– English Lyrics

Lyrics & Translation

[English]

Hello, and welcome to bonus episode number 141  of the Culips English Podcast. How's it going?  

Thank you for clicking play and joining me for  this English lesson. My name's Andrew. I'm your  

Canadian English study buddy, and I'm happy to  be here with you today. Guys, in this episode,  

I'm going to tell you a story about visiting  Hawaii. Recently, my wife and I visited Hawaii,  

and a couple of episodes ago in bonus episode  number 139, I believe it was, I told you about  

some of the touristy things that we did while  we were there in Hawaii. And in this episode,  

I'm going to tell you about some things that we  did that maybe weren't as touristy. I don't want  

to say that we were living exactly like locals  or anything like that, but I think we did get  

up to some adventures and some fun activities that  were maybe a little bit different than the regular  

tourist itinerary. I'm going to tell you those  stories in this episode today. But before I tell  

you that story, I want to let you know there's  a free interactive transcript and vocabulary  

glossary available for everyone, and you can get  that just by clicking the link in the description.  

Plus, if you're a Culips member, then you can get  a comprehension quiz as well. Thank you to all the  

Culips members out there for your support. Guys,  Culips wouldn't exist without our members, so we  

all have to thank them, in fact, and if you'd like  to sign up and become a Culips member as well,  

then just check out our website, Culips.com. You  can sign up there for an affordable price, and you  

get so many benefits and bonuses when you are a  member. You'll get access to our weekly speaking  

classes. You'll get our member-only series, The  Fluency Files. You'll get helpful study guides and  

interactive transcripts, not just for our bonus  episodes, but for all of our episodes and much,  

much more. So, visit Culips.com and sign up and  become a member today, and take your English  

to the next level with Culips. Last month, my  wife and I were lucky enough to spend a week in  

Honolulu, Hawaii, and we got up to lots of things.  We did lots of activities every day. It was a  

very busy vacation. It wasn't really a relaxing  vacation as much. Of course, we had a wonderful  

time, but we did do many, many things, and I'm  going to show you a couple of the things that  

we did that maybe you wouldn't find on a regular  tourist itinerary. So, the first thing that we  

did that was really cool and just a wonderful  memory, I think we'll have it as a nice memory  

of our time in Honolulu going forward for many  years, was visiting a local swimming pool. Now,  

on the surface, that doesn't sound like anything  too exciting, but it ended up just being a really  

fun time. My wife is a big swimmer. She loves  swimming. She swims three or four days a week. You  

guys know that I love running. Well, I think my  wife is equally as passionate about swimming. So,  

we both have our shared passions when it comes to  exercise. She likes swimming. I like running and  

running is a pretty easy thing to do. You know,  you can pretty much run anywhere. But swimming,  

on the other hand, is not so easy to do.  And Hawaii is an expensive place. So,  

when we were looking into booking our hotel,  of course, my wife is interested in staying at  

a hotel with a swimming pool because of her  passion for swimming. But as I said, Hawaii  

is an expensive place. And as we were looking  at the different hotel options, the ones with  

swimming pools were pretty expensive. And the ones  without swimming pools were also pretty expensive,  

but a little bit cheaper. And so, what we decided  to do, and we were inspired by our previous trip  

to Australia where we did some outdoor swimming  in local community pools. We decided, hey, let's  

go on Google Maps. We'll search in Hawaii and see  if there are any outdoor community pools that we  

could go to. And if that's the case, then let's do  that. And so, I went on Google Maps. I searched.  

I found that in the Waikiki Beach area, like  that's where we were staying is Waikiki Beach.  

Within that area, within, I don't know, four  or five kilometers or so, kind of close area,  

there were several pools, more than enough for  us. So, we decided, hey, let's save some money.  

We'll book the hotel with no pool and then we can  go to the community pools to swim instead. And so  

that's exactly what we did. And the pool that we  ended up going to was not too far from our hotel,  

probably two and a half, three kilometers or  so. And we ended up walking there because I love  

walking. When you go to a new place, I love just  walking around because it gives you an opportunity  

to see the city, right, to see the area. So, we  decided to walk to the community pool. They had  

some open free-swimming hours where anybody could  go swimming in the early afternoon. Of course,  

in the morning they have like kids swim programs  and after school they had kids swim programs. And  

then the evening they had swimming activities  and lessons for adults and stuff. There's only  

a little bit of time where you can go and actually  just free swim. But it was in the early afternoon.  

