blog.mchiu.com

Aloha and Mahalo

Aloha!

So while I was out in Hawaii, I was never sure how to respond to people who said "Aloha!" and "Mahalo" to me everywhere I went. Later, I had to ask Gary if people normally address each other like that in Hawaii. He told me that it was only in the tourist areas that they really do that, so now I don't feel like I was being so rude for just answering back with a "hello" or "thank you". So if you ever wondered that the same question, there's the answer....

Mahalo

My Hawaiian Adventure -- Part II -- Maui

Day 4: Going to Maui

The next day, we had to move on over to Maui. Gary and Chiaki were on a different flight from me, but it was only a 30 minute flight over, and the difference between our flights was too. After arriving into OGG, since I had to wait for Gary and Chiaki, I went over to the bar, and had a drink. There were a lot of long faces since most of the people there were on their way home, including a couple I met, that was on their way back home to Sunnyvale. Lucky for them, their business takes them out to Hawaii a lot, so they come back frequently. It's almost snobby, but they were telling me that they never go to Oahu unless they can help it since they want to get away from the tourists... he he he... So Gary gives me a call after arriving, and I am pretty toasty after a few drinks, and somehow manage to find my way to the rental car area, trying to hide my breath as I am talking to the Hertz Rental Car agent. The only car with a GPS was a mini-van, so although a bit overkill, it worked for all 1 of me and my 2 pieces of carry-on baggage.

It's about lunchtime when we arrive, so Gary just tells me to follow him to find a place to eat. We end up at some food court that has an L&L drive-in in it, and I end up with Spam Saimin. Nothing spectacular, but it sure did hit the spot. Nothing like some noodles after drinking... (at the airport)

From there, we pretty much parted ways, and they went up to their hotel in Kanaapali, and I had to go 15 minutes further up to the Ritz-Carlton. I've stayed at the Ritz-Carlton in Hsinchu once before, but have never stayed at a resort before. The first thing I noticed after arriving, was that service must be very important to them. I give my name to the valet, and they greet me with a "We've been expecting you, Mr. Chiu. Welcome to the Ritz-Carlton, Maui." After that, on the short 30 second walk to reception, I am greeted with a million, "Welcome to the Ritz-Carlton, Mr. Chiu". If they had only knew that I had paid 20% less for booking on Expedia.... he he he... They have this huge pool that I had to get a picture of from afar though...

After checking in, I decide to give Gary a call to see what he and Chiaki are up to for the rest of the day and the rest of the evening. Apparently, they hadn't checked in yet because Chiaki wanted to go shopping, so he was just bored waiting for her. He said something about going to Long's Drugs later. Glad I didn't accompany them. Since I was on my own for dinner, I decided to use the GPS in my car to direct me to the finest hamburger joint on the island, Cheeseburger in Paradise.

I have to say that I was quite disappointed when I first arrived to the place though. It was on the main strip of Lahaina, however, it just looked really divey compared to what I would have thought. Having been to Margaritaville in Las Vegas before, I thought it would be somewhat more like that, but then again, this was in Hawaii, and maybe this was Jimmy Buffet's way of capturing the local aspect of things. I go in, order a beer and a burger, and the beer I wanted was out, so I had to get something else. That's wierd... For a place like this, I would have expected them to be fully stocked, but OK... so while waiting for my order, I was reading the story of the restaurant on the menu, and that's when I realized that this is not a place owned by Jimmy Buffet, but was a restaurant created by two chicks who came out to Maui a lot, and had originally come to Hawaii to start a picture framing business. Now everything came clear to me. Similar to the Margaritaville in Capitola, this must be a restaurant that was grandfathered in after Jimmy Buffet started his chains. So that probably also explains why the burgers weren't quite the same as the ones I remember having at Margaritaville. Good attempt, but I was a bit disappointed since it wasn't what I thought it was. Luckily, the bar that Gary and Chiaki were going to meet me at was across the street: Moose McGillycuddy's. They were taking forever to get there, so after walking up and down the street checking out the different shops and stuff, I finally went in for a drink. Just my luck... They had two Megatouch machines in there, so I just sat down and had a drink, while waiting for them, and putting FUCBUC on the high score list.

Chiaki, being the unsociable person that she is, didn't really want to play, so they went off and got their own booth, and after finishing up my dollar in the machine, I went to join them. We were taking stupid pictures, but Chiaki didn't seem to appreciate them, so I won't post them here.

