Tag Archives: tahiti

Omi Around the Island

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You’re probably sick of all of this stuff about Tahiti. Blah Blah Blah. Yes, I know. I mean, it’s been over a month since we got back. I really haven’t had much time to blog as of late. I apologize! I’m a horrible blogger. :(

Anyway, in the first week that we got to Tahiti, we were able to take a bus tour around the island.

With a few stops here and there, it took us about 5 hours to take the main road that goes all the way around. We stopped at a waterfall, saw an abandoned lighthouse, swam in a grotto, and even had time to eat at the Mcdonalds in Tahiti.

Here are some bus shots from my window:

First, we stopped at Point Venus:

We walked on a pretty nature trail:

Then, we went to a grotto filled with lilipads:

Stuck our feet in the water of a hollowed cave on the other side:

And we even ate at Mcdonalds for lunch! (Totally had to). It was actually pretty good. Notice the Mcbagette! Pretty pricey at $22 though. -_-

All in all, it was the perfect day! We got to see the entire island from the view of an air conditioned tour bus. Totally worth the $50.

sweet, simple, and beautiful

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A few years ago, Martin and I carpooled to Tahitian practice. Knowing each other for a long time beforehand, we didn’t think anything of it. As we began to hang out more, we went from being good friends to great friends. We started liking each other and on November 13, we made a commitment to really get to know each other. That’s when everything began. Young, innocent, and naive, we began our relationship. We didn’t have that much experience. We have learned a lot from each other since then. We learned how to be a girlfriend, how to be a boyfriend, how to hang out, meet the parents, how to travel, eat fancy dinners, kiss, hold hands, sacrifice, and compromise. We were each other’s firsts for a lot of stuff. It’s a simple, organic, and beautiful thing.

In Tahiti, we loved walking out by the beach. It was t-shirt and shorts weather, even in the morning. On Friday the 13th (we’re not exactly superstitious), Martin woke me up saying that he wanted to take a walk. Without thinking, I agreed, asking him to get a head start because I was so sleepy. When I finally got out there, He and Kalisi (another musician from the group) were out there playing the guitar and singing. I remember thinking how cool it was that the members from our group would always walk around the hotel and that maybe they were practicing for the show later that day. I didn’t think anything of it other than, “I wish I didn’t look like I just woke up.” We sat there by Kalisi just listening to his voice and closing my eyes. The sky, blueish-purple began getting brighter and becoming more pink in hue. I kept thinking how perfect it was to be there. Martin got up, pulled me up and we started walking.

We walked closer to the water, hugged, and didn’t say much of anything. I remember the water being cool and clean. It’s freshness felt really good on my skin. Martin asked if I could hear his heart beating. I could, and it was beating really loudly. He said he had to give me something, and he pulls out a tiny black box. My heart skipped a little. He gets down on his knee and goes on about his plans for our future. He talked for a good 2 minutes while I couldn’t believe my ears. Utterly shocked, we were in the water, his knee on the rocks below and I’m desperately trying to remember everything he’s saying and savor each word. He talked way too fast for me to remember everything but my mind was running like a machine. I remember thinking, “Is this really happening right now?”

He opened up that tiny black box and looked up at me with the most scared, humble, open, and kindest eyes I’ve ever seen.

He asked me to marry him, and I took a deep breath and replied, “Yes!”

Fresh

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Tahiti is an island on the equator. It’s lush, green, and all natural. And the humidity gives the perfect environment for beautiful plants.

Since I started my garden 2 years ago, I’ve been desperately trying to grow island-looking flowers so I can use it to make fresh costumes or put flowers in my hair. Being in Tahiti made me really appreciate the humidity. It made me really love how fresh it all was. And plumeria trees grow on every other corner.

It’s so beautiful I wish I was back there drinking pina coladas and sitting on the beach. It sure beats all the craziness at work!

Paradise

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We stayed on the main island of Tahiti. A short ferry ride over to a nearby island brings us to Mo’orea. This beautiful place has crystal blue waters, mountains that look like faces, and crazy tour guides.

It seriously looks like those wallpaper pictures that comes with your computer. It was more beautiful than these pictures can show. Again, I apologize for these raw pictures.

So when we got off the island, we got on a bus, got on a boat, and circled around the island. We were able to stop and swim with the sharks and the stingrays.

Our crazy tour guide, Siki.

This was definitely one of my favorite days of the trip.

Crepes and Steak

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Tahitian food is amazing. It’s very French inspired, judging by all of the baguettes and crepes. (It reminds me of a great crepe place in Paris that we used to go to down the street from our hotel.) The food was also very expensive. Martin and I would easily spend $50 per meal (yikes!)… so we saved a little by going to the nearby market and buying groceries that we would stuff into our mini fridge in our hotel room.

All the times we saved and had enough money, we went out and enjoyed ourselves.

French crepes:

Picnic on the beach behind our hotel:

The infamous Poisson Cru: (So good)

Bread is seriously one of my favorite things to eat.

Fresh coconut!

Hinano: the national beer of Tahiti. It is brewed and bottled right on the island! It’s everywhere. A little light for my taste but still very good.

We had Mcdonalds!  It’s a a Mcbaquette!

These crepes were Martin’s favorite. They were from an awesome food truck festival they have every night by the pier. Otherwise known as Roulettes, these trucks are awesome!

These were one of our favorite places ever.

plus, they have this every night!

Tahiti Highlights!

