i already knew i was going to get stuck somewhere on the way to new york, so i left a day early to be safe. and yes, i got to my gate in atlanta and the flights were sold out. i get on my phone and make some arrangements. been talking to a guy Quinton on airbnb and was planning to crash at his place. happened to be full so he told me he would book me a super discount hotel room near the airport. and 10 minutes later, he comes to pick me up.

i never met this guy before but he tells me “just go outside and look for the black cadillac escalade.” so when this cool car pulled up, i knew it was him.

he drives me to my hotel, i drop off my bags, then he drops me off at the most popular restaurant around. right before i got out of his car, i told him “hey dude, i’m so happy to know there there are still nice people like you in this world.” he said “no problem, anytime.” then drove off into the dark.

i was starving and craving for seafood for some reason. Spondivits is the super highly rated for it’s seafood. the line was crazy! 2 hour wait but because i was alone, i got to squeeze on a stool in the bar. lucky!

it was packed in there. every night it gets like this they say.

i wanted to drink something different so i ordered the jumbo blue moon. so good!

and since i just finished an awesome surf trip, i treated myself to anything on the menu. so of course, i order the best.

can you believe i ate and drank all of this? omg, i was so happily full!

then i took a walk back to my hotel in the dark streets of atlanta, georgia.

i got this room for half price! score! luckily i calculated the “daylight savings” before i slept. or else, i would have gotten up 1 hour too late and missed my flight. who the heck decided to just turn back the clock an hour???

one cool thing was i didn’t have to figure out the exchange rate. el salvador runs on the USD. what was different was the dollar coins. brought a couple back.

the US dollar coin. brings back the good old days when we use to use this.
got up at 4am, made my flight, and went into culture shock in the fast life of new york. snow, trains, buses, and everything so dam expensive. ahh, want to get out of here already. haha.

OMG! This is freaking beautiful!!!!
I’m so happy to be here in Carnegie Hall!

the 2015 Kaimuki Middle School band is going make history. it is the first time students from a middle school in hawaii have been invited to perform at the prestigious Carnegie Hall! it’s an honor for these kids as most of their dreams as musicians is going to come true. of over the thousand students in the music program at KMS, 70 were chosen for this once of a lifetime opportunity. congratulations girls and boys!

i know some of the girls and they are so excited! New York! Harvard! Yale! Boston! Carnegie Hall! here we come! and i’m looking forward to see this once in a lifetime performance myself. come monday march 9th, i’m there! i can’t wait!
**CLICK HERE FOR FULL STORY ON HAWAII NEWS NOW!!!
The following students will be performing at Carnegie Hall:
FLUTE
Altona, Brandey
Costa, Jolie
Fukunaga, Mia
Horita, Lauren
Griffiths, Sydney
Kashiwabara, Sedona
Matsushita, Hoku
Terawaki-Doble, Danielle
TENOR SAXOPHONE
Ah Nee, Isaac
Tran, Justin
BARI SAXOPHONE
Nishida, Evan
TRUMPET
De Spain, Maya
Haraguchi, Riki
Jim, Matthew
Kimura, David
Lew, Jayci
Nakamura, Jake
Nishikura, Kazuki
Ozaki, Kira
Romero, Joshua
Souphilavong, Aiya
Yoshimi, Jodi
FRENCH HORN
Chang, Kai Le
Higashi, Stephen
Lau, Anthony
Onishi, Cody
EUPHONIUM
Goya, Reid
Greenhow, Jake
Murata, Cuyler
Nguyen, Justin
TROMBONE
Dobashi, Trevyn
Gresham, Andrew
Lock, Carter
Sakuda, Hailey
TUBA
Hew, Rimington
Kobayashi, Jack
Sasaoka, Brenton
Shigeta, Kaisei
KOTO
Fujio, Derek
PERCUSSION
Asamoto, Bode
Lee, Joshua
Matsumoto, Sho
Mendenhall, Toshio
Tan, Kelly
Thompson, Robert
Tomasu, Adrian
Vien, Dimitri
Wong, Cassidy