And since we were on vacation, we had early  afternoon availability and free time. So, we  

decided to do that. So, we walked from our hotel  to the swimming pool, and it was a great walk.  

As I was saying, it's just a nice opportunity  to see what the city looks like outside of the  

main tourist area of Waikiki Beach. So, we walked  through this really residential neighborhood. You  

can see the houses, the kind of houses that are  popular in Honolulu. We saw lots of examples of  

those. We saw schools, we saw shopping centers  and restaurants that were just used by locals  

right outside of the tourist zone. So, we  took our time walking there. I think we,  

yeah, probably took about an hour just to wander  and sightsee. As we walked through the pool,  

we passed a poke restaurant, and we had some fresh  local seafood at the poke restaurant. I had some  

tuna, and I can't remember what my wife had. Maybe  she had tuna as well. It was delicious. And yeah,  

you know, there's this old wives’ tale, this  saying, I'm not sure if this is true or not, but  

after you eat, you're supposed to wait about 30 to  45 minutes before swimming or else you can get an  

upset stomach and maybe feel sick. I don't know if  that's true or not. I don't think that's the case  

for me. But after we ate our lunch, we decided,  OK, hey, let's just take it slow as we walk to  

the pool just so that we can digest our food. And  then when we go swimming, we won't have any issues  

like that. So, we wandered to the swimming pool,  and it was just nice. I really like looking at  

people's gardens and people's houses. And that  was just a cool walk through this residential  

area in Hawaii. And then finally, we arrived at  the swimming pool. It was in this really cool,  

big, massive open park. And yeah, we got to the  front of the swimming pool, and it was closed.  

We arrived too early. So, we had to hang out  in the park for about 20 minutes, but that was  

no problem at all. And then the pool was open.  And actually, I was a little bit confused. I had  

to ask the lifeguards there, is the pool actually  open? Because there was nobody there. My wife and  

I were the only ones there. And so, I was like, is  it really free swimming right now? So, I asked the  

lifeguards. There were two lifeguards on duty  at this pool. And to paint a picture for you,  

it was probably about a 25-meter-long pool, just  a rectangular pool, and it was divided into two  

halves. So, one half was just free swimming where  you could do whatever you want and just play in  

the water. And then the other half was dedicated  to lane swimming. And that lane swimming area  

had two lanes. And yeah, so the lifeguard said,  "Yeah, we're open. Come on in!" So, we thought,  

amazing. We have this private pool to ourselves  with lifeguards watching us as well. And also,  

it's free to enter, totally free for anyone. And  so even though we're not American, we were able to  

go in and take advantage of that amazing community  pool. So, we got changed and we jumped into the  

pool. I stuck more to the side that was free and  open where you could just do whatever you want and  

play in the water. Cause that's my kind of style.  When I get into a swimming pool, I'm not really a  

lap swimmer, but my wife is more of a lap swimmer.  She likes going back and forth and back and forth  

and actually exercising. And so, she got into one  of the open lanes and then just around that time,  

also a grandpa from the community, an older  gentleman, probably in his seventies or so arrived  

and he took the other swimming lane. So, my wife  and him were going back and forth in their lanes  

and I was just sort of chilling there and yeah, it  was cool. It was a really unique experience and I  

think we'll remember it for a long time. Just a  nice way to spend some time a little bit outside  

of the tourist zone to talk with some of the local  people, the older gentlemen swimming there and the  

lifeguards. And to see what kind of infrastructure  is available to the locals who live in Honolulu. I  

mean, I find that fascinating. I love seeing  that and it always makes me wish like, oh,  

I wish in my hometown we had a swimming pool like  this. Anyways, swimming at the pool was great.  

