Impressionist Hawaii - Day Seven

At the end of our trip,  we had a relaxing breakfast, took a quick view of the University of Hawaii and headed for the airport. We learned from the last flight from San Francisco to Kona, ate a big lunch before boarding and brought a large amount of food with us. While waiting at the gate, Gang and I watched the latest episode of "Voice of China."

Gang spent three hours on the flight watching "Pearl Harbor", a movie produced in 2001 in memory of the deaths 60 years ago. I wasn't able to join him because of my eyesight, but I watched it later at home. Better technologies and affluent funding made the battle scenes vivid and thrilling, but the love story only distracted audiences attention from the war and ensnared them in the confusion of the gist of the movie. I decided to watch Tora!Tora!Tora! after it, and Gang joined me in reviewing the Midway later. Wars are a combined result of commanders' intelligence, combat effectiveness and luck. If Japan was too lucky to have the US ignore all the clues and attacked the Pearl Harbor, then the US was also lucky enough to have Japan send out a broken reconnaissance and sunk three carriers in five minutes by the Midway. But no matter which side wins, thousands of lives were killed and millions of tax payers' money were burned in bombs.

It was late when we landed in San Francisco. Gang's flatmate happened to be around and picked us from the airport. I got my new pair of glasses.YES! San Francisco at night looks so clear and beautiful.

When I look back to my one-week trip to Hawaii. It's like a dream - partly because I couldn't see things clearly as if I were dreaming, partly because the view was simply too good to be true. I'd give Hanauma Bay my No.1 experience in Hawaii, and the Volcanoes Park No.2. These two make Hawaii quite worthy of it. On our way to Hawaii, we met a guy on the plane who used to live in Monterey but moved to Big Island a few years ago. He obviously enjoys living by the sea and leads a vacation-like lifestyle. I'm not sure if I'm that into nature - I may complain about the inconvenience of living on a island as well as the high price there; but still, I do envy him.

At Volcanoes Park

At Sandy Beach

At Lapakahi State Historical Park

At USS Missouri

At Waikiki Beach

Impressionist Hawaii - Day Six

The last full day in Hawaii. After a intense day of seeing the east side of Oahu, today we decided to travel around Honolulu - Pearl Harbor in the morning and China town in the afternoon.

After breakfast, we drove north to the Pearl Harbor. Most people know the Pearl Harbor from the Japanese attack in 1941 which started the Pacific War. So do we. Therefore we set "Pearl Harbor" as the destination in GPS, which we thought would be the location of the memorial and museum. We followed the GPS and drove all the way down until we reached a sentry, where a soldier stopped all the cars and checked something from each driver. We waited in the line, seeing every driver showing him a card before moving on. "The security check is strict," I said to myself, "the museum must have some really good stuff." Gang asked me: "Do you know what they are showing to the soldier?" "I'm not sure," I said, "but I think it's an ID card."

Then soon it was our turn. Gang stopped by the soldier and handed over his California driver license. The soldier stared at his driver license for a while, and asked: "Are you visiting the Arizona Memorial?" We said yes. "OK, then you should U-turn and drive back, it's the last exit." Gang took his driver license back and followed the instruction. Almost in a minute we both realized that "Pearl Harbor" was actually the location of a US navy base, and probably only military workers could have access to it. The soldier must have found it very amusing when a Chinese man handed over his driver license for entrance.

We soon arrived at the Arizona Memorial, where we first took a shuttle to USS Missouri, on the deck of which the Japan surrendered in 1945 and brought the WW2 to an end. The battleship was one of the most advanced of its kind, and had well-equipped facilities for its soldiers. But the most exciting finding was the Japanese copy of the 2-page Instrument of Surrender, which because the Canadian representative signed in the wrong place moved down all the rest signatures, and therefore differs from the US copy - the one known to the public.