Day 5: On My Own

Knowing that I was pretty much going to be on my own again, and since I wasn't quite over the jet lag yet, and was up at 6 am again, after breakfast, I just headed over to the beach at the hotel, and sat out for about 30 mins. The problem for me when I'm out at the beach, or at a pool, is that I can't stay still. So looking at the waves, it didn't seem like they were strong enough for any kind of good surfing, but watching people boogie boarding made me go and rent one. Stupid me, I remembered to put on sunscreen, but forgot that it washes off, so after being in the ocean for about 2 and a half hours, I got completely red, and didn't bother with re-applying the sunscreen.

I decided to get a quick bite to eat at the lounge of the hotel, and while I was out there, there was this Japanese couple sitting at the table next to me. I remember seeing them later in the day coming from the pool, and the girl's bikini looked really hot, and I remember thinking, "Wow! What a nice ass!" (Eunju, if you're reading this, yours is still much nicer).

I wanted to go out boogie boarding once more, but unfortunately, the shop was just closing, so I couldn't rent another board, which kind of sucked. Especially since it was my first time out on a boogie board, and I caught a lot of pretty good waves that day.

Another funny sidenote: So not sure if I wrote this earlier, but my whole reason for being in Hawaii was for Stacy's wedding. This also explains why I was staying at the Ritz-Carlton since that was the location of the wedding, and just about every other hotel nearby was priced about the same. In any case, Stacy's last name is Adams, so I wanted to see if he checked in yet, and the registration desk, in a straight face told me, "No, I'm sorry but the Adams family hasn't checked in yet." It took just about everything I had in me to resist from snapping my fingers twice after she said that.

So Gary finally calls and tells me that they're at a shopping mall somewhere, and were thinking of going to Long's Drugs later. What is it with Long's? So just my luck, right after the call, I see Stacy and Akiko in the lounge going over stuff with the wedding planner. I sit right next to him at another couch, and start snapping stupid pictures off my phone. I could see that he was starting to get annoyed, so I just sat still, before going back to my room to get changed.

So I go over to meet up with Gary and Chiaki at the mall, and notice that another E&O is opening up there... I had no idea that E&O was that big of a restaurant. Anyway, we end up meeting up at a bar called "Compadre's", and there was this drunk elderly couple from San Diego hanging out there too. They were pretty lit and fun to talk to, and then I get a call from another friend who I was supposed to meet up with out in Maui. His girlfriend had his car that day, so he had no means of transportation, and was on the other side of the island, but he said that if he could get a hold of her, he would like to take me to a bar called "Compadre's"... he he he... guess I was already there... Unfortunately, my friend couldn't make it out, so I decide to go home, and Gary and Chiaki needed some quality time, but before departing ways, we went to Long's... he he he... good thing too... I ended up buying some after-burn care.

When I get back, just decided to give Stacy a ring to say hello, and luckily, he just got out of dinner, and Akiko had left for a 2 hour spa treatment, and his folks had gone back to their hotel, so he had some time to kill.

We ended up having a drink at the lounge, and that's where I spent way too much on overpriced sushi. It was good, but not that good. At least I had a POG-tai (Passion-Orange-Guava juice). It was something that Frankie was telling me about before going to Hawaii, where Jerry had asked a bartender to make a mai-tai, but to use POG in it, and thus, invented the POG-tai. Maybe in name, but I heard several of the waiters ask the bartender to make a POG Mai-Tai...

Stacy was pretty tired and lagged since he and Akiko had first flown to Connecticut to attend another wedding, and then zoomed back to Hawaii, so Stacy could barely keep his eyes open. Too bad I didn't get any pictures of him with his eyes half-shut. At least I got a night shot of the pool from the lounge's lanai.

Day 6: Wedding Day

The wedding was to be held in the late afternoon, so my first thought after waking up was to go back down to the beach and go boogie boarding a little more, but I quickly decided against that once I tried to get out of bed, and had this huge burning pain in my right shoulder, and then remembered that I had burned myself. I think I pretty much had a 3rd degree burn because with all of the aloe and other lotions I bought, they helped a little, but the pain was pretty deep in my skin. So instead, I went back out to Lahaina to walk around before the wedding.

The day before, Gary was telling me that he and Chiaki were walking around in Lahaina, and that they had seen a boat in the ocean that looked like it was sinking. I guess even the next day, it was still sinking, or maybe the water wasn't really all that deep. I didn't know, and didn't care because it was so hot outside, my right shoulder was killing me because of the burn, and I needed something to cool down a little.

Good thing that I was able to find a shave ice stand. I wanted to do a POG flavored shave ice, but they only had Passion fruit and Guava, but didn't have any orange flavor... weird... Although this photo doesn't really look like it, my shave ice looked more like shave yellow snow...

