Arsenio's ESL Podcast: Season 3 - Episode 20 - Speaking Skill - Speak About A Journey

So, this will sound a bit similar to IELTS speaking task 2, but it's not going to be academic, just a very laid back story-telling time.  This is great for non-NES speakers in order to tell a story about where they have traveled with someone else. If you're taking a class, this is even better to give a presentation about.  So, because I have so many crazy a$$ stories that I've told before in regards to going to Bali, Maldives and other places, I decided to tell a story about my Hawaiian trip with a college buddy back in 2013...and what a trip this was!

Blog: https://thearseniobuckshow.com/2018/11/10/arsenios-esl-podcast-season-3-episode-20-speaking-skill-speak-about-a-journey/

Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7hdzplWx6xB8mhwDJYiP6f?si=5vUca3p2QGuWPZbhzCRwBw
Podcast on FM: https://player.fm/series/2288534
Podcast on TuneIn:  https://tunein.com/podcasts/Language-Learning-Podcasts/Arsenios-ESL-p1117391/
Podcast on ListenNote: https://www.listennotes.com/c/778cf3cfd2564ba5b01f693bfebc96de/arsenio-s-esl-podcast/
Podcast on CastBox: https://castbox.fm/channel/Arsenio's-ESL-Podcast-id1251433?country=us
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Arseniobuck/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIzp4EdbJVMhhSnq_0u4ntA
Website: https://thearseniobuckshow.com/
Q & A: ArsenioBuck@icloud.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arsenio-buck-9692a6119/ 

