Don't steal $5,000 and run away when you are 15

Thursday morning we enjoyed brunch with Rebecca at Duke's in Waikiki.

I noticed this little girl watching Rebecca, and I made the mistake of telling Rebecca she had an audience. Rebecca then launched into a ten minute one-sided conversation with the little girl telling her she should always listen to her parents and that she should not steal $5,000 from them and then run away when she is 15. I think the little girl's parents were feeling frightened yet entertained all at the same time. ;)

Shirokiya Day

Wednesday was a pretty rainy day so we spent most of our time shopping at Hilo Hattie and visiting Ala Moana. We think it's cool that you can now drive through the mall (between the old part of the mall and the new Nordstrom's wing), but the new stuff really isn't all that exciting. However, Shirokiya is still fun. :) I like their pretty new mochi ice cream display.

Before we found the new mochi ice cream display, we had a little bit of eats from the Shirokiya cafeteria upstairs. Kenji was feeling a bit under the weather and got a little boost of energy from a chicken teriyaki musubi. I of course had some peanut butter-filled mochi.


I found a cute egg with chicken legs-shape masher. Of course I had to get it because it says "Mashy" on the package. Plus the package says it's perfect for mashing eggs and potatoes too (little do they know I will also use it for mashing apple and pear sauce).

Cotton Candy Man

Above is Kenji in charge of the cotton candy machine at Ange's 1st birthday party at Ala Moana Beach Park. Between the cotton candy, the Dora the Explorer bouncy house, the cheat pinata and all our friends, it was a real good time.

I think the adults may have had more fun with the bouncy house than the kids did, though the kids definitely had more energy.

The Rest of Friday

Yep so now we're back at Rebecca's and I can post the other pictures we took while out vacationing today.

I began this morning by taking a little walk in Salt Lake. Then Kenji dropped me off at Ward Centre and I got my nails and hair done at Paul Brown. The lady who did my manicure is named Helga and she was a lot of fun to talk to, 

and she gave my hands and arms a nice massage that wasn't like beating me up like the massage I got yesterday. :)

After that Kenji and I went to see the movie Juno at the dollar theater. We were planning to go see Cloverfield, but we arrived at the theater at 1:30 pm or so only to discover that Cloverfield wasn't scheduled to start until 4:30 pm. It was a good thing because I think I enjoyed Juno a lot more than I would have enjoyed Cloverfield.

Next we drove by Kenji's old apartment on Date Street on our way to get some Jamba Juice in Kapahulu. We took our Jamba Juice to Kapiolani Park where I tricked Kenji into taking me for like a three mile walk all the way around the park and through Waikiki and back. Along the way we visited the ocean at Kaimana Beach where we stuck our toes in the water for a few minutes. We also said hello to the fishies in the tank that's in the front of the Waikiki Aquarium. The candy cane strip shrimp is getting big. I 

tried to take a picture of him but he was mostly hiding behind other stuff in the tank.

So as I mentioned, we walked all the way through Waikiki and boy were we surprised when we got to Lewers Street. This picture on the right was taken from the Ewa side of the street on the second floor. Back before we moved away from Hawaii it used to be that you couldn't even do that. Never mind all that green grass you see there and the little fountains you see there. All the junky buildings must have been knocked down and are now all rebuilt, set back from the street in nice curvy lines and filled with two stories of trendy shops and restaurants. Instead of having our dinner in any of these new places we went around the block to Arancino's on Beach Walk and had prosciutto and arugula pizza. 

Even though we really didn't pig out we felt like we did. So we slowly wandered back through Waikiki towards Kapiolani Park. Along the way we saw a couple of hula shows going on, and right near the second one I got a free hug from a guy holding up a sign that said "Free Hugs". He was hanging out on the side walk with a girl who was also holding up a free hugs sign. You can kinda-sorta see the guy in this picture but not the girl. They were cute and were getting lots of hugs from passers-by.

I took the free hugs picture from a little patch of grass we decided to lie down on for a while to digest our pizza. This was the view we had looking up. Not bad for a junky phone picture in the dark.

With pizza sufficiently digested, we continued on poking along down Kalakaua. We visited the ABC Store and then while we were looking at Indian Head coin necklaces in a jewelry store window we heard the usual Friday night fireworks going off way down by Magic Island. I was able to catch a glimpse of them from where we were standing. 

