Yesss, I managed to cross off one of my bucket list, Hawaii!!!
And, it couldn’t get any better than an all paid full board trip. How did I get this lucky? Of coz with work and effort put into it. Young Living was having year-end Race To The Finish contest. I didn’t pay attention to the mechanism until my friend, Jiey pointed to me, my name is in the running on the leaderboard. Started reading the mechanism and strategize some plan.
Gave heads up to the husband, I would like to go. Few previous Young Living trips I passed..but this time around, Hawaii…how can I say No Thanks? Crazy! haha. He managed to work around his leave n off days. He took 6 days leave n another 3 days kids were with my parents. Alhamdulillah for a good support system back home.
Our retreat was at Big Island, Hawaii. Upon arrival, we were to pick up our car rental. Yes, how cool is that! We were given a car each so we can move around the island. And it was my first time driving left-hand seat. The husband told me the mantra LORI (lorry) Left-Out-Right-In. Take the outer lane when u turn left, and inner lane when u turn right. But but, have I mentioned this before… I still get my left n right mixed up, hahaha…but the drive went well 🙂
Young Living is well known for their generosity, lots of free gifts at registration. We were spoiled!
yup a bag full of goodies! We got to choose sunglasses too, there were about 14-16 options to choose from.
view from my room balcony
Started the retreat by Welcoming Dinner, we had coconut drink with NXR and infused with essential oil. Oh our coconut got themselves branded by YL too, haha
We had activities in line for our retreat buttttt the one deserves a lil more highlights than the other would be swimming with the dolphins! MasyaaAllah, a dream come through. We had four activities to choose from. Hiking to the waterfall, snorkelling with the manta ray, ATV or swims with the dolphins. I was the only one from Malaysia who chose this option, coz some said you dont really get to swim with the dolphins, you will be on the boat chasing them. and that’s about it. I was contemplating, I have motion sickness thus was worried if we ended up just on the boat the entire trip..may not be a good idea for me. But after weighing the thought (after all, we have an oil for that – motion sickness) I stick with my option, hoping for the best. It was superbly amazing. As our boat set off, just minutes after we saw a school of dolphins around us. Of coz I was eager to get off the boat but the captain of the boat told us her plan, she will head on to where the dolphins were heading, then we shall jump off the boat and wait for the dolphins to pass us. And that was exactly what happened.
As I jumped in, looked down…submerge myself in the water, I felt exactly like how if I were to watch the movies…that sound echo from the dolphins. Felt so surreal. I heard them, look around…next thing I realised, they swam just below me! SubhanAllah. Im not a fast swimmer, I was breathing so heavily trying to catch up with them, then our tour guide gave signal underwater, another batch is coming, I decided just to stay put and wait for the next batch. No words to describe the feeling. We spent an hour plus open water swimming.
A Young Living trip is not complete without a trip to their farm. But a lil different this time, instead of visiting farm, we went to a reforestation land. The family repurchase the land that was sold by their great great grandmother. When they got the land all trees were cut and grass were planted to breed cows. More then 200 cows were cleared from the land. Them repurchasing, adopting and managing the land is reassuming the stewardship of their ancestor land.
And we learn something new on that day, the sandalwood trees are hemiparasitic plants. It will grow at a very young stage independently but in order to reach maturity and grow nice and healthy, it has to grow roots and tap into other trees for nutrition and water. The surrounding trees fix nitrogen from the ground and produce nitrogen as well while the sandalwood cannot produce its own nitrogen. so it has modified roots connection, haustoria. Sandalwood trees will kill 7 trees in it lifespan. They would plant trees surrounding Sandalwood, not just any trees but either one of these Koa, Aalii, Mamane or Noa to maintain the nature endemic reforestation.
Took this photo as a proof for the kids that im away for work 😛 . Hihi
Time passes by fast, we had a good time during the farewell dinner with Hawaiian Culture Performance.
Customize souvenier to bring home 🙂
Oh, after the end of our retreat..we extended 2 nights in Honolulu. And that’s the Hawaii I see on tv screen..haha. Beach was full all day long, all sorts of characters and colours. Plenty of surfers. One thing I was fascinated with, the homeless keep the public area clean. I notice a couple of times where the homeless help to pick up litter on the ground.
#bucketlist checked! yuhuuuuu , Alhamdulillah 🙂
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