nothing edifying

Got to Hawaii Saturday afternoon. It was a long flight, but not quite as bad as going home to Maryland to visit my folks. Close, but not quite.

Our airplane:)

My first view of O’ahu. Soooo relieved cos we were soooo tired. Check out that water though, it’s just gorgeous. We were pretty excited to get into the water, but seriously, we were all too tired and hungry.

We went to Cheeseburgers in Paradise for burgers and our first mai tais of the trip:) We also got onion rings and seasoned fries. I thought the seasoned fries were good, and the onion rings even better. Expensive for cheeseburgers, though yummy. Everything in Waikiki and all of O’ahu that I’ve seen is expensive though. After lunch, we walked along near the beach for a while. Dooood, Hawaii’s unofficial language is Japanese:p The tour guide folks told us that the Japanese tourists account for like a huge chunk of the visitors all by themselves, and tourism is of course the number one industry.

After dinner, Yut and I went to the hot tub (I will for sure have to take a photo of this, sometime cos we’ve been to the hot tub every day. Then we showered and went to bed.

The next morning, we were up early cos the tour group (we only booked room and flight) was doing a free breakfast and tour packages presentation and we figured why not. We did end up buying some stuff, then we went to the beach for a bit, then we went to lunch in the Princess something-or-other food court. We got chicken katsu curry cos we figured Japanese stuff must be pretty safe:p Afterwards we went to the International Market thing and Al and Yut got t-shirts (8 for $20). Yut was all sorry he even bothered to bring any shirts:p

More later:)

Julie took me to La Belle (v. swanky) to get waxed for Hawaii. I got my v. first Brazilian bikini wax. It was “not as bad as you think it’ll be” — Julie’s words:p But true, if only because I thought it was going to be really really painful despite what she said. I have a low pain threshold:p When I got in for the appointment, the lady was all, “first time?” Why yes, I didn’t know it showed! :p She then told me to relax and baby powdered everything, then applied warm wax, then RIIIIP!!! This really isn’t doing it justice, but I don’t see how anything could. She told me to relax cos it’d be easier on me if I wasn’t all tense, if I was tense there could be bruising. You can bet I relaxed ASAP:p After waxing, she put some kind of cleansing thing, saying, “This will sting a little.” So I sort of braced myself, but then it was cool and I was all, this isn’t so bad, then it STUNG. V. tricksy:p But yeah, I like it, I don’t like shaving, I somehow manage to cut myself way more often than should be possible with a safety razor. It hurt, but not horribly so.

After waxing, we went to Suppenküche, a German restaurant. For once, we remembered to both bring a camera and take pictures:)

They have a bajillion beers, and good German food. This is a Radler, which is some kind of beer mixed drink, v. slightly sweet. I’ve never had anything like it. It was good:)

I got the Sauteed Venison Medallions in Red Wine Plum Sauce with Red Cabbage and Spätzle. I thought it was good, but the sweet-tart wine/plum sauce was a little on the sweet side for me personally. But the waitress recommended it and in general I think it’s a popular dish.

Julie got Breaded and Sauteed Porkloin with Roasted Potatoes and Green Salad.

Yut and Al both got the Wild Boar with sauerkraut, bread pudding, in a mushroom sauce. That mushroom sauce was delicious! I think this is also maybe part of the reason why I was less impressed with the red wine plum sauce, cos this was sooo delicious.

We also all shared Potato Pancakes with Homemade Apple Sauce for appetizer, but I didn’t take any pictures cos at that point we were hungry. And it was sooooo yummilicious. It was also a lot of food, so no dessert.

Okay, I’m all sleepy now, and we’re leaving for Hawaii in the morning. If I can, I’ll update:D

Kitty called today:

Kitty: Hey, what’re you doing?
Me: Shopping
Kitty: …
Kitty: Groceries?
Me: No, at a mall type place.
Kitty: Really?!?!

Which I think tells you all you need to know about how I feel about shopping:p teeheehee:)

But I wanted to buy like a summery dress for Hawaii (didn’t see anything I really liked — but I’m also pretty indecisive, so I didn’t buy anything). I hate shopping without my sister. Actually I hate shopping with my sister too — she likes shopping too much:p What I really like is raiding her closets (yes plural…she uses all the closets in the house:p) and stealing her stuff:)

I also bought a bra. It’s those IPEX commercials from Victoria’s Secret — I was all curious about what the “revolutionary” “patent-pending” “bra technology” was. So when we went to the city for Snow Patrol, we wandered into VS and asked. Turns out that it’s just a lined bra with a bit of extra padding where the nipple is (“just where you need it!”). Doooooood wtf?! That’s it? I mean, it’s a good idea but still:p I figured I need a bra anyhows, so I got one today. And now you know.

