New all-purpose semi trekking shoes

Bought them because I really needed a new pair of sneakers after I left my old one muddy and woozing water in Hawaii.

699 NTD. Made in China. I'd think it's all worth it if they last 2 years.

And now there's light

I made a huge decision and had my eyes Lasiked a week ago. Here's what happened so far.

2/16 The big day
All in all, it's a funny sensation. I was told to stare at this red dot which was actually orange, and I could feel the doctor cutting on the surface of my eyes and flipping open the flap he made with the cuts. The red dot became a big orange rim right after the flipping thing. When the laser started hitting, I could see light blue sparks surrounding the orange rim. The whole procedure probably lasted 30 minutes. When I walked out of the operation room, I could already see much farther, if only all blurry.
After getting home, all hell broke loose. I heard from a friend that she just went directly to bed and woke up to clear, sharp vision. Not such luck for me. The pain was so bad that couldn't fall asleep, even with the help of a painkiller. I was wondering to myself why the nurse told me it's normal to tear up but I didn't seem to be doing much of that. I sat up in the bed, and the tears came streaming down as if from a collapsing dam. So I lied back down. The really bad time lasted about 2 hours, and by 4 hours there were only mild irritations. Hail to the rapid healing powers of eyes.

Bloodshot eyes after the surgery. This is in fact caused by the cuts.



Silly-looking eye shield. Need to wear them during sleep so the fingers don't go to wrong places and do bad things. I feel like an NBA hotshot.

2/18 First post-surgery exam
Doing well. R: +1.2, L: +0.9. Slight inflammation. Couldn't see clearly with my left eye, but the doctor said it was natural since it was worse than -1.0. Would take longer.

2/23 Second post-surgery exam
Inflammation gone. R: +1.2, L: +1.0. Still had trouble seeing clearly with my left eye. Doc told me he overdid a bit on purpose because weak eyes like my left one almost always regress after the surgery. So for the time being I am far-sighted in that eye and that's why I can't seem to focus properly on anything. Sounds good to me.

A week from the surgery. The blood is going away a bit. It feels funny to go to bed seeing everything so clearly. I have to tell myself not to poke into my eyes to remove the nonexistent contacts.

這是鼠的年!! This is the year of the rat!!

It is amazing how machine translators are offering good jokes these days. That's why you get things like 這是鼠的年 when people try to say this year is the year of the rat. Such literal translations always seem right when you convert them back to the source language, which says "this is the year of the rat", but anyone who speaks the target language is always in for a laugh when they see the translation and also when they see how 新年快樂 (happy new year) can be translated to "new year is happy."

Hail to machine translators. That's why I still have a job.

A hell of a way to wake myself up

Had the most horrible dream ever while waking up this morning. It's a sure sign telling you it's time to wake up when you can experience such wrenching emotions in just one dream. So I did. If that's a punishment for sleeping in (and getting an email from your boss wanting to discuss your working hours online but she's already off), I'll try to wake up earlier next time...

Kauai, Hawaii trip – Map

Last but not least, the map highlighting where we've been.

Kauai, Hawaii trip – Local specialties

Wild chickens: These well-fed creatures could be sighted everywhere. Obviously leading a comfortable life.





Spouting Horn




Poipu Beach: the beach and the snorkel gear rental.





Bridges



Tree tunnel




Sunset




Fruit stands




Funny plants: Signature plant, cactus (?!), tree roots and Cook Pine (I don't think they've been trimmed...).







Kekaha Beach: the only sunny spot on the whole island on that particular day.




Spiced-up signs

Kauai, Hawaii trip – Climb your rear end off to get to the top of the world

After the strenuous and slimy trail of Kee Beach, you'd think that no one remotely sane would want to do something similar. But trust me, time does weird things to your mind. And let's face it, the view and fun were definitely worth it. So we took off for Waimea Canyon 3 days after we got out of the muddy goodness. To get there, we had to drive all the way up along a winding mountain road, which obviously was foreign to a lot of Americans. Being Taiwanese, I felt adequately confident that I would fare pretty well.

The entrances of a handful of trails span along the road heading up to Kokee Museum. Apparently a lot of people chose to stay there overnight, but we figured one day was probably quite enough. We chose the Nualolo-Awaawapuhi loop since it was highly recommended by the old lady working at the museum. (Seriously, how bad could it be if a 65-year-old lady could do it?) With the last experience in mind, we bought new hiking boots and brought lots of water/drinks and (ah-ha!) bug spray.

The first mile was torturing. The slope was steep, and the fact that I couldn't seem to get enough air didn't exactly help. The chef tried to morph into my personal cheerleader but still failed to wean me from every-10-min breaks. But here's where the mystery of human bodies kicked in. When you tortured yourself long enough, you simply stopped feeling the pain as much.




We walked on some narrow paths dangerously close to the cliff and arrived at the first outlook hours later. It was something that I've definitely never seen before. Quoting a friend, you'd just feel very close to the sky. And here the rainbows showed up once again (as they did from time to time on this island), and I could barely believe my eyes when one of them was making a trail of raining showers on the sea (or the other way around. Oh who cares, minor scientific details). The whole scene was so breathtaking that I hated the idea of moving on to the returning trail even more. My new boots were not exactly helping either by giving me hell. They were men's boots and therefore about 1 size too big. I don't care what those motivation coaches say, but when you hurt yourself by making each step, it's really hard to forget the pain and to work up the motivation. At that moment, I just wanted to lie there and play dead.







