Previously... on LOST

When Emily and I first got together back in early 2006, I was already a huge fan of the ABC series LOST, which was then in its second season. I think Emily had watched a few episodes of the show and had enjoyed it. So, I put the entire first season on her iPod so she could catch up at the gym. Before long, she was hooked, just like me... and watching it together has always been part of our life together.

When we planned this recent trip to Hawaii, I was determined to book us some kind of LOST tour of filming locations. I absolutely love visiting film studios and famous locations from TV and movies, and nearly the entire series of LOST was filmed in Oahu. Here are the things we saw (Warning: If you haven't seen the show, there are some minor spoilers... but nothing that should ruin the entire show for you, should you decide to watch it. And you really SHOULD watch it, as it's one of the best shows in TV history. Seriously, says a guy who has watched A LOT of TV in his lifetime.):

The Island's rocky coast!


One of the first locations we saw was this rocky patch of land on the south side of Oahu, not far from Honolulu. It was used for a number of scenes, including the spot where Miles parachutes onto the island and where Desmond and Kelvin have a wee bit of a scuffle (see clip below). One cool thing about LOST is how it made easily accessible locations seem REALLY remote. This place was literally next to the highway!



THE LIGHTHOUSE!
Next, we made our way to the southeastern tip of Oahu along the Makapuu Lighthouse Trail.

It was a bit of a hike, but we made it just fine. At least Em was smiling... always a good sign!

This was the location of several scenes in LOST, including Jacob's Lighthouse from Season 6 (seen in the clip below), the cliff where Hurley's "friend" Dave took him to explain the meaning of the island... and, the place where Ben showed Sawyer the island Losties know as Hydra Island.

In this photo, Ben and Sawyer look out at Hydra Island...

... but when we stood at the very same spot, all we saw was ocean... and more ocean (notice the jagged pointed rock in the middle, as you can see it in both photos and the video clip below).


Here I am about where Jack was sitting when Jacob tells Hurley, in the clip below, that sometimes you just have to let some people look out at the ocean. This was an amazing location!!

After you watch this clip, click HERE for some cool shots of the lighthouse facade that was used during filming, right where we were standing!




THAILAND!

This beach, on the east shore of Oahu, was used to represent Thailand in the third-season episode "Stranger in a Strange Land." It was chosen for its gorgeous turquoise waters and visible mini-islands in the background (more were added via CGI in post-production). Judging from this clip, the producers of LOST didn't really have to change much to make this a suitable faux-Thai beach.


KOREA!

The Byodo-In Buddhist Temple was used as the home of Sun's father and the location for Sun and Jin's wedding. It is absolutely gorgeous and very picturesque. It's tucked behind a cemetery and was a very serene place.


Just behind the temple is this gazebo. In the show, Sun and Jin got engaged here.


THE PLANE CRASH BEACH!

Here we are where it all begin. This is where Oceanic 815 (well, part of it) crashed during the pilot episode of LOST. It's not a very big beach, but it's certainly remote, located on the North Shore of Oahu. The cliffs behind us are very noticeable in the opening scenes of the show.


In the episode, the beach looks huge... but, it's right next to the road.


Emily shows us this little opening in the mountains, where we first hear the Smoke Monster! Check out this clip from the pilot of LOST:





THE DHARMA BARRACKS!!
(aka NEW OTHERTON or DHARMAVILLE)

Before we went on the tour, I told Emily that I might get a *bit* overly excited when we got to the Dharma Initiative barracks (also known by Losties as "New Otherton" or "DharmaVille.") In reality, it's just a YMCA camp on the North Shore of Oahu (and, unlike in the show, it's right next to the highway, not tucked away in a valley). We were first introduced to this little cluster of now-famous brownish-yellow buildings in the opening of season 3, seen in this slightly spoilerish clip:






The interior of this assembly hall, across the street from "Dharmaville" (but in a building that looks just like those little brownish-yellow bunks) was used in Season 5 for several scenes, including this scene, which ultimately proved that some LOST fans have sharper eyes than are actually necessary to enjoy the show (long story short: a LOST crewmember accidentally makes a cameo appearance, but only if you REALLY turn up the contrast on your HDTV):



LUNCH AT A SHRIMP TRUCK, MATE!

After visiting the Dharma barracks, we took a lunch break at this lovely shrimp truck. LOST fans will know that the tour company did this because in one episode, Sawyer gets some shrimp from a shrimp truck in the Australia. Of course, since all but a handful of scenes of LOST were all filmed on Oahu, that shrimp truck scene was filmed in Hawaii.

