Samstag, 10. November 2012

Bye USA, Mahalo! Hi New Zealand!!

Not long ago, I arrived in New Zealand and moved to my host family.




Looking Back
The time in the USA was just awesome!! :D


Short Story:
Friend and I rented a Van and drove from LA to SanFran, Yosemite, Las Vegas,
Grand Canyon, Arizona, San Diego and LA again.


 


Then we stayed a week in Hawaii at the Waikiki Beach.
Surfing is mind blowing :D I already miss it.
Besides the People and the Hostel were also great, and the rest of the Island too (and not that touristy and urban as Waikiki :P)


More Stories and Pictures will follow while I find time to write them at the language school here
and they will appear BEFORE this post as I will put it in correct order.


Greetings from New Zealand :D

Freitag, 9. November 2012

Hawaii


In short, Hawaii was probably the best nature experience so far (although closely followed by the grand canyon and sequoia national parks ;) ). Going to another, less crowded island
would definitely be awesome, especially to surf :D Below you find what I did, what I think about it and pics. Some stuff might be kind of extensive and i recommend to skip to the next section if you are bored :P

 
Surfing
The best sport I have done so far!
It is just addicting: The beauty of the water and riff,
the feeling of catching a wave; surfing; yet the steady risk of falling on the sharp riff.
In addition, you work out as you paddle like crazy and awesome people :)

 We surfed at the left side of the Waikiki beach - where it is not crowded :) but dangerous ;)
 the rocks are really like cliffs but just know what you are doing and fall on your board.





Housing
Again our hostel was amazing and even cheap :) the location was greate - 4 minutes walk to the beach to surf. Waikiki is beautiful yet touristic but we went to see the island as well.



Pearl Harbor
Although very touristic, Pearl Harbor is definitely worth a visit! You can catch the ferry for free to see the Arizona Memorial. It is basically the wrack of an old USA battleship which was
decided to be left in the water. What is more, even the bodies of the dead soldiers are still in the wrack which makes it really an impressive memorial. In addition, you see a movie and there are various museum available which tell you the story around Pearl Harbor. It tells everything
from the most likely motives of the Japanese, the destruction of the USA battleships and the revenge on the Japanese air craft carriers. However, the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not being mentioned... In my opinion, it is really important to remember - although sad - such events...




Nature
Hawaii is just an awesome island. Take for instance the diamond head crater (picture above).
Yet it is even scary that Honolulu became such a big town. Anyway, we went to the north shore
and east shore. Especially the north shore is know for huge (and for most people deadly) waves,
and wonderful beaches and landscapes are all over the place =) We were lucky to have met a brilliant Russian girl with crazy driving skills which led us to each destination fast and for sure wide awake :D




Donnerstag, 1. November 2012

Road Trip

Sorry a little bit late but finally :) some general impressions of the road trip at the westcoast of the usa in october.

In the house where the daughter of elvis presley used to live :) we were lucky to have met the awesome guy living there in a pub at venice beach in la :)

Burger in denny's :) our favourite place to park our van and sleep pay nothing ;P

The engine checklight for tire pressure lighted up... Luckly i saw the nail in the tire XD

Bacon! Favorite breakfast :D all the time in the national parks... Unfortunately no bear came (in yosemite national park) despite our excessive bacon consumption...

Awesome Santa Monica beach in la :)

Our epic van with surfer painting

I found 20 dollar yay XD

Carpark at malibu beach la :D

You see...

...the nail!

Cleaning tha big van :)

Morrow bay :)

Evil seaguls at morrow bay :)

Hippi style

Our awesome hostel in the college / party town san luis obispo :)

The windy road in san francisco (sanfran or sf). We drove down with our van, quite illegally ;)

Windy road

Japanese tea garden in sf XD