emesdea's world

Four years ago this month, I had a blast experience traveling to Hawaii. Yesssss, Hawaii baby. Never in my wildest dream that I dreamt of Hawaii. I just saw movies about this island, Pearl Harbor for instance, or some Hawaii Five-O. I never put Hawaii as place I want to visit.

So, why did I go there? That's because I got the opportunity from my office to attend centennial celebration of my company in Hawaii. Well, honestly, it's not an easy road to get there.

First, I had to apply for American Visa. Though Hawaii is located far away from the US, it's still one of its states.

Secondly, we had to transit in Seoul for almost a day before catching our flight to Honolulu. It's winter, folks! It meant I packed my winter clothes and also brought clothes for the tropical island. Packing for two different weather was both confusing and tiring experience.

But, all was paid off after we arrived in Seoul. Due our flight to Honolulu was at night, we took a day tour in Seoul. Oh yeah, we visited certain interesting places in Seoul. I know, I know, it was four years ago, I forgot names of places we'd visited. Sorry.

How about I give you some photos?

Hangul Founder, taken from the car.

First place we visited. I forgot the temple's name. It was so cold and I started to shiver.

Some people prayed by circling this pagoda

The tour guide said that if you want to have a child, you can tap and stroke this statue. The shape looks like man genital.

Inside the Museum National of Korea. Please bear with my pose.

I forgot where exactly this place was. But I remember, the tour guide once said that usually this place was used as a summer palace.

Please bear with me once again.

The throne always has this picture in the background. Mountain, sun and the moon.

We were lucky enough to see the procession of guards' exchange. Well, they're not the real guards as the palace was not used as palace anymore and no royal families lived there.

Another throne with the typical background.

Cheonggyecheon Stream

The stream was so clean and it's so good to bask and enjoy the day by just sitting there.

Finally, we were off to the airport and took our flight to Honolulu, Hawaii.

Honolulu airport was like well, Cengkareng airport, but with the bigger size.

Finally arrived in Honolulu. Hmmm yeah, they gave us flower necklace.

The traffic.

To enjoy the day before the convention, we took a trip to Pearl Harbor. The ticket included the bus ride free for two days.

Memorial wall inside the battleship Missouri Memorial.

The oil still comes out of this tank from decades ago up until now. The locals believe that it was the tears of the dead soldiers.

Errr.. I saw a strange young man whose body was covered with tattoes. I just can't resist myself to take picture with him. And he was so sweet...

Shops on the street near our hotel in Waikiki.

You can hop on and hop off using this bus.

One afternoon, we were waiting for our bus with some other tourists. When the bus arrived, other tourists complained to the bus driver because the bus was late and we had to wait for an uncertainty of time. And did you believe what the bus driver said? He gave them his hand and gave the sign with pointed thumb and little finger while his other fingers bend inwards. That was the sign of Hang Loose, means that you need to chill out. Relax...
And he said with a very relaxed gesture,"Hang loose man. This is Hawaii. You need to relax..."
I can feel him and couldn't hide my smile when I saw the tourists were so perplexed with his response.

The view from our hotel room.

There are still so many memories and stories from this journey. I will tell you some other time, okay.