I watched a lot of TV today! :) This is like a TV column:p

Pam Mueller won on Jeopardy today. I was glad cos there’s way fewer women competing in the Ultimate tournament but also cos she’s not annoying:D If you click on her bio link though, there’s this one question: “Did being on Jeopardy! have any affect on your life?” OMG noooooooo! Affect?! It’s not affect! Affect is a verb!!!!!!!! Okay, I’ll stop being bizarro now:p

I haven’t posted about American Idol in a long time (well ok, not that long, but whatevers:p), and it’s cos this year’s final five had nobody super compelling. Bo’s ok, Vonzell’s ok, Carrie and Anthony suck, and Scott (before he got kicked out last week) suxored, but no one’s brilliant! I liked Anwar. And then I kinda hoped Constantine would do well cos he had charisma and on his good days he was pretty good. Also Julie met him (!!!) and said he was nice. Yeah, so today was same ol’ same ol’. Bo was pretty good I guess, Vonzell was ok, Carrie and Anthony sucked:p

House was good as usual. I’m really glad that the Vogler character finally got written out:p I mean 2 curmudgeons is too much! Plus, they barely established House as a grumpy misanthrope in all his curmudgeony glory and they started trying to humanize him with a character who was meaner! And now there’s maybe a romance brewing between House and Cameron. We’ll see… haven’t decided yet if this is good or bad…but seems unnecessary:p Oh! John Cho (who was in Better Luck Tomorrow and Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle) was on, playing a masochistic patient who liked asphyxiation (his dominatrix was the only one who visited him at the hospital), whose parents basically disowned him when they found out. Also he had bad halitosis. I wonder if his friends and family made fun of him for this one. Seriously, I think if I was an actor and I had a role like this, it’d be hard to live down:p

Amber and Rob didn’t win on Amazing Race, Uchenna and Joyce did. But the hot money’s been on them since the beginning. I think the info must’ve leaked ages ago. I dunno why I watched a lot less this season than previously. Maybe cos it’s up against House and I kept watching that instead:p

We also watched Law & Order: SVU. Don’t have much to say about it except that it and Law & Order (orig) are my faves:)

OK, it’s practically cheeky wee monkey time. Ooooh one last thing though: I want paperback recommendations! We’re going to Hawaii (with Julie and Al) next week and I want something to read. I’ve checked out some stuff, but if anyone has recommendations, throw them my way. Fiction please, otherwise, anything is fine. Thanks! :)

I won a bid for the Incredibles on eBay today:) Yay! Been meaning to get it, but never got around to it. This is only my second eBay purchase, so no worries, I’m not about to become like that Crazy eBay mom. I’m pretty excited; hopefully everything will come in good order:)

Next up in the “I want this” queue is Arrested Development Season 1 DVD:)

Me and Yut have been listening to Snow Patrol a lot this week ever since Monday:p This is clearly wildly tangential:p hehe

misa and neb took us to see Snow Patrol today. Actually, neither of us had ever heard of them before Yan and misa mentioned them a while back. We don’t listen to the radio much:p Yut’s never been to a concert and I’ve only been to one, so it was cool:) And fun and loud and really lots of energy:) And the lead singer dude, I couldn’t actually tell if he was cute or hot or what, but he had an accent to die for. It reminded me of Craig Ferguson a little so I guess maybe Scotland or Ireland? Well whatever, I kept wanting him to say, “cheeky wee monkeys” just once:D

I’m such a fucking tourist; broke out the camera at every turn:D

See what I mean about tourist? This is the “gentleman’s club” next door:p

The Warfield is a weird place… it looks like a little theater where you might go to see opera or a musical or something…I mean, look at the ceilings!

The band:)

Additional (3 May)
I should add that Yut and I were both relieved about the cushiony seats:) I was a little afraid there’d be a lot of standing for a long time. teeheeehee I am pathetic

We broke out our grill pretty early this year, inspired by the good weather and our next door neighbors. I think they barbecued in the winter, on the very first nice