Well, I'd love to be able to show you that picture and also the one I took of us in the mirror at Bubbie's, but there seems to be something really wonky with my computer and the cable modem at Rebecca's house and it's taking forever for me to upload my pictures to Blogger. I wanna go to sleep already and plus my battery is starting to get low so maybe I'll try to finish this post tomorrow!

Aiea Letterbox Doing Well

I was chatting with my friend Dave from Hawaii. He said he checked up on the letterbox I hid along the Aiea Loop trail a couple years ago. He said it's still there and in good condition. He also added a little Spongebob Squarepants toy to it as a surprise for the next person who finds it. :)

Thanks Dave!

Updates Updates Updates

Ok so I finally got all my vacation updates done. It's about time!

• Seattle
• Bob's Moonwalk
• Pau Hana
• Labor Day BBQ
• Hawai'iloa Hike
• Hawaii Days One, Two and Three
  

Hawaii Visit - Wednesday - Bob's Moonwalk

A week goes by too quickly when you are having fun. It was fortunate for me that my last night in Hawaii was only one day before the full moon - which means Bob's Moonwalk! Normally he tries to arrange his monthly moonwalks on the actual night of the full moon, but he made a special exception for me, knowing that I would not be able to make it on the 7th.

For this moonwalk, we were joined by a columnist for the Star Bulletin, John Heckathorn. He used to work with Bob when Bob was with Honolulu Magazine. So for that particular week's column, John decided to write about Bob and his monthly moonlight stroll - you can read the column here.

Sometimes the weather is really iffy on the night of Bob's moonwalk. This night was no exception. I was driving from downtown to Triangle Park where we were all to meet up, and by Ala Moana it started to pour. But I trusted that the weather would be different over on the other side of Diamond Head, and it was... sort of. At least it wasn't raining... for the most part. And by the time we got to our turn-around point, we accomplished one of our goals for the evening, which was to watch the sun set.

Bob's moonwalks always end up at some kind of eating establishment - usually people drive to it after the walk is finished, but this time getting to the food was part of the adventure, at least it was for some of us. After watching the sun set, we headed to Kaimuki by way of Puu o Kaimuki, where we had a nice view of Honolulu (you can see the ghost of Punchbowl in my blurry photo). We also did manage to have a a couple of very brief moon sightings. The photos are less than impressive, so never mind posting them. You'll just have to take my word for it. :P

Our final destination was Big City Diner, one of the first places I remember going to eat after hiking in Hawaii when I first moved there. :) Just some more pix of me and my crazy friends...

Hawaii Visit - Tuesday - Pau Hana Time!

Tuesday, September 6th was probably the most frustrating day for lots of people on the island of O'ahu... at least it was for anyone who needed to get from town to the west side. An Army vehicle was being transported without a permit on the H-1 from Pearl Harbor to Schofield Barracks when it smashed into a pedestrian overpass right by Aiea High School. The DoT engineers declared the overpass structurally unsound, and so the State decided to close the freeway until they could remove the rest of the overpass. That of course meant gridlock, and people spent as much as eight hours sitting in traffic trying to get home! I can't imagine that... I would have to pee my pants so bad!!!

Fortunately for me, I was not a part of all that mess. At all. I was already in town, had lunch with my friend Mary Ann at Mariposa, and then went for Blondies with Bob at Waioli Tea Room in Manoa. After that was one of my favorite things - Pau Hana!

Again for you mainland people, pau hana bascially means finished work... well which in turn means go out for drinks and pupus (appetizers) at a local watering hole. This Pau Hana was actually a get together of folks who are part of GlobalPauHana.com, a social and business networking site for people who live in or have lived in Hawaii and now live elsewhere. I used to be the Honolulu "instigator", but last year I passed the torch to Alicia when Kenji and I moved to the mainland.

This time the watering hole was Palomino's, in Harbor Court, overlooking Nimitz Highway. The bar was packed, not only with Pau Hana attendees, but probably mostly with people who were trying to avoid all the traffic for as long as possible. After all, in Palomino's we had a great view of Nimitz, which is one of the main arteries that gets you west of the airport, and in this case it was a barometer for how traffic was moving.

