there are still travel advisories till this day regarding the philippines, especially on the south island of mindanao. right after 9/11, i was exploring around mindanao and that was the most scariest time of my life. kidnappings happen all the time there. the U.S government says not to go there, but people do. till this day, i still don’t know exactly why i went there. i guess it was the waves? anyway, some gunmen approached our car a couple times in the 6 hour drive through the mountains. the very same mountains where terrorists train.
there are guys like this popping out of nowhere in the jungle. scaring the shit out of me. they would approach our car with their guns, then when they see our 2 armed bodyguards in the back seat, they would let us go. it was pretty freaky.
ever since 9/11, many tourists got kidnapped. these 4 tourists are the latest victims. gunmen stormed their resort and took them hostage yesterday. the sad thing is that some hostages get rescued, some hostages get killed. such a scary thought. now i am very thankful that nobody kidnapped me. so watching news like this makes me appreciate the crazy life i live.
took Endo-san and Tamura-san to the wild side of the island yesterday. i would not advise any tourist to be walking around here at any time of the day. this place is nearby where the japanese tourist walking along the highway with her bag got attacked. a guy drove by and tried to steal her bag dragging her with it. yes, this is hawaii.
for the past year, the city put up barriers near laniakea to prevent people from parking and crossing the street. this helped a lot with the crazy traffic there. well, the other day they had to take it down. now people can park there again to see the turtles. today, it was full!
and yes, the turtles didn’t disappoint anyone. they were all over the place.
looking at this is creepy for me. i use to come here a long time ago in the summers and there would be nobody here. now it’s totally touristed out. pretty sad seeing this happening to this beautiful island. and pretty sad watching the turtles getting harassed all the time.
yesterday was a weekday. flat surf, but still so much traffic. wait till next month when the north swells start rolling in. this parking lot will be full with surfers and turtle watchers fighting for parking. everybody crossing the street making a major traffic jam. i’m not looking forward to that at all.