We had a wonderful time, probably spent about  an hour there and then afterwards we wandered  

back to the Waikiki Beach tourist zone. Back to  the tourist zone and our hotel, but we were glad  

that we got to get off the beaten track a little  bit and to live life a little bit like a local,  

a local swimmer in Hawaii might do. The second  thing we did during our time in Hawaii that was  

a little bit off the beaten path, maybe is not on  the itinerary of most tourists who visit Honolulu,  

was go to an area called the North Shore. And  Honolulu's on an island, right? The island of  

Oahu and so it's kind of near the Southwest part  of the island. Whereas the North Shore is more to  

the north of the island and to get from Waikiki  Beach area in Honolulu, where we were staying to  

the North Shore took us a couple of hours. And  the reason that it took us a couple of hours was  

because we took the bus, the local bus. Now going  to the North Shore, I think is actually a popular  

tourist activity, but so many people who visit  rent a car and drive up there that taking the  

bus was our way of maybe doing it like a local  would. Although I guess a local would probably  

have a car as well. Most of them, but anyways, I  don't know. Personally, it's a way for us to save  

a little bit of money because renting a car is  expensive. And also, my wife and I are not super  

confident drivers and yeah, we just decided to  take the bus for those reasons. But personally,  

I love taking the bus. Even a local bus ride for  two hours is maybe not the most pleasant thing,  

but you look out the window and you get to see the  surroundings and see some areas of the Island that  

you probably wouldn't get to check out otherwise.  So, we took the bus up to the North Shore and the  

North Shore is a pretty touristy area. There's  a little village there with lots of touristy  

shops. We went to one shop that sold peanut butter  exclusively and I'm a huge peanut butter fan. So,  

I was so stoked about that. I went in and I  got some coconut flavored peanut butter. That  

was delicious. I've already finished the whole  bottle, of course. But yeah, a lot of different  

touristy shops and gift shops and souvenir shops,  that kind of thing, which we wandered through,  

but didn't spend too much time checking out.  The reason that we went to the North Shore,  

first of all, was because my wife wanted to go  snorkeling at this beach, which is supposed to  

be famous for snorkeling and just beautiful,  amazing place to snorkel. So, we did bring our  

snorkeling equipment with us. We had our bags with  our flippers and masks and snorkels. And when we  

arrived at the beach, finally, then we realized  quite quickly that there was no way we were going  

to be able to snorkel at that area because the  waves were super intense and the beach, in fact,  

was closed. You know that kind of yellow tape  that police put up around a crime scene? The  

beach was taped off with that yellow, do not enter  tape. And yeah, we couldn't even get in. I mean,  

you wouldn't want to go in that water anyways.  You'd probably drown in a second because the  

waves were so strong. But yeah, they had sectioned  it off just so dumb tourists like us don't get in  

there and hurt themselves. So, that was a bust and  "a bust" here means unsuccessful. Going snorkeling  

was a bust. It was totally unsuccessful. But  that's OK because my wife had another couple  

of places that she wanted to check out. The  next place was another beach, not too far  

away. And we just walked down the shore to that  other beach. And we wanted to go to that beach  

to see giant sea turtles. So, there are these  amazing giant sea turtles that live in Hawaii.  

And I guess every day they come onto the shore to  sleep on the beach. And if you're lucky enough,  

you can see them while they're sleeping on the  beach. And we were lucky enough to actually see  

them while we were on the beach. It was amazing.  There were these massive giant sea turtles.  

We even saw some of them come out of the ocean  and then dig themselves into this little pit  

that they make so that they can sleep there  on the beach. And we saw some other ones wake  

up and go out of their pit and slowly crawl  back down to the ocean and go into the sea,  

which was so cool to see these just majestic,  amazing giant turtles that are probably,  

I don't know, like 200 kilograms. I'd have to  Wikipedia search and see how big they are in fact,  

but these huge, huge, huge turtles, the biggest  turtles I've ever seen in my life. And I kind  

of feel like we were really lucky to get that  experience because as we were riding the bus,  

there were some people talking on the bus. One guy  was a local and some other people were tourists  

from California. And they said they were going  to see the turtles. And the local was like, "Oh,  

you won't see them. They're not out this time of  year. They're not out this time of day." And so,  

he was saying like, don't even go there. There's  no chance that you're going to see them. And so,  

I'm overhearing, I'm listening to this  conversation. And I think my wife probably wasn't  

able to understand the conversation that they were  having. Of course, my wife is not a native English  

speaker. So sometimes those things can be hard  to hear, right? When you're on like a loud bus  

and people talking a way away from you. But me  as a native speaker, I can tune my ear in, and  

I can eavesdrop and listen in. So, I heard them  talking and the local guy saying, no, you won't  

see any of the turtles. But I didn't want to burst  my wife's bubble. I didn't want to be like, no, we  

won't see them. Let's not go there. That guy said  no. And I'm glad that I just kept my mouth shut  

and didn't say anything at all because that local  guy was totally wrong. Once we got to the beach,  

there were five or six giant sea turtles there.  And I did take some pictures and some videos. So,  

I'll put that onto our social media on Discord  and Instagram. And if you're watching on YouTube,  

I'll put some of the videos in the YouTube version  so you can see these amazing, amazing creatures.  

