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Hawaii

Hawaii #4 Post-thoughts

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I’ve had these ideas in my to-do list since we got back from our honeymoon. Time to get them out of my list and into my blog!

As we go places, I refine the list of things I need to remember for next time. This time, the list is short and possibly hilarious.

  • You don’t need medium shave ice – small is enough! We both bought a medium shave ice, with ice cream and condensed milk and I added gummy bears and man it was too much!
  • Bring your own tea. Whatever backwards country you’re traveling to probably doesn’t have good tea.  The USA is a backwards ass country when it comes to tea. Horrible.
  • Don’t need 2 boxes of granola bars! We go into a grocery store early, and I regularly buy 2 boxes of granola bars, and I regularly eat half of one of those boxes. >.<

Until next time! 🙂

Japan

Japan – lessons learned

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Japan was my first vacation that wasn’t to a tropical/hot country, so there was a lot of things that had to be done differently.

  • 2 weeks away is too much. Was happy at 11 days. At 13 days was super ready to be done.
  • If I’m going to do any navigation at all, I’d need a new phone with full day battery. We used Google Maps a lot to get around, but I could barely turn it on in enough time, let alone have enough power to use it all day.
  • Related – this trip finally saw good use of my external battery. When you leave the house at 9am and walk until 10pm, and use the phone all day, the extra battery is important. Nik with his superior phone needed it a lot.
  • I didn’t really need shorts for this trip. I brought a pair of pants that had zip-off leggings and they were fine. I’m not certain I would have left the shorts at home though – there could easily have been a 23 degree day where I might have felt comfortable wearing them.  1 pair of shorts, 1 pair of pants and 1 flexible pair sounds like the ideal combo for 2 weeks.
  • I don’t need a plan every day to have fun. I do need to do something every day, but it doesn’t need to be super planned out. Often we just left the house and started walking. Japan, as a place with a wildly different culture from us, as well as a place that is tightly packed, had a lot of awesome things to see that were very accessible.
  • I used my camera bag as my primary bag for a lot of the trip. Japan has vending machines everywhere, so I packed a couple bar foods, my camera, a few small lenses and my visa/rail pass/subway pass and I’m good to go for the day. Usually I carry my backpack, because if I needed to carry at least one more thing, I don’t have enough space anymore.
  • The FitBit works for about 12 days without charging. At 12 days it started saying to charge it, so I might have been able to get to 13 or even 14 days without charging.
  • When they say “nobody speaks English in Japan”, they really mean it.

 

Costa Rica

Lessons learned

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I like writing down my lessons so I can refer back to them later. 😛

  • 1 pair of shorts/5 days on vacation. That’s shorts to wear, not including swimwear. It’s ok to wear “dirty” shorts in the tropics, because even if you wear new ones every day, you’re sweating buckets as soon as you leave your place to stay. I brought 2 pairs, and thankfully had laundry in the middle.
  • 1 pair of good synthetic t-shirt or tank per 5 days of vacation. Not including swimwear, again. I brought 2 t-shirts and 1 tank and I wanted just one more. Cotton is just to thick and brutal. Merino wool is surprisingly not bad, but wash it repeatedly before you go otherwise it is still scratchy, no matter what they claim.
  • We traveled to 6 places over 17 days. That’s too much! We could have done with one less location, but ideally I think 1 location/5 days maximum. Even if you hate the place, you can go somewhere else. And that’s enough time to really get to know a place, as opposed to dine’n’dashing.
  • My new sandals aren’t my old sandals. These ones started to rip apart at the foot bed after less than one year of use. My old ones lasted somewhat near 6 years of my kind of abuse. Tevas > Merrells? I don’t know, but I’m not impressed. (even less impressed that the underlayer is bright orange. Would it have killed anyone to make it somewhat brown?!)
  • Driving around a country isn’t that hard. Time consuming. Occasionally difficult, scary or slow as hell, but definitely can be done.
  • If you don’t like something, you can leave.
  • I really love learning language (just Spanish so far), but holy hell is it exhausting! My pet theory is that this is why Expats and tourists have such great conversations – being able to speak English clearly, and know that the other person will understand you without problem is so reassuring. Every tourist we spoke with was so fun and friendly.
  • You need more money than you think. >.> We accidentally took twice as much money out of the ATM (because our math was wrong, one tired day) as we thought we needed…and then we spent that too. We were terrified until we counted out where it had all gone.