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Hellooo!

I just put in a new theme! balloons! So happy about it cause it’s super fun and cute. Hope you like it!

Well it has been a crazy week! Unpacking, loads of laundry, still a little sick with food poisoning and going back to work has been stressful. I’ve been wanting to get Photoshop so I can make my Tahiti pictures all cute and stuff but it doesn’t look like that’s panning out and I’ve been wanting to share pictures of the island with you so badly… so raw pictures will just have to do. I apologize in advance for the next couple of posts. It will be all Tahiti pics because I loved it so much. ha!

Here is just a few quick photos of random stuff:

Now these are just little snippets of our trip but more pictures are coming soon. Get ready. :]

Home Sweet Home

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This trip was a vacation of a lifetime! I have SOO many things to share with everyone. It will take a couple of posts to do it all. lol.

I’m downloading all of my pictures to my hard drive as we speak. But here is a small sneak peak:

Tahiti, Here I come!

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As you may or may not know, I have been a long-time Polynesian dancer. I didn’t say I was a GOOD dancer, but it’s been a hobby of mine since the summer before I started high school. Throughout my early adolescent years, I was in the Polynesian Club in school and even finished high school as its co-president, weird. There’s just something beautiful about the movement, the meaning behind the dances, and the culture it represents.

In addition to the club, a few of my closest friends and I were a part of a small, family-owned and operated performance group, Pacific Island Dancers (PID), where we would dance at people’s parties, weddings, showers, and family events. Every summer I still come back to do shows with them. On a busy weekend we can get up to 3 shows! PID is such an amazing family and that’s been a reason why I love to dance so much. It’s good because it’s great way for me to relax and de-stress…and I don’t exercise so much.

After high school and throughout college I joined the group “Varua Hae” based in Buena Park. Melinda and I danced with them for a couple of years. It was actually on the carpool rides with Martin to and from this particular dance group that we started talking. Martin used to carpool with another friend, and if it wasn’t for this good ‘ol friend moving and not being able to carpool anymore, Martin and I wouldn’t have gotten so close. (Thanks John Lee!) That’s really where our relationship grew. However, after my sophomore year of college, I slowly started to get busy with school, work, church, and other activities to the point where I just couldn’t fully commit to the group.

Anyway, throughout these last few years, Varua Hae, (now Te Varua Ori) always had a special place in my heart. When we found out that they were going to compete in Tahiti this summer, we just had to come along for the ride. After all, Martin and I do owe a lot to the group :]

So after months of planning the time’s almost here. We’re leaving this weekend!

And I’m so excited I can’t contain myself.

Here’s a lovely video to give you a picture of what we will be doing next week:

 

Places

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I haven’t been to that many places in my life. Or as many as I would like to go, anyway.

My favorite trips so far:

A. Paris – We went on a school trip with my best friends. We went on my sophomore year of high school and it was such a great experience. We weren’t able to travel around Paris as much as i wished, but i’m still happy I got to go.

B. New York – I blogged about this in an earlier post. I went with Martin for our two-year anniversary. It was so fun! We really got to walk around and see all the famous places, as well as a few of the smaller, more indie places.

C. And third… I would have to say, when I was younger, we used to have a huge van. It had a VCR, TV, and lots of compartments to fit random toys. My parents used to take us on road trips all over the western states. We visited Utah, Oregon, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, and Colorado, among other places. I have a lot of fond memories of myself, Melinda, and Devyn watching movies and playing games in that van. We were too young to truly appreciate all of those places. At times we didn’t even want to get out of the car! That’s just sad. If I could take a road trip again, I’d want to visit all of these places again. It’d be different, now that I am older and could actually appreciate all of these places.

I really don’t have the time to travel much anymore. But if I were to somehow (magically) get vacation time, I’d like to visit so many places. Hopefully, at least once in my life, I’d be able to go to these places. Look how beautiful they are:

1. Guanajuato, Mexico

2. Colmar, France

3. Tahiti (and see REAL Tahitian dancers)

4. One day I’d like to visit Vietnam (where my Dad was from) and see what life is like there, meet the people, and explore these pretty waters:

5. Great Wall. One of the seven wonders of the world. Or is it eight?

6. I think this is Cinque Terre…is that right?

7. The Sapporo Japan Snow Festival

8. Definitely, Italia

9. Greece

10. Back to New York:

11. And back to Paris (especially if they have all of these pretty balloons):

**edit**: All images above are unknown. If you know any of these sources, let me know and i’ll change it. thanks!

Yes, I know, you can’t go everywhere. Plus I don’t have the kind of money to be traveling everywhere. But it’d be nice to go to any of these places. I want to see people, their culture, and what motivates them. I want to look at their mannerisms, their background. I want to meet the locals, find cute coffee shops, and sit and watch everyone walk by. It’s a long shot, but who wouldn’t dream of all of these things?

I used to daydream about traveling all the time, and now that I have a job, it’s been put on hold. I hope that one day, I could go with my future husband and travel the world together. Wouldn’t that be sweet? One of my sister’s best friends recently got engaged in Italy. ITALY! Can you imagine?! How amazing is that?

As I dream about all of these things, I’m still grateful for everything that I have right now. I’m lucky to be where I’m at. I’m lucky to have a job. Lucky to have the family, friends, and boyfriend that will support me. I wouldn’t want to change that for anything. But sometimes I just like to wish.

wish. wish. wish.