Ok-Ok...so you may have read or you may have heard if you lived near by that I already spent about 3hrs typing up a Hawaii story which was lost to a power outage on Australia Day the other week. The good news is at least Australia Day has not been lost to the social justice warrior politically correct leftards that plague our society today, bad news is my story was...till now haha

The journey began packing my 6 foot hypto rip in a dayrunner underneath a 7 foot double bubble wrapped delta into a 7 foot Squid triple coffin and flying Singapore Airlines to Haneda airport. When you go to Japan & I mean you gotta go sometime coz its bloody good value. Make sure you fly into Haneda, not Narita. Narita is like 90 mins on the other side of Tokyo bay and costs extra time/money to get to Tokyo. Then again Chiba over there has waves & you guys are surfers...thats true I guess, however although its totally worth taking a board to Japan between say August & October. Its not gonna be a surf trip & Chiba shouldn't be your destination. Better off tieing in seeing some stuff along the way like Izu Peninsular/Izu Islands, Wakayama prefecture or epic Shikoku. Not to say Chiba is not nice, but it can get crowded.

That all said I arrived in tokyo & paid $16 per day to leave by boards at Haneda airport storage. December to March is very cold in Japan, its winter. But unlike here in Asutralia. Japan get their waves around summer from offshore Typhoons. If you lived there you'd surf in summer & snowboard in winter and it would have been a great time to go snowboarding in Japan when I was there. Unfortunately I was banned...I received a really bad concussion & experienced a couple of seizures from hitting my head on icy snow early April 2017 at Resutso (near Niseko) and my mum in law didn't want me to go, she was worried I'd kook out and not make the family trip to Hawaii. I thought it was sweet, happy to respect it & well all my snowboarding gear was at her house too lol, so yep no snowboaring. Sidenote - I met a pretty cool chick from Perth at Smith's Beach about 4 months ago who was leaving for Rusutso the next week to be a ski instructor. That was her thing & that was hard restraining the froth for a quick quick snowboard mission with a friend in Tokyo who was also saying hey lets go. But haha nahhh the froth for Hawaii was way-way higher.

Thus...Tokyo was...hmmm, lets define it as say a dining experience. Friends & I did 3 Yakinku (Japanese BBQ) & 2 Korean BBQ with a few beers ; D I did one trip to browse Akihabara, played some epic VR games. The day we left for Honolulu we had a clear view of Mt Fujisan & I felt guilty for not getting out & about a bit more. Somtimes your body gets a little more invoved in your decision processes due to how your aclimatize. The contrast from Oz was like 24c to 8c. There are times that contrast less, Christmas time is not one of those times.Better times are like. There are better times. Like Oz to Japan at the end of march with the cherry blossoms flowering, beautiful clear days a little cooler than home making it easy to travel or say Indo in Feb, man I wish I had a trip booked hope someone out there does...but anyway, Hawaii.

We booked our flight to Japan about this time last year & waited till about the middle of 2018 until the rest of the family were locked into specific dates. This trip was to celebrate my wifes parents retiring, essentially shutting down their Ma/Pa supermarket they'd operated the last 40 years with my father in law heading off to the markets for meat/veg at 4am, opening 7am & shutting at 8pm (7 days a week). For 40 years with only a few days off each year. An epic achievment, awesome beautiful people enriched with some kinda super powers. We were like are they gonna do it, they'd talked about it for years & it hadn't happened. We kinda doubted it would happen, but then it did. We could understand that this was a buisiness they had built from scratch & operated for so long. They felt like they were indebted to their clients for all the years & even to this day we're unsure if they will reopen at a diminished amount of stock coz its on the cards...but anyway we booked Hawaiin Airlines, Haneda to Honolulu within the dates of our Singapore flights (Perth/Haneda), don't do it that way its heaps pricier & Hawaiin Airlines charge you $150us for boards (not if from Australia). Great airline, just make sure you check their surfboard charges, I paid $300us extra. Luckily it was per board bag & not per board but it surprised me coz there is no charge from Oz, I farked up not checking from Japan.