After the 2-hour visit to the USS Missouri, we went back to the Arizona Memorial, where we first watched a very touching movie, explaining why Japan launched the attack and what happened that day. Three of eight most advanced battleships were sunk and rest were severely damaged; more than two thousands of soldiers died that day. The USS Arizona was hit in its ammunition cabin and exploded soon after, killing more than 1,100 soldiers. The US Pacific fleet suffered great loss, but luckily US carriers hadn't arrived in the Pearl Harbor that day which helped them to revenge in the Mid-way islands years later. The white memorial was constructed above the USS Arizona remains. Even today we could still see gas leaking from the tank, as if it is weeping for its soldiers. I asked Gang if EPA is cool with this, and Gang said it's probably fine.

We left Pear Harbor at noon, sighing at the disaster brought by wars, and drove to China town for lunch. China town used to be very prosperous because it was only a few blocks from the port. But after air transportation developed, the China town started to decline. To us, the China town in Honolulu is specially important because in 1894, Sun Yat-sen founded Society for the Revival of China, which evolved into KMT later. I got an amazing avocado bubble tea, and then we started to look for statue of Sun Yat-sen. We finally found it at a corner, with Sun Yat-sen holding a book facing the sea. Gang happily took photos of him when we both heard a big bang. I looked around but couldn't see anything, then I heard Gang saying, "I need to call 911." It turned out a guy was painting outer walls of his house on a scaffolding but accidently fell down. He was unconscious and a woman cried over him loudly. Gang immediately reported to 911 about the accident and I helped him locate the place. His relatives and friends seemed panic, but luckily the 911 emergency care arrived in about 5 min. The guy remained in coma even then, but I hope he's getting better now.

Later that day, we tried to see sunset at Diamond Head, but it was closed by 6pm. As an alternative, we took apples to the beach and enjoyed the last sun glow with them.

Impressionist Hawaii - Day Five

I thought that we'd be tired after half of the trip, therefore my initial plan was to stay in bed late and went to Polynesia Cultural Center at noon. I'm very glad that we didn't follow my plan. Gang picked a guide book on our way to Waikiki beach yesterday, and decided to stop by Hanauma Bay in the morning. This turned out to be the best decision in our Hawaiian trip.

To see sunrise on the way, we got up at 5:30am and drove to Hanauma Bay right after. Dawn was just breaking, and the rosy clouds started to spread across the sky. Oahu was still quiet and very few autos were running on highway. We reached Hanauma Bay at around 6:30am. The rumor is that Hanauma Bay is so popular that cars may fail to find space in the parking lot if arriving too late - by too late it means after 9am. But that day, we were so early that when we arrived, the parking lot was almost empty! Not only that, no one worked at the ticket entrance, therefore we enjoyed a free visit to Hanauma Bay.

The beach was empty and chilly. We walked around the beach for a while, looking at the skyline and rosy clouds, and waiting for the sun to rise. Gentle lights penetrated through clouds and the sky became more and more bright. However we waited and waited, nothing happened. We double checked the sunrise time, and realized it has already passed, and the only reason for missing the sun was because of the weather - it was cloudy that day. Whoops! Gang and I soon accepted the fact and found a place by a palm, and spread out our towels. I opened a package of cookie and planned to have a quick breakfast, when some uninvited guests - flocks of pigeons traced the smell of food and besieged me. Later I tried chips and macadamia nuts, but it looked like pigeons preferred chocolate cookies. I had a hilarious breakfast with pigeons looking for food scraps around me. Finally Gang rescued me from the encirclement, sealed the food and moved the towel to ten meters away - it didn't really help: when Gang started to eat, pigeons quickly caught the new source of food and flew over to our place again.

When snorkel stalls came to the beach, Gang rented two sets and we started our second snorkeling experience. This one was so much better than the last one. I saw vast coral reefs all over the sands, tons of colorful fishes and turtles swimming around me. Sometimes waves pushed me around, and I relaxed in the tide, diving into schools of fish. Though I couldn't see them very clearly, but I quickly identified the humuhumunukunukuapua'a, a small bright yellow tropical fish in Hawaii. Other fishes whose names remained unknown to me were equally impressive: I once passed a fish with beautiful black and green strips across its body, and a big flat fish with silver scales brightly shining underwater. I had never imagined that I could see such wonderful underwater world in shoals. They all seemed to be within touch, but they also looked so unreal. I took several breaks during snorkeling, either relaxing in the water or going back to the beach. But no matter how many times I went to the beach, I still wanted to go back, just for a while; I never felt I'd seen enough.

