トイレはどこですか。

"We travel to have enlightening experiences, to meet inspirational people, to be stimulated, to learn, to grow." Rick Steves.
I'm in full travel mode, safe and sound in Tokyo. My friend Alban says there are two types of people, the ducks and the chickens. The ducks migrate and travel, the chickens don't travel, they lay their eggs and take care of their young. He says I'm the duck! =) It's 5:30 am and I just awoke in Alban's apartment. The view from my room looks out over the Tokyo skyline. What a life! Alban moved to Tokyo with his girlfriend Claire about a year ago. I met him back in my Hermosa Beach days and we've been friends ever since. He is in charge of the Asian region for a French sparkling juice company and she works for a French architectural firm. They are both French and of course, their wine refrigerator is almost as large as their food refrigerator.

Lets rewind back a day, a long day. And don't worry I'm not going to describe every day in detail, just the most worthy ones. At the airport in Honolulu, I was approached by a customs officer. He asks,"Where are you traveling? Are you traveling alone? How much cash, travelers checks did you bring? And how many bags did you check?" I answer, "Japan, Bali, and Thailand. Alone. Hmm... let me check...$2. And I didn't check any bags." So he gives me this look, hands me back my passport and says, "you're crazy, you know that right?" Ahhh shucks.
My flight over was a breeze. This is where I met Gibby. Gibby is originally from Philly, but has been a bouncer for the past 8 years in Honolulu and is off to see his girl in Japan for a few weeks. I slept little on the plane and made the mistake of watching the moving My Sister's Keeper. Disclaimer: Boys! Do not watch this movie with girls around, I cried for a good hour and trust me, I fought it!
Landing in Tokyo I discovered that my ATM card doesn't work at 90% of the ATM's. But thank heaven for 7-Eleven in downtown Tokyo, it finally worked! Gibby decided to tag along, or I decided to tag along with Gibby, in case my card never worked. I would have ended up in China if it weren't for Gibby's japanese. I know I know, I may sound like a stupid American, but I thought all kids in Japan were taught English at a young age. Wow, was I wrong. I was also thinking I might run into some Ninjas and Samurais. Wow, was I wrong ;)
My flight landed at noon. And with the help of Gibby's friend Shiho, we deciphered Alban's address, and I made it just before night fall. Shihu and Gibby introduced me to Kamo Soba, a duck noodle dish, and taught me a few greetings to help me on my way. Alban explained to me that if you ask someone for directions in Japan, they will walk you across town until you find it. Shihu guided me all the way to Alban's apartment and made sure I met Claire. Arigato!

I may have to buy a rain jacket, apparently there is a Typhoon headed for Japan today. In Maui that would probably ruin my day but in a city like Tokyo there are still tons of things to do.
Btw, トイレはどこですか。means Where is the toilet? My parting shot is of the buttons on the toilet at Alban's apartment, I'm yet to learn to use them but he reassured me he would teach me today =)

Here today, Gone tomorrow

Where to begin?

It has been months since my last blog so I have some catching up to do. I continue to work on a sailboat in Maui, surfing whenever there are waves, and enjoying day after day of sunshine. The boys and I raced in the Hana Relay this year, sponsored by Polli's Mexican restaurant and wearing Mariachi costumes, we placed 1st out of 122 teams with a 6:13 mile pace. For anyone who doesn't know the Hana Relay it is a fifty-two mile race, from the airport in Kahului to Hana, along 617 curves and over 56 bridges through the most breathtaking scenery in all of Maui. We even had a support team, also dressed in Mariachi costumes, blaring ghetto mexican music while riding a tandem bike. Definitely the highlight of our year!

Abe and Beth came to visit in August and we borrowed Alli's kmart beach cruisers and rode down Haleakala Crater. Byan Dennis also paid a visit and we drove around the entire island in a 24 hr time window.

I'm still yet to travel this year, other than a short trip to Oregon and Washington in August. Short, but what a great trip! I got to skydive in Oregon and see my niece Blakely. I just said my goodbyes to Oren and Alli who are traveling to South America, Israel, Cali, and Georgia for four months and Kyle and Heather who are traveling to Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand (check out http://kylethevagabond.com). And tomorrow...I'm off on a two month trip which includes 6 days in Japan visiting Alban and two months exploring Bali and Thailand.

I've been extremely busy the past week packing, finding places to store all my junk, moving out of my house, working and all the while there has been a south swell, which has made it hard for me to get anything done. Not to mention it feels like a bazillion degrees on the West Side. I'll be sure to blog as much as possible along the way.

Aloha

Year 2009 to date...