So here are some photos - you can actually tell this one is from the end of the evening, because Miles is wearing everyone else's name tag.

I think this next photo is of course a no-brainer. Miles has to know a shot like this cannot be passed up for inclusion somewhere on the 'net...

Sometime during the year that I was away from Hawaii, the Dave's Hui on GPH got some competition from a formidable up-and-coming Gary's Hui. The two on the right are Gary and Garry, and there's Rob, I think a Gary wannabe...

Earlier in the day, I think I had stopped by an art gallery store in Ward Center, where I picked up some free postcards that were advertisements for some of the contributing artists. Since I had a book of stamps with me, I decided to write a little postcard to the folks at my workplace, telling them I was not coming back. :P Then I had all my "witnesses" sign it for me. :)

Me with Susan, one of the founders of Global Pau Hana - she lives on the mainland too, and like me, was back in town for a visit.

And me with Alicia - who instigated this Pau Hana event, her last one, too. She's not leaving Hawaii (as far as I know) - just time to let someone else step up to the plate. :)

Finally, at around 10pm, the last of us at Palomino's decided it was time to brave the traffic westward. I was on my way down King Street when Daniel called and he could hang out for a while. So just before I would have been stuck in traffic, I turned around and went to Waikiki. At just about midnight I decided it was probably ok to head home - and fortunately for me, I chose the right way. H-1 between town and Salt Lake was completely clear. Rebecca started her journey home about an hour before me, but she took Nimitz... and only arrived home about five minutes before I did!

Hawaii Visit - Monday - BBQ

Monday, Labor Day, my friend Ricksta had a BBQ at his new place - a sweet house he's renting with two other guys, right on the water in Hawaii Kai. Rick did an awesome job putting this BBQ together - thanks man for hosting and all your hard work!!!

As you can see, it was a beautiful day, and there were all kinds of people there. I knew maybe about half of them, and the other half were friend's of Rick's from paddling, work, and his housemates' friends.

Anyway it was nice and relaxing (well probably for everyone except Rick!), and there was tons of ono grindz (delicious food for you mainlanders) and just lots of talkstory. Much of the talkstory was Rebecca grilling some of our friends for details about how they go together with their boyfriends/girlfriends, ha ha ha. There we are, all the girls listening very intensely to all the details. ;)

There was also a couple there who had a little motorized kayak that they were letting folks use to cruise around the marina. I got to be the driver when Alicia, Rebecca and I went out. I was glad that I managed not to crash into anything, even when pulling back up to the BBQ.

All the good photos were taken by Alicia, like this yummy one taken of the marina with the Ko'olaus in the background. I guess I wouldn't mind waking up at that house every day. I don't even want to know how much it costs, thank you very much. :P

This was an unusual day in that it was the only day in which I had only one thing planned, and ended up doing only that one thing. No dancing, no night fishing, just BBQ. :)

Visit to Hawaii - Days One, Two and Three

Thursday

To catch up, on Thursday I got up at 8am New Jersey time, finished packing and hopped on a plane that left more than an hour late at 3pm, and landed in Honolulu only a half hour late at 6:40pm, Hawaii time. Got off the plane, picked up my rental car, and met my friend Dave for supper at Sushi Locomotion in Salt Lake. After supper, Jamie and Todd picked me up and took me out to Honolulu's newest swing dancing venue, Ong King Arts Center in Chinatown. It was a really wonderful and warm welcoming with all kinds of hugs and leis tossed around my neck, followed by lots of dancing that made my jet-lagged and sleep-deprived body feel like it was drunk from the thighs down. :) And as if flying direct from Newark to Hawaii, dinner and dancing were not enough, my gracious hostess, Rebecca, our friend Dave, and Rebecca's security-guard cat, Paco, capped off the day with lychee martinis and talk-story.

I should note that Rebecca's guest bed is the most comfortable bed I've ever slept in. I think it might be one of those memory-foam mattresses or something, though I did not check under the bed sheets to find out. I think her folks bought the bed for her because that's the one they know they will be sleeping in when they come to see her. So my compliments to Mom and Dad Rebecca for a great selection of bed!

