I wrote a really long post and got 404 error so it disappeared so I'll write a shorter one for you guys to share some insight on what's up with me these days, since I don't have much time to post outside of the tech forum lately.
I suppose most of you guys haven't read my LA/San Fran thread and since last year I had a thread dedicated to my Canada experience I thought it would be nice to have one for my US experience as well. I don't want to write the same post that disappeared all over again so I'll just share some random stuff, because I experienced a lot of things that were so new to me that I couldn't wrap it up in short anyway.
I'm living in Honolulu, Hawaii for almost a month now. In early October I'll be in LA for a couple of days (if any of you guys will be there and interested in hanging out I'd like to do that - I don't know anyone from there yet apart from a few guys from Long Beach I got drunk with last Friday).
I don't really know how much you can call Hawaii a proper US experience but the largest group of people here (apart from the Japanese tourists who don't leave Waikiki, which is also where I live but try not to spend too much time in) are tourists from America and I think I've met people from most American states here - it's cool because until that my main first hand experience with America was through people on the Internet, probably mainly this board.
Now I gained opinions on a lot of things I did not know before, or saw in a totally different light. I experienced a lot of things I used to only read about before and.. seen most things you can see on Oahu. It's really easy to feel 'Island sick' here. Hawaii is the most remote island chain in the word and apart from Oahu there are only a couple of (much less) inhabited islands and after about 2 weeks I started feeling somewhat like a resident but also realized that I want to explore things and there's nothing to explore for thousands of miles from here. A lot of people suffer from that here.
Good things? You have beautiful beaches and literally perfect weather, and it's also one of the few places in the world where you can enjoy the tropical island with no dangerous fauna or flora whatsoever - you can sleep in the jungle at night and the most dangerous thing you can encounter is another human being (but almost all people here are friendly, especially Asians and most locals with their "Aloha attitudes"). I'm pleasantly surprised by the food here (finding healthy food is almost impossible and most restaurants serve burgers, bbq meat, pizza or other fat crap which is insane BUT for North American standards it's ok and tastes very good compared to Vancouver).
Also it's a tropical island but it's an American State, most people can speak English and downtown Honolulu feels almost like a real city at times.
Life here appears to be perfect on paper. However I got used to that real quick..
The negatives.. Last year I made a thread about Canada, particularly British Columbia. I spent some of the best times of my life and felt really great there. Now on paper everything about Hawaii sounds awesome and cities like Vancouver feel like nothing special right?
Well, I learned that it's not the case. I don't really feel the awesomeness of all of that here. It's cool and all, but it all looks better on paper. Coming to Hawaii was my long term goal that I achieved and it's different than I had imagined. You're not really enjoying the perfect weather because it's like that in here all the time. There are beaches and palm trees everywhere, tropical plants and nice sand everywhere, so what now? I've been to my favorite beach a couple of times until I realized how boring that is. Honolulu doesn't really feel like a city that lives. It gets money off tourists who are either huge groups of Asians who don't speak English and only hang around with each other or assholes from the mainland who want to get drunk in Waikiki. People come here for a couple of days and leave all the time so staying here for longer feels like being a part of a Zoo exhibition. Nobody really immerses in the culture or the vibe, it's all very shallow.
I like Hawaii and I enjoy my time here, but it doesn''t feel as amazing as I thought I would. It appeared to be a perfect place and it's not imperfect because of huge faults, but because it's rather boring and thus fails to reach the expectations of a perfect place.
It doesn't feel as special or amazing like I used to imagine - 'the natural paradise'. It's just a US state located on a few tropical islands where a lot of tourists come. I do fun things here but it's not the time of my life, even though I've met cool people that I hang out with and see nice places. The vibe just isn't there. If it's not in Hawaii then where else could it be, right?
So it struck me hard because I really loved Vancouver, and Honolulu appeared to be so much cooler so I was excited.
On paper Vancouver is just another city with "nothing special" in it but it felt so much more special to me, that I'm really surprised now how you really have to go and feel a place before you can say anything about it.
In Vancouver it's cold in the winter, when summer arrives everyone's happy even though it rains most of the time - the weather was worse than in Poland but that's the only thing I could complain about, everything else was such a great experience to me. The people and the city, the nature and stuff you could do. Thousands of miles of places to see, most of which saw no people whatsoever. That's something I really miss and now while I'm in Hawaii and everyone seems to think that I live in a natural paradise I reminisce on my Canada memories and think that things are never as they seem and life is full of surprises.