But we had to move on. When visitors started to crowd the beach and sun blazed down, we drove north to the Polynesian Cultural Center. On our way there, we made several stops at Sandy Beach Park, a great place for surfing where I was caught in a wave again and got wet; Waimanalo Bay, where we got an amazing view of the ocean and Kailua Bay, which was implied as the best beach in Oahu in one of our guide book. Sometimes I had the illusion of driving along Route 1 in California, except that it was hotter and the sea was more azure.

At around 1pm, we arrived at Polynesian Cultural Center, a man-made cultural village to present different cultures around the Pacific to tourists. Students from a nearby university are actors, showing typical lives of islanders, including Hawaii, Fiji, Samoa, Aotearoa, Tonga and Tahiti. We went to a few shows, where students showed us things like drilling wood to make fires, cooking coconuts, climbing trees, wedding ceremony, etc. It's a shame of them to claim itself as a non-profit organization while charging visitors so high, but it's a good way for students to earn some money for their tuition. Later we had a traditional ali'i Luau (royal feast) accompanied by traditional songs and dances. The food was just average, poor kings! There was also an evening show about the origin of Hawaii. But since I couldn't see anything on the stage, Gang decided to leave early.

An extremely long day, but a fantastic one.

(Leave Hanauma Bay when most people just arrive here)

Impressionist Hawaii - Day Four

Our flight to Oahu was at 12:33pm, which left us a whole morning for sightseeing in the Big Island. Again we got up early in the morning, checked out and drove to a parking lot in Kona. Gang and I took bananas to a pier and ate them up by the sea (we left apples in the car). We saw flocks of silver and black fishes swimming around; and as a bonus to those with glasses, Gang also saw a turtle floating nearby. The pier was quiet in the morning, a few people were driving motorboat, riding wake-boards and parachuting around. By the pier there was a tiny but crowded beach, which is a better choice for families with small children.

When it started to get hot, Gang and I left the unshady pier and wandered along the sea. It was interesting to see glorious sea with its powerful waves and wind on the right, and a busy Kona downtown on the left side. A 15-min walk brought us to a mansion which used to be the residence of a princess. The two-floor house was built by the sea, with big windows in each room so that owners could have a great view anywhere in the house. I wasn't able to capture details of the house, but the scenery out of the window was charming enough to attract all my attention. There I also had my first cup of dark roast Kona coffee.

What did we do after that? Oh yes we returned our car to Alamo in three minutes and took its shuttle to the airport soon after that. I taught Gang a way to tip the driver which I learned from Friends: hide the money in your palm and shake hands with the driver, who shall take the money away when touching it. Gang tried it later in Oahu, and found it an interesting way of saying thank you but avoiding the awkwardness of “paying". The Kona Airport is small with few facilities: there is even no waiting hall in the airport. We waited outside and finished apples there (yes!). An hour later, we boarded a small plane whose seats were not even assigned, and sat far in the back. I think I slept during the whole flight.

After landing in Honolulu, we had a terrible car rental experience with Advantage: an extremely slow shuttle, equally slow check-in process, uninformed deposit and additional articles. We drove to our hotel by Waikiki beach through the traffic in Honolulu, Gang kept introducing things like "financial center", "China town", "luxury", etc. I stared wide eyed around, everything was blurry, but I could vaguely tell sky-crappers, Chinese architectures and bustling pedestrians.

