Monday, January 17, 2011

Hawaii De-bunked


Aloha fellow readers! ('Aloha as in 'Hello')
I am finally ready to get back to blogging on a somewhat regular basis.
WOOO!!!....???

As you may or may not know, I finally graduated from Myotherapy College! Yesssss! I passed all of my exams, and am almost an official LMT. Sweet. Therefore, plans to get my business going and figure out how to get myself down to Hawaii have become first priority. I have been doing as much research online as I can about how it is to live in Hawaii. But life offered me a better resource: Sara Ann.
Sara Ann is a mutual friend of mine, via my close friend Leslie. Leslie had a "moving to San Francisco" dinner last Thursday, to which, both I and Sara Ann attended. We sat next to each other. Somewhere in the midst of talking about moving, the fact that I wanted to move to Hawaii got brought up. Turns out, Sara's parents live in O'ahu and have for some time now. Last year, Sara moved to Hawaii to live with them for a while and see how island life was. When she heard that's where I wanted to move her first reaction was, "DON'T DO IT!!!!!"
"What?!?!" I exclaimed! "But WHY NOT?!?!"

and here is a short list of reasons she explained to me:

  1. The locals HATE HATE HATE mainlanders; aka: white people. She gave some examples of --"Even if you are just in line at the grocery store, they will come bud in front of you, and fight you if you try to argue." --"If you go out to a bar, you will be the VERY last one served, and hang on to your purse with all your might, cause everyone there, even the bartender, will be waiting for you to get distracted so they can steal from you."
  2. There are many "bad" areas where locals will not even accept you being on their turf. They will literally stand in front of your car and harass you till you either leave, give them all your money, or if you fight back, they will too, FIGHT BACK.
  3. If "surf's up," almost the entire island closes. Everything. If you are not a surfer, this will aggravate you to no end.
  4. There is ZERO public transportation. None. Things are too far to walk, and biking is dangerous... well for a white person anyways. PLUS they have the WORST traffic in all of the country. Worse then LA, worse then NYC, worse then ANYWHERE. You must leave your house 2-3 hours prior to when you are supposed to arrive somewhere.
  5. Living there is also THE MOST expensive place to live in almost the whole country. You are lucky if you can rent a room in someone's house for $1200 a month. ONE ROOM. Not even get your own bathroom. A gallon of milk cost $7.50, and gas averages at $4.50 a gallon, etc.
  6. She didn't know a single person there who owned a cat. Said there are many many venomous snakes and other large reptiles that would love to have a cat for supper.
  7. Since the locals HATE white people, it is practically impossible to make friends. She said she lived there for almost a year and didn't make a single friend. Some people will act nice to you for a while, but you usually find that they are just trying to take advantage of you. You have much more luck making friends with tourists. Course the obvious down side to that, is that they are only visiting Hawaii.
  8. Because of all of this, she said that Hawaii is the loneliest place she has ever lived. She even had her parents there to turn to for a safe haven. Without them, she said she wouldn't have made it passed a couple months. But even with them, she was more lonely then she had ever been in her whole life. Thus, why she eventually made her way to Utah.
  9. People claim they will visit you, but never do. You are so far from anything and anyone you care about, it's hard not to fall victim to feelings of isolation.
  10. The storms can be straight up terrifying.
And that is just SOME of the things she explained to me. I have been doing tons of research to try and get some real answers about what I am up against when it comes to moving to an island... and finally, the universe provided me with a person who has first hand experience.
THANK YOU UNIVERSE!!!

However, ..... SHIT!!
I was so excited for this!
Now I have to come up with a whole new plan.

RRRRRAAAAAAWWWWWRRRRR!!!!


I am going to house-sit for my cousin in San Francisco this coming June... and now I'm starting to wonder if maybe I would like living there. I definitely like visiting there. But could I really LIVE in a place so packed with people? Leslie lives there now, and I have family there... I would have a support system that I could depend on till I get things figured out there. All I know at this point is I totally need a change of scenery. I love Utah, but I wanna try living somewhere new. Decisions, decisions.

All I know is, ALOHA HAWAII!
(this time I mean aloha as 'goodbye.')
:(

2 comments:

Jamie and Shad said...

That's crazy! My cousin loved living in Hawaii and she's even whiter than me!

Kcscrystal said...

I have officially decided to make my own opinion about Hawaii. Sara offered to take me there this summer and show me around. While there I'm going to see how I like it and look for a job. That might have been her experience, but it might not be mine. :)