So it was finally time for the wedding, and we were told to wait for a shuttle van to take us down to the wedding site. Since we were asked to show up an hour early for the shuttle, I thought that it was at a different location, but it was actually at the hotel, and we could have walked to the location in about 10 minutes... Oh well... we showed up early for no real reason.

So it was pretty windy at the wedding as you can see in the picture (too bad the old man's head was in the way), and it reminded me of weddings I have attended before at the Ritz-Carlton in Half Moon Bay and at Pebble Beach, where you have the ocean on one side, and the 18th hole on the other side.

It was kind of bad, but there was a band playing Hawaiian music, and they had a PA system and everything to be heard, but the pastor, the bride, and the groom, all didn't have mikes on them, so the pastor was practically yelling out everything, but everything else being said was barely audible....

So after the wedding, we were waiting for a real bus to take us to a luau, which happened to be across the street from Compadre's, so we were in a small reception area, and as I was exchanging pleasantries with everyone, two interesting things happened. First, I met Stacy's parents, and his mother, when she identified who I was, the first thing she said to me was that she heard a lot about me, and then said that she had told Stacy earlier that morning that after their dinner last night, I must have given Stacy a call and the two of us went out for a drink. Talk about perceptive.... The other interesting thing was that the Japanese couple I saw the day before were also at the wedding, so of course, my eyes kept going to the chick's ass, but I had to keep pulling them away, but the more I did that, the more I had to look... he he he

But there was plenty of time to stare at butts later on.

Mmm... Kalua pig... Mmm....So at this luau, our group was probably the most overdressed, and now I can see why Stacy told us to dress casually to the wedding. Of course, some people can't break tradition, so there were still those who were wearing full on suits and ties, but there were also those dressed in polos and shorts... When Stacy sent out that e-mail, as a goof, I asked if we could wear an aloha shirt with khakis and a pair of sandals... That actually would have fit in, but Stacy told me not to... but someone dressed like that too anyway...

So while we were waiting for all of the food to be prepared, I had Gary take a few pictures of me as if I were a Tiki God. I think there's quite a resemblance here....

So to keep the buffet line in order, they called you up by table, and the table I was at, was one of the later tables to be called, and we were all famished by that time.

It was definitely a feast, and Gary was definitely happy to get his hands on his food.

So the final part of the evening involved a show featuring various kinds of dancing, and later, I found out that I wasn't the only one that couldn't take my eyes off of other people's butts.

Too bad I couldn't really capture the moving off the butts, but they are definitely talented to be able to move them that fast. So fast that my camera had a hard time keeping up to even get a clear picture!

Day 7: Going Home

So finally, I had to struggle a bit to get out of bed early... This always happens to me though... I finally get over jet lag about the time I am ready to leave.

So coincidentally, when I go down for breakfast, I see Akiko sitting at the table having breakfast with someone. It wasn't until later that I realized that it was Stacy, mainly because he was wearing clothes I am not accustomed to seeing him in, and also because the sun was in my eye, so I just saw a silhouette, and he looked a lot darker. (Stacy later told me that before coming out to Hawaii, he and Gary had gone and got fake-and-bakes).

So I really wasn't ready to go home and wished I could have stayed a few more days, but I had a plane to catch, so I was on my way back to the airport. I figured that I had left plenty of time to get back, and once I reached the airport, they told me that I pretty much was not going to make my flight!!! :O Shit!!! I looked at the wrong time!!!! I was looking at the arrival time instead of the departure time!!! Luckily, they have a plane going out once every hour, and luckily, I had the sense to give myself some leeway between the time I would arrive into HNL and the time I had to depart from HNL. Also, I was lucky that the nice woman at United allowed me to check-in from Maui for my flight at Honolulu so I wouldn't miss my flight... I was very lucky for that because otherwise, I probably wouldn't have made my flight back! :O

Anyway... it was a good adventure, but Hawaii sure is expensive! One of these days I will go back, and maybe one day, I too can be snobbish like the people at the airport bar in Maui, and tell people that I only go to Maui to get away from the tourists!

My Hawaiian adventure -- Part I -- Waikiki

I recently made a trip out to Hawaii, making it the first time in over 20 years since I was last there. So it has definitely changed since I was last there, and I was in jr. high when I made my first visit over there, so I wasn't really into doing the same things back then as I do now, so it was pretty much like going to Hawaii for the first time anyway.

