Saturday, May 28, 2005
Hawaii Five Oh What a Time (part2)
Before I continue my Hawaiian adventure, another terrific friend, Golfwidow at The Ministry of Sillywalks, is an amazing writer and commentator. She published her first podcast here. Check it out. This girl rocks.Saturday morning we drove as far up the windward side of the island as time would allow. It was unbelievably gorgeous. People who live here should never need Valium or antidepressants. We changed hotels to meet up with Cathy's daughter, Mickey and her BF, Robert.
He is a Marriott chef in Santa Clara, California and we stayed at the Marriott Ihilani Resort and Spa at Ko Olina, about half and hour west of Honolulu. We stayed there on Robert's employee discount. Otherwise this place was WAY out of our league. It is by far the best place I have ever stayed in. It utilizes the beauty of the island by making the outside in and the inside out. Perfect design that also turns your pockets inside out if you're paying full price.
After dinner we drive back down to Waikiki in their rented convertible. I feel like a teenager again. Can't hear the make out music so I hum Louie Louie, the version I recorded for Andy's Birthday. We stroll the beach and watch the obsessiveness of the local surfers,
a lot of hula dancers,
several street buskers and mimes. There were actually two violinists on the street. One young and one old. The young one is a 14 year old who is saving to go to Julliard.
Isn't that how you got your start, Last Girl?
We take a moonlit convertible ride back to the hotel and listen to some guy like me in the bar. I tip him big. I don't buy his CD because unlike most of his first set which is a lot of material I cover, the CD is all Hawaiian. I can't say I like a steady diet of Hawaiian music. The melodies are sometimes interesting but predictable. The lyrics are totally inaccessible to the language impaired me. The kitschy songs like "I wanna go back to my Little Grass shack..." are just tiresome. I like what Jack Johnson has done with his music. It's not Hawaiian but I can hear the influence. He gets massive airplay here. He may be the musical equivalent to the Duke.
Sunday morning we go on an early catamaran trip. Snorkeling is the key feature. We explore a manmade reef at the outlet tubes of a power plant. A thrill to realize you're swimming in a school of cartoonishly colorful fish. Suddenly I'm in Nemoland I discover that a mustache guarantees water will come in your mask. I tire myself out quickly by pressing my mask to my face and swimming one handed. Back on board we find ourselves in a huge pod of spinner dolphins. They like to spin like a top when they breach, hence the name. I wonder if there are other breeds of dolphins doing various exotic dances when they leap out of the water. The Salsa Dolphin? The Lambada Dolphin? The Foxtrot Dolphin? Naaaa.
Chef Robert looks up a highly rated Japanese restaurant in Waikele where my friend Becky lives. I insist on two things when it comes to food: it must not be fish and it must be cooked. M and R assure me that there will be plenty for me to choose from. I should have added the requirement that it must not be seaweed and it must not taste or smell like the sea. There was nearly nothing to choose from once I threw that in. I ordered a beef and chicken teriyaki combo. This was prefaced with something they put on the table that I couldn't identify by sight. By smell it did not pass my criteria for edible objects. All I can say is thank Buddha for rice. The beef was good but the chicken was all dark meat, covered with fat, skin and sinew and, frankly, revolting. I hope I didn't make Robert and Mic uncomfortable with my obvious discomfort. I tried to be cool but I. REALLY. HATE. JAPANESE. FOOD. It really blows chunks. I don't know how they lost the war. If I had to eat that stuff I'd be so mad I'd kill everything. Twice. Even the Baskin Robbins I had afterward did little to erase the taste or the memory. Could I eat raw fish if I had to in order to survive? Not without first eating my shorts. Even then I'd have to decide if survival was really that important.
No lyric writing today. Vomitaciousness frightens my muse.
posted by Bud @ 7:21 AM
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