Friday

Friday morning I woke up early, around 8am and went outside for a nice walk around the neighborhood. I didn't get very far before I got the idea of trading in my rental car, a big and clunky Ford Taurus, for the smaller, economy-class car that I had originally reserved anyway. Am I weird for wanting to down-grade my rental car? I don't care; it took only two miles and one annoying attempt to park in the jam-packed Salt Lake Shopping Center parking lot to convince me that I didn't want to drive a Ford Taurus for the rest of the week. So instead I ended up with a Chevy Aveo, a little $9,000 car whose only frill was the air conditioning. That was the only frill I needed, so I was a happy camper. Or driver.

Since Rebecca works a crazy schedule, she was able to join me and some of the folks from my former workplace, HTDC, for awesome lunch at Asia Manoa. After this, I took a nice walk around Kapiolani Park.

After my nice walk, I fought typical Honolulu traffic to pick up Dave from his workplace in downtown. We went to the not-so-well attended tech trade show at the Neal Blaisdell Center. Between the two of us, we paid $4 to park, and we figure we got enough t-shirts and stress balls out of it to make up for the cost of parking. Oh yeah, there was also a vendor there who's selling a service for sending video email messages. They let us do a demo, so you can see our dorky video if you click here. Please note - I don't think it works in Safari.

Next, we met up with some HTDC and other folks at Longhi's at Ala Moana Shopping Center for "yooj", which is HTDC's term for going out for drinks and pupus after work. :)

Following yooj, I have to thank Vivian for introducing us to Spices, a relatively new restaurant in the University area of town, on King Street, just a few doors up from Kokua Market. Vivian insisted we go try all their ice creams, and I'm glad we did! If I were smart, I would have written down all the flavors we tried - they are so unusual and you're not likely to find them anywhere else. My favorite was the Pineapple-Basil (who would guess that could be good?!?). Dave's favorite was the one with hot pepper in it. Viv likes the Jasmine. No one really liked the Durian, but I was happy to have tried it. I think it is an acquired taste, because I did try several spoonsful of it, and it did become slightly more appealing after each one. I think there was also Lavender, and the other two flavors were not unusual - Chocolate and Banana.

So you'd think that after all this, our day would be over already. But no... Dave and I parted with Viv after our ice cream experience and picked up our fishing buddy, Daniel, for a little night fishing over at the "groin" in Waikiki. Thad joined us too. We didn't catch much, just a few little tiny fish that we threw back.

Saturday

It's nice to wake up here to the sound of palm trees blowing in the breeze, and look out the window and see sunshine and blue sky.

Today's schedule of activities was not so packed. I met up with Rick, Alicia, Tom/Kevin, Bex, Dave and Jade for Dim Sum at Fook Lam in Chinatown. The food there is always so ono, and
the company a lot of fun. And it seems that this is the first time I bothered to use my camera. And I have to thank Alicia for making me a CD of all the photos she took - I've included some of those here as well. I love the sesame-covered balls that they snip in half with the scissors which makes them look like little fledgling pac-men waiting to be fed tasty ghosts.


For some reason, my friends like to take pictures of their feet. Can you tell which pair of legs belong to me? I'll give you a hint - my legs have seen very little of the New Jersey sun during the last year:

So anyway, following dim sum, I didn't really have any particular plans, other than to go dancing later in the evening. So Dave and I decided to hang out and talk story for a while at the park on Sand Island, then got some Jamba Juice at the new Moanalua Shopping Center. There are no Jamba Juices in New Jersey, at least that I know of. And it's not exactly convenient for me to go to the one that is in NYC.

After a nice little afternoon nap at Rebecca's, my hostess returned from work and we met up with my friend Rob at Spices - this time for dinner, not ice cream. Suffice it to say, dinner was quite yummy, but best of all, Rebecca and I managed to talk Rob into joining us for some dancing over at the Kahala (formerly Mandarin). It was a wonderful night of dancing - so many people there. The large turnout was due to this being the final performance of Betty Loo Taylor's jazz trio at the Kahala. I was just happy to have been there for this one last time.
It seems that after the Kahala changed ownership, some renovations where made to the lounge area. These renovations resulted in hotel guests being able to hear the music from their suites down on the far end of the lounge areas, which in turn restulted in complaints against all that "damn jazz" late at night. Weenies.