HAKUNAMATATA!!

Thursday, March 16, 2017
Giraffe Manor

Ok, so this is what I've been waiting 2 years for...This is the Giraffe Manor.  It's a sanctuary for the endangered Rothschild giraffes and it's also a wonderful place to stay if ever you're in Kenya.  This is only a smidgen of the pics I took today, I'll get into more detail once I get home but I wanted to show you how special this place is and why I was stressing out so badly to get here...

But first, Dubai.  This is Burj Khalifa, the tallest skyscraper in the world.

Ok, that's all for Dubai for today.  Off to Giraffe Manor!  Yes, I'm skipping the Kafi apartments too...that's all for a later day.  I'm exhausted.  It's past midnight and I've been post processing for over 2 hours now.

We got up early to have some breakfast with the giraffes.  Food pics coming later!

The food is wonderful in case you were wondering...

This is my cousin Susie.

And her husband Evam.  You'll meet Layne and Amanda later.

After breakfast we headed out to The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust.  This is where they foster orphaned elephants.  You can also get a chance to adopt an elephant for 50 USD per year.  Susie adopted one, I can't remember her name but she was rescued from a poaching mission I think 2 years ago.

After the elephants we went back to the manor and they showed us to our rooms...here's ours...

We have a balcony where we can feed the giraffes in the morning

I'll show you more later.  On to lunch...

Meet Layne and Amanda.  Layne and Randy have been friends since hanabata days and he was the best man at our wedding.

After a quick nap it was time for high tea...and lots and lots of kisses!

The lighting was incredible

Ok good night!  Gotta get up early tomorrow for another adventure!

My day in Dubai wasted...

Wednesday, March 15, 2016

Sorry, no pics yet.  It's 11pm and we have a 7am pick up tomorrow morning and I'm exhausted....

The day started off great.  We had a looooooong 14 hr flight from Seattle to Dubai.  The flight wasn't full so we were able to stretch out and sleep.  Emirates is awesome by the way.  I'll talk more about them later.  We arrived in Dubai around 11am and our flight to Nairobi wasn't until 4:40.  Evam, my cousin's husband mentioned to us that the city wasn't too far so we could go explore for a couple of hours.  We hopped in a cab and we were on our way.  The ride was about half an hour and 6 of us were squished in a little minivan.  Of course I get carsick.  If I was in that car any longer i would've hurled.  So we walked around a bit and the wind blowing in my face helped.  We went to their mall and I think it's the largest mall in the world.  It was HA-UGE.  And air conditioned.  Thank god.  But then I started feeling sick again.  Randy was hungry so he got something to eat while the others went exploring.  I just sat there miserable.  I was dehydrated.  I knew I didn't drink enough water on that flight.  My mouth was dry and water wasn't helping.  I needed Gatorade or something with electrolyes in it.  Couldn't find anything.

Fast forward to the airport, nothing there either.  Good thing this flight wasn't full either, it was 5 more hours to get to Nairobi.  Randy moved to the center seats so he could lay out.  I was sitting there miserable waiting for the plane to take off so I could finally unbuckle and laydown.  Luckily I was able to fall asleep for a little bit so when I woke up I stretched out too.  I woke up miserable.  I bought a sprite at the airport and tried to sip it.  I waved my meal away and tried to go back to sleep. I asked Randy for the Rolaids that we bought and what happened? HE FORGOT THEM.  THEY WERE NO WHERE TO BE FOUND.  JUST KILL ME NOW.  My stomach settled enough for me to grab a cup of hot water from the flight attendant.  It helped a little.

Fast forward to the Nairobi.  I was finally feeling better by the time we landed, thank god cause we still had to go through immigration and I didn't want to hurl in front of all those people.  Customs was a breeze so it was off to find our airport shuttle to get to our apartment.  I found Safi Budget Apartments on Agoda and they offered free transportation and free breakfast.  Perfect.  It was cheap, we're only staying one night because the tour company is picking us up early in the morning.  Hmmm...no shuttle.  A really nice gentleman Julian approached me asking if I needed help.  I told him we needed to contact the apartment so they could pick us up.  He was on the phone for quite awhile and finally said they there was no shuttle.  UM...WHAT?!?! He said he could take the 6 of us for $54 USD.  Sure.  Just get me the hell there.  It was quite a drive, maybe half an hour, and while  he was driving all I was thinking was "Is this guy scamming us??  Is he gonna take us to some dark alley and rob us??"  We have no idea who he was, we just jumped in with him because he was very friendly and helpful.  Luckily, he was legit and also very, very nice.  We jumped into two taxis and Randy said their driver was super nice also.  Phew.  You don't have to come looking for us in the dumpster yet.

We finally made it to the apartments and they are extremely nice here also.  I don't know what the hell the mixup was because he said normally they do pick up their customers. Now I just have to make it out of here without catching Malaria and i'll be set!

Good nite!  I'm exhausted.  Stay tuned...the best is yet to come!

**UPDATE:  What? an update already? I just finished posting!  Yes.  UPDATE.  Randy warned me...THIS PLACE HAS NO HOT WATER!!  I'm awake now.  And my blood pressure has now risen another 50 points.  I was gonna wait till the morning, maybe they only have hot water during certain times?  But, uh. no.  I was feeling so slimy I just had to suck it up and hop in. It felt like I was showering at Kailua Beach.