Haneda airport is rocks, easy transportation to/from and when we were leaving I was hungry (& thirsty). I had a big plate of combination Sushi for $18 and 2 x pints @ $7 each. Japan has really good airport prices, can say same for Narita, Osaka & Wakayma. Hopped on Hawaiin Airlines at 2030 for a 9hr redeye flight to Honolulu. Interesting fact: from Japan I was arriving the same day I left even though it was the next day, but visaversa on the way back.

Tropical Studios at Marine Surf Waikiki where we were staying the first week were supposed to be picking us up but their car broke down. We caught 2 taxi vans for 1/2 the price. I'd say just catch a taxi when you get there, plenty of taxis. Marine Surf Wikiki are a few mins walk behind the Sheralton, fully self contained unit with kitchen, big fridge & even esky, beach chairs. Not sure on other rooms on level 12, we were woken at 0430 by reversing rubbish trucks each. The beeping reverberates around the concrete Wikiki jungle & we're not used to the noise. A lot cheaper than other options between Christmas/NY's & a great location. Sheralton is uber expensive but we had bro/sis in law plus parents staying there so we spent most of our time at the Sheralton sleeping in the olds room with 3 double beds overlooking Wikiki beach. Really nice view, plenty of restauraunts. If possible though, if your there for surfing during "winter" (lol) get up to the North Shore ASAP. Wikiki can be fun, but thats not what your there for.

We checked out the East coast, trekked up to Diamond Head & had great food/drinks. But it wasn't until we did a run up to Makaha that I got some good waves. Predominately known as a longboard wave, it was a fun wave on the hypto rip sitting out the back waiting for the sets with an ex local bloke that had moved to Cali, I asked what went wrong, he said following the almighty $ as an architect. His olds still live locally so he gets back every year. The other bloke was good to watch, local LB'er. Most waves took off in reverse, smashed it off the top, figure 8 cutback, rince repeat...I was told the swell had dropped heaps & days before it was breaking 2 to 3 times further out. Not bad considering I was getting 50m to 100m rides on my 6 foot hypto rip.

The backdrop of Makaha while sitting out back was beautiful. I said to the bloke that had grown up there it looked like a drawing, it really did to me. Just didn't look real & he said it looked like most Pacific Islands. So probably my inexperience in the region, but wow. You have the super easy point break, epic scenery & although there are a few people out getting waves was pretty easy if you were able to read the lineup & go some middle range waves. Magic place.

The next day or 2 we sight see'd, I got stoked over my 7 year old nieces stoke of catching waves in Wikiki. It was really small & soft. Perfect for kids. Or you would think, she had had enough of her $20 boogie board sold by the Sherlton "Lawsons" and preffered her blow up tube. I'd chilled out since she had switched to it & after one wave she like just slipped through under water. I was watching, but took a couple of seconds to realize she didn't pop back up like before. I grabbed her & she coughed up water. Damn Tokyo girl haha, not used to waves. Scared the hell outa me & I was worried she would be traumatised to swim in the ocean. She was scared to begin with coz she was worried about getting stung by jellyfish. But she came good & had a great time....but this is a probalem these days, people getting educated by leftards in regards to the oceans creatures. We need to be wary of what become the norms................................................................................

Errrrm....transport, we rented a Nissan Quest. Huge car, you could have 4 boards & 4 people no worries comfortably. More with sacrifice. We picked it up in Wikiki & dropped it at Honolulu airport which was no pronlem at all, quick/easy (honolulu).

Did a few drives but you could do without your own car if you stayed in Wikiki area, but I'd highly recommend not doing that.

Kalani Hawaii Private Lodging on the North Shore (Behind Rocky Point Lefts) was our next (best) stop. Close to Bansai Bowls & Rocky point lefts its was awesome. If you could corner Bernie Baker, the owner & former director etc etc etc of surfing related stuff you'd be fully stoked. Awesome guy, helped us heaps with advice and an esky hahaha. I had no idea what a legend this guy was until I got home and researched the guy. He knew way too much. But thats the way things are with surfing, people have no idea of the skill involved....true...

So anywayz...Kelly Slater was surfing a break next door to me with his mate Kalani Rob & I will post the vid. I saw Kalani Rob at Pipeline. Took some nice pics of Nathan Florence, Johns bro.....plenty of name dropping opportunitues on the North Shore haha. Loved it wanna do it again ASAP...Wil provide more BS with Pics upload cheers : )