Time to leave...

The last days of surfing have been great!! I enjoyed 'pops', 'three's' and 'first break' - even though the last week the waves have been a little smaller - but maybe we have just been spoiled this summer!
I decided to sell my surfboard. It is an 'Ole' - Bob Ole is one of the best! He makes fantastic Longboards and is famous in Hawaii. He lives on Maui and has a little, tiny shop there, where he shapes custom boards. My 9'6 custom 'Ole' has been a wonderful companion and sometimes I got the impression that it's not me improving - it's just the board making up for my mistakes ..
So many people asked about it and than one morning this guy comes along - Chris. He loves 'Ole'-boards and was interested in mine straight away .. I did not really wanted to sell it, but to let it sit for so long hurts as well. Like giving away a loved pet - it always is most important to find a good home - and I did! Take care of my pet and have fun! Thanks Chris!
I wanna capture every moment on my last day, inhale the vibrant morning breeze, remember the picture of the rising sun behind Diamond Head...

"Things turn out best
for the people who
make the best
of the way things
turn out."
(John Wooden)

Surf Experience

Enjoying the walk in the morning,
carrying your board to the beach.
The first strokes through the water,
awaiting the rush.

Every surfer knows

Resting in the lineup around friends,
waiting for the waves,
to finally catch the one,
that carried your name
all along.

Every surfer knows

It's the one love...

Every surfer knows

Dawn Patrol

It is a lifestyle, a passion and the one love we all share - SURFING!!!
And there are some special people that I got to meet over the last 4 years who shared some precious moments with me, a lot of fun, accidents, rainbows, turtles, dings, waves and I miss them dearly!!
The early morning surfers are a very special crowd and have become something like family. Every morning one after one comes along the beach walk and meets behind the police station ... drinking coffee, watching the waves and than finally with the first signs of sunrise boards get unpacked, waxed and ready to go ... Catching the first waves out there with the sun slowly rising above the hotels is like magic and everyone who experienced it will feel with me.
I hope I'll surf more waves with you and I am happy and thankful for everything you guys and girls showed me. I am proud that I became brave enough to paddle out to Pops by myself :)
ALOHA

The Hitachi Tree

Companies are always hunting for the one logo, the one icon representing them and bringing good luck on the way to profit... and so it happens that in the year 1973 the japanese electronics giant 'Hitachi Ltd.' stumbled across Moanalua Gardens, a privately owned park, that is open to the public not far from Honolulu and houses the most beautiful Monkeypod tree in Hawaii.
Now 'Hitachi Ltd.' pays the park owner $400.000 a year for using the tree as their icon. The contract lasts for 10 years and brings the owner $4Mio. !
Isn't that the most valuable tree in the world??
But the amazing thing about the tree is ... the masses of japanese tourists that come by every day to take pictures!!
More infos @ the Honolulu Advertiser

Aging

It is the last day of August and that means that my birthday has just passed by ... And it is a significant age - 30! What am I supposed to feel? Different? Maybe .. Old? Maybe .. Or like my brother said it: 'The thirties are full of hard work'. Well - I am exited! And I found a nice quote today:

'Age does not diminish the extreme disappointment
of having a scoop of ice cream fall from the cone. '
(Jim Fiebig)

So let the party begin and the changes unfold. Definitely a time to grow up, think things through and make some 'hardcore decisions'!
Aloha folks!

Sailing, sailing, sailing ...

And there I was ... crewing on a 'Cal 20'! A dream comes true - finally I am able to do some 'small-boat sailing' in Hawaii and gain more experience in spinnaker handling and racing.

On Wednesdays a special crowd puts together a small boat regatta and the course goes around Kihei lagoon, a boat harbor near the airport. We started off pretty good and even though our bowman had his doubts about our weight (first time with 5 people on board..), but we made it first over the finish line with about a minute ahead!

That has to be celebrated .. so we took our captain for a beer to the famous 'La Mariana' - a sailing club and restaurant directly on the waterfront. Absolutely stunning location and perfect to watch a sunset!

Friday Night Regatta

It seems to be the same picture every Friday night at the coast of Waikiki ... sailboats, busy crew members hissing kites and boats racing to be the first in their class to cross the finish line ..
Friday night is Regatta night! The boats are leaving the harbor around 5pm and depending on the length of the boat the start is around 05:20! I got lucky once more and got the chance to crew aboard 'Runaway' - a 4o foot aluminum race yacht. It is a fun international crowd from New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Germany, ... all over the world. The race lasts for about 90minutes and if the wind blows hard and the crew is in the mood for more beer than we keep on sailing until sunset ... I get the chance to learn so much about racing and the first time it was already adventurous... two boats crashing into each other, ripping kites and a hard breeze ...

Dolphin Pictures

Lucky me - my friends Jeri and Ken brought a disposable waterproof camera to the snorkel day with the dolphins ...
So just to proof that they were really there .. are here some pics!!