THE WATERFALL!

I was super excited to come to this waterfall in Waimea Valley, located on the west shore of Oahu. In the first season, Kate and Sawyer come here and take a dip in the water. Later, in the fifth season, Jack, Kate and Hurley end up here, but under slightly stranger circumstances!

In real life, it's such a popular place that a lifeguard stands by to make sure people don't drown in the 30-foot-deep water, offering free use of water noodles and boogie boards to those who are crazy enough to swim around in it...



... like me!

Emily did get in the water for a few minutes, but once she saw tadpoles, she had enough. I swam out to the waterfall and had a blast. It was a gorgeous place and reminded me of the summers I spent in Hawaii as a kid when my grandparents lived on Oahu and Kauai. Check out this scene to see the waterfall as it first appeared on LOST:




THE NIGERIAN PLANE CRASH SITE!

Driving toward the Waimea Valley center (which then leads to the waterfall), there is this seemingly normal patch of trees on the side of the road. Normal... except that it was used as the setting for the Nigerian plane that had crashed on the island, which Boone and Locke later discovered in this clip from the first season of LOST:

THE SITE OF LOCKE'S MIGHTY FALL!

Emily summoning her inner Jacob. Notice the absence of the bench and planter that was there during the actual scene. We literally walked past her a few days before, and I would have NEVER known that it was used for this scene.


Josh, lying exactly where John Locke fell, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. Check out this mash-up of scenes depicting Locke's fall:




THE CHURCH USED
FOR CHRISTIAN SHEPHARD'S FUNERAL

St. Patrick's Catholic Church was used during season 4 for interior shots during the belated funeral of Christian Shephard. In real life, it is literally across the street from Sacred Hearts Academy (aka Eloise's Church), which was used in the final scenes of LOST.

ELOISE HAWKING'S CHURCH
(aka THE LAMP POST!)

This statue of Christ at Sacred Hearts Academy (aka Eloise's Church above the Lamp Post station) can be seen in the series finale of LOST. The parking lot behind me is where Kate brings Jack in one of the last scenes of the show.

THE COURTYARD AT ELOISE HAWKING'S CHURCH!

If you're a Lostie, you know where I'm standing. This is where Ben had conversations with both Hurley and Locke minutes before the show ended. It was pretty awesome to be here, even though this is an all-girls Catholic school. I figured if I was quick and quiet, I'd be OK, since people in Hawaii are so nice and laid-back. As it turned out, nobody even paid any attention to me, even though limos with extravagantly dressed girls kept pulling up to the curb. I even peeked my head into the chapel (which was used for the very last scene of the show), but there were people gathered there for an event. Nobody seemed to mind the LOST geek, totally nerding out from outside the door!

Here is a clip from the final minutes of the show, right in this church courtyard.




And, that was our LOST tour. I'm still sad that LOST is over and I can't wait to watch the complete series again on Blu-ray. I didn't get to see every location I wanted to see... so I guess we'll have to go back to Hawaii sometime so we can once again get...

L O S T

New Things

We like to change things up every once in awhile here at the ShepAlder house. Recently we've made some new additions, like:

New curtains for the dining room (I admit that this picture didn't turn out well, but the curtains are pretty [in my opinion]).

The original dining room curtains are now in the living room.

And we finally got throw pillows for our living room couch!

A closer look. I just love sunflowers.

Also, here's something else that is new:

For those of you who have been unlucky enough to hear me complain about my poor eyesight, you will be glad to know that I finally got it checked (because Josh made an appointment for me) and I finally got glasses. The optometrist said that my eyesight isn't really that bad (I can still legally drive without glasses), but in the past couple weeks I have gotten very lost because I can't read street signs. I'll probably only wear them when I have to read things far away-- like when I'm driving somewhere new or when I sit in the back of a classroom. Now hopefully things will change.

This is Embarrassing, but...

... I kind of miss hearing "California Gurls" on the radio ten times a day.

So I downloaded it from iTunes.

Yep. That happened.

In other news:
Josh is working on the post about our "Lost" tour, but he's been working the Hoodoo booth at the fair this past week (plus the post is really, super long), so it's not ready yet.

And I've started school and practicum, so I've been going to bed earlier because I have to be places by 8:30, which means I have to wake up by 6:30. The downside of bangs is that I have to wash my hair every day otherwise I look gross. My shower cap is looking very forlorn. 

Hawaiian Map Hijinks

While we were at Pearl Harbor, we found this big map on the ground.

