Josh Gets LOST: Part Three

Monday, February 29th, 2010

Once month ago today I woke up in Waikiki and departed on one of the most exciting and surreal experiences life had to offer me. I sit here at the computer writing about it, wondering to myself why it’s taken me a month to write about it. It’s been difficult to pull myself out this Post-Hawaii-Bog-Of-Eternal-Depression. But alas. Here we go.

Friday, January 29th, 2010

The view outside my hotel window that morning was amazing. Sure, it wasn’t ocean side, and wasn’t a five star suite balcony. It was a tiny window, taken up mostly by an air conditioning unit cranked down to 60 degrees at ALL times. But I was captivated by the fact that outside my window was. Hawaii.

I planned an outfit worthy of Island-Trekking, topping it off with my LONG LIVE LOCKE t-shirt and fanny pack. That’s right. Jack and the others would have been well off, had they packed a fanny. And Shannon might of not lost her damned inhalers.

The first Hawaii native I interacted with that day was a younger girl on a skateboard asking for a few bucks to catch the bus. I was glad to donate. She could have been buying cigarettes or Starbucks, but whatever. I’m not stingy. At this time I heard a honk and the Nissan Quest I would spending the next eight hours in arrived.

This is where I met Neil, a pretty cool gentlemen who played the bag pipes, his girlfriend/travel buddy named Pinky, and a guy with the coolest job ever, Matt, the LOST tour guide. We were off!….Sort of. We stopped at the next hotel, picking up Heidi, who currently is a very good friend of mine, and Ben, a journalist covering the premiere of LOST and the pilgrimage of it’s fans. If you ask anyone I work with at Starbucks, they’ll tell you that I talk about LOST way too damn much. I actually refer to Starbucks as a secret Dharma Station that fuels the island, called “The Siren”. So - That being said, sitting in a mini-van with three other LOST junkies was a pure joy. I say, three, because Ben and Pinky had no idea what this show was all about, and for a majority of the trip were asking questions like.

1. ”Polar bears…? On an island?”
2. “Wait, this guy was murdered by his own mother before she gave birth to him?”
3. “Uh - Can you repeat that?”

I was glued to the window the entire time. Even if Matt wasn’t pointing out and stopping at some of the most iconic LOST locations, I would of still been as excited to see those FREAKIN MOUNTAINS! I currently live in Florida. The flattest and most undesirably landscaped place on Earth. Buh-Buh-Buh-Boring. Taking the winding roads and arriving at the “Blow Hole” was the first real on-island location from the series. A part of me wanted to throw on my Dharma Jumpsuit and run around role-playing, screaming “Others! - OTHERS!”.

The weather was pretty bi-polar. Moments of ridiculous heat waves, followed by cloudy skies and rain, then back to crazy sunlight. It was awesome, and not nearly as temper-mental as Florida, which was COLDER than where than Vancouver where they held the FREAKIN WINTER OLYMPICS!

Lunch was good. I ate pineapple. I hate pineapple. But in Hawaii, pineapple is good. It was also a good opportunity to further get to know my fellow LOSTies. I got a few good laughs from my Shannon tattoo. A lot of admiration for physically showing how much this show has permanently effected me.

I think my favorite location we visited on the trip was the Byodo-In Temple. For no particular reason, Sun and Jin’s flashbacks seem to be some of my least favorite episodes, but being at this outstanding temple was a truly remarkable experience. It was in the middle of this amazing valley, with mistyness, and Koi Fish, Gongs, Swans, Zen Gardens…and the fact that Jacob stood there gave it extra LOST vibes.

As the tour continued, we found ourselves at the crown jewel of the LOST locations. The Survivor’s Camp. The trek through the sand was exhausting. I can’t imagine doing that everyday. Those actors and crew members must be DIESEL!!! We were all speechless when we got there. It was right there in front of our eyes. The tents, the kitchen, the tarps, the graves, the church. It was all there. That is when a heavy feeling sunk in. A place that only existed on my bedroom television screen in Florida, now was a real place you could visit. It was real. And pacing up the beach for thirty minutes was a really silent experience. Almost religious.

That is until one of our people I will not mention (HEIDI!!!!!!) crossed the line and pissed off the guard, which led him to rant about his blood-pressure, losing his “fkin job”, and something about taking pictures of our girlfriends. He was a douche. So - It started raining again and we were on our way. To - DHARMAVILLE!

I won’t say that seeing these locations has made LOST lose it’s magic, or the magnitude of it’s production, but it was a little funny, seeing how open to the public these locations were. Dharmaville definitely wasn’t in the center of a secret island. It was a summer camp. Standing on Ben’s porch was fun. I wanted to go inside one of the houses, and perhaps pull the plug and summon the monster, but alas, no avail. This was another amazing location, and AGAIN, I had the ridiculous urge to throw on my jumpsuit, and find that darned sonar fence. CODE 14-J!!!

By this time the tour was winding down, visiting a few smaller locations like Penny’s Boat (Yes. The Real One), and the building where John Locke’s daddy broke his back, and where Jacob was like “Yo dude, wake up.” It was an amazing day, full of trivia, conversations, and LOST “bonding”. It was definitely cool to not feel like you were the only person within 100,000 miles who felt this passionately about a television series.

I was dropped off at my hotel and wasn’t expecting that I would soon be spending ANOTHER day with these people, but this is where I’ll end this entry of the Adventure. Next stop is JO’S LOST FAN MEET UP!