Learning to relax

Yesterday, (Thursday) I spent the day relaxing. Tim and I started the day by the Super Pool, hanging out before he went to his conference.

While we were there, we saw this lizard, who evolved to blend in better with the electrical boxes around the resort.


Then, we saw two ducks. We assumed they came down to the pool to catch the early-morning rays and have a swim before a busy day of eating bugs. Funny thing, these ducks don't always walk around the pool. Sometimes they swim from one side to the other.


After Tim left for the conference, I laid by the pool and pinked (I don't tan).

Not much else to report (after all, I'm practicing my relaxing).

Oh, you have to see the shoes I found.















Now, these may look like ordinary flip flops, but check out what they can do:
















They have a little shelf inside for keys, ID, cash whatever. Pretty sweet, huh? There are also flip flops with bottle openers in the bottom, but I figured I'd use these more.

It takes forever to get there

We went to Pearl Harbor today. And it only took 90 minutes on The Bus.

Getting off the bus at the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial was a bit of a surprise. The area is sacred. I understand that. I believe that is should be. But it seems...neglected. I just wish the government would allocate a couple hundred million to the memorial and give it a face lift, add some size and give it the proper attention it deserves.

And it's way smaller than I thought it would be.The harbor itself isn't very big at all. There was only one gunship and one submarine (the sub was a museum) in view, which was not what I was expecting. I suppose on my part a little more research would have made things better.

Something that I thought was a bit funny at the memorial: Bags, purses, backpacks, shopping bags, etc. aren't allowed. You have to check them in some lockers across the parking lot. So, when you walk in, a park ranger gives you your ticket and tells you it's going to be about three hours until you can see the movie and take the boat to the Arizona. But, feel free to visit the museum, shop and the submarine next door.

Here's the catch--if you go to the gift shop at the Arizona and walk over to the sub, then try to get back in to see the movie, you have to check your bag. The same bag you just took out of the building. The bag with the deadly postcards and t-shirts.

Well, we're off to try this funny thing called "relaxing." We're not good at it, so it's going to be a stretch. But I'm willing to give it a shot.

One more thing. I wanted to show you this bad photo for one reason. See the haze on the mountains? It's from the volcanoes on the Big Island. The tradewinds aren't blowing today, so the volcano gasses drift over the other islands.

Hilo Hattie and the deal I could pass up

I took a shopping excursion today to the famous Hawaiin store Hilo Hattie. I was going to go to the International Market, but it was raining pretty hard for a while. Side note--as soon as we pulled in to Hilo Hattie, it stopped raining.

On the trolley ride there, I sat next to a lovely woman from Louisana. She was taking a vacation to celebrate her 45th anniversary and brought most, if not all, her family with her. Just about the entire ride (about 20 minutes) she told me about her whole family, including relatives who weren't on the trip.

Hilo Hattie offers a free schuttle trolley around Waikiki to their store. This guy was our driver:

He said his name was Omonopai'hauna Pappaini Jr., but we could call him Mike.

Arriving at the store, we were greeted by extremely friendly employees who gave each of us a necklace--the kind you can get all over this state. They cost about $10 for 1,000. But still, it's fun to get new jewelry.

Once in the store, the jewelry department was having a contest. They give you a key, and if the key opens the golden treasure chest, you get to pick a piece of paper with a prize on it. Much to my amazement, my key opened the treasure chest and my bootie was 50 percent off a pearl. So, I went and got an oyster. The lady behind the counter told me to look for an ugly, hairy one if I wanted a black pearl. Finding an ugly, hairy one, I was then told to "Tap on it three times with this stick, and say 'Alhoa!'"

No, I'm not making this up. And no, I'm not proud that I did it.

But she cracked the sucker open, and beneith all the slime and guts, there was a black pearl. And I have no idea what to do with it.













But I do know what to do with shoes. And shoe shopping is frequently a highlight of my vacations. Now, don't laugh because aesthetically, they're not the most pleasing. But, honestly, they have to be one of the most comfortable pairs of "slippahs" as the Hawaiins call them, that I've ever bought.












Now for the deal I could pass up. I've been looking around for a long-sleeved shirt (because my sunburn is that bad). Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a long-sleeved shirt in a state that rarely sees the 60-degree mark?

Well, I ended up finding one today at one of the shops here at the hotel. I found my size and was holding it up to check it out, when I noticed a few small stains on the shoulder. I showed the lady at the shop and she said, "Oh! Must be the geckos. I'll give it to you for $15."