I suppose most of you guys haven't read my LA/San Fran thread and since last year I had a thread dedicated to my Canada experience I thought it would be nice to have one for my US experience as well. I don't want to write the same post that disappeared all over again so I'll just share some random stuff, because I experienced a lot of things that were so new to me that I couldn't wrap it up in short anyway.
I'm living in Honolulu, Hawaii for almost a month now. In early October I'll be in LA for a couple of days (if any of you guys will be there and interested in hanging out I'd like to do that - I don't know anyone from there yet apart from a few guys from Long Beach I got drunk with last Friday).
I don't really know how much you can call Hawaii a proper US experience but the largest group of people here (apart from the Japanese tourists who don't leave Waikiki, which is also where I live but try not to spend too much time in) are tourists from America and I think I've met people from most American states here - it's cool because until that my main first hand experience with America was through people on the Internet, probably mainly this board.
Now I gained opinions on a lot of things I did not know before, or saw in a totally different light. I experienced a lot of things I used to only read about before and.. seen most things you can see on Oahu. It's really easy to feel 'Island sick' here. Hawaii is the most remote island chain in the word and apart from Oahu there are only a couple of (much less) inhabited islands and after about 2 weeks I started feeling somewhat like a resident but also realized that I want to explore things and there's nothing to explore for thousands of miles from here. A lot of people suffer from that here.
Good things? You have beautiful beaches and literally perfect weather, and it's also one of the few places in the world where you can enjoy the tropical island with no dangerous fauna or flora whatsoever - you can sleep in the jungle at night and the most dangerous thing you can encounter is another human being (but almost all people here are friendly, especially Asians and most locals with their "Aloha attitudes"). I'm pleasantly surprised by the food here (finding healthy food is almost impossible and most restaurants serve burgers, bbq meat, pizza or other fat crap which is insane BUT for North American standards it's ok and tastes very good compared to Vancouver).
Also it's a tropical island but it's an American State, most people can speak English and downtown Honolulu feels almost like a real city at times.
Life here appears to be perfect on paper. However I got used to that real quick..
The negatives.. Last year I made a thread about Canada, particularly British Columbia. I spent some of the best times of my life and felt really great there. Now on paper everything about Hawaii sounds awesome and cities like Vancouver feel like nothing special right?
Well, I learned that it's not the case. I don't really feel the awesomeness of all of that here. It's cool and all, but it all looks better on paper. Coming to Hawaii was my long term goal that I achieved and it's different than I had imagined. You're not really enjoying the perfect weather because it's like that in here all the time. There are beaches and palm trees everywhere, tropical plants and nice sand everywhere, so what now? I've been to my favorite beach a couple of times until I realized how boring that is. Honolulu doesn't really feel like a city that lives. It gets money off tourists who are either huge groups of Asians who don't speak English and only hang around with each other or assholes from the mainland who want to get drunk in Waikiki. People come here for a couple of days and leave all the time so staying here for longer feels like being a part of a Zoo exhibition. Nobody really immerses in the culture or the vibe, it's all very shallow.
I like Hawaii and I enjoy my time here, but it doesn''t feel as amazing as I thought I would. It appeared to be a perfect place and it's not imperfect because of huge faults, but because it's rather boring and thus fails to reach the expectations of a perfect place.
It doesn't feel as special or amazing like I used to imagine - 'the natural paradise'. It's just a US state located on a few tropical islands where a lot of tourists come. I do fun things here but it's not the time of my life, even though I've met cool people that I hang out with and see nice places. The vibe just isn't there. If it's not in Hawaii then where else could it be, right?
So it struck me hard because I really loved Vancouver, and Honolulu appeared to be so much cooler so I was excited.
On paper Vancouver is just another city with "nothing special" in it but it felt so much more special to me, that I'm really surprised now how you really have to go and feel a place before you can say anything about it.
In Vancouver it's cold in the winter, when summer arrives everyone's happy even though it rains most of the time - the weather was worse than in Poland but that's the only thing I could complain about, everything else was such a great experience to me. The people and the city, the nature and stuff you could do. Thousands of miles of places to see, most of which saw no people whatsoever. That's something I really miss and now while I'm in Hawaii and everyone seems to think that I live in a natural paradise I reminisce on my Canada memories and think that things are never as they seem and life is full of surprises.
His opinion was part of the reason why I went to Vancouver and not Toronto in the first place and it was the best decision I could have made.
