Hiking, Hawaii & Trail Shoes

I'm so happy, today I finally broke in my trail shoes! I bought these trail shoes about two months ago after a Girl's Day night hike on Lanikai ridge with my friends Lisa and Mia. I haven't been hiking since I was 10, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that I enjoyed hiking. It was a great way to get some exercise and see our beautiful island... after all, we live in paradise right? So ever since I bought those trail shoes I had been looking forward to my next hiking adventure... which never happened. That is, until today. My friend Jeff does a lot of hiking and actually went on a hike the day before. He planned a hike today at Morgan's Corner, or where the Old Pali Road used to be, which he categorized as "easy" and said had a waterfall at the end of the hike. (Earlier in the week I made a special request that the hike be "easy.")

View of Kaneohe

It started off with us driving over the Pali... it was looking pretty gloomy so I wondered whether we were going to get rained on, but once we got to the windward side it appeared sunny. Our hike started up as a walk up and down along this paved, curvy path, which eventually turned into a paved, curvy, mossy path. Because the path was damp and mossy from the usual mauka or mountain showers, it was a little slippery and I started to walk more cautiously, not wanting to slip and fall. We then took a detour to a trail that was off the paved mossy path. Although the trail was muddy and slippery the rocks and man-made steps made it easier to walk up and down the path.


About 30 minutes into the trail, my guide/friend Jeff said, "this doesn't look familiar" - those were words that a person being led would not want to hear. I have to admit, at that point my confidence in Jeff's hiking-guide abilities went from "completely confident" to "somewhat confident" haha... Anyway, shortly after Jeff made that comment, we bumped into another couple who were looking through their hiking guide book and appeared to be lost as well, so Jeff was kind enough to offer them to follow us to find the waterfall. They followed us for about 30 feet then they disappeared. Where they went, who knows.


5-10 minutes of backtracking later, we found the trail and got to the waterfall. WE MADE IT!!! My confidence in Jeff went back to "completely confident." haha. The waterfall was beautiful, however, in order to see the view of Kaneohe, I had to cross over these rocks that peaked out of the streaming water. Great. Crossing over the rocks I seriously felt like "Frogger" strategically trying to hop from one rock to another to get to the other side. Once I got to the other side though, I was able to breathe a sigh of relief that 1) I didn't slip and fall and 2) I got to look at the awesome view of Kaneohe. I was happy and felt accomplished. After hanging around there for about 20-30 minutes we made our way back, which was way easier than the hike up.


It was a great hike on a beautiful day. Even though I have lived on this island all of my life, I never knew this trail/waterfall existed until today. Hiking today has made me realize how amazing it is that people travel halfway across the world to see these sights of Hawaii and I that I have taken this for granted way too long. From now on, I am going to make it a point to experience the scenes Hawaii has to offer. Thanks Jeff! I got some exercise, saw another part of Hawaii and got to break in my trail shoes!

Pinot Anyone?

Tonight I went to a wine tasting event with my friend Lisa. Master Sommelier Roberto Viernes gave us a quick educational session about Pinot Noir before dinner. From this event, I learned a new acronym on how to characterize wine, "F.E.W." which stands for fruit, earth, and wood. Who knew that from one whiff of wine you could characterize the wine using these three descriptions? For instance, I did not know that wine could smell like dark cherries, plums, strawberries, cranberries, or a combination of these fruits. When I was smelling the wine tonight, I kept thinking about that one scene in the movie "Sideways" where Miles smells the wine and starts describing all the smells of the wine and then his soon-to-be married buddy Jack takes one whiff and had this expression of "how in the world did you get all that from smelling the wine?" It was hilarious. Anyway, I felt like Jack tonight when Master Sommelier Viernes had us smell the wine and describe it... I was like, "uh... it smells like grapes." haha. Anyway, my favorite wine of the night was the 2005 Le Cep Pinot Noir from the Sonoma Coast. Anyone that knows me knows I am a Riesling drinker... so surprisingly I enjoyed this wine... I think it was because it had a light body with few tannins.

After the wine event, I met up with Chad, his girlfriend Karly and their friends at Kincaids. I went drinking with Chad the night before so I wanted to take it pretty easy tonight. At Kincaids I had my first Lavender Cosmo. It was pretty good. My friend Chad got drunk as usual. Lucky for him he doesn't have to work until 1 p.m. tomorrow.

So now I have to work on a paper and presentation that is due tomorrow. I am taking this Best Healthcare Outcomes course and for our final project we needed to study an organization's process improvement project. My partner and I chose Pitocin induction and its correlation to reducing chorio infection rates in laboring women... fun stuff as you can imagine. Anyway, I can't wait for this semester to be over... this will be a long night...

Spun Out of Control

This is the first time I am publishing myself on the internet. It started out with setting up a myspace account so that I could see my friend's site and blew up into completing my linkedin page and starting this blog. What the heck did I get myself into?? I have friends that have blogs, but since I considered myself a computer retard I never imagined starting one myself. Lucky for me, I have computer geek friends who helped me set up both my myspace and blog site. Thanks Chad and Isaac! This is going to be fun!

So, I recently started chatting online with my friends. I never really did this sort of thing until recently when my one friend moved to SF. We chatted pretty frequently while he was in Hawaii and since we still chat as often as before it seems like he never left! Craziness. The power of the internet. I love it and I don't know what I would do without it. When I recently moved into my new place, the one week that I had no tv or internet I felt disconnected with the world - it was not a good feeling.

So here goes... Lets see how long I can keep a blog.