Mahalo To All....

By Murph

I'm the lone gunner now, everybody else has officially left the island. I'd like to start this post with a story from this morning. I was out walking around and stopped to talk to an "Aloha Embassador", it was this young dude who's job was just to hook tourists up with information. I simply asked him, "What's something that's low key, and super cool that I could do for a day around here?". He looked at me, and said "What you should do is head up to the North Shore, that's the place to be this time of year". BEEN THERE DONE THAT! Anyway, I had a BLAST, and want to sincerely thank you all for making the trip, I hope everybody had as much fun as I did! It was the perfect (yet toxic..) mix of by bestest friends, and although that sounds Tony Romo-ish, it's true. I couldnt have asked for anything better, and it was great at how many things we got to do as a group, every minute (besides the "melding" of New Year's day...) seemed to be accounted for with something cool, be it a day trip to snorkel in Hanuama Bay, trips to Sunset Beach (WOW), barbeques and hangouts by the pool, day hike out to Ka'ena Point, Night out with the locals in Hale'iwa (thanks for driving home Jamie!), "family dinner" at Lei Lei's, morning of beaching and having lunch at Turtle Bay, hitting up a world famous shrimp truck (you can all f- yourself for wanting to stop earlier, ha!), getting some sick shaved ice in Hale'iwa (it sucks in Waikiki, how's your f'ing snow cone?), the limo ride/party on our way back from New Year's Eve, or last, but CERTAINLY not least, nights out at the Bay Club. I mean we got some serious sh!t in over the week, and I think I was laughing 60% of the time while awake, you guys are the best, it truly was unforgettable. The only thing I could have asked for was better weather, but that truly was out of our hands. Mahalo to all.

As for what's been going on in Waikiki- to be honest, not as "relaxing" as the North Shore. Everything is jammed packed with tourists, and I kind of lost that "vacaton vibe" a little bit. I was in such another world last week, it's almost stressful to be surrounded by people that arent "us". KJ, June, and myself ripped it up all over the place on Waikiki Beach on Saturday night, and caught a pretty cool sunset. Sunday we got up early to catch Wild Card football (8am!) from the room, and then hit a sports bar to catch the second game and the Celtics game. We then proceeded down to Duke's Canoe Club for a beach-side concert/party at the Barefoot bar. Good times....then something truly special, and amazing happened- KJ left to head back to Boston, best part of the trip thus far. Yesterday (Monday, I think...) June and I hit the beach, and walked around - we heard a street performer get a song request from someone passing by who didnt tip and just kept walking, the dude came out with a "Hey Man, that's SOOOO NOT Aloha to make a request and take off" (in a Keanu Reeves/Point Break accent), we popped. Later on when we were down on the beach I was walking around and heard some dude by a catamaran say out loud "stop drinking $9 Mai Tai's, open bar on this boat"....I thought I was hearing things. June went over to confirm and next thing you know I was in a light jog back to the room to get our wallets, because we were setting sail! It was awesome. It was a mobile party, and everybody was putting down bevs INCLUDING the entire staff...we were out there for an hour and a half, and when we got back we decided to "run-it-back" and hit the sunset cruise! There were some amazing views on that run, an absolute blast. The best part, $25 a head, and cruise two was only $20 because we got a "return rate", how's your value? After that we kept it pretty tight as June had to head out early today.

Today I walked a couple miles to a less crowded beach (I could count the people on one hand..), and there I chilled on the beach, it was gorgeous out, and started an Eric Clapton Autobiography that I've been wanting to read for over a year. On the walk back I caught a sick sunset off of Waikiki Beach, here's a few of the pics (notice the "three-pronged-rays" of sunlight above the sun in the clouds on the lower two pictures? They all look better through the photobucket I have set up, check them out there, details below...):

I'm going to head out for a couple nightcaps later on, but I'm pretty beat to say the least. Tomorrow I head out on a Sail/Snorkel tour that goes off on a catamaran, including flying fish, dolphins, and sea turtles- should be pretty sick. Thursday I'm heading on a sunrise hike to the top of Diamond Head, as well as an afternoon hike that gets me out to Manoa Falls (160 foot waterfall). Friday I'm gonna hit Pearl Harbor and chill on the beach. Saturday flying to Kauai where I'll be spending the next two weeks.

I have started a photobucket with the "good" pics I have so far....I have a slow internet connection so I can't put them ALL up, but this is a nice sample. I'll also get some vids up when I get a faster connection. Here's the link: http://photobucket.com/scottamurphy . I spoke with KJ before he left, he's got much better photos, and was looking to get everybody's photos together somewhere and "possibly", time permitting, creating a DVD "production" for the entire crew.

Lastly, here's a little video for all to see, just a little thank you, and for those of you that came down, an extra special thanks, with Aloha (best viewed with Audio):