Dear Friends,
Greetings from beautiful Hawaii!!!
My name is Raphael and together with our Chaperone Sara, our monitors Carleigh, Makena and Megan are enjoying the beautiful island of Oahu - also know as the "gathering place".
We have reached the mid of the trip and we have an excellent group. The pictures below tell all about it.
It was really nice seeing them learning how to surf, enjoying the beautiful view on top of Diamond Head, Kayaking in beautiful clear water and having so much fun.
We have a group of 48 students from 20 different countries... The students are telling their impression of the trip on the blog that you can check daily and it will be a lot of fun if you also sent your message (commenting on the postings below). We will be happy to read the message during our bus rides to all of them.
Tomorrow we will visit Pearl Harbor... Arizona Memorial and we will be working on the battleship USS Missouri as part of our social activity.
Keep following us on the trip…
All the best,
Raphael DeMello
Alohaaaa everyone!
This morning we took the bus and went on a small city tour in Honolulu. We stopped at the state capital and took a lot of pictures. After that we continued our trip to the Dole pineapple plantation. This is one of the best and biggest pineapple plantations. We got the chance to try their delicious pineapple whip (ice cream)! Yummm!!
When our bellies were full we continued our trip to North Shore. This is a very famous surf spot where surfers from all over the world come to surf and compete. We had some free time to walk around in the small town. There were a ton of little shops and restaurants. One of the best burger restaurants is located in Haleiwa. The real daredevils could eat a 1 pound hamburger here! Unfortunately no one in our group was brave enough to take on this challenge. Whimps. They are most famous for the burger with pineapple on it! The students that tried it said it was delicious.
When all the shopping and eating was done we drove to see some of the best surf waves in the world. Here we got to see surfers, who actually know what they’re doing, in action. It was really cool to see this and in a few years we will return to compete with them! The water at these beaches was very rough so we weren’t allowed to touch it in case we would be dragged in and never to return. We don’t think our parents would appreciate this so we decided to obey this rule.
After seeing these insanely good surfers we drove to the Polynesian Cultural Center. There were 6 different cultures to discover here. We started out with Tahiti. Our brave Mohammed showed his dance skills on stage, and the poor audience had to sit through it. Haha J After that we went to the Islands of Tonga and people learned how to play the drums. Then we had our hula lessons! We got the chance to shake our hips and show our hot moves. The guys were thrilled about this. After that we went to the Islands of Samoa. A true Samoan man showed his abilities to create fire and climb coconut trees. In Samoa the men cook instead of the women, so women, move to Samoa if you have the chance. American men have a lot to learn.
A buffet followed after this. It started to rain but fortunately it stopped in time for the show. The show “ Ha: The Breath of Life” was very impressive. It was about a young man’s life and growing up. They showed this through all the Polynesian islands and their culture full of dances. The dances were amazing. When the show ended everyone was exhausted and happy to go back to the hotel. We ended our day with watching Lilo and Stitch on the bus J
SHOUT OUT TO HOLLANDDD!!!
Love, Fraukje Peeters and Kaja Kempenaars
ALOHA!
It’s our second day here and we are already “Hawai-ized”. We enjoy the fact that our hotel is right by the beach, especially because we got to see the sunrise while having breakfast, which was delicious. We can shoose between traditional bacon and eggs, fresh and healthy fruit, great stuffed French toast or yummy banana macadamia nut pancakes with syrup.
We left the hotel at 9am and headed up the beach. We split up into two groups to make the activities easier. The yellow group went on the catamaran ride first while the green group had surfing lessons! On the catamaran ride we saw lots of black fish and a few sea turtles! We also got to snorkel to get a better look at the fish! Both activities lasted about an hour and a half then we had free time for lunch. We met up with our friends from the other groups and enjoyed lunch in Waikiki.
The surf lessons were great! We learned the basic moves and paddled out to sea. It was pretty hard but we all managed to catch a wave and stand up to surf! A few of us fell off, but we all had so much fun! After surfing we had some free time and some of us went to the pool, even though we already had plenty of time around the water. Some students hung out in the lobby and others went to get frozen yogurt.
We all met up again to walk to dinner at California Pizza Kitchen. On the way there we stopped at the International World Market and a few other shops. SHOUT OUT TO RICCARDO from Italy who turned 18 today! We sang “Happy Birthday” in almost 20 languages! The 9 Norwegians made a great presentation with a little dance and riddle (myself, Sze Sze was the only non blonde, blue eye representative from Norway). After a delicious and filling dinner we had a little bit of time for more shopping as we walked back to the hotel.
We met up all together to have a “crew talk” with all the Belo USA staff. It’s late now and we are tired after our awesome first day of activities in Hawaii! We are going to rest and get ready for a really cool week on O’ahu! ALOHA!
Sze Sze - Norway
Everything is amazing here! Though we were all flying the whole day. How great to be away from the snowing, freezing weather. Now we get sunshine and get to meet many different people from all over the world! We saw the beach, the sky, the trees and the people are full of energy. On the bus from the airport to the hotel I met other exchange students from Thailand, Norway, Italy and Turkey! There are students from 20 counties from all over the world! Right now, none of those languages can express how excited we are! At dusk the sunlight sprinkled on the ocean and made it shine brightly. The seagulls were flying over us and across the endless ocean. The beach is right across the street from our hotel! From our hotel room windows we can see the Waikiki beaches! Can you believe we are in Hawaii!? I am in such a wonderland right now. Everything is blue: blue sky and multi color blue ocean! You can’t see the end of the ocean of course, it’s the Pacific Ocean! We are in Hawaii!!! This week will be great to meet all the other students but most of all we are ready to have FUN!!!
Yuchen and Siyu from China
