so I'm like a monkey stand right now
Good afternoon people. I'm finally outside of
my hotel quarantine and now I'm in Waikiki Beach in Honolulu. So I wanted to
do a little bit of an intro to give you context on what's been happening and
give you the backdrop needed to make this video more authentic. So when this
pandemic started I was in LA for two months, pretty much by myself in an
apartment and as someone who's used to going out a lot and meeting a lot of
people on the daily or weekly basis, that was kind of weird. The whole time I was
in LA, I was trying to figure out where can I go to find some sense of
normalcy. Hawaii seemed to be a safe spot They had this quarantine program in
place where I could come in and make sure I'm not bringing it with me and then I called in
some hostels and they told me what I was hoping to hear, which was that there are
some people or travelers stuck in hostels. So (I) came here, did the whole hotel
quarantine, went to a first hostel which is a little bit of a janky one but it
was cheaper and I just tried it out for a couple of days and it wasn't too bad
It was an interesting place. The fans weren't working. At one point we had to
put a Dumble, use my hair ties and a bunch of other things to get a fan
working without smacking the thing that's supposed to stop it. So yeah that
was interesting not really a social place. Then I tried the second hostel
which I'm at right now which is usually apparently the hostel to be at, but as
soon as I got here I realized that there was only one other person in the dorm. He
wasn't a traveler either. He just got here using a stimulus check and was
trying to find a job and whatnot and I met a couple of other people that are
mostly volunteers who got stuck traveling and they seem like very nice
people but it's not really been easy to hang out with anyone
so you know despite what I expected, I haven't been really able to hang out
with people I guess that I would call friends for a couple of months now and
that's been a little bit weird and I know a lot of people, millions of people
billions of people have it worse right now because they don't have security for
food. So many people don't have shelter So many people are sick from the
pandemic. Hell my my uncle who co-signed my students loans for college was in the
hospital in New York for a week. My mom's sister is sick right now as I'm making
this video. She's feeling better but whatever yeah people are sick people
have immediate family members that are sick and they have a lot worse problems
and I'm glad I don't have those problems but it's it's still weird. it's still..
very weird not.. For me it is very weird not being able to go out and, I don't
know, give people, give a friend a hug or something like that. Yeah I don't think I've hugged
anyone for three months. That's a very much first world problems but it is weird
and yesterday I was feeling especially weird for some reason and it was just.. I
don't know. It just made me really sad for a second and then I sort of talked
to my family who are there for me always, and started journaling which is what I
usually do when I'm having a rough patch I try to think it out. So then I just
started thinking about what do I usually do that makes me happy outside of
socializing you know, and video editing is actually one of my favorite hobbies
that I can get lost in. I think that really helped me through a big part of
the quarantine so far is I had a lot of videos to edit. I think the best way for
me to go forward is trying to go out and make a video and the reason I haven't
filmed anything in the last week out here so far is because
there hasn't really been any content to film. A lot of the national parks and
whatnot are closed and I don't want to really take an uber out to go somewhere
and hike where you're not supposed to go hiking by yourself anyways. I was
planning initially on making some surfing videos but when I came here the
currents have just been so ridiculously strong for the last couple of days like
every day there are warning saying: if you don't know what you're doing don't go
out there
and I see these big waves and I'm like, yeah I would definitely die if my leash
came off. But today I think I'm gonna go out to Waikiki try body boarding because
that's a little bit safer I think I might have found someone who's gonna go
body boarding with me to make sure that I don't drown.
You strap that on the board? On me. It's like a bra
Hey. This is Gavin, also from California. He's from my hostel
we haven't even started and the leash just came off. I guess we go back to the
hostel which is thankfully 5 minutes away and get another board
so I've been waiting for like 20 minutes for Gavin to come back with a new board and he's
not coming back these waves do look super scary but I
think I might just stay near the shallow end. Probably not gonna drown
so that was a) a lot of fun and b) very difficult especially with the GoPro on. So I
went back home and looked at the footage on my computer and that looked terrible
so I'm gonna go out there and show you guys what bodyboarding should look like
I'm gonna head to what's probably my favorite spot in Waikiki so far from the
little that I've seen
okay so quarantine or no quarantine Waikiki has to have some of the
prettiest sunsets I've ever seen and something really cool just happened
I was walking past the beach and found this really cute Golden Retriever named
Jasper and the owners let me play fetch with him for a little bit
So I'd say overall today was a big success, because first off I am not
as afraid of the waves as I was six hours ago
because I learned that they're somewhat manageable if you have a boogie board I
guess and number two, the guy from the hostel named Gavin. Well I never found him
when I was boogie boarding but turns out he has a car and he likes to go on hikes
so tomorrow we're going to the Koko Crater hike
okay, so shoes check, knee braces check, dirty shirt that I'm going to take off
the moment I start sweating check, and I'm ready to take on vlog day 2 and the
Koko Crater hike
we think it's finally legal to go up there
yeah the number of cars suggests that it is probably yeah. Okay so we're the base
of the Koko Head hike and this is basically an outpost from World War two
on top of this little hill and they built these rail tracks back during
World War Two to get cargo up to the top and then it got abandoned so now people
climb those steps. Oops almost tripping
that is a BMX track. It's a bunch of Wildcats that apparently I'm not
supposed to pet because yeah they kind of look angry. If you're coming here do
not approach cats even if they look like they're very pettable. no do not uh.. I
don't know if pettable is a word. Okay do not try to go around the property
because there's a gun range here too so you don't want to mess with whoever runs
that, but if you stick to the main trail you should be fine
there's supposed to be a thousand and fifty steps
Apparently steps get a lot steeper near the end. It gets more fun
So I guess this is the part. This is the part where if you fall, you're pretty much injured
The last part of that hike was brutal Not quite like Acatenango hike but
it was pretty intense but I mean the view from up here is
really world class. You can see Hanauma Bay on the other side and a lot of
people up here just chilling, taking selfies. I don't think anyone else is vlogging and
I'm not gonna lie it's kind of chilly right now. I was sweating all the way up
here and now it's cold and windy. Almost too windy so I hope you can actually hear this
Literally almost just fell over as I was saying it's really windy
well I'm gonna end this vlog here on a high
note. It's been a very adventurous two days. I'll catch you guys on the next one from Hawaii