We checked in the hotel, and  took towels to the Waikiki beach two blocks away. The Waikiki beach was separated into four parts by the lengths of breakwaters. The one on the north end has no breakwater and therefore the strongest waves, with crowds surfing; the one on the south end has a long breakwater which almost closes the beach, and many kids are practicing swimming with life buoys there. I learned my lesson, left my glasses (actually Gang's glasses) on the beach and ran to a half-closed beach, where Gang taught me doggy paddling. Waikiki beach wasn't good as I had expected, mainly because of the crowds there; but it's still one of the best beaches I've been to - great facilities, clean and soft sands, and different levels of waves for different kinds of water sports. After sunset, people sat around a big banyan tree, under which a concert was about to take place. We joined them, but unfortunately it soon started to rain, and the concert was cancelled. We again witnessed the capricious weather in Hawaii.

The fourth day was a long day, but we had the best dinner of our journey that night. We walked along the road, looking for restaurants while checking their ratings on Yelp. There was a Japanese buffet one block away and the price looked reasonable. However the rating was terribly low. One of the reviews says, as I quote, "I give it one star because it's clean." We ended up with a seafood restaurant, where I ordered steamed clams and Gang ordered sauteed shrimp. Yummy! Btw I want to apologize at the end of this blog that I talk so much about food - it shouldn't be the focus of our trip; however I have good reasons to write so much about food: it was the only thing that I could see clearly in Hawaii...

Impressionist Hawaii - Day Three

The third day was relaxing. Our original plan was to see some historic sites, however the natural landscape again attracted most of our attention and we ended spending more time sitting by the sea, hardly remembering anything about the history of the Big Island.

We drove north to Puukohola Heiau National Historic Site early in the morning. It was a temple built to the war god when the king planned to unite Hawaii in late 1700s. (He actually conquered other islands four years after the completion of the temple.) The temple was very simple and crude, similar but much smaller and shorter than the Great Wall built in 200BC. Therefore it wasn't impressive at all. But by the temple there was a bay where people used to worship the god of shark. Usually sharks don't appear in shallow bays, but this one is an exception. We were told by the ranger that sometimes they could still see sharks in the bay in early morning. Though unfortunately we didn't see anything similar to a triangle on the water after waiting for quite a while. Another historic site, Lapakahi State Historical Park is only a few miles away. It used to be a fishing village in the 14th century. Now the stone houses are still well preserved. We sat by the sea and saw many fish in flocks by the seashore. It probably was not a bad job to live as a fisherman in Hawaii before.

The highlight of the day was actually our lunch. A travel guide suggested us to eat at either Bamboo which was closed on that day, or Rainbow Cafe which we failed to locate on GPS. (It turned out that Rainbow Cafe was renamed to King's Cafe five years ago. What an old book I was reading!) So Gang checked with Kohala Visitor Center and went to a family restaurant called Minnie's which serves good local food. I ordered Mahi-Mahi, but Gang couldn't decide which dish he would like. Then the owner suggested him to try a combo, by which she meant "I will give you a little bit of everything." Both Gang and I were surprised when the lunch was served: she gave Gang a big piece of fried pork chop, a bowl of roasted beef and three big pieces of Ono. Actually the food was so much that she couldn't even put them in one plate but to offer two extra bowls. I got mine soon: a plate with four big overlaying pieces of Mahi-Mahi, one piece of which was big enough to make a single meal. Anyway, Gang and I laughed at her generous definition of "a little bit" for a long time.

To digest the big lunch, we went to Pololu Valley in the afternoon, where we did the toughest hike of our trip. Well it wasn't really that bad. We hiked to the valley from the cliff, walked through the moist forest and rested by the sea. The sun was shining hard on our way down to the valley, but the rain started when we went back. We ran to the car and tried to wipe the water away. A few minutes later, the rain went away, leaving us in the car, wet like drowned cats. The weather here is so capricious, a cloud can change a sunny day to a stormy one in a few seconds. But in the patter of rains, we finally enjoyed a flavor of coolness on this tropical island. Sweaty and tired, we drove back to the hotel before sunset, and decided to stay in the air-conditioned room for the rest of the day - a very good decision.

The volcanoes park and historic sites were basically what I "saw" in the Big Island. The splendid black lava, roaring sea and rugged rocks are one of the most spectacular views that I've ever seen.

