The new place

The condo/apt. they set me up in is in Waikiki. I didn't have any options, but they did well. It is a 1bedroom/1bath place on the 5th floor of a 45 floor building. It is very close to the resorts, stores, and restaurants and even has a practice putting green directly outside my door (too bad I didn't bring the putter).

Since the office I'm working at is just over 3 miles away, I also needed to rent a car. When I got to the rental car place at the airport, they had me set up for a Dodge Neon, for which I swiftly asked if they had anything else at the same price level. They just happened to have a new Mazda3 which I jumped at in place of the Neon.

There are two blatant observations/differences between here and home: 1. everybody is very tan 2. there is a high demand on space. The first is obvious. The second is known, but experienced in different ways. There are people everywhere and everything is very expensive. I went to Walmart last night and you would have thought a big snowstorm was moving in by how crowded and frantic it seemed. I should have just not even taken a cart because I had to leave it at the end of every aisle to meander the crowd to get things. The store itself is almost anti-Walmart. Usually there is an enormous parking lot that is so big that only half the spots ever get used, and the rest is for doing donuts when it snows. This one had a parking garage. Usually you notice when you arrive at a Walmart, I passed it by twice until I realized I needed to enter a parking garage.

Check out the pictures.