"Wait, are you telling me that the stain on this shirt has----gecko poop?"

"Yeah, but you can take it up to your room and wipe it off with a wet towel."

"Gecko poop?"

"Yes, it will come right off."

Even I'm not that cheap.

Getting lei'd

I just got back from a lei making lesson. It was a nice, relaxing way to start the day.

Step one:
Break all the stems off the orchids.

Step two:
Put the stems in a pile for someone else to clean up.

Step three:
Take the gigantor needle and thread and poke the string through the orchid.

Step four:
Repeat all the above steps until you get this:

Now, I think I'm going to try to figure out the public bus system here. It's called "The Bus," so finding the right bus shouldn't be a problem.

Suprise of the day--Tim and I were up by 5:30 today (we're getting better; I'm sure we'll fully adjust by the time we leave), so we took a sunrise stroll on Waikiki beach.
The water is incredibly warm and calm in the morning. But the sand is very course. Not as rocky as a Michigan beach, but yowzer! My feet felt raw by the time we were done.

Time zones are evil

One of the most difficult things for me this trip is getting used to the time zone changes. Hawaii is six hours behind Michigan.

With that in mind, Tim and I were wide awake, lights on, reading after going to bed and waking up at 3 a.m. Luckily we fell back asleep, but we were still up in time to go out to breakfast together and get Tim to the conference before 7:30.

We both noticed the fantastic grass around Hawaii. It's golf course grass, but it's not as soft as I was hoping. Minor disappointment, but I'm over it.

Today I took a look at the shopping options in Waikiki. After solid consideration, I decided we don't have enough money, and probably never will, to shop here. About the only thing we can afford is jewelry made of shells.

I walked the entire length of Waikiki Beach today. Twice. I finally saw surfers, people wearing bathing suits they really should reconsider, and, believe it or not, penguins.


And I got sunburned. I really am truly on vacation now.

Aloha!

Good Morning! We made it to Hawaii and have begun to explore. We didn't make it to the hotel last night until about 9 p.m. and it was dark bythe time we got here, so not too much to report.

I will say on our flight to Seattle, we were stuck in the Bermuda Triangle of bad airline passengers. The guy next to me (not Tim) whistled softly to himself for nearly the entire five-hour flight. The guy in front of us got completely wasted and lost all volume control--his favorite topic of conversation was "Maui Wowie." But let's not forget the guys next to Tim and behind us. One snored like a lumberjack. The other had a crack problem. It was really unbelieveable.

However, once we landed, things got considerably better. Probably my favorite thing that happened was that I realized I was dressed too warmly. At night. WOO-HOO! The next best thing that happened (Tim would probably disagree about the order here) was as we were standing in line for a taxi, we noticed a nerd conversation taking place behind us. So, I suggested that we all share a cab. Turns out the guys were going to the same conference as Tim and one of them was the technical co-chair of the conference. Nice contact to make in the first 30 minutes. Then the guy paid for the whole cab ride, so double bonus.

I have to say that the entire cab ride, with Tim and two other engineers talking shop was pretty, um, interesting. They got to the point where I was pretty sure they were speaking in Greek symbols and a language greatly resembling a Calculus textbook and it was everything I could do to not laugh.

Well, that's all I have to report. Here's so photos of where we're staying. This is the walkway to our tower of the hotel.


I saw these guys on my way back from breakfast.

Changing the rules

Typically in this blog, I've shared details of our travels throughout Europe. And I know the link refers to Europe.

But we need to break from this for a while.

See, we're going on another trip soon and I'd like to blog about it. So, the rules are going to change. Nothing in the lower 48 states unless it's really cool like wine tasting in Napa, which after a few samples could get interesting.

May 12 brings a new day for us at this blog. I hope you enjoy it.

Can you guess where we're going?

Pinkies in the air and wave them like you just don't care!

We had a blast yesterday.

We started out very early (and very cold) on Portobello Road the famous open-air market. Only someone forgot to tell the merchants to show up. It was a pretty seedy part of town, but as luck would have it, I found a pretty sweet pair of shoes--on sale!

But believe it or not, that wasn't the pinnicle of our day.

Our next stop was Imperial College of London. Tim was accepted to grad school here, but since it costs about a gazillion U.S. dollars to attend and no funding was available, so he took a pass. But we stopped by and got him an Imperial t-shirt and got a mug shot in front of the school.

