If you read Part One of my Why I Hate Living In Hawaii Saga in completion, then you know I ended off informing you that part 2 would discuss the food and the bugs here. Before I get to that I must first clarify some things from Part 1.
I want to thank everyone who read my post in completion. I never expected so much feedback here or on the Fb Fan Page. I will say that while I accept everyone’s feedback whether negative or positive, I really can’t accept feedback from those who haven’t read this in entirety. If you read my blog posts I am nice but can be alittle overly blunt at times. That can be a positive or negative thing. With that said…I am completely over the get out and explore the island statement. I made it very clear in part one that I have and that I am a big fan of make the best where you are, but in some places making the best gets old. You see in order to explore somewhere (where ever it maybe) you have to “Want To” and you have to like it. Once your done exploring the things your comfortable with (because everyone isn’t into climbing up the side of volcanic mountains or diving with the sharks) what exactly is left to do?…go the beach…ooops I can’t I did that like 5 million times in one month.
For certain people (and I say certain because I don’t speak for everyone) being stuck on a rock in the middle of the ocean is their thing, it doesn’t phase them. For others like myself confinement does not work. When I get tired of Oahu , I’d like to be able to drive else where. Yes yes… I know what your going to say “But Army Wife 101 you can fly to another island”! Bam you just answered your own question, “it’s still another island! I hope I clarified this for those who think that I am a whiner and don’t get out. Best believe I’ve sought to spread my wings here, but there isn’t that much wing spreading in the world.
This brings me to the issue of food:
As you have seen from my pictures I am a pretty thick chick. One of my pleasures is indulging in different types of food. At the same time and on a military budget their is only so much indulging you can do here. You see before I PCS’ed to the this oh so glorious island, I had the pleasure of being stationed in a place that is a foodies dream…Savannah GA. Home of Paula Deen, home of the buffets and if I got tired of good ole down home country cooking (which by the way I don’t think that’s possible) then I had several options at my disposal. I am from Long Island NY and yes I have had what I like to call my “Sex in the City Moments” where my girlfriends and I wisked off into Manhattan and ate at upscale eateries like Soul Cafe (closed now) Chez Josephine ( that took a whole paycheck) and at the top of the spinning Marriot in Times Square, so I’m used to good food. Then reality set in and I got married and had 2 kids and a hubby in the military. While on the rare occasion we do treat our kids to top notch cuisine, 95% of the time on a Friday night in Savannah you could find us at our local Golden Corral where a family of four could umlimitedly stuff their faces for under $35 and still get dessert.
Let’s just say 2 keikei (That means kids in Hawaiian…see I’m embracing the language)meals and 2 adult meals at your local Chili’s are damn near $60 bucks;forget a dessert. If you love getting a bang for your buck and heading to the nearest all you can eat buffet (that actually taste good) well good luck on that, I haven’t managed to find one, not even a really good chinese buffet. Due to the location of Schofield, the only close options to have a decent family sit down dinner are Chilis and Ruby Tuesdays (that’s if you want more americanized cuisine). Now I would be wrong if I didn’t mention that you will have your fair share of Asian cuisine . This is not a bad thing, but damn can I get a Applebee’s , a Sonic , you know one of those places that Hawaii shows on tv commericals but we have none of them here. Yes Hawaii has a horrible habit of showing eateries that don’t exist here. Lest not forget all the specials that a certain chain restaurant will run but , because where in Hawaii for whatever reasons they don’t honor the special here.
Be prepared for rice with everything, rice with breakfast rice with lunch, rice with snack, rice with dinner, rice with ice cream (I’m kidding but they probably do have something like that). If carbs are not your friend you are going to have a hell of a time avoiding them here. Rice is just the beginning don’t forget the scoop of macaroni salad that comes with everything. If I see one more Blazin Steaks or greasy L&L BBQ I am going to scream (Don’t get me wrong I do eat their food, just tired of it).All I wanna do is have a choice of places to go to with easy parking that I can take a family. I don’t want to have to go to Honolulu all the time to do anything major. I asked several military spouses stationed here the other day where do they get the best Chinese food, no one could give me a good answer. The one place we thought might be ok got closed down for infestation, yes bugs.