SO it's 2009! April 11th! Incredible how fast time flies. Since my adventures in El Salvador, I have made my way back to Maui and I'm not going anywhere for awhile. Atleast not for two months...I had to send my passport in to get renewed. It really sucks that you have to turn your old passport in when you renew. In ten years I somehow avoided losing it, although I did put it through a few spin cycles. Ben and I moved into a new 3 bedroom unit back in December with my friend from UP, Jeff Fanning. Jeff had won a car on the Price is Right last summer, took the money and fled to Maui. Don't believe me, see for yourself on Youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khtJ8hN8TC0

Where is Jeff now? Back in Alaska, he just left a few days back for a job opportunity. But, not before he stepped on a sea urchin and had to go into surgery! ouch!

My dad visited back in February and we had one hell of a weekend. I took a few days off and we headed to Hana for a night. We visited Red Sand beach, Waimoku Falls, Wainapanapa, and spent a night at a hotel on the water. For those of you that have never visited Hana, there are very few restuarants. We were planning on just cooking in our room, but when my dad asked the cashier at the grocery store for places to eat, she replied, "My house!" We pulled up to a small house in Hana town and when we knocked on the door, we were presently surprised. For only 16 bucks we each got chicken, a small salad, black beans and rice. If you ask my dad, he would probably say it was the best meal of his life. If you know my dad you wouldn't be surprised. My favorite bumper sticker is at the Hana General store, it reads, "NEW YORK PARIS TOKYO HANA."
We are in our last week of whale season, thank god! At one point I was working three whale watches a day and at the same time I was taking medicine for acute toncilitis, which I probably got from doing whale talks on the boat or maybe even from the whale snot...very high in bacteria!
We should have a new addition to the Cecka family, either today or tomorrow. Another girl. I'm sure my sister will start another blog for her.

One of my best buddys Rachel Kvamme visited last weekend. Definitly worth few paragraphs. Rachel and I have been friends for about 8 years now, I had always considered her as my older sister, as she always gives me this "I'm in trouble look" when I do something dumb, then she says, "Gabriellllll." I love it.


So I decided to take the weekend off, which really isn't that easy to do during our spring break season, but yes, thank you Chris. I picked Rachel up from the airport and we headed down to Kihei to go sailing with my friend Michael in close to 20 mph winds, 30 mph on the gusts. If you knew Michael you would tell us we're crazy, actually most of my friends did say just that. Just the three of us sailing down the coast, what a great adventure. Although we almost didn't even make it out to the boat on the moaring becuase we almost undershot the paddle out in the dingy and the wind was holding us off. For a second there I was thinking, crap Gabe, Rachel's first day and we are going to have to call the coast guard for a rescue. That night we headed to Cool Cats, our local hang out, for a little Oren Masserman on the ukelele.


On friday we headed to Lanai for the night. We put up a hammock on the beach and drank a bottle of wine, while listening to the commedian Mitch Hedberg. After dark my local Lanai friend Dustin gave us a short ride up to the Manele Bay Four Seasons Hotel (http://www.fourseasons.com/manelebay/), where we spent the night....NOT! But we did play a little yahtzee on the hotel's veranda, then challenged a few General Electric big wigs to a game of shuffleboard and jumped in the hot tub, before returning to our luxurious double LL Bean tent.


Busy busy weekend. The next day we went up to Lanai City to eat breakfast at Blue Ginger, where we saw George Lopez, had Rachel not pointed him out I would have never known,

actually I still have no idea who he is, so I 'googled' him five minutes ago =)

After breakfast we went to the Lanai Pines Sporting Clay range. Really really fun. We were given a half hour instruction (apparently Rachel has a dominant left eye!), then let loose with a golf cart and our rifles strapped to the side. So don't mess with us, although you do have a 30% chance of getting dropped if you cross us in the woods, which is roughly what Rachel figured we averaged. We took a couple of classic rifle pictures, which you can find on the cover of next months issue of, "Fox and Hound" and "American Rifleman."

We then spent the rest of the afternoon playing crochet and lounging around in the Japanese garden at the Koele Lodge, which is also run by the Four Seasons. After joined back up with Captain Brian, we sailed home, showered, then we were off to the Drums of the Pacific Luau at the Hyatt. Breathe... The weekend continued on much like that...but I have to go for a sunset surf right now because Ben keeps bugging me to get of my computer so I'll have to fill you in on the rest a little later. I'll post the pics from the weekend on my next blog...

Aloha
Gabe

Playa Tunco

Another terribly difficult day of surfing, laying around in hammocks, walking the beach at sunset and drinking dollar beers. Much of what my last week has been at the Papaya Lodge in Playa Tunco, El Salvador. With only a few more days left of my c. america adventures, I must soon bid farewell and head back to "my" reality...Maui. I had originally planned on heading to Patagonia and Peru, but my lack of proper planning made it a little on the unsafe and expensive side.

Almost everyone I've met at the Lodge always says, "You live in Maui, why the hell did you come here?" Yep, don't know, just another adventure.