So that was really cool. That was definitely a  highlight of that day. I think in the North Shore,  

what else did we do? We just wandered around, ate  an acai bowl, which is one of the foods that we  

ate a lot in Hawaii. Ah, and on the way back, we  had to take the bus again for a couple of hours  

on the way back. And yeah, again, it was kind of  cool. Like there were a lot of locals on the bus.  

There were a bunch of high school students on the  bus and just to eavesdrop on them and hear like  

what they're talking about and a little glimpse  into their life was funny. All these high school  

students were carrying band instruments like  trumpets and tubas and saxophones, I guess. And  

they were going to a band rehearsal at their high  school. So, it was kind of funny to eavesdrop and  

listen in and just see what they're talking  about, something that I can't really do very  

often here in Korea to the same extent as I can  in a place like that. So, I enjoyed the bus ride,  

the public bus ride. And on our way back, we  stopped at this other area that was kind of in  

between downtown Honolulu and the Waikiki Beach  tourist zone. And we stopped there because there  

was a record store that I wanted to visit. Of  course, as a music lover, I love going to record  

stores and checking them out and even sometimes  finding some hidden gems. I like to go digging and  

see what kind of music I can find that could be  interesting to take back home with me. And I was  

really curious to see if I could find some cool  Hawaiian music to take back with me to Korea here.  

And of course, Hawaii has got a really interesting  musical tradition. They've got their own unique  

style of music. And of course, the ukulele is  famous from Hawaii and Polynesian-style music,  

right? The local native music. I don't want to say  that I'm an expert about Hawaiian music at all,  

but I thought it would be cool to pick up some old  records of Hawaiian music and take it back here  

with me to Korea. And that's exactly what I did  at this record store. They had this big section  

of 45s. And a 45 is like an old record. Sometimes  we also call them a seven inch and 45 stands for  

the RPM of the little record spins on the record  player. It rotates at 45 spins per minute. So  

that's why it's called RPM rotation per minute,  I believe. And so, all of these old 45s were only  

$3 each. So, I didn't know, you know, like  which one is good, which one is bad. So,  

I just randomly picked one and I got this cool  looking hula music 45 from 49th state Hawaii  

record company from Honolulu, Hawaii. This was  made in, who knows? There's no date on it. I'm  

just looking at it now. If you're listening to  the audio-only version of this, I've got it in my  

hands. But if you're watching the YouTube, you can  see actually what it looks like, this cool 45. So,  

this must be from the fifties or sixties, I would  imagine. And there's only two songs on it. On one  

side, there's a song called "Lovely Ginger Lei",  and a "lei" is that kind of flower necklace that  

is famous in Hawaii. And then on the other side,  there's a track called "Melody of Hulas." So very  

cool. And when we got home, we put it on, and it  sounds amazing. It's really cool. And yeah, it's  

great. Some nice Hawaiian music. So, I thought  this is a great kind of souvenir. I'm happy that  

I picked this up for only $3 so much better than  just a regular touristy trinket in my opinion. So,  

I'm quite happy with that purchase. And when I  want to remember my visit to Hawaii, I'll put  

that on and listen to that music and I think I'll  have a really great memory of my time there. And  

then after we are super hungry, it was time to get  dinner. So, we went to a local restaurant. We were  

just walking by, and we saw a restaurant that said  they were serving authentic, local, traditional  