On our way to the art museum, we walked passed the Victoria and Albert Museum, which easily takes up several city blocks. Tim summed it up by saying, "I realize she inspired an era, but how much crap could one old lady want to show?" Needless to say, we didn't go in.

I'm always in awe of European art museums. On our walking tour of the National Gallery, we saw DaVinci, Michaelangelo, Bottacelli, Reubens, Monet, Manet, Titian, Van Gogh...They were all breathtaking.

But I think the highlight of my day was taking afternoon tea at the National Gallery.

You start out with an entire pot of tea just for yourself. Then, you get a three-tiered plate. On the bottom tier are sandwiches: ham, cheese and spicy mustard; cucumber and cream cheese, and finally egg salad with sprouts. The middle tier had a warm scone and clotted cream (which looks just like butter but doesn't have much flavor). And the top tier had a variety of cakes. We were stuffed!

After tea, we did a West End walk through Soho and the red light district--"Models" on the second floor, come on up! We ended the night on the crazy Picadilly Circus (think almost Time Square) and in Waterstone's the largest book store in Europe.

We're on our way to get a snack and then to the Tower of London to see the crown jewels. Then some shopping and finally packing.

This will probably be my last post, unless we can get to a Internet cafe tonight. Thanks for reading and commenting. I hope you've had as much fun as we have.

Cheerio!

The Ceremony of the Keys...yawn

Sorry for not posting yesterday. We were a whirlwind of tourism all over London and by the time we got to the nice Internet cafe (the one I have been using is pretty questionable--this one isn't much better), the machine to buy computer minutes was broken.

So, you need to know about the Ceremony of the Keys. It's the oldest military ceremony in the world; it dates back 700 years. At exactly 9:55:30, the Key Chap leaves his office, grabs a military escort and locks all the doors to the Tower of London. The whole ceremony takes six minutes to complete and is done with serious precision.

We would not recommend going to it (you need to write for tickets at least two months in advance, but the good thing is, they're free) unless you have a keen interest in military ceremonies and standing on cobblestones at 10 p.m. freezing your royal rump off.

Funny thing about the ceremony, is they go through the same scripting every night. One guard (a real soldier in real uniform carrying a real machine gun) says, "Halt! Who goes there?"

"The keys," says the Key Chap.

"Whose keys?" says the rather intelligent lad with the machine gun.

"Queen Elizabeth's keys." Is the unspecific answer.

It's not like these people are fooling anyone. We all know they were just at the pub having a few pints together and now they're acting like this is a brand-new situation. The same brand-new situation they've been acting out for the past 700 years.

I guess that's kind of harsh. Maybe it would be more enjoyable if it were warmer. I can appreciate the precision, though. Just as the bell tower was striking 10 p.m., they were finishing up they're song-and-dance.

Just like every other night.

Sorry, no photos allowed of the Ceremony.

Holy cow! What weather!

We just read Yahoo! news that Detroit got pounded with snow. How bad is it?

Maybe we don't want to come home at all. That would mean we'd have to shovel...

A chilly day in Londontown

It's pretty nippy here today. The air temperature isn't so bad, but the wind is whipping out of the North Sea and freezing our ears off.

We didn't start off the day on a very good foot. Well, I didn't anyway. About 15 minutes before our alarm went off, something got blown off the bathroom window sill. It was a great calamity. But, not enough to get either of us out of bed.

Fifteen minutes later, I got up to take a shower. Lo and behold there was my make-up bag sunk in the toilet. Now, I realize I was charmed by the Scottish rain. Not so much about English toilet water. From here on out, you'll just have to get used to me in photos with my baby-fresh face.

But my morning significantly improved while I was watching London's version of the Today show. A story came on about a woman who "was saved by a giant pair of knickers." Intrigued, I sat down to watch. Apparently, a woman was cooking when her frying pan caught on fire. Grabbing whatever laundry she had nearby, she smothered the fire. Not much of a story, right? Wrong. The reporter said the woman was save by her "huge size 20 knickers." And on the screen flashes the woman, semi-toothless, holding her smoke-stained panties up for all of London to see.

My jaw was on the floor. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry for the woman. Here's the reporter, in her kitchen exclaiming at the GIGANTIC SIZE OF HER KNICKERS. And there she is glowing in her 15 minutes of fame. How this qualifies as news--"Woman puts out fire with her Jockey's"--I have no idea. But it made me laugh.