And unless I think of something else in the next few minutes, I think that wraps up Costa Rica for this blog! I’m going to “best of” on Facebook and post a final link here so folks can find it, but I’m done here. Thanks for reading, Melissa! (…and my Dad :D)

Hawaii

Moar lernings

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Mexico, being a distinctly foreign location, had a lot more to teach me than Hawaii, which I’ve been to 3 times in the last 1.5 years. >.> But there’s still a handful of things I want to think about for the future.

Clothing. Damnit, I’m tired of carrying around needless clothing. For a week long trip to a hot location, I only need the following items:

  • More underwear than you can imagine. Just bring it all. It’s small, lightweight and if you want new underwear, you can do that.
  • 2 pairs of “adventure shorts”. I can’t find the exact model anymore, but something like this. Zip pockets keep valuables safe. Comfortable. Lightweight. Folds easily. Dries quickly should it get west. Sweat band around the waist. I only currently own one pair, and the reason I want two is so that I don’t end up wearing the same pair all week. I brought two other pairs of shorts that were not at all appealing to be worn in the heat, near water this week.
  • 2 pairs of wicking t-shirts.  “Dry wear” type of poly-pro. Make them look good and dry quickly.
  • 2 pairs of tank tops. I really like these.
  • 1 shirt that could be worn to a nicer place.
  • Don’t bring any socks…
  • My toe shoes count as hiking, water and running shoes…just make sure to rinse after they go in the salt water. Yuck.

We ended up paying to upgrade to First Class for our flight back. This was worthwhile, but only because we had a backup plan. If we’d been anxious and ensured we had it, it would have cost an extra $300 each. Instead, we waited until 24 hours before the flight and booked it for only $150 each. Our seats in the back of the plane were ok, but FC gave us more recline, more leg room and more arm space which was awesome for actually being able to sleep on the blasted plane.

Miranda carried a pillow around Hawaii. This was a good idea, I wish’d I had an actual pillow. >.<

Mexico

Learnings

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We learned a lot in Mexico, and a lot of it was really small things that you wouldn’t think about.

 

When pushed, you can communicate. With less than a hundred words, no available translation methods, gestures, and a smile, you can make things happen.

 

Travel with ear plugs. You never know when you’ll be staying in the most beautiful place that just happens to have 5 dogs, a rooster and a lot of noisy neighbours nearby.

 

Driving in Mexico is scary. But it’s less scary than you think.

 

Many people in Mexico want to take your money as efficiently as they can. However, just like in your home country, there are genuine and amazing people out there if you keep your eyes, mind and heart open. We narrowly avoided a needless car rental bill because we’d met the right person, and our scooter rental guy was super nice. Both of these activities we were wary of, because you read so many bad things on the Internet.

 

Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet. But you can believe some of it. Everyone has a different need when they travel. I can appreciate that some people may not want to do what we do, but if you want to you can do it.

 

You haven’t actually eaten a mango until you’ve had one in Mexico.

 

We searched high and low for the Best Guacamole in Mexico, and we finally found it in Cancun. But you can still get the Second Best Guacamole in Mexico from Earls in Vancouver.

 

It is worth finding the right place to stay, and stretching your boundaries to learn something new. We stayed in Playa for 9 days and in Cancun for 1. Cancun is fake, with giant hotels and people who speak “perfect” English. Playa is a much more real place, that is still a safe experience.  Don’t trust the stereotypes that you may have.

 

You can buy anything on 5th Ave. Some stereotypes are true. I got offered blow and crack one night.

 

Sometimes the best experiences of your trip, will be the least expensive ones. But sometimes, you just have to fork out the @#$% cash.

 

The more you know up front, the better you’ll feel. We did a bunch of research beforehand, but mostly left our day-to-day unplanned. We took a Spanish class beforehand, which was really worth it. 

 

Double check all your reservations…

 

There may be a map nearby somewhere that will tell you everything you need. It’s not the end of the world if you miss it, because the experience is worthwhile regardless. But there may be a turtle oasis if you swim just a little further.

 

Get someone to hand you your scuba camera. Check all of your waterproof seals. Check them again. Get the sand out of the o-ring. Check the o-ring again. Check your pockets for electronics before you go in the water. Check them again.

 

There is no situation in which you should bring socks to the Caribbean. Even fewer situations where you should bring 5 pairs. >.<

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And that’s all we’ve got for this trip. Thanks for reading! Friends won’t be surprised, but we have another trip coming up in May… one of Miranda’s best friends is getting married in Hawaii, and we’re going. More turtles! 🙂