Groceries:
All I can say is this truly the one place I don’t think I have ever brought food on the economy, with the exception of a loaf of bread at Walmart. Speaking of Walmart for those of you who have been stationed in the South, do not count on a Super Walmart, none here. I won’t go into alot of detail , as I think you’ve got the point by now. COLA is good , but I still say the prices suck 10x worse here.
Bug Situation:
When I say I am deathly afraid of bugs, I am not being dramatic , I am serious. I cry, hyperventilate and sweat if I see anything bigger then an ant. The first few weeks we were here I was greeted by several centipedes outside. Not a pretty site when you just happen to be walking and come up on one. Thank the lord one has never gotten in my house, you don’t even want to know the outcome of that.
Gecko’s O-M-G if I hear one more person tell me those damn things are good luck!!! They are all over, I can honestly say I have never had one in my house because my kids know that coming in and out the house is a hell to the noooo! If you want to avoid Gecko central I recommend not letting little Johnny hang out the front door or stand there with the door open. Nothing like hopping in the shower , with the thought of being greeted by a lizard.
Flies:
The flies here are in swarms, they fear no one or nothing. They seem bigger then usual. This is the only place that you could not open your door or windows for days and still have flies, they come out of nowhere . Forget sitting outside at a nice picnic they swarm around you and demand your food. The only place that I have seen them kept at bay have been around the yummy shrimp trucks. I don’t know if the smell of garlic keeps them away. I always tell spouses to not let the kids run in and out the house if you want to have an attempt at avoiding them.
Roaches:
The roaches here are the size of new born babies, I swear , their is no smashing them with a shoe. You have to spray them dead. They are big , they fly and they are not scared of you. This may not sound serious to bug lovers , but when your husband is deployed and all you’ve got is yourself and 2 scared kids, this kind of crap will make you hate a place. Lucky for me I haven’t rented a car with roaches or went out to my car at night to get an item from my car , only to open the door and be greeted by a family of roaches. For the record you don’t have to have a dirty home, they just exist here. Lucky for me I recommend keeping the gallon of Ortho Home Defense near by it works.
Maggots are awful here because it is always moist or humid ughhh…I’ll just leave it at that.
Last but not least and I mean no offense when I say this , because I am not Heidi Klume by any means. What really confuses about this place is , a majority of the local women here are sized like linebackers. These chicks are huge , like kick your man’s ass huge. You would think with people this size living here that finding a plus size store would not be a problem, it is. No Lane Bryant’s , no Torrids. My store of choice is Ross.
Because I am who I am , I will say that it is important to make do of where you are. With that said don’t ever feel guilty for not liking a place. Everywhere is not for everyone. I am sure there are people who are stationed in Europe and find it boring after a while too. Just because you are stationed here in what some consider paradise , doesn’t mean it will be paradise for you. Best bet get out explore what your into and at least when people say get out and explore you can say…I have!
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Army Wife 101
Krystel is the mom of two and an Army Wife. In addition to Army Wife 101 she is the Co-Founder of SoFluential.com a digital media agency that connects brands with the military market. She has appeared on MSNBC ,FOX LA and formerly was a weekly contributor to HLN's "Raising America". She has written for various outlets including Sheknows and Lifetime and is a big fan of cupcakes and french fries.
Krystel is the mom of two and an Army Wife. In addition to Army Wife 101 she is the Co-Founder of SoFluential.com a digital media agency that connects brands with the military market.
She has appeared on MSNBC ,FOX LA and formerly was a weekly contributor to HLN's "Raising America". She has written for various outlets including Sheknows and Lifetime and is a big fan of cupcakes and french fries. 350 Comments on Part 2: Hawaii…Why I Hate Living Here…Bugs Mac Salad & Rice…
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Wow, I just finished reading your take on living in Hawaii. I searched Google for living in hawaii and found your article. I loved it! I can’t say I agree with any of it from my own perspective, but yeah, I can understand that you and Hawaii are not a good match.
Bugs, geckos, plus size stores, cost of food and other things you mentioned, don’t bother me. I’m one of the hiking and water types you mentioned, so Hawaii is my idea of paradise.