Transcript

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Speaker 1 0:00

God, you're so welcome back to another ESL podcast. I'm your host, Arsenio as usual. You know what I'm bringing to you today. A very, very good one. This is the speaking skill. This is about speaking about a journey that you've been on and you know what, I've been through so many things in my lifetime and I'm so grateful for everything. Um, and just before I actually moved here to Thailand about two and a half weeks before I moved here in 2013, I set out on a journey to Hawaii for the second time. And so guys, if you guys want to of course give me your story and writing or even video or whatever, I would be more than happy to do. So. The questions are actually on my blog. I will tell you about the questions right now and you can post your journey on my facebook wall are cineos English and test preparation, learning everything is in the description also, this episode is going to be transcripted. Okay. So now with my podcasts, they've enabled all users to transcribe their episodes and it costs a basically, I don't know, like three cents a minute. So if my episode is 10 minutes I pay just $1. So I mean that is brilliant and big shout out to bus sprout. Thank you so much for your unbelievable services. So I'm going to transcribe this so you guys can see what vocabulary I use so you guys can see the differentiation between different things I say. And again, I'm just so you can actually listen while you read and I think that is probably the ultimate learning experience. Um, so here it is. Of course I've written a rough blog in terms of what I've said and I will still continue to do so, but transcribing my episode I think is, uh, just amazing for a lot of you out there. So let me go over these questions. Number one, where was the journey to number two? How did you travel? Number three, when was it number four? Who went number five, who had chosen the destination? Number six. How had you prepared for the journey? Number seven, what special things happened on the journey? Number eight, what were you doing when these things happen? A number nine, how did the journey and, and number 10, how did you feel about what happened? So again, I'm going to talk about a journey I have not spoken about. Uh, to this extent. Uh, I've talked about Bali, I've talked about the mal dbs, but I've never talked about my second trip to Hawaii. So this is what I'm going to talk about. So let me paint this picture. Oh, okay. So somewhere around it was a Thursday because I remember a dental hygienists who was actually learning. She looked at me, she said, hey, so you're off work. I was like, yeah. She's like, where are you going? I said, ah, I'm going to Hawaii. She said, yeah, right. I said, no, seriously, I'm going to Arizona. I'm going to stay one night. And my friend and I were going to set off on the journey to Los Angeles. Then Honolulu, her jaw dropped. She couldn't believe it and I can't remember the rest of it. Uh, but my mother picked me up. My mother was very, very angry at that time. She just kept asking me for a horrible guy, who cares. Okay, so I'm not going to get you. Let's get into the trip. We got to make it as positive as possible. So here we go. I went of course to sky harbor international airport out there in Phoenix, Arizona. Uh, from there I was able to meet my friend at the airport and she took me to buffalo wild wings. Buffalo wild wings is a very famous place out there of course in America where you could eat chicken and have drinks. So we were just laughing. We had a, probably a couple of shots of throne patroned Tequila and next thing you know, we went to bed very early. We woke up very early and we went to sky harbor international airport by about 4:00 AM. We drove there, we got out of the car, we went to, of course the ticketing and everything with our luggage. And then there was a man, a man that was on caffeine beyond anything you can ever or ever imagine. And this guy was like, oh, okay. When you go to Hawaii, make sure you go to the bay. There are some little fishies there. I swear it was a movie. I didn't know who this guy was. I didn't know what was happening. This guy was off his head, which means crazy, but it was all great fun. It was a wonderful guy that had to be the best ticket and guy I've ever had. Of course, this is the guy that checks in our luggage and gives us our tickets. So we're sitting in the lobby. We got onto a very, very small plane and we went to Los Angeles. However, there was a big problem when we landed. We cannot disembarked the plane, meaning get off the plane. That's another phrasal verb for you. And so we asked the flight attendant, we said, excuse me, uh, what exactly is going on? And she retorted. She said, Oh, uh, another plane is at the gate. They are doing paperwork. We cannot disembark. I said, well, tell the guy that, get the heck out of them date. I'm trying to get the. We had only probably 45 to 55 minutes of a layover to get from our plane. Now in a real airport and an airport like chunky international. I'm like Japan, not ethos is an excellent airport. A Seoul, South Korea, a itchy on is a very good airport. However, when you land at Los Angeles airport is the most ridiculous thing I've ever witnessed in my life. You land there and you don't even land in the same gate. You actually have to make a, you have to run for like, you have to walk maybe half a mile to get to the other gate. Now when you go to chunky international, you land, you disembark, all gravy. Go right in. It's fun. It's Danby. It's wonderful. However, not, they're not at the unbelievable, wonderfully gorgeous, uh, uh, Los Angeles airport. You see that? That was all sarcasm. It was a dump hole. Guys, listen, when we disembarked it was the worst experience ever. Um, we add about 10 minutes to get to our gate. So we had probably a five minute window to do a full out sprint for 800 meters, which we did. Um, and we made it to the gate and they looked at us, they said, our Sydney. Oh, Elisa. We said, yeah. And I was out of breath. I was so angry I was going to cuss them. I was gonna say so many bad words, but I decided not to. We got on the plane, they close the door. Sit down, sir. Thank you very much. Oh my God. That was the beginning of our experience. So then we set off on a six hour journey of course to Honolulu, Hawaii. We got there. Surprisingly, our luggage was there. I could not believe it. Anyways, we got on speedy shuttle, which I love. And it's funny because the drivers, they expect tips. No, you're not getting into. Um, and so we got off, we went to a hotel complex, go to hotel. Please do never go to that hotel and don't ever, ever, ever, ever in your life go to that hotel. It's horrible. I'm very old. Um, and so Hawaii is a very expensive place. That hotel was about 120 US dollars at night and it was the most, it was the cheapest hotel on the island. So welcome to Hawaii. So anyways, um, when we landed, we were very pooped out. We went to Waikiki beach, very gorgeous. We sat in some water, but we went to sleep around six to 7:00 PM and we slept for about 10 to 12 hours. We were pooped out. We had two hours of sleep. We had to run 500,000 meters at Los Angeles, lax airport. When we get to Hawaii we're like, oh my God, we need to see it. We need to experience it. And I said, okay, calm down, hold on, calm down. Hold on. So we had already booked the trip and we decided to go to unwind my bay. I don't want my bay is probably a little bit outside of Honolulu, maybe about an hour's drive. This crazy Vietnamese woman shout out to all my Vietnamese folks. She was like, okay, I will, I will take you into that. But it was crazy. I've never heard that before in my life. So she took us there and a van with other strangers, which is no problem now because of course I live in Thailand. I take things which strangers all the time. Anyways, we get to the bay turquoise waters, big beautiful fish. Apparently