(a little bit of beef)

Impressionist Hawaii - Day Two

This is our biggest day on the Big Island. We got up early in the morning (yes we were still in California time) and headed for Volcanoes National Park. It's about 100 miles away from Kona, but mountain roads made the driving longer than it sounds. We brought apples (the fruit) and sandwiches with us, and stopped at the South Point after driving along the sea for one and a half hours. It is the south end of the US, pointing at Antarctica 7,500 miles away.

Though the wind was blowing hard, the sea was peace and waves were calm. Gang happily found wind turbines along the route. I almost couldn't hold my hat but I couldn't stay away from the beauty in front of me. People were fishing around us, with professional equipment and entertainment facilities. Gang and I sat by them, eating the two apples we brought. We both found it very pleasant to eat apples by the sea, which soon became a must in the rest of our journey: we look for beaches all around only to eat apples.

About two hours later, we left the South Point before the sun got too strong. It was still hot, but the sea wind cooled us down. The Volcanoes Park was well preserved: there was only a small visitor center with a big parking lot, no commercial facilities to ruin the park. Rangers there explained to us how the Big Island was created by volcanoes, and some big eruptions in history. He mentioned that in 1970s, a volcanic eruption was predicted and lava was believed to head for Hilo, a small city in east Big Island. But residents in Hilo was told by the government that the lava wouldn't reach the city, therefore they shouldn't worry about it. That night, people in Hilo anxiously looked at the volcano. They got panic when they saw flames lighting up the sky and red lava moving slowly but steadily towards them, some even started packing. Luckily the lava stopped four miles away from Hilo, and no one was hurt. In spite of this, some people still lost their properties in the eruption. He mentioned a guy who opened a B&B by the volcano. This hotel keeper escaped in his helicopter, but his house was melted in lava forever. At the end of his introduction, he asked: "So be honest, how many of you will go back and tell your friends and relatives that you actually saw red lava here?" Audience laughed and some did raise their hands. The ranger smiled and took out a small card with "LAVA" printed in red on it, "Now you all see red lava!"

There are several trails by the visitor center, but we decided to skip them because of my poor eyesight. Gang drove to the museum directly, by which there is a big smoggy crater, one of the culprits for the expanding island. We couldn't get closer to the crater for safety concerns, but it was astonishing enough to see such big flows of steams and smoke rising to the sky. Later we saw similar but much smaller natural hot wells in the park. I stood by one of them for a while, and OMG it was hot.

This is absolutely the most impressive crater "lake" I've ever seen. The crater lake in Oregon is splendid for sure, but what makes this one different is that it's filled with lava, not water. Red lava filled the crater but failed to find an outlet. It finally cooled down and became a rocky lake. Some brave travelers took the trail across the lake (the white lane in the middle of the lake), and I'm sure it will be a really impressive experience to walk on the black but still burning lava for hours.

Gang's favorite place is this lava tube, which transmits red lava like a pipeline after eruption. The tube is dark and wet, whose entrance is covered by many tropical plants. I walked very carefully in the tube. The wall is so cold and hard that it's hard to imagine that red lava has been running in it.

The Big Island is young and active. When human beings try to build their cities on this island, the nature always finds its own way of reshaping it. During our trip in the Volcanoes Park, we found several signs along the road indicating in which years the lava was formed, just like an alumni reunion with each camp hosting students from a certain year. The end of road was stopped by the latest eruption, whose lava covered the pavement and stopped our car from going any farther. It is amazing to think of the fact that the land that I was currently standing on was still alive, laughing at people's futile efforts to change the nature, actively creating new lands and expanding to the sea.  We didn't stay in the Park for too long as most visitors who stay late to see red lava at night. But everything I saw here is unprecedented.

Impressionist Hawaii - Day One

You may call this trip miserable, but I'd rather give it a more favorable title - impressionism. After I lost my -8.5 distance glasses three hours after arriving in Big Island, I was doomed to get extremely fuzzy impression of everything I saw there; or to put it politely, whatever I saw, I felt like admiring some masterpieces drawn by French impressionists - I knew what I was looking at, but I wasn't certain about how they looked like. When Gang exclaimed at the sea, waves, lava, etc, I marveled at their colors. Anyway, things were not bad as I had expected; and now when I look back, they are actually pretty interesting.