But you've got to do what you've got to do. The only consolation was, you could hate what you've got to do with all your heart. I had no idea what kind of sadistic twisted pervert could have planned such a route, but the return trail was heading all the way uphill. If there were Armageddon, we were hiking it. The only good news appeared to be the absence of mosquitoes—even though I did remember to bring the bug spray this time. Detecting that my battery juice was drying up, the chef volunteered to carry my backpack for me. I felt bad. But that only lasted like 3 minutes. The truth be told, I was running out of energy (no bunny prize for me). After another 3 hours or so, we saw the best view EVER: a car parked at the exit.



A lady from Canada with her son offered to give us a ride back to where we parked our car, and I tried not to behave too desperate when I took the offer for us. The chef later said that she probably wouldn't have made the offer if he were hiking alone. Uh duh! Who'd pick a 200-pound strapping male instead of a fragile helpless petite brunette in this case scenario?! Now you know we shorties can work our charms too.

On the way down, I got carsick. I guess that was a pretty suitable wrap-up for such a devious trekking experience. I would just classify this along with the parasailing flight in Borocay under "Must Do, Not Again."

Kauai, Hawaii trip – A muddy day to remember

I still don't know what we were thinking, but we decided to take on our first mountain trail at the Napali Coast, starting at Kee Beach after days of raining. In retrospective, that day started as shittily as possible. Never a morning person, I was understandably grumpy when I was forced to wake up and rushed into the convertible we rented. With at least 5 things in my hands, I threw my sunglasses and the necklace I bought the day before onto the dashboard. This was not some ordinary necklace. It was consisted of beautiful delicate bright blue beads with a yellow flat pearl disk as the centerpiece. Most important, it cost me only $20. All the reasons to love something. When I was done dumping down all other irrelevant things into the backseat and turned around to put on my trophy, it wasn't there. I worked up a fit of hysterical obsession, trying to figure out how something physically incapable of evaporating could disappear in the three seconds that my head was turned. After searching the dashboard and the passenger seat for 30 minutes and attempting to cram my fingers into the small slit between the dashboard and the windshield glass, my personal chef finally managed to convince me two things that I refused accept: one, the frigging stupid car ate my necklace, and two, I wouldn't be able to squeeze my fingers into a space 1/4 their sizes to reach for something I couldn't even see.

Deprived of a psychological closure, I acted like a mature grown-up and sat there sullenly until we got to our destination. Kee Beach is actually at the end of the highway that loops the entire island. From there, you walk. And so we did. To be fair to the trail, it was quite fun. I could hardly think of anything more fun than walking on a muddy trail that made you slip 3 times and gave you a muddy butt to prove that you did. Since it has been raining, the mud and water were simply unavoidable. No matter how we tried, they just got everywhere. And by everywhere I meant everywhere. Well, maybe not for that nimble smug guy jumping and shifting balance beside me, but I was definitely covered by mud from waist down. The hell of all this was, it really got kind of fun after a while. With wet and muddy pants, we learned fast that trying to keep clean was as futile as Don Quixote with his wind mills; might as well just tread through the water holes and enjoy splashing each other and spotting a creak where we could clean ourselves up. To be damned, I forgot the bug spray that I brought for this trip and left it in the condo, and the only logical outcome was me being eaten alive by colonies of mosquitoes. Ironically, all that mud on me didn't seem to deter them one bit.

When we finally got back to where we parked our car, it was getting dark. We didn't have much time to celebrate how we did a splendid job getting back before sunset. Out of exhaustion and some pure black magic working against us, my chef locked the car key in the trunk. The doors were unlocked so we had access to the inside of the car, but these goddamn convertibles just didn't have a button that could release the trunk lock. We stood there for some time, helpless and clueless, while good people passed by offering opinions as to how to open the trunk. None of them worked. And the mosquito bites on me were adding up at an alarming speed. Miraculously we didn't yell at each other. I guess we were beyond exhaustion to do that. We decided this was the time to call in cavalry, but the problem was, ah-ha, the cell phone was in the trunk! So I geared into the Shameless mode, and approached a couple to borrow their cell phone. This couple of good Samaritans offered not just their cell phone but the car rental phone number and a ride to a bigger town on their way back. We were dropped off at Hanalei, with the mission to call the car rental road assistance again on a phone which they could get back to us. So there we went again, barging into a restaurant and asking the owner if we could borrow her phone if we dined there. She graciously agreed. An hour or two later, the locksmith showed up like an angel. He drove us back to that deserted end of road and popped the trunk through some device hidden in the panel on the passenger side.

Along with the locksmith went some $130, refundable by the car rental. Honestly I didn't care anymore. I just felt like kneeling down and kissing the locksmith's feet when I heard the most wonderful music of "click". And guess what would be our next challenge. Get the hell back and take a shower. You got that right.

Kauai, Hawaii trip – Where we stayed

The place we stayed at is a condo called Kapaa Shore right on the beach front. I didn't know what to expect before we got there so I brought everything I thought I'd need. Turned out they had pretty much everything: clean towels, dish washer, detergent, garbage bags, clean sheets, laundry basket, blow dryer, outdoor pool and hot tub, grill… You name it, they have it. It's a home away from home. Except you don't have to clean up when you leave.

The beach right outside the condo was a bit rough, plus the weather always seemed a bit too wet and cold for me to go for a dip, but the view was awesome. For the next trip, I'd go for a condo anytime.