there was a guy there that had swam all the way out. Ooh, maybe about 300 meters. And he said there were giant sea turtles, probably about three feet is one meter long. And so again, this is a gorgeous place. After that, uh, we came back, we ate, we did something else, and then we went out to a bar. Now this bar I met, one of my other friends who's still my friend today, her name is joy. So we were just walking down one of the know one of these streets and we went up to. We were trying to find the karaoke bar. It was shut down. We went to another place and then we came across this place that was playing music on a second floor on the main avenue in Honolulu. We were like, dude, let's do it. I forgot the name of the street though. And so of course we went up to a this bar and I was like, Oh yeah, this place is pop in, pop in, pop in, pop in. And so I remembered there were a lot of guys in there. I didn't take any notice, but I saw three women including joy at this pool table. I said, hey, I said she looked beautiful to fau. So I went over there. I said, hey. And so we started playing pool together. We had a great time. And then there were more men that were coming in. And then I saw that there was this Japanese singer that was dancing there and she was just, just, just shaking it. And then this guy would challenge her and the guy was dancing differently compared to what other guys dance, you know, he was like shaking his butt with no offense if you want to shake her, but that's fine. But then I quickly realized that there were more and more men and I was like, okay, what is going on here where all the beautiful women. And so next CNL I sent, excuse me, Julia, is this a bar for men? She said, Oh yeah, a guy came up to me. He's like, hello, how are you doing? You are so handsome. I said, oh my God, I forgot my phone. I'll let's go. I ran down the stairs. I went back to my hotel. I cried to sleep, but you know what? I was completely inebriated. Inebriated, meaning drunk is hail. Oh God. It was terrible. Anyways, this was five years ago, so I woke up. I was like, Oh my God, I'm so sick, but we had already booked a rental car. We were supposed to go around the island, so at least it was like, now, now we got to go around the island. No, you're not going to do this. No, no. She was just so adamant about going around. The ils said, no, I'm too sick. She said, shut up. We got a taxi. I almost threw up, got to the rental car place. Met An awesome guy. He's an ex, a wide receiver for the University of Hawaii Manoa, his football team, a university level, and so after that we went around the island. I'm still sick. I'm going to throw up. I keep telling at least at a pullover. She's like, no. We argued. She's like, well, we need to hurry up and get over here. I said, Alyssa, I need to eat some food. Elisa [inaudible]. We just argued. We went back and forth, so we finally stopped at Pizza Hut. We got some day. I was so unbelievably hungry. I'm going to emphasize that again. Odds was Hong. Anyways, so after that, Alisa, she ended up, uh, what was it? We ended up eating pizza. Then I started acting crazy because when I'm around it Lelisa, I like to embarrass her because she has no confidence. So I want people to look at her and say, why are you sitting across from that guy who is completely crazy? And she's like, oh my God, stop, stop doing that. And it was so funny. It's just a great time. So we went to our Lani Disney resort, absolutely spectacular, gorgeous place, beautiful pools. We met a guy named Kirk. This guy kirk had like the perfect white smile. This guy, his muscles. He was a native Hawaiian and my friend Elisa was just looking at him like, Oh, I'm in love, Yay. And so I was like, come on at least so we have to go. She's like, no, I want to stare at Kirk. I said, come on, let's go, man. We gotta get Outta here. We went to the pineapple plantation, which is the, Oh my God, the best pineapple ice cream I've ever eaten in my lifetime. We went to another sandwich shop, not the best sandwich, but then we went to turtle beach and here were these giant sea turtles. I mean it was just amazing. He had all these gorgeous Hawaiian people all around and they were. I was acting crazy because I only had probably who knows how many hours of sleep and I was just flapping myself and she's like, you know, at least it was like our city. Oh, everyone's laughing at you. And I looked at them and they were just laughing and I was like, I don't care. Okay, I'm tired on what a go. So he saw some beautiful and I mean some beautiful sea turtles and whatnot. So of course, right after that, um, there was probably a, we went back to a town, we dropped off the car, we went out. No, we were going to go out. And Joy was like, Hey, this is my new friend at the time and not enjoyable. It's like, Hey, come on, let's go out. And I was like, oh no, I can, I can. I'm sorry, I can't go. Wow. She's like, why? I was like, I'm drunk and I'm still sell it. No, no, no, you understand? So, um, that next day I think we just walked around the main city. We had some Margaritas and stuff. This was a full long crazy of a night. We went out with joy that night with some other people than apparently these three guys came to our table. They were and they started acting weird. And I was like, dude, do I know these guys? But they played it off so well. So guys in America, these people are called pickup artists, so they pick up women in bars and different places to try to take them home. But they saw that I was there with them and I was like, what's going on? So you have one guy talking to the two twin sisters, one guy talking to joy and Elisa was just sitting there like, well, what the hell is going on? But then I realized I was like, oh, they are pickup artists. Oh my God. Yeah. So anyways, that was that night. The next day our checkout was at 12, but we could not. The plane didn't leave till 9:00 PM. Horrible, horrible time to leave. Um, but it didn't make sense. So we went to go walk and we went to watch a movie. I forgot what the movie it was, I think it was the guy, Gerard Butler falling something, some kind of shooting movie with him in it. Um, and after that, of course we went to the airport, we chilled, we took speeding shuttle again, our pickup was at about 5:00 PM. So we just relax. We're, it was just really great time. And you know what, we ended up going off on this journey. And so this journey taught me that that unbelievable friendship bond in these journeys that I've had and set off on with this particular individual Elisa have been probably the most amazing. So again, guys, this is a journey. I mean, I could have added in a couple of other things, but, um, that is my journey in bulks. So guys, that was the second time I to Hawaii with a friend, unbelievable big fishes, a pineapple plantation, Aulani resort, a met joy who's still my friend today. And I visited her a couple of years later in Melbourne and I'm planning on visiting their next March. I still don't know and I don't want to give her any empty promises right now either. But you know what, it was just amazing fun. So guys, I would love to hear your story. This is really good, especially for non native English speakers because if you're able to talk about this story and make it as compelling as possible and make it fun full of laughter and this and that, you can ultimately formed that into storytelling. And you know what, if you're a great storyteller, their opportunities are endless. So guys, that is my nice little story of course on Hawaii, the transcription will be coming shortly after this podcast within five minutes. So stay tuned for that and you guys will be able to read and of course listen to me at the same time. So I'm so grateful. Again, thank you so much for tuning in to another podcast. Stay tuned for more critical thinking and pronunciation is already finished for you guys on Monday. So stay tuned for more, baby, I'm your host, all Cineo as usual, over and out.