Hawaii

In grade 11, I was fortunate enough to get the chance to visit Hawaii with my basketball team. My Coach thought it would be a great idea to play in a ten day tournament in Waikiki. To be completely honest, I wasn't excited about the basketball and once I arrived that was the last thing on my mind.

Diamond Head - an old Volcano. 

After a 10 hour flight, we arrived safely in Waikiki and went straight to our hotel which was located in a downtown area. The downtown area was quite commercialized and not something I would expect of Hawaii. However, our Coach promised us we would not be spending our ten days in this area and we would be taking a bus to the beach and other locations everyday. As he promised - the bus took us straight to the beach where some of us realized sunscreen is important.

As we made our way to the beach, shops and restaurants were close by. While walking by some, the employees tried to bargain with me which got kind of annoying. I'll admit I did end up purchasing a lot of jewelry on this trip. To my surprise, I did witness people do the shaka sign, also known as "hang loose." As most are aware of, this is a gesture that represents the culture in Hawaii. After our team witnessed this, we didn't stop doing it the rest of our trip. If you would like to hear more about my trip - keep up with this blog!

Hotel view