Day 1: Arrival

After arriving into HNL, it was about dinner time in California, and I was starting to get hungry. So I figured that I would just get my rental car, drive to my hotel, and see if I could just stop by somewhere to grab a quick bite. Unfortunately, the NeverLost system in the rental car I had was a bit off, so it took me an extra half hour to find my hotel. It was confusing because the GPS told me I had arrived when there was no visible entrance into a hotel, although I did see many hotels around me. To make matters worse, I was on a one-way street, in the far right lane, and thinking that I could make a right turn after the hotels, I realized that it was the beach, so it was several blocks later that I could make a left turn and circle back. I did this probably 3 or 4 times, and finally thought that when I got back onto the street that my hotel was on, I would just stop at the first entrance to a hotel and ask for directions. So I drove through the entrance of the first hotel I see which is the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, and then see two signs. One sign pointing to the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, and the other sign was for the hotel I was going to, the Sheraton Waikiki... WTF??? The sign on the street just said that it was for the Royal Hawaiian Hotel!!! Oh well, at least I found it I guess...

So before going on my trip, I told several friends in Oahu and Maui that I was going to be making a trek out there, so the first person I called was an old buddy from college, Casey Asato. Actually, I texted him, but he later told me that it was costing him $0.10/message, so it would be better to just call him. So Casey took me out to a popular joint called "Ryan's" to have appetizers and drinks. Pretty much like any sports bar I have been to, and it was pretty chill. I completely forgot about taking pictures though. There were two similar places next door to each other... the first was the Ryan's place, but next door to it was a micro-brew called "Brew Moon"... the name kinda kept me away from it though...

Since I arrived on a school night, and since Casey is a high-school teacher at Punahou (and doesn't have Michelle Wie in any of his classes), the night ended pretty early, but luckily, Casey drove me around Waikiki before going home, pointing out a million different places that I could visit during my 1.5 day visit.

Day 2: Gary Arrives

In the morning, I wanted to get something to eat, but didn't really want to go to the breakfast buffet. I noticed a small stand in the hotel selling different things, and noticed that they had spam musubi over there, so I had to get that, but DAMN! they sure know how to charge you for the convenience! It was $5 for a tiny spam musubi!!!

Later in the day, Gary arrives from Japan, and the first thing I wanted to do was to get a Loco-Moco, which we got over at Rainbow Drive-In. Definitely a lot greasier (meaning it was really good) compared to the health-consicious California based Hawaiian restaurants. There were so many different plate lunches that I wanted to try, but just not enough time or stomach... :(

Gary went with a different greasy treat. I have to say that the Hawaiian plate lunches, although they are just a heart-attack waiting to happen, are one of the tastiest meals that I have ever had, and it's no wonder that people end up being the size of sumo wrestlers, as some of the clientele seemed to be at Rainbow's. It was kind of funny, but these two big dudes sat next to me and Gary, and they looked like they were probably construction workers, so they could use the thousands of calories that are packed in a plate lunch. They had the pidgin accent on so thick, I had to ask Gary later if they were speaking in English, or if it was some other language. Gary assured me that it was English. When we were ordering our food, these two Japanese chicks were in front of us, and to me, they were pretty much like me... tourists... they seemed pretty clueless on what to order, and I think they ordered a Loco (oops... Roco) Moco... They were pretty tiny, so I wonder how they fared... But these two chicks were one of those cases where the premise looked good when we were standing behind them in line, but when they turned around, it wasn't all that much to look at...

Later in the afternoon, Gary and I returned to my hotel, and just walked around on the beach, but I told him that a bunch of my friends were telling me that we had to go to this one bar called "Duke's". Luckily, it was just a couple of hotels down the beach at the Outrigger. We ended up getting some nachos and some tacos at the place, so I guess we were a bit confused maybe, thinking that we might have been in Acapulco or something. One good thing about travelling in Hawaii I noticed, was that if you travel with a local, you can get much better service. When we were ordering, Gary would talk over me, and since he could do the pidgin accent, the waiter was a lot more at ease, and a lot more accomodating all of a sudden.

Our night time activities centered around bars and strip joints. So Gary had to go home to get changed, so while he was doing that, he told me to wait for him at this dive bar, Tsunami's, which was around the corner from his place. I go in, order a drink, and the first thing I notice after getting my drink, are two Megatouch machines in the corner. I had to go play and see if I could put "FUCBUC" on the high-score list for "11-Ball". DAMN! The high score was way too high at 179,000, but at least I was able to get my name up there. After Gary arrives, we just become very anti-social with the rest of the crowd at the bar, and end up playing on the two machines for the next hour, before deciding that if we don't stop now, we just won't stop all night, so we pulled ourselves away from the bar, and headed to the strip joints.

