A week in Hawaii

Aloha from Hawaii! I thought I'd hijack my old Indonesian travel blog to write some updates from this trip.

I am loving Hawaii, it's so beautiful. Terri, the woman I'm staying with, is really friendly and took me on a trip around the other side of this island a few days ago. She's starting a small business producing little velcro bags that surfers can wear on them, to carry their car keys etc, so I went to a few business meetings with her and on the way she stopped so I could take photos.

The island is basically these lush, craggy mountains that drop straight down into the ocean.

I didn't realise that Hawaii is the most isolated place in the world (not sure if that includes the Antarctic). It is a 5 hour flight to any other landmass. One of Terri's friends said that the environmental impact of tourists is enormous - Hawaii transports all their rubbish to the US mainland on boats! I can't imagine how much that would cost.

Terri is a hair-dresser and works on movie and TV show sets. She did the hair for 'Lost' and 'Tropic Thunder', which were filmed here. (This means she has run her fingers through Jack Black's hair! I'm not sure if that is cool or creepy.) She said doing hair for Lost was too easy because all she had to do was make the hair look like the person had been lost on a tropical island for a year. (I think even I could have done the hair for Lost).

Off to Oregon on Tuesday.