With almost every ammenity at your fingertips, backed by mangroves, hammocks that swing over the river, and a friendly monkey named Pablo. Papaya lodge has been my favorite oasis in c. america. I'm yet to see a day of rain and there has been no shortage of waves, although the paddle out to the lineup feels like 2 miles. I've also made friends from Whistler, Berlin, Switzerland, Australia, and Vermont.

Last night I joined a little salvador feast for the homecoming of Papaya, who is the most famous surfer in the country. He'd been in Portugal for a competition, while his wife ran the lodge. I gave the women the rest of my maui key chains.

The sunset last night was beautiful and I joined my new friend from Whistler for a little hula hoopin!

Off to the market in La Libertad. Will write again soon. Ciao

What´s on tap?

Perfect waves, kayaking through estuaries with crocodillas, empty beaches for miles, enough avocados to turn you green, beaches littered with shells of every imaginable shape and color, hiking Corcovado national park where scarlet macaws circle above, sailing to remote Matapalo where whales dance and in the waves you are the only crowd, swinging from vines while hiking volcanoes and watching lava flow... just to name a few reasons why I came back to Costa Rica yet one more time. Many stories to be told, but I will have to catch everyone up later as the last few days have been extremely eventful!
Two days ago I woke to yet another day of rain in Playa Hermosa. Up until the last 3 days I didn´t know why they called this the rainy season. My friend Ricky told me that the bridge just east of Hermosa where they feed the crocs chicken daily had flooded and washed the crocs into the ocean. Nope, not surfing today, tomorrow or even the next day. I packed my things and was off to the Jaco bus station.
I came to find that everyone had the same idea and the last bus to San Jose was full. Despite my better judgement I took a cab 3 hrs to San Jose. The taxi driver Oliver lived in Alejuela, a small town near San Jose, and was headed home so he only charged me $24, compared to the normal $120. Deal! A little bit of a crazy driver, but his broken english and love for terrible American songs proved to be entertaining.
When we arrived in San Jose it was dark and if you have ever been to downtown SJ at night you would know it is extremely dangerous (don´t worry mom, happy ending!).
My bus for San Salvador was leaving at 3am and when I told Oliver I was going to sleep in the station he pleaded with me to stay in a hotel. He took me to the bus station to get my ticket, the bank to get some money, the grocery store for some snacks, then to a small hotel just a few blocks from the station, and he insisted I take a taxi at 2 am. All the while not accepting a dime extra.
I tell you this story to show that not all taxi drivers are shysters and I´m a lucky SOB.
the hotel I stayed at was a family business and the kids took an early liking to me after I gave them "cheesy" Maui key chains. They even knocked on my door at 2am and gave me breakfast and coffee.
Yesterday was a long day on the bus, 22 hours long, passing through Nicaragua and Hondurus before finally arriving in San Salvador at 1 am. If you are ever planning on travelling on a strict budget through C America, Tica bus is the way to go. Movies, food and getting through customs is a breeze. Only cost me $58. Running 4 hrs late, I had no idea where I was going to stay and walking the streets of downtown San Salvador at night is a no no!
Fortunatly I made a friend on the bus named Maria Jose Nonez, who was visiting her family in San Salvador and speaks english better than me, although she informed me she was the only one in El Salvador. She was surprised to hear I was travelling to her country bc they don´t get many tourists. With 16 right surf point breaks, some being the longest and best waves in C America and 82 degree water, why not come to El Salvador?! Maria offered me a pull out couch at her parents house and with not too many other options, I accepted. I stayed up late with Maria and her friends. One of her friends even sang Mariache and they told me all the secret spots in San Salvador.
I awoke to a beautiful day and just walked 20 blocks with my surfboard and backpack because I´m afraid to take the overcrowded buses and I´ve done enough sitting to last me a few weeks. I plan to stay in San Salvador for another day, check out the museums and cathedrals Alexis recommended, try some pupuseria, take in some live jazz tonight and head to Punta Roca tomorrow to surf.
One of the travel hints for blending in with locals is to travel with a duffel bag and wear neat clothes and long pants. I´m wearing board shorts, slippers, and a tank top, while carrying my surfboard bag and brick orange colored backpack. I almost caused a few accidents walking down the street.
Has anyone not listened to the "Into the Wild" soundtrack with Eddie Vedder. Listen to the song "Guaranteed." It has been an inspiring soundtrack as I travel solo, which at times can be lonely, but at others it can be uplifting. Life is what you make of it and the attitude that you take can make all the difference.
And isn´t it funny how one moment or encounter or decision can change the coarse of so many! ...something I think about more often when I´m travelling solo.
Pura Vida

Costa Rica

So I've been having some difficulties finding time this trip to write on my blog, but I'm alive and well and loving Costa Rica.
I will fill everyone in when I get a chance. I'm currently in Tamarindo and I'm renting a car and heading to Mal Pais today.
Pura Vida