The first night, Casey was telling me about two different strip joints in Waikiki that were across the street from one another, and Gary knew how to get there, so we ended up walking over there. The interesting thing was that these were full-nude and full-bar places. There weren't any lap dances, but at least the cover was pretty cheap at $5. We first go to this place, Rock'Za, and I think we should have stayed there. So when we get over there, there were 3 dance stages, and 2-3 women dancing on any one of them. It still wasn't too crowded, so Gary and I just end up sitting away from the action, and just relaxing sipping on our drinks... then we see a Megatouch machine in the corner, and head right over. We looked like two nerds playing games, while women all around us are taking of their clothes. After about 30 minutes of that, it starts to get a little more crowded inside, and we end up taking our seats next to one of the stages. So this one woman is dancing for Gary, and the way it worked was that she'd dance for a little bit, get closer, and wait for a tip... Gary, of course, paid since he was watching her, but I was looking in a completely different direction, but she was still hitting me up for tips. That was a big turn off for me, so I just walk away and go to a different seat away from the stage. I forgot the name of the other place we went to, but it was pretty bad mainly because it was so crowded inside, and I didn't find the women in there to be really attractive. But for anyone reading this post, and has a big penchant for Asians, especially very short, spinner types, just remember to go to the place across the street from Rock'Za, and you'll be in heaven.

Day 3: Just Chillin'

Being that I was jet lagged, I was up pretty early the next day (about 6 am), so I was just hanging out on the beach by myself. The bar at the beach didn't open until 10:30 am, so I just walked up and down the beach, until Gary called me later to tell me that his wife was saying that there was some infestation of gangrene on the beach, so make sure to wear closed shoes. I got off the beach immediately. But it was definitely a nice day to be out on the beach, but I figure everyday in Hawaii is a good day to be out on the beach.

Finally meet up with Gary later in the afternoon, and after driving around for a while, we end up Ku'Aina Burger for lunch. I am still kicking myself for forgetting to take a picture of the burger, but it was definitely a great burger. Gary told me later that they also have a few joints out in Tokyo, so I think they should spread the love the other direction too, and give In n' Out a run for its money. After lunch, we saw that the place we were at also had a Dave & Buster's, and we were thinking of going in, but I realized that I didn't have my power card on me, and then thought that I'd rather be outside rather than playing video games. We just went back to my hotel, and drank in my room instead... oh well, so much for being outside.

Later at night, Gary's wife called him back home, and I ended up meeting with another college friend, Allison, who picked up on me (oops, picked me up) from my hotel in her hooptie that she was so embarassed about. Especially since it did not have A/C, and that made things interesting when it started to rain... he he he... The place she took me to was full of chains that I could have gone to back home, like Macaroni Grill, E&O, and a few other places, so we ended up going to "Islands", since that is more of a SoCal joint. Nothing too fancy, but good to see an old friend. Again, I forgot to take my camera with me... Oh well...

After getting back to hotel, I give Gary a call again, and we end up meeting up over at Tsunami's again. This time, the place is just hopping, and Gary and I are still sitting in the corner playing Megatouch. When I went up to order a drink, it was pretty fun to watch people hit on each other. So these really cute Japanese girls walk in, and these guys standing behind me immediately make their move to say "hello" to them, and start asking them how to say "hello" in Japanese. I'm thinking to myself... you're in Hawaii... the land of Japanese, and you don't know that? Then I thought about it again, and thought... good move... good move...

To be continued...

Sweatin' to the Eighties

Richard Simmons has a line of fitness videos he calls "Sweatin' to the Oldies" as a way to encourage old people to get up and excercise. From the commercials I have seen, it sounds like it features music from the 50s and 60s, which are great songs, but not quite for me.

Instead of watching old people and Richard Simmons sweat it out to the oldies, I just take my MP3 player with me to the gym and sweat to my own mix of songs. (Mine is actually in black)

So I noticed that the Smartass at smartassery.com put a posting up about her favorite songs from the 80s. So one of the playlists I have in the MP3 player is used for the gym, and has a bunch of 80s music on it. Although some of the songs are not technically 80s, they are all still good songs. Here is a list of my favorite songs to sweat to (that are mostly 80s):

Girls, Girls, Girls - Motley Crue

Anarchy in the U.K. - The Sex Pistols

R.O.C.K. in the USA - John Cougar Mellencamp

What I Like About You - The Romantics

Bizarre Love Triangle - New Order

I Wanna Be Sedated - The Ramones

Think - Aretha Franklin

Eye of the Tiger - Survivor

September - Earth, Wind, & Fire

(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party) - The Beastie Boys

Welcome to the Jungle - Guns n' Roses

You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) - Dead or Alive

The Reflex - Duran Duran

Jungle Love - Morris Day and the Time

Fight the Power! - Public Enemy

So what are some of the songs that you sweat to? I definitely would like to fill up my MP3 player with more songs...