First, Josh asked me to stand over Hawaii:

Then he told me to stand on Portland while HE stood on Hawaii:

Then he told me to stand on both Portland and Hawaii, making a highly unlikely and structurally unsound bridge with my body:

He said that he thought of this series of pictures as "What Can I Get Emily To Do in a Picture?"

A lot, apparently.

On the Zipline

This year we decided to take a few trips to celebrate the end of my third year of grad school. First, we went to Reno and Medford, but then we went to Hawaii (which I have been begging to do basically since our one year anniversary).

We decided to go to three islands: Maui (where a couple of friends of ours were getting married), the Big Island (to visit the temple), and Oahu (mainly to take a "Lost" tour, but Josh is planning a big, long post about that). In addition to the wedding, we also went ziplining on Maui, at a place called Skyline Eco Adventures. Neither of us had done that before, but Josh had read about it and thought it sounded cool.

There were eight ziplines, ranging from 450 to 1100 feet, over two canyons. They drove us near the top of a mountain, then we ziplined and hiked our way down.

We had to wear harnesses and helmets the whole time, which we sometimes a little unwieldy. We basically swung across from one platform to another, which looked something like this:

We would launch off the side with the stairs (we had to run down the stairs and leap into the air), and land on the side with the ramp. Sometimes I got going so fast it was really hard to land correctly. You were supposed to transition your zipping momentum into running momentum and run to the top of the ramp. I was terrible at it.

But first we would attach to the wire like this:

And then swing across like this:

It was similar to sitting in a little seat, if your seat was made of nylon straps that loosened if you moved too much. It sounds scary, it looks scary, but it wasn't scary at all. I never felt like I was going to fall out, but I was terrible at the landing, and it was a bit hard to steer (ie stay facing forward).

This is what the typical zipline looked like:

We also had lunch about halfway through. The view was beautiful:

The only downside was that we got really, super dirty. At the end, our legs looked like this:

It was quite the adventure! If you're ever in Maui (or, apparently, Dollywood), I totally recommend trying it.

Did I mention...

... that I got a haircut? Because I did.

It's the first time in quite awhile (20+ years) that I've had bangs, because when I did they looked like this:

and sometimes like this:

I like the change. I think the bangs make me look older, which is nice when I'm supposed to be an expert that people come to with their problems. I've been having that experience lately where, when I tell people I'm a therapist, they don't believe me. 

30 Books Before I'm 30: My Life in France

My Life in France by Julia Child

This book was written with the help of Childs' grandnephew, Alex Prud'homme. He writes in the forward that the book came about from a series of conversations he had with her in August 2004 about her life in France during the 1950s. Because of this, the book is written in a very conversational style, and is more a series of recollections than a cohesive "this happened and then this happened"-type autobiography. The book starts with Childs' time in France, but extends beyond and to her husbands' death.

I realized while I was reading this book that there were a couple of things working against me. #1: I hate cooking (in fact, when Josh went camping with his scouts I mostly just ate uncooked egg noodles and didn't even notice until the end of the week that I hadn't eaten much of anything else), and #2: I've never been to France (even though my family thinks I have). But I still really enjoyed this book. 

Things I Liked: Although I know I wouldn't have been friends with Julia Child if we had ever met (mostly because I think she would have felt I was boring), her joie de vivre is contagious. She was a woman who loved her life and reading this book makes it obvious.

Since this book is episodic, it makes it really easy to pick it up and put it down again. I tend to bring books around with me so I can read whenever I have time, and with this book that was really easy.


Things I Didn't Like: Julia Child makes me feel really inadequate, though it makes me feel better that she didn't really start her cooking career until her mid-30s. I wish I was more like her-- indiscriminantly friendly, outgoing, and singularly-minded (writing her first cookbook took something like 12 years of solid work, and I can't even get through vaccuuming the upstairs hallway without getting distracted halfway through). So I don't like that this book made me feel bad about myself, but that's my thing more than the fault of the narration.


This book would be great to read: in the bathtub, or anywhere that you want to read a little at a time and don't necessarily need to keep track of plot points.

I would recommend this book to: anyone with even a quasi interest in food, France, or biographies. I would also recommend this book to my mother, who said she doesn't like to read anything depressing or stressful.

This book is an incredibly easy read, though Childs' narrative voice may be annoying to some people.

If you liked this book, you might also like: the movie Julie & Julia (2009), which was based in part on this book, or the Smithsonian National Museum of American History (Washington DC), where you can find a model of Childs' test kitchen. She had a thing for pegboard, on which she would outline her pots so she would know where everything went.