Hawaiian cuisine. And we thought that sounds  amazing. I wanted to try some local food. So,  

we went to that restaurant, and we ordered just,  they had like a combo platter where they had, I  

don't know, five or six dishes that were authentic  and local, and I can't remember the names of all  

of the specific dishes right now. But again, I'll  put a photo online so you can see what the food  

looked like. There was some dish, I want to say  it was called lau lau, if I remember correctly,  

that was maybe made with meat, like some pork that  was cooked within some leaves. I think it was like  

cooked in the ground is probably how they would  traditionally cook it. That was delicious. There  

was some salmon. Oh man, there was lots of stuff,  and it was really, really good. And yeah, my wife  

and I pigged out on the local Hawaiian food. And  I have to say it was the best meal by far of the  

trip for me, in my opinion. I really enjoyed  that. And then probably after that, some of the  

seafood that we had was a close second. So yeah,  some good eats there in Hawaii. And I'll put some  

photos of these dishes onto our social media and  on YouTube here. So, you guys can see it because  

as you can tell, I'm not really a huge foodie.  I'm not good at describing the food that we ate,  

but it was good in the end. We had a really busy  day that day, visiting the North shore, riding  

the bus for several hours, and then going to the  record shop and digging in the used record shop,  

and then eating the local authentic Hawaiian food  at the end. By the time we got home at the end of  

the day, we were totally wiped out. And I think  we probably slept really, really well that night.  

And yeah, I can't remember what we did the next  day after that, but I'm sure we were busy. So,  

it's a good thing we got that rest in. Anyways,  guys, I think I'll leave it here for now. Thank  

you for listening all the way to the end of  this episode. And thank you for listening to  

my Hawaiian adventures. After Hawaii, my wife and  I stopped in Japan. And for me, the Hawaii part of  

our trip was amazing. It was so fun and so just  wonderful. But in Japan, it went from wonderful  

to terrible. And I'll tell you all about that in  the next couple of Culips bonus episodes. So, make  

sure that you tune in next week for that story.  But before I let you go here today, I do want  

to share the completion code with you each and  every week. I give you a completion code and as  

a homework assignment, you have to use the phrase  or the word from the completion code in your own  

example sentence. And leave that example sentence  on our social media or our YouTube comments or  

our discord community. And that will signal to me  and to all of Culips listeners out there that you  

finished this episode, that you did it. And then I  will say, good job. Well done, you made it all the  

way to the end of the lesson. So, for today, let's  go with the phrase. I taught you this cool phrase,  

this cool expression in this episode, "Off the  beaten path." Off the beaten path. And we use  

this to talk about traveling somewhere that's not  so popular, maybe where most tourists don't go or  

don't see or don't visit. So: "Off the beaten  path." My wife and I went off the beaten path  

when we went to the local swimming pool and the  North shore in Hawaii. I want to know what your  

example sentence is with this expression. So  go, go, go. You have your homework assignment  

and I look forward to reading your comments. So,  everyone, please take care. Have a great week of  

English studying up ahead here, and I'll catch you  in the next Culips episode. Until then, bye bye.

Key Vocabulary

Vocabulary	Meanings
episode /ˈɛpɪsoʊd/ B1	noun - a part of a series of broadcasts or podcasts
touristy /ˈtʊərɪsti/ B1	adjective - designed for or frequented by tourists
recently /ˈriːsəntli/ A2	adverb - not long ago
wife /waɪf/ A1	noun - a woman whom someone is married to
adventures /ədˈvɛntʃərz/ B1	noun - an unusual and exciting, typically hazardous, experience
activities /ækˈtɪvɪtiz/ A2	noun - the condition in which things are happening or being done
itinerary /aɪˈtɪnəreri/ B2	noun - a planned route or journey
interactive /ˌɪntərˈæktɪv/ B1	adjective - allowing two-way communication between a computer and a user
transcript /ˈtrænskrɪpt/ B2	noun - a written or printed copy of something spoken
vocabulary /voʊˈkæbjʊleri/ B1	noun - the range of words known and used by a particular person
support /səˈpɔːrt/ A2	noun - the action of helping someone or something
benefits /ˈbɛnɪfɪts/ B1	noun - an advantage or profit gained from something
access /ˈækses/ B1	noun - the means or opportunity to approach or enter a place
classes /ˈklæsɪz/ A2	noun - a room or large division in a school or college
guides /ɡaɪdz/ B1	noun - a person who shows visitors around a place
lucky /ˈlʌki/ A2	adjective - having good fortune
expensive /ɪkˈspɛnsɪv/ B1	adjective - costing a lot of money
swimming /ˈswɪmɪŋ/ A1	noun - the sport or activity of propelling oneself through water