Drinks in Town

One of these Fridays ... Iris took me to the 'Romano's Macaroni Grill' for drinks - it's a great Italian restaurant with a cool bar next to an indoor fireplace. It's locatet at the Ala Moana shopping center and because she is coming here all the time the bartenders are super nice and kept sliding us weird drinks I never had before .. like a 'mudslide' or an 'oatmealcookie'.

A Day With The Dolphins

Unbelieveable!!! I never experienced that before .. let me call it one of the best days of my life!
Today I drove up to the northshore with two friends of mine (Ken and Jeri) - passed by Haleiwa and finally got a parking spot at Waimea Bay and wanted to go for a little snorkel tour..
Our favorite corner is the very left side of the bay - you can see turtles there quite often and a looot of fish .. The weather wasn't so good today so I left my camera on the beach for our first trip ... (if I would have known ..). As we stick our heads into the water we can hear the lifeguards yelling something about 'stay aways from the dolphins' - so we look up and see a whole herd coming up about 100 yards away from us .. about 40 to 50 dolphins. You can hear their voices under water - how they get louder the closer they come ... so we swam in that direction alwys sticking our head first over water looking for them jumping until we finally saw them underwater not far away from us ... It wasn't scary at all, it was wonderful, truly fascinating and fulfilling. For about 15min we were in the middle of the family, they swam over us, underneath and next to us .. they were cuddling and snuggling and having sex - never seen that before :)
They were playing in the bay for a long time and moved along the shore for about 3 hours, but never came that close again ...
Wow - spinner dolphins - love them!
After that we went again in the water - spottet turtles, fish and had fun playing with the camera!

Pike Place Market

The pike place market in Seattle is like an institution - you just have to go there!
So I looked for my favorite Backpacker - the 'Green Turtoise', it's right at the corner of Pike Place and just one block from the waterfront and for 30$/night you get a nice bed, breakfast, wifi and helpful people.
The next morning I visit the market early, grab some fruit, a hot chocolate and watch the famous fishermen prepping their fish display and throwing fish around .. a popular tourist attraction in the afternoon, but tough business because which tourist has a kitchen to prep some fresh catch later?
I wander around downtown for a while, spend some time shopping for a bikini and decide to be brave and try some new mexican place .. I already forgot the name again, but it felt a little like the 'Subway' of Mexico and I was overwhelmed with all the choices of ingredients and sauces and the staff guy was a little overburdened when I asked him to just put a tasty burrito together...
But it tasted aaawesome and I joined some tromped duo outside to enjoy my lunch.. nobody really seemed to care for their music, but I thanked them for the nice time and they seemed to be happy about the fact that they entertained one person!
In the evening I catched a plane to ... HONOLULU!

Busride to Seattle

Finally I decide to take the 'Quickshuttle' bus to Seattle - it is only 50$ round trip, pick up in Downtown and drop of in Downtown Seattle near the Space needle - perfect! I book a hostel bed in the 'Green Tortoise' and get on the bus in the afternoon .. still with a little bit of a sick feeling how the border is gonna be ..
I fill out the immigration form and use a red pen - that was a mistake! The bus stops and we all have to get out, take our bags and passports and go into a building. 3 officers are waiting, I have to fill out another form in black .. but everything goes normal, no questions asked and I pick up my bag happily and get back on the bus.
The drive down to Seattle is beautiful! The olympic mountains on the left - Snowcaps all the way, forest, lakes and than after about 2h behind the border: view over Seattle ... what a city!
I get dropped of and take this picture ...
The air is clear and warm, bands are playing in pubs and bars and you can close your eyes and feeeel NIRVANA playing somewhere!
I walk to the hostel and loose my way a little - so two homeless people, one in a wheelchair without legs are giving me advice for the way - and the guy with legs asks me if I have plans for tonight - aaawesome!!!

So this will be the last time reporting from Vancouver.. I just wanna leave some city impressions before moving on to Seattle!
I am not an architectural expert, but some of the hotels in downtown have been really impressive!
On top of that you can find the official olmpic countdown clock on the corner of Hornby and Georgia. It got started in 2007 by the swiss watchmaker omega and looks a little like an ice cube.
Than just around the corner of my hostel you can find the tallest building in Vancouver: Living Shangri-La! It is a mixed-used skyscraper, that holds offices in the first 15 floors and a hotel with condominiums in the top floors and is all together 201m high!
Another milestone of architectural achievements is the Vogue theatre in downtown Vancouver - at Granvillestreet, so just down the street from the place I stayed in - I lived in the party zone! The whole street is pretty much full of theatres, music, clubs and art scene - amazing!

Last but not least: surrounded by water ans split up through rivers and creeks (even Downtown!) this city had some public transport ferries running. The most famous maybe the aquabus! It runs over to the Granville market and the view back to Downtown is just beautiful..

