One should always be ready to surff!
Is this a paradise or a hell? I arrived in Honolulu this
morning because I could not get a ticket for a direct flight back from Osaka.
It was supposed to be a short and a smooth change over to another flight but then I
have learned that the return flight was late by about 3 hours due to a security
bleach, which resulted in 5 hours in HNL. I got out of the airport building and
walked around. Only to find out there was the famous shape of the Diamond Head
may be 30 minutes or 40 minutes of drive away. I became, obviously, very stoked
with the sight of this. After about 30 miu of thoughs, I thought "heck, why not
get out there at least and check it out even if I don't surf."
So I hopped on one of those $8 Shuttle deal and asked the driver to drop me off
at any beach hotel (by the way it is a good deal because the return cab was $40
including some tip.) 
Now
I am sitting at the Dukes Canoe Club sipping some Daiquiri and other that I will
not mention to keep some sanity in my household upon my return.
This is right at Waikiki beach built into the Outrigger hotel where Duke
Kanahamoku surfed and also the palce where Jack London wrote at length about
what I would call one of the earliest of the StokeREPORTs known to the menkind.
But listen to this, the killer is that the beach is not crowed and I got
pictures to prove, have perfect chest high long rollers, it is sunny only about
80 degrees and I am just watching with a bag load of travel cash, a green card,
a passport not willing to risk losing any of them -- prefect Cowells condition
but without requiring getting inside of 3/4 rubber suit. Perhaps, if I am in a
true sense of a stoked surfer, I would say "f" this, and go and decide what to
do later on. This is a torture in a paradise. I even could have rented a board
asking the dude at the beach front rental place to "please look after my stuff?"
Would I trust that? Well, if I lose my green card, that's another $600 plus 6
months of ordeal and believe me, I had to go through that process once simply
because one of the border agenet thought that my original card was expired,
which it was not after paying the fee to replace one as instructed by that
agent. 
The board shorts were packed away in the suitcase sitting
somewhere at the airport. Should I have planned a bit better, I would have
packed a pair of the oldest board shorts. Should I have known it was only 30
minutes ride to Waikiki then I should just have headed down there, hoping to
catch 1 hour session then come right back to the airport allowing me enough time
to take off my shoes and get my laptop out at the security to catch the SFO
flight in the afternoon. Should have this been Dog Haus and if I was with him
on this trip, I think I have gone for it, just getting the cheapest pair of
board shorts and beach towel from the closest ABC store.
But, of course, the problem with me is that I am still too
uptight of a guy that I would not go for something like it, even though I had
perfectly great fun condition and I was just watching with my jaws half open. My
life has been saved numerous times by not taking some minor risks like those,
and but I am also certain that I probably missed out a lot by not taking these
"risks." But right now, I have to make sure that I can get back to Osaka at a
moment of notice from the primary care physician for my father. Only less than
24 hours ago, I was in the doctor's office at the hospital learning about the
actual condition of my father, then asking him to come back to Half Moon Bay
when he gets better stroking his "mostly bones" arms and legs for comfort. This
is the man who took me to the top of Mount Fuji when I was in junior high. This
is the man who taught me how to ski instead of doing some catch and going to
Hanshin Tigers' game at the Koshien stadium.
So today, I surf and when he talk about my surfing he talks
in terms of my "boating" coming from his storke wonded left brain, but I know
exactly what he is thinking. He is stoked about my surfing and that's what he
means to say. I know that's what he is thinking but he just does not have the
choice of word in his command. But I know the guy very well, he is my father and
I can tell what he is tying to communicate. The strange thing though is that
that does not work with my mother. My mother would try to correct him, "Your son
does not do boating." I tell her "Mom! I know what he is saying so why you try
to correct that?"
Sometimes, accepting the way it is will open up a lot.
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