be in town when I was visiting. Obviously this is a bummer, but it worked out because I called my buddy Tommy and he said he would join me since the housing is covered. Tommy beat me to the apartment and apparently he had some issues with getting the door with the key. The apartment is beautiful and the view is even better.
We decided to go to Side Street Inn, which was walkable from the apartment. I got chicken fingers and ranch and fries. I have not had that stuff in so long, it was wonderful. After dinner we went to a local bar called Suzy Wong’s. We met Patrick the bartender and he and other locals were giving us ideas of things to do on the island. Patrick said he would join us for a hike on Friday, he just needed some things on his schedule moved. We then left for a beach bar, but that was slowing way down by the time we got there. Hawaii has been super fun the first half day I have been here. There are far too many things to do and it is impossible to see them all on the short 5 day trip. I guess I will need to come back.
Aloha...