When we finally made it out, we headed right for the British Museum and walked through about 2,000 years of history. We saw:

A colossal image of Rameses II (Moses' arch-enemy, a man mummified in the dessert sands about 5,400 years ago. His name is Ginger. No joke.

We also saw the sculpture from the Parthenon. Yes, THE Parthenon. It truly is amazing what you see when you travel. Our Scottish tour guide in the Highlands said Chinese people take pictures of sheep, Europeans take pictures of cows, but Americans take pictures of anything old. Anything at all. ANd I'm sure it's because we really don't have anything old in our country.

The rest of today was spent looking for the London branch of Tim's Mecca: Cadenhead's Whisky Shop. After leaving Edinburgh, he decided he wanted a sample of whisky from each Cadenhead's we find. So, away we went. After that, we stopped in at Twining's tea shoppe again for a little more retail therapy.

Twining's is in the neighborhood of Temple Church of The DaVinci Code fame. Man, that church is fickle. We can't catch it open at all. We might be able to try again tomorrow, but we'll see.

Well, we're off to Harrod's now. And then the Ceremony of the Keys tonight. The ceremony is the way the guards have been locking up the Tower of London for more than 700 years.

Tomorrow, Portobello Road, Imperial College and the Tower of London (for the Crown Jewels) is in the plan. The sun is out right now, so we best enjoy it while we can.

I stepped on dead people

Whew! What a ride!

London is non-stop (except on holidays--then it's a grinding halt), mad rush, swarmed historic blob of amazement. We just realized we only have three days left and we have no idea how to fit it all in. So much for a day trip to Bath. I suppose we'll have to come back.

It took us quite some time to find our little apartment. The roads here greatly resemble Rome--on minute you're walking on Smith Street. The next it's a different name and you're lost. But it keeps us on our toes.

The first full day we had in London seemed to be a day of accidental tourism. We purposefully found Big Ben (not the clock or the tower, but the bell that tolls the hour), Parliment, Churchill's Cabinet War Rooms (fantastic! It's where CHurchill and his eight best friends ran WWII), Trafalgar Square, St. Paul's Cathedral (think Mary Poppins--"and each day, to the steps of St. Paul's the little old bird woman comes") and climbed the dome (huff and puff), Twining's Tea Company. Then everything was closing because of New Year's Eve, so we made dinner at the apartment and headed out into the madness.

NYE in London was an experience. We went to Big Ben again, because there was a huge fireworks display, but realized if we didn't get out of the area, we would be shut in with all the mad Brits partying like it's 1999 (they were fascinated with whistles--FWEET, FWEET! So, we took the longest walk in history--from Big Ben back to our place in Chelsea because the Tube and all the buses stopped running. We thought we'd stop at a pub and drink in the New Year, but oddly enough, the pubs all closed at the ungodly hour of 9 p.m. I guess bartenders need to let their hair down, too.

We didn't end up getting back to the apartment until about 11:30 and found a bunch of 14-year-olds laying around in the lobby listening to loud music and generally thinking they look cool. Not sure why they thought that.

This morning brought Westminster Abby. What a place! I've never seen so many famous dead people in one place. Queen Elizabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots, Henry VII, Charles Dickens, Geoffry Chaucer, Handel (think: Messiah), Edward the Confessor (the same chap from Braveheart who was the evil king). Not to mention the beauty of the place. We brought our lunch along with us and sat near the cloisters and ate it. Can you imagine? We had a picnic inside Westminster Abbey. As we were leaving, there was a parade for New Year's just outside. In celebration, special bell ringers were in the abbey, making the most beautiful music from the towers that I've ever heard. It was like a movie.

The bells could be heard through St. James's Park as we made our way to Buckingham Palace. In the park, we saw the saddest thing. There's birds in the lake--pelicans, which are HUGE (at least up to my shoulder). One pelican made his way to the pedestrian bridge and was immediately surrounded by picture-happy tourists. Poor fella couldn't get out of the paparazzi.

After that, we scratched my Harry Potter itch and found Platform 9 3/4 as well as the place where Hagrid tells Harry, "Stick to your ticket, Harry." We went to find the Magna Carta, but apparently, it needs a holiday. We'll try again soon.

So, tomorrow we go to the British Museum, Temple Church (from the DaVinci Code), and to a concert at St. Martin's-in-the-Fields.

Keep watching. We're loving the comments!

P.S. Sorry about no photos. This was an impromptu stop. We were lucky to find this place. Internet cafes are hard to come by around here.