Update: This trip almost never happened!

Monday, March 14, 2017

So, did you hear about the big blizzard hitting the East Coast this week??  Yah, well, ummm...that's exactly where we were headed.  We were supposed to land at JFK at 6am, fly out at 11.  But no, both our Hawaiian flight inbound and Emirates flight outbound got cancelled around 7am this morning.  Time to scramble.  I need to get to Nairobi by the 16th, PERIOD.  Between all the phone calls and waiting on hold my blood pressure must've been through the roof.  After researching we found a Seattle flight from Honolulu will allow us to catch an Emirates flight on Tuesday to Dubai.  I got a hold of an Emirates person pretty quickly and with a bunch of begging and explaining, I was able to get on.  There were 8 seats left on the Seattle flight.  Now after me, only 6.  My cousin and Randy's friends weren't so lucky.  They were fighting with the agent on the line for 2 hours because they insisted that there were  no empty seats on Hawaiian.  Long story short (well shorter), they were able to get on a Honolulu - Maui - Seattle flight that landed about an hour after we did.  PHEW!!  It's now 1:30 in the morning and I gotta get up for a 6:30 pick up tomorrow so we can make it for our 9:30 flight.  Wish me luck!  I can't handle anymore stress!!

I'm going to Africa!!!!!

Monday, March 13, 2017

This trip has been 2 years in the making, well actually way more than that considering i've been wanting to go F-O-R-E-V-E-R.  I'm going on a cultural safari tour with The Safari Collection and I have a feeling it's gonna be awesome!!!  Sooo not looking forward to the flight though.  About 35 hours in all, HNL to JFK (New York) - 9.5 hours; JFK to DXB (Dubai) - 12.5 hrs, and DXB to NBO (Nairobi) A little over 5 hours.  With all the layovers it's gonna be a looooong journey.  This is gonna be farthest and longest trip i've ever taken.

Here's a picture of my gear, I wish I could bring more but i'm very limted to the amount of luggage I can bring.  33 lbs to be exact.  That is inclusive of carry on + luggage.  My camera bag weighs 20lbs.  Yikes!  If you're wondering what I finally decided on, it's my 5D MKII, 70-200mm 2.8, 16-35mm 2.8, 50mm 1.4, 1.5x extender, flash, and a neutral density filter with holder (I have no idea how to use this yet but the photographer on the trip recommended I get one).  Oh yah and that's my new Everyday Backpack that I bought on kickstarter.  It's a pretty cool bag and it holds a lot of stuff!!

I'll try to blog everyday i'm there, it's a short trip, only a week (waaaah!) But I think it will be totally worth it...see you soon!

Maui iPhone pics

I forgot about the pics I took on my phone!!!

We stopped by GuriGuri before we headed up to Kula...doesn't this look delicious??

And then this happened...BAH!  On my very first bite too!

My favorite pic of the day!!

Haha I saw this while we were driving around and made Jalna work her magic to get the picture.  Cute yah!  I actually got a lot of likes on Instagram with this pic! :)

Baby Boston is Turning One!!

January 14, 2017
Heeia Elementary

I can't believe how time flies...It seems like only yesterday Dara gave birth to this little cutie-patootie!

Goats, goats, and more goats!

Friday, January 20, 2017
Surfing Goat Dairy

Happy New Year!  I finally decided to get off my butt and start taking pics again!  Anyways, I happened to open up a groupon email and I saw an offer for Surfing Goat Dairy.  I looked at a few pictures and I was hooked!  I somehow got Jalna to come with me, she wasn't very thrilled at the idea but she's a trooper.  She ended up researching omiyage places and I guess it was worth her while :) We spent the whole day in Maui...and I mean the WHOLE day.  We took the 6 am flight in and were supposed to take the 6:53 flight out.  We got bumped 4 times at the airport  (we were on standby) so we didn't fly out till 9:30 that night.  That's a whole other story.  It was pretty entertaining...

Surfing Goat Dairy is up in Kula, good thing I had the GPS cause I woulda got lost I think.  It's a cute farm with a bunch of goats, and they make AMAZING cheeses!!  Dude.  I hate stinky cheese.  Blue cheese, bleh!  Goat cheese, bleh!  Until now...their cheese has no smelly goaty aftertaste like others I've had in the past.  Along with the tour they have a small taste testing and we were verrrrry weary to try because we both don't like stinky cheese.  After one bite we were pleasantly surprised, they were delicious!  If you happen to go, Ole was the one I bought.  It's out of this world.  It has a small jalapeno kick to it.  Randy loved it!

Ok, back to the goats....

This is Pepito!  I just loved him.  Isn't he one handsome buggah?  Is that why they call them goatees?  Hmmm....

We (ahem, well, I) got to feed them too!  This isn't me though...

But I fed Pepito!!

Isn't this so cute?!?

Totally brought the wrong lens for this shot but I still think it looks kinda neat

Here are some Stop-on-the-side-of-the-road-hope-we-don't-die shots

That's it!  If you get a chance you should definitely visit, you'll leave with a big smile on your face!