When the plane approached the Big Island, the first land we saw on the Pacific after 5-hour flight, I could see volcano and black lava running miles from craters to the sea. Then I knew the volcano park would be one of our destinations: it's just too unique to be skipped. I regretted wearing my jeans soon after landing. Hawaii is unbelievably hot! But I also must admit that I was actually very happy to find out that I could wear the shorts and dresses that are too cold for the bay area. After a quick lunch at the airport, which by the way has only ONE restaurant, we took the shuttle to car rental places, and had one of our best experiences of renting cars. I used a self-service machine to check-in, and drove a white Dodge right away. The hotel is located by the beach, and we could see a palm standing by the sea and cruises far away from our balcony.

Our first stop after check-in was to Kahaluu Beach Park, which is said to be the best place for snorkeling on the Big Island. Now I believe people who said that must be making a joke. It's not even average. The beach is small, rough and weirdly crowded. Gang and I had our first snorkeling experience there, which is not comparable to the Hanauma Bay in Honolulu. Anyway we spent about two hours on the beach, getting ourselves used to snorkeling devices and busying applying sun creams. On our way back, we decided that we deserved better beaches than this, and therefore we headed for the White Sand Beach with beautiful and soft white sand and waves, where I was accidently caught in the big wave and lost my glasses. In the end, Gang and I sat on the beach in swimming suits, burying ourselves in the sand when Gang tried to explain to me why my glasses could not wash ashore and how dangerous it would be to salvage them. I didn't understand what he was talking about, but he seemed enjoying explaining his major to layman. In spite of what happened, I'd still recommend this beach, but remember to fasten your glasses before staying too close to the sea.

Hawaii became blurry for me ever since. Gang held my hands and led me to the car, and showed me around the Kailua-Kona downtown at night. We had seafood at an American restaurant which had singers and dancers performing local music during dinner. Of course I didn't see anything, but I was impressed by the joyful mood around me. I guess most people came here for vacations, therefore they were more likely to laugh and relax.

Angel and Devil

Ruiwen visited me today (Ruiwen, did you see? I'm writing about you!) from New York during her trip to the bay area. There was a lecture on energy in the afternoon, and Gang called me to invite Ruiwen to the lecture. I told Ruiwen if she went to the lecture, I'd take a nap on the grass when waiting for her. Finally Ruiwen decided to join me in lying on the grass rather than sitting in the hall alone. Later we joked about this, referring it as a dispute between an angel and a devil, with Gang playing the former role and me the later one.

I can't help notice that when Gang and I disagree with each other, I'm always the "devil":

(Scenery One)
"Do you want to take a walk with me?" He asked after dinner.
"No, I'm too full." I answered while touching my full belly.
"Come on, I think you need some exercise."
"I know, but I don't want to take off my pajama."

(Scenery Two)
"I think you should go to talk to alumni to get a job, not play Settlers with computers." He said.
"OK, I'm just lazy." I said when clicking the "trade" button.

(Scenery Three)
"I've had enough pork ribs tonight." Gang said.
"OK, I will have another piece."
"You've already had five."
"OK,OK, this will be the last one." Of course it was not.
...
It's true that Gang has better self-control than me.

It's not that I don't have any self-control, but I always find an angel and a devil fight fiercely deep in my heart. Sometimes I'm tired of playing the role of a good student, or a diligent profession, who has great self-discipline and gets everything organized. Instead sometimes I'd be happily escape from pressures or obligations, and indulge my lazy, weak nature. When I'm facing challenges, I need to energize every cell in my body to overcome them. I love myself at that time, smart and competent; but after that, devil takes my body again and I can be as lazy as a sloth - a cute animal that spends 20 out of 24hrs per day on sleeping and dies mainly because it fails to hold tree branches when sleeping. Sometimes when I look at Gang, I feel like looking into a mirror, but on the reverse side: I simply can't behave that well.

