god morning. 6am sunday morning. small waves around the island but good enough for me. going surfing!!

took me 3 hours from bangkok to get to mahachai. taxi, train, tuktuk, train then you finally arrive in the village of mahachai. super cool place to get away from intense city life of bangkok. don’t expect to find any hotels, any foreigners, or any english. just travel by feel and you should get there… the people i met along the way were awesome. really kind and friendly.
it was my first time to thailand and i’m glad i finally got to go there. after hearing all the negative things about that country in the news and stuff, like any other country, i knew there was a different side. and that’s the side i went looking for. bangkok is dangerous!! that’s what everybody says. so what. china town in hawaii is dangerous too, downtown LA in california is dangerous too. does that make hawaii and california dangerous? no…. to tell you the truth, i felt a lot safer in bangkok than i do in china town or downtown LA. i mean, a lot safer…. of all the so called “terrorism” countries i visited, i never felt threatened once. yeah, bad things happen in some countries but that doesn’t mean you have to label that country bad. just because 0.5% of the population has bad people, that doesn’t mean that the other 99.5% are bad too. every where you go, the few bad people ruin it for the good people. i’m fortunate to have met the majority of the good people in these countries and if someday i do come across the small percentage of bad people, that’s life. it could happen anywhere and if you don’t believe me, just watch the news in countries like japan and america these days. that’s a lot more scary…
my trip to thailand made me smarter, more understanding, and a lot more appreciative of the life i live. if you don’t appreciate your life, put 2 shorts, 2 tshirts in your bag and go deep into some third world country. i’ll guarantee you’ll come out a better person….
check out part 1 of 5 of some of the video i took getting to mahachai. it was such a great learning experience i will never forget….
**and last, wanted to thank mr. mosquito. i had to be at bangkok airport at 6am in the morning and my hotel had no clock or alarm in my room. i requested a morning call at 5:30am but didn’t trust. if i missed my flight, i would have to spend another 10 days in thailand because goldon week was coming up and every flight was over sold. to narita, and also to hawaii. anyway, a mosquito woke me up at 5am. and my morning call didn’t come. so if it wasn’t for that mosquito that was buzzing in my ear, i would probably still be in thailand….

good evening. what a voggy day here in hawaii. probably the voggiest i’ve ever seen. these south/east winds are bringing the volcano smoke up all the way from the big island. people are having a hard time breathing..

i took this at 4pm this afternoon from the mountain. you could barely see waikiki. felt like i was in LA…. luckily we have this vog once in a while. imagine breathing this air everyday? yikes… as for the waves, epic perfect surf around the island. the north shore was the place to be. more and more waves in the forecast. i came home at the perfect time…

when ever i get back to hawaii, the first thing i want to eat is hawaiian food. so hawaiian food is what i eat. some fresh opihi from brandon, some poke, lomi salmon, lau lau, and of course, poi. glad to be back home…

the billabong tahiti 08 pro is going to be huge!!! big swell hitting tahiti now and perfect barrels on the way. CLICK HERE FOR LIVE COVERAGE….

and last, check out my new spice summer collection lineup i got while i was in japan. killer stuff.. thanks spice…. CLICK HERE FOR THE SPICE SUMMER COLLECTION….

good morning. gosh, it was a long trip. 1 month of so many things going on. i’m glad to be home. seems like the more times i leave hawaii, the more i miss hawaii. i was happy when the airplane landed. got searched inside and out by customs. they asked me “why did you go to thailand” three times. i said “for vacation” three times. gosh, did they think i was going to change my answer? anyway, they checked all my luggage and asked me so many questions. first time…. oh well….
i just downloaded 1078 photos, including videos into my computer. gosh, how time flies…. i got some awesome photos and videos and hopefully will be able to post most of it. but for now, i got something more important to do. and that’s to GO-NAMINORI…. see you in the water. waves going off all around the island with sunny skies, blue water, and no winds. yahoo!!!!