Last weekend I met Jason up in Honolulu to look for a place to live. Before I went, we had been looking at craigslist and I printed out a few places (ok, 6) that we thought could work. Once I got there, Jason started out by showing me his office and we had lunch with his boss and his wife. They were nice and we had a pleasant lunch.
Since this was my first time being there, we spent the first day pretty much just driving around and checking out the place. We weren't really sure which neighborhood we were interested in; we had a bunch of areas we thought would work. First we went west towards Pearl City (near Pearl Harbor). I found that area a little bit depressing because I wanted to live in the nice looking military housing but we just don't qualify for that. The other places in the area just couldn't compare. We also realized that going west wasn't going to work for us because the traffic is bad (anytime I tell people we are moving to Oahu, the first thing they bring up is the traffic) and in our price range we wouldn't get more for our money. We would be far away but still would have a small place with little to no yard. Totally not worth it.
The next area we had listings for was more downtown. We drove by the places we had listings for and were able to eliminate three more. Fortunately, we also found a couple of other places from postings listed in buildings. These places are more like small apartment buildings (4-6 units) some with a strip of grass, others with a balcony (or lanai as they call them here) and mixed in with duplexes or houses. I was impressed with how close to busy streets we could be and have the area still be really quiet, it totally doesn't feel like we are in the middle of the city.
On Saturday we made appointments and actually went into the places. We looked at three, put in applications for two and found out today that we got one. Of the two that we put applications into, I felt like I could go either way but now that we're decided I'm glad we have the one we have. It's upstairs in a building with five units (one on top is over the parking spaces), has a private lanai with washer hook-up and a clothes line. This one doesn't have a strip of grass but is half a block and across the street from a park with a playground. I also found a community garden not far from there so I think I'll look into getting a plot from there. One thing I really like about this place is the floor is concrete under the vinyl so there won't be much sound transfer to the people below us. That is one thing I was really worried about with the other place we applied to (it had wood floors) and I think I would have had a hard time living there for that reason. I just don't want to live my life worried about being too loud for the neighbors.
Today we were looking at the area and how far away we are from things. It's a little ways from Jason's work but there is a bus stop about a block away that takes him straight to work, no transfers necessary. It should take about half an hour but we will have to see how morning traffic will affect that. As far as fun stuff goes, it's about a mile away from the nearest library and a big shopping center called the Ala Moana Shopping Center. My favorite though is that it's about a mile away from the beach at Waikiki. Cool huh?