I don't know if it's equally difficult for everyone to fight against desires; at least to me the war is like a mud in which I'm mired down. I need to keep a balance between my "angel" part and "devil" part to avoid driving myself crazy. When the devil is satisfied more or less, it allows me more energy to please the angel; and when the angel is satisfied, it gives me justification to spoil the devil a little bit. But how hard it is to make both of them happy! People talk about indulging their nature while achieving success by doing what they like, and therefore making the angel and the devil agree with each other. But we all know that's rare. Even if you can make a living on something that happens to be your interests, you can't really make achievements until you've acquired relevant skills after all the tough trainings, e.g. no matter how much you like music, you're unlikely to be a great violinist before you've done all the tedious practices for years.

The angel gives you an expected pleasure, while the devil gives the pleasure that can be cashed out right now. Which do you prefer?

Camping with Nerds

I went camping with Gang and his ERG fellows this weekend. It was my first live-in-tent experience, and also the first camping-with-nerds experience.

We lived by a small patch of woods at night. A new ERG student helped Gang and I set up our tent. He held a  fancy LED flashlight, whose light was downy but bright. Then I heard him talking to his classmate about the power and design of his flashlight. I'm sure if there were a blank chart aside, he would be delighted to draw the structure. This was not the end. Gang was obviously inspired by the application of LED that he further explained to me how much energy could be saved by using this LED flashlight to produce the same brightness.

When it got dark, people surrounded  the fired, playing games and chatting. Gang and I looked at the sky, and found stars extremely bright, spreading across the night sky. Then an ERG fellow came and held an Android in his hand.

"You guys should check this out!" He said.

We looked at his cell. He was using an App called "Google Sky" which presents a stellar map based on your location and the direction of the phone screen. Therefore you can find the name of each star high in the sky and figure out how it makes up constellations with its neighbors. We exclaimed at the technology as more people gathered and watched the tiny Android screen instead of appreciating real stars. I remember camping twice with Woody-woos. What did we do at night? We lay our back on the grass and said :" Look at the stars, so beautiful!" And that was it.

Later I met a colleague of Gang's. They work in the same group and share the same office, which locates in a smart building. After him complaining about how the claimed "smartness" was actually stupidness, I got interested in the lighting system there and asked him if the building was open to visitors. My intention was to figure out whether I'd be able to see the control board of lighting system in his office, but he provided a much more comprehensive answer to my questions:

"I think the XX and XX floors are open to visitors, but the XX and XX floors are not, though you may probably access them on weekends. The Y space and Z offices on XX floors are open too, but you can't visit room XX and XX..."

He continued for a few minutes until he made sure that all the details had been clearly provided. I stunned at him, having no idea about how to respond.

"You know a lot!" I said in the end.

The most scaring question was to ask Gang's friends "what's your focus?" Sometimes (if lucky enough) I met master students who just started the program, and all they had were ideas but not knowledge or terminologies. We ended up talking about future plans. But if I asked someone with a few years of relevant research experiences, the conversation could turn into a scientific seminar, in which I did not understand a single word. The conversation always ended with me saying "That sounds awesome!"

Anyway, I like these science nerds, and my husband is one of them.

(Standing by my tent in the chilly morning)

One Island or Two?

I was planning our Hawaii trip in late September and had some difficulties in choosing islands. Most travel guides suggest going to one (no matter which) and staying there for the entire week. But for us who are under tight budget and plan to go there more for seeing the elephant rather than having relaxing vacations, it's too luxury to spend all the time on one. In the end, Gang found a week-long package for Oahu and Big Island online and decided to take it, which means we will be spending three days on each of them with two days on flights. I can see we will have another very busy itinerary again this summer.

It's not the first time that we made our trips into races against time. Last summer we traveled intensely in Europe, and stopped by each city for only 1-2 days. Well they are tiny (and to a certain extent similar) cities, but still we were in such a hurry that I was hardly impressed by anything but the scorching sun in Rome and the long queue outside Uffizi. We re-traveled later by looking at photos, and figured out more stories about the places we'd been to, but it's not the same. Due to limitation on time and budgets, it's hard for us to take relaxing vacations and truly enjoy trips.

