good morning. 6:45am wednesday morning. yup, morning sickness around the island. north shore is 3-5′ and bumpy everywhere. 2 surfers out at rocky’s and nobody at pipe so it must be shitty. town got some smal ankle snappers and hardly nobody out. small south swell on the way, small north/west swells on the way. nothing special. better work and take off when the real swells hit the north shores. they are running a few mens heats and are finishing up the womens contest at haleiwa today. go check it out…. blue crush… aloha…

the mcdonald’s in indonesia has a little different menu. one thing they have that we don’t have is fried chicken. it’s super good too….

they have a seperate desert section. 20 cents for an ice cream cone. 50 cents for a McFlurry. cheap for hawaii, but expensive for indonesia…

big mac meal= $3

so for all you paranoid travelers that don’t want to eat out, or don’t want to go out, for reasons like terrorist or food poisoning. call 140045 24 hours a day and somebody on their bike will deliver your happy meal for you…. and to all you travelers that want an adventure, eat where the locals eat. do what the locals do, and stay away from where all the tourist go. that’s how to travel….

good evening. pulled up to lani’s this morning and the waves were going off. only 5 guys out and so many rights were peeling across unridden. score!!! it was my first surf at lani’s this year and i forgot how fun that wave is. but honeslty, the water was dirty so i was also thinking about that 15′ tiger shark that hangs out there. and for the first time, i didn’t see the turtles there which made it more scary. did they know something i didn’t???? anyway, went to check out the contest and watched a couple of heats. gosh, the level of surfing is so high now. the judging system is awesome. they score on turns and not on length of ride. what a change. when i surfed contests, they judged on the guy doing head snaps all the way to the beach. and the guys doing big turns on the outside lost. i saw a guy today do 5 weak turns to the beach and got scored a 3.5 out of 10. then i seen sunny garcia do a huge turn on the outside and get a 7.3. that’s how surfing should be. it’s good to see surfers win contests more on ability, and not so much on stragegy. can’t wait to watch the top seeds surf. as for tomorrow, i’m sleeping in because i know it’s going to be morning sickness in the morning. so far, it’s the worst winter in the history of the north shore… but probably the best spring 2008 ever? i think and hope so….

imagine coming to hawaii for the first time. then imagine going for your first surf in hawaii on the north shore. coming down the hill, there must be so much things going on in your mind. i still get butterflies in my stomach when i see the surf coming down the hill. i wonder what jun, masaki, and chin must have felt like???

another awesome lunch at my favorite plate lunch place…..

we took a safari trip in south africa back in 2000 during our surfing life surf trip. it was just like the discovery channel. we were looking for elephants and when we seen them, i got out of the car to take a photo. they were huge!!! then i saw a baby elephant next to his mother and i tried to go closer to get a photo. the mother turned to me, looked me in the eye, and started coming towards the car. i freakin freaked out. some of the guys in the car were pissed at me because if that elephant wanted to destroy our car with all of us in there, she could have. i felt stupid. don’t mess with elephants…

this is not a photo from a korean drama. this is a photo i found in “pictures of the week” of a guy in xi’an,china who took a girl hostage. this is real. this worker took his employers girlfriend as a hostage and demanded $400 from his boss. only $400? i would be bummed out if somebody kidnapped me and only wanted $400 to let me go… that’s too cheap man….

here’s another picture of the week. gosh, i wouldn’t mind doing that. except i’m afraid of heights… haha…
**CLICK HERE FOR HIGHLIGHTS OF DAY 2 AT THE HALEIWA PRO…..

good morning. 6:40am tuesday morning. yeah!! work day. the surf shouldn’t be so crowded. once again, no winds and clean conditions on the north shore. the swell dropped but looks super fun. rocky’s is probably the spot with a lot of guys out already. pipe is barely breaking with two guys out. 12 guys out at rockpiles with waist high morning sickness conditions. bowls looks junk and with only one guy out. umm… north shore is the call. i slept at 9pm last night so i feel super fresh. everytime i dive all day, my body feels so healthy and fresh the next day. you should try it…. anyway, i’m out of here.. have a nice day….
**contest on at haleiwa. running 20 heats of mens. there is also a telephone pole down at waimea bay so only one lane open now. oh my gosh, choke traffic. they might shut down both sides to fix it. hope everybody makes it to their heats.

i went to the mentawai’s three times. twice, we got on the boat and headed straight to lance’s rights or also known as HT’s (hollow trees). this is the best right hander in the mentawai’s and is where the indies trader pulled up with tom curren a long time ago and exposed this spot to the world. i remember watching the video with tom curren surfing his fish on this perfect wave. it was my dream since then and i was fortunate to go there twice. and both times, we scored it the same how tom curren scored it. 6-8′ and perfect barrels. it was just us with no other boats around. the first time i went, there were 7 boats operating in the mentawai’s. now, there are over 80 boats all packed with hungry surfers and photographers. i heard when lance’s rights is good, there are 10 or more boats anchored there. times that by 8 to 10 surfers per boat, you got an instant crowd of about 100 surfers. add in the surf guides, captains, and cooks, then you got a mess. and not to leave out the dozens of surf camps on the islands. i’m glad to surf it empty years ago and i have no intentions on going back there. for $3,500/trip, i’d rather go on three trips to the philippines. less crowds and better waves…..
**i borrowed that photo from surfersjournal.com. cool mag….

check out this photo. i took it at a barbecue on shikoku island a few months ago. this day will go down in the history books. we scored perfect big waves and ended up with a perfect big barbecue. on the left is shikoku local gerry-san. he use to live in hawaii. legend surfer… and to the right is reki. reki is a cool kid. i’ve know him when he was a little boy hanging out at ikumi beach. that was 12 years ago. since then, he’s become an awesome surfer, and an awesome musician. yeah reki….

reki knows hot to cook too. good surfer, good musician, good cook. gosh, this kid must get all the chicks…

this was the lineup….

wait, this is a better lineup shot taken with a better camera…

and i’ll never forget this wave. this huge set was coming in and everybody was whistling from the beach. nobody wanted it, but ueda-san turned around, took off, set up his bottom turn, and freakin pulled in!!! this photo doesn’t justify how nuts this wave was. i wouldn’t have pulled in. no thank you…