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Friday, January 28, 2011

moving to hawaii

Just posting an update to my religion post from 11/27. I have been busy so this took place about a week ago but I really want to update you all about it. As a quick preface, my wife and I spent our honeymoon in Hawaii back in June/July. We fell in love with Hawaii so much that we started looking for houses after the first week. When we came home, moving to Hawaii became almost an inside joke. We mentioned it and talked about how awesome it would be but that was it, which brings me to the heart of the story.

My wife got home from work the other day and immediately suggested we go get sushi at a local restaurant. I could always go for sushi so I agreed. During dinner my wife just blurts out "I so want to move to Hawaii." Now we have been talking about this for some time now but we both cast it aside as wishful thinking. As soon as she said that I immediately put down my cup of tea and said "Oh god I want to move there so bad." Which started a lengthy discussion about if it was even possible.

By the time our dinner was over we had a plan. Since she will be graduating college at the end of the summer of 2012, she will apply to graduate school in Hawaii. After she gets settled down there, she will start looking at houses for us and get the paperwork started to buy something. It's going to be a rocky road to move our lives out there but it will be so worth it in the end.

So our official plan is to be moving out to Hawaii by December of 2012, just in time to watch the world end from Waikiki beach. :)

8 comments:

  1. Hi James,

    We're moving to Hawaii (sight and experience unseen) this year as well. Hubby got a great offer that we just can't refuse ... how often in life does someone offer you a job in paradise? Having trouble finding relevant resources for moving. Have you found anything current regarding a sort of "how to"?

    --Robin

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    1. Robin, sorry I haven't really started that search yet. With the Navy in the picture we don't know what will happen. I wish you luck with your search and move! I am super jealous!

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    2. hawaii isnt the paradise you think it is, maybe for a year but when you realize everything is more expensive because everything has to be imported(this includes everything from toilet paper to meat), and its crowded and jobs are hard to find then youll get a rude awakening,

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  2. I stumbled upon your blog on google and hawaii really isnt the paradise you guys think it is...you will be in for a rude awakening

    hawaii isnt the paradise you think it is, maybe for a year but when you realize everything is more expensive because everything has to be imported(this includes everything from toilet paper to meat), and its crowded and jobs are hard to find then youll get a rude awakening, the education in oahu is actually really good its the 17th most educated place in the u.s. where about 35% of the people have bachelors degrees but...

    -cost of living is probably double or triple that in the midwest or southern u.s. states its more expensive than new york but the average wage is probably one of the lowest in the country so its tough
    -there are a lot of homeless people, seriously research this and the occasional crazy "ice heads" on the streets especially at night in waikiki
    -there could be a tsunami at any time, kona kailua on the big island was hit HARD in 2011 from a storm, it ruined several businesses
    -the average person needs 2-3 jobs to live comfortably
    -tax is HIGH for anyone who is "wealthy" because hawaii caters to the poor, they have a robinhood mentality where they want to "steal form the poor and give to the rich"
    -its like a foreign country because literally about 70% of the population is some kind of asian or mixed asian, only about 20% of the population is white so if you want a job you have to learn Japanese (regardless of your race/status you will need to learn Japanese to survive), get really lucky or have a great education and I mean GREAT education, people who have been working in Hawaii for 20 years as accountants are now being laid off...so much for job security huh?
    -its HUMID!, but at the same time very windy because of the tradewinds, strangest combination. probably not for everyone
    -Every morning you will wake up to "volcano smog" not to mention the volcanic soot and black stuff that gets on the roads and messes up your tires every three months...its better to not even have a car in Oahu

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  3. -having a car in Oahu will be very expensive, there arent a lot of parking spaces to everywhere has mandatory valet, even going to the mall will cost you $10-$15 in parking fees
    -you cannot, absolutely cannot have any nice silver or metal jewelry or cutlery, it will rust, I am not kidding, within a month, my kitchen scissors started to rust
    -All of your clothing will fade in color, which is alright because hawaii isnt really uptight about clothes (theres really nowehere to wear nice clothes anyway) even wearing long pants is being overdressed in hawaii
    -it rains everyday in hawaii...ever wonder why its called the rainbow state? thats why. hawaii is the rainiest state in the entire U.S.
    -if you have allergies you are screwed because of the flower pollen and plumerias blooming everywhere, mainlanders come and leave with red itchy swollen eyes
    -there are home break-ins and also purse snatching in honolulu and waikiki (because tourists carry around money to spend), and also hookers that stand around the streets looking to make money off of tourist men, they literally walk the streets in downtown waikiki at night you can even look up videos on youtube
    -the police can be paid off so sketchy stuff can happen where you can be screwed over, also everyone wants to sue everyone all the time, I do mean all the time
    -the locals hate the navy/army/marine guys that come around, they will give you a hard time and probably fight you a lot, especially if you try to get with "their women" (meaning the local women)
    -chickens run around the island of oahu like they run the place, its illegal to catch them and there is no mammal on the hawaiian islands that eats chickens so they just run around and theyre MEAN from fighting with the mongooses that also run around
    -pregnancy rates are high because (oahu) is a tiny island and you can probably see the entire island in maybe 3 hours, so a lot of kids feel like they have nothing to do so they have sex, get pregnant too early and end up being teen moms
    -people speak pidgin and if youre from the mainland you wont understand what people are saying, and when they see that you dont understand they will A) not trust you and B) possibly mug you
    -the locals dont trust mainlanders unless you earn their trust
    -the locals dont like "haoles" which means white people. if you look up the history of hawaii you will understand why, if you google stories of white people being mistreated in hawaii it might give you a second thought about moving there, god forbid a haole walks into a "secret location" only meant for locals...prepare for a beating

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  4. -crime rate is HIGH people wash up on shore with strangled necks and there are stabbings, murders and prostitution and the cops dont really care, they can be paid off so why should they care
    -the culture shock is HUGE, here is an example, if you are walking down a sidewalk and someone steps out of the way to give you room to keep walking, you need to actually say thank you, its a tight knit family where its all about respect and the aloha spirit, if you dont learn the culture you will not make friends and it will be hard for you

    dont get me wrong, especially the any hawaiians who read this, dont get mad but you know this is true, the tourist areas of oahu and the other hawaiian islands make it seems like hawaii is a perfect nirvana, and maybe it looks like a perfect paradise on tv and in the movies, but there is a reason why 80-90 percent of the mainlanders who move to hawaii high tail it out of there within one year of living there

    also its probably the only place in the u.s. other than california where housing prices are so high, houses, even old falling apart houses start at half a million dollars because the land is so small and theres no room to build more houses so the ones that are there are expensive

    Paradise isnt paradise anymore, maybe you should look into moving to Florida? I lived in Florida for two decades, it's not what it used to be but nothing and I mean nothing beats florida sunshine and weather.

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  5. Also no one goes to hawaii for graduate school, everyone on Oahu LEAVES for the mainland for graduate school because there isnt sufficient education on the islands

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  6. Thanks for your input anonymous. Without having lived in Hawaii, I can't say much about this. I have lived in Florida and if you don't think that's god awful humid all the time then I don't know what it. It wasn't humid at all when I was on Oahu in July for my honeymoon and I heard that Orlando has worse humidity anyway.

    I'm looking forward to getting out there with the Navy. At least then I can try it for a few years and if I hate it they will move us away anyway.

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