I do get that island fever is a very real affliction, and it hits me about once per year, but if I get to the other islands a couple times in 12 months, I’m usually OK and don’t need to go back to the mainland or elsewhere.
I wonder how your experience was with race. At my Aim for Awesome site, it’s all about living in Hawaii and sometimes I have commenters talk about their horrible experience with racial bias and other things in the islands. Did you have much (or any) of that?
I was in the Air Force at Hickam for a while, so I had a couple of experiences where locals held knives up as I rode on H1, H2, H3 on my motorbike. I think it’s more just designed to scare you into not staying on after your stay is over! lol.
I’ll look through your blog to see what else you had to say about Hawaii.
Can I interview you on chat or through email at some point about your stay?
Aloha,
Vern L.
AimforAwesome.com
Write more, thats all I have to say. Literally, it seems as though you
relied on the video to make your point. You definitely know what youre talking about,
why waste your intelligence on just posting videos to your site when you could be giving us something enlightening to read?
Sounds to me like you are spoiled and feel entitled to living a posh life. Get over it and go on a diet.. Eat healthy and stop complaining. It could be worse, you could be in alabama. If you don’t like the military life, go back to Long Island.
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I just lost my train of thought, I wanted to see something about Hawaii not a food critic but each to their own, We are stationed here in Wiesbaden Germany before here we lived in Fort Carson which before we left Carson to Germany our Plan’s were to PC’s Back to Carson and retire we even had plan’s to Buy a home with land in Blackforest which is a blessing that we didn’t as it had a tragic forest fire sorry to those who where effected by this. I’ve also seen on the news of flooding and mudslide in Colorado Springs. We have been here in Germany for 3 years extended another year for our daughter to Graduate, Our Son has 1 more year until he Graduates how is the School’s there? So now we are trying to figure out where to go After Germany only if we could live here forever it’s just Gorgeous so much to do and you do make the best of it where ever you go and I’m not sure about everyone but there is dislike and likes about every single place its human nature. All I care about is having a place we can experience horse riding even though we aren’t fond of little creepy crawly critters we will deal with it. My worry is we have 3 pets 2 cat’s and one small Pomeranian and my fear is are you allowed to bring your pets and if so do they have to be in Quarantine if so how long?We are able to go downtown Wiesbaden and take our little dog with us even in the restaurants they are welcome we sit outside when it’s nice and drink latte macchiato its heavenly and on hot days spaghetti eis. .
anyways back to Hawaii I’d just like to know if there is Horse riding, Thanks.
Ha, I love this blog! And totally agree, I currently live on the big island and it is nothing more then a ghetto! Where mediocrity is celebrated daily. Every town is run down, drugs everywhere, home invasions every night, stinky dirty hippies wondering around with glazed eyes trying to find themselves, kids hitchhiking,pickpockets, hoards of pittbulls roaming the streets so your kids can’t go out and ride their bikes or play. Roster farms for cock fighting everywhere, it’s not Hawaii time why everything is a slower pace, it’s the cerebral level that’s common here that seems a lot lower then anywhere I’ve ever.been! The schools suck,there is no money for.improvements,the teachers are.pot smoking idiots who have.no.idea about the subjects they reach. The health care is horrible, no good doctors want to stay here for the above mentioned reasons so it a revolving door or different docs. The state runs the hospitals and they have.no money so they.care less about the facilities or staff which rolls down to crappy care. The colleges suck and since there is virtually no industry or economy here they reach nothing that would be applicable in a good solid career. For all the many different cultures residing here there are no good restaurants and the few hole in the wall places there are,are filthy,and you are guaranteed to have the shits for a week. It is beautiful here if you can get past the stench of the methlabs, it’s a third world country here with a lower mentality and the locals let it that way.
Needless to say I cannot wait to move!
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Wow, I saw a show on cable about living on the islands there. When I saw the roaches & spiders I decided I’ll stay in MI and deal with blizzards. Hawaii seemed like another country (some of it). Some ppl have to get water from a big container and bring it home, two minute showers, expensive groceries. $100.00 bucks can bet you a weeks worth here, and only a bags worth there. I was stunned at how different it is, because it always seemed like a tropical pardise there. Also, chickens run around there (which was cool). Good blog.
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