On the other hand, I don't know how many people do enjoy taking a 5-hour flight to find a beach to lie on for one week while they probably only need to drive an hour to reach a similar one. Traveling, says cynics, is to rush into places where local people are already bored of; and produces unnecessary carbon footprints, says environmentalists. So if you're not up to something special, the time and money spent on the journey may not get paid off. I guess people have different perceptions for traveling: if you just want to find a new place for relaxing, then anything there can be attractions as they will rid you of tiring day-to-day lives; if you are planning the trip as sightseeing and want to see as much as you can, then it's another story. Most of the former travelers choose to travel by themselves, flexibly booking hotels, choosing attractions and changing their itinerary; while the latter always join group sightseeing and asking tour guides to arrange everything for them.

I'm not sure which type of tourists I am, but I do wish in the future I can find a place and rest for a while, instead of hurrying from one scenery spot to another. This probably won't happen until we're settled down, and are relatively freed from life pressures. Anyway, it will be a nice picture to think about.

（Hawaii or California?)

Trip Planner

Gang's friend told us there are cheap flights to Hawaii recently. Since Gang's passed his qualify exam and I still remain jobless, we find now a good timing to do some traveling. When I recall all the travelings we've done together, Gang's always the idea-creator, and I'm always the trip planner.

The first trip (by trip, I mean more than 2-hour drive, which excludes San Francisco, point Reyes, etc.) we did together was to 17 miles. We didn't do any homework before going there. We drove along the sea with Strongy. It was freezing. The biggest discovery on that trip was Gang's infatuation with almond. I brought a can of nuts to snack on the way, and Gang kept asking me to feed him with almond when he was driving.

The next one was much longer. When my mum visited us in the summer, we went on a road trip to Las Vegas and then Los Angeles. This was the first time that I actually did plan a trip before setting off. The first step was to read other people's traveling blogs and to figure out where we would like to go. After determining the route, I started bidding hotels along the way, making sure each hotel was no more than 300 miles apart to avoid fatigue driving: for example, we stayed in Bakersfield in central California after visiting the Hearst Castle and left the rest 200 miles to Las Vegas for the next day. It was a great trip. I served as a tour guide with my cheat sheets which included highlights of scenic sites, attractions and restaurants.

After this nine-day trip, Gang and I took several other road trips to San Diego, Mono lake, Seattle, Grand Canyon and Arizona. Last summer, we stayed in Geneva and took several trips to our little neighbors - Lyons, Marseilles, Interlaken, Zurich, Lucern; and a longer train trip to Amsterdam, Bruxelles, Schloss Neuschwanstein, Munich, Rome, Florence, Venice and Milan. This year, we also rented a car and drove to Gettysburg and Lancaster in PA from Princeton, and later took a 10-day trip with mum and Joop to Niagara Fall, Buffalo, Pittsburgh and DC. I printed a 16-page trip agenda with two appendixes for my family, but I think only Joop was patient enough to read it.

Trip planning helps avoid some unnecessary spending. Even the same hotel can be priced differently on different websites, and some hotels have good promotions during a certain season while some overcharge customers during weekends. The prices of renting a car also vary across companies and pick-up/return locations. Booking things in advance reduces costs and saves time. When we were traveling in Vatican, I felt so lucky to have reserved tickets for the Vatican Museums and avoided queuing up for hours. Trip planning also provides a general flavor of the places I'm about to visit. Cities are more or less the same, but the stories behind them are quite different. If you're more interested in history and culture, trip planning can be very helpful in revealing the stories behind and spice up your journey. For national parks, you may want to better arrange your time and make sure you won't miss some highlights.

It's true that trip planning can take a long time. But I also find myself getting part of the joy in traveling from planning the trip. All those introductions about new places arouse my curiosity and make me more excited at the coming trip. Sometimes it's annoying to decide between too many choices when facing a limited time (like in Rome). Hum, maybe I should make this my job.