Canadian Forests

I had the honor to join an extraordinary person for a tour through a canadian forest and over the Lynn canyon suspension bridge.. His name is Eric, he is 68 years old, retired bus driver and personal trainer and now he takes out tourists for day trips. It's free, but I hope everybody left him a tip. It was a blast! A tour through architectural history of Vancouver, a ferry ride to the northern part of 'town' and after only 30min you find yourself in a bear territory...
The forest is green, thick and smells wonderfully misty - the trail leads to a little lagune where kids are jumping off the rocks in 20feet hight in icecold water and we stop for a picknick. Eric throws in some stories about 'little Hollywood' that is located nearby and shares with us that they just finished shooting 'Twilight 2' in that canyon - aawesome :)
After another walk we come to the famous suspension bridge - just a lot of people and for some well traveled people with new zealand experience - not really that exiting.
But a great trail, an extremely interesting guide, that made the city even more special to me!

Totempoles and stonemen

On one of our bicycle tours we stopped on 2nd-beach, the south-west side of Vancouver. There is a long beach stretched out along the shore and at the end a couple of stonemen of an artist, who took metal poles and drilled holes through big rocks to lign them up one over the other. It's suposed to bring you good luck if you built one yourself - and so I tried ...

Another tourist attraction are the totem poles at the beginning of Stanley park - so sure thing that me and my roommates stopped by for a visit. Different artists and totem-carvers of the region contributed a pole for this place and a little sign in front tells their stories, the meaning of the different figures and animals contained in the pole and when it got carved - just another fascinating spot!

A night in Vancouver

Spending a night in Vancouver can really become an adventure .. in a wide variety of ways!
We started off from the hostel to visit the night market in chinatown... it was a long way and beautiful city views that I tried to capture in fotos.
As we finally found the entrance of the market at the end of chinatown - we agreed to a little try out: everyone had to pick something to eat or drink, that he or her never had before! We let the others try and ended up in a culinary adventure! But: it's worth a try even if I never wanna taste some of these flavors again in my life!

Home sweet home...

Not that I am not happy in Canada .. but .. I really miss barbecuing with a bunch of special guys from home. Especially when the location is so pretty like the last one where we came together and the barbecue is that exclusive!


Ich vermiß Euch Ihr Lieben!! Aber ich denk definitiv an Euch - wenn ich mich in billigen Hostels versuche mit schlechtem Wifi ein wenig Arbeit zu erledigen oder wenn ich Sprüche in ner Bar lese, wie: "Drink triple, see double, act single!"
Ich hoffe Ihr genießt den Sommer, grillt täglich und laßt auch sonst die Kuh fliegen!
Liebe Grüße an Alle!

'Push-biking' Stanley Park

After a nice free breakfast at the hostel me and my roommates (Andrew, Australia; Jerem, France) started walking down Robson Street to Stanley Park. Shortly before the park you can find an enormous number of bike rental places .. we compared everyone of them and the biggest and most famous one 'spokes' was the most expensive! So we took a chinese family business and got a great mountainbike, helmet and lock for 4,75/h! It is so much fun!
A beautiful view over to the skyline of downtown, the totem poles, the aquarium, endless forest, and beaver lake... unbelieveable! Just walking distance from
downtown - an oasis. Bicycling underneath the lions gate bridge, along the beach with the sun coming out .. another perfect day!
To make it even more perfect - we decided to eat over on 'Granville Island'. You can take a 'aquataxi' over to the other side of the bay and find a huge international food court, market and art galleries.

Bowen Island

Yes this is really only a busride from Vancouver ... It doesn't take a long ride here to feel like in a film set of one of those movies where they fight bears, go camping and chop wood, it's only a few minutes out of downtown and a completely new world begins..
Today I joined one of those Hostel tours - Volunteers do them, you get to meet a lot of nice people and see stuff you would've never seen by yourself.

A ferry ride later I end up on 'Bowen Island'. Hills, mountains, lakes, cottages, nice big houses, modern architecture, a picturesque harbor with great tacos and beautiful forest with a fern covert ground .. the sun is up, about 24°C ... what else can you wish for?

Maybe a sunny walk around lake Killarney with it's swampy area? Our tour guide Rob walked us through the little village, around the lake, including a picknick at the water..

Or maybe a salmon berry on the way?? (Rubus specialibis)
They taste like a mixture between raspberry and blackberry with a note of lime in there - ok, but not my favorite.

After a cold 'Hefeweizen' [ HEH-feh-vite-zehn] in the Bowen Island Pub we headed back to Horseshoe Bay to catch the bus home - what a great day!

Yeaaahhhh - Vancouver!!

Hey you people at home,
I survived an Airbus flight and arrived in one piece in Vancouver a couple of hours ago... Jiippiii!
I must say: I am stoked! Vancouver is amazingly beautiful, offers various attractions and holds absolutely friendly and helpful people!
I ended up in a nice Hostel in Downtown and go on a tour tomorrow .. I have to look up to which island though ... to much information for just one day!
But: I wish I would have spent some semesters at the university here .. the beach is 5min from downtown and students are enjoying their weekends with a nice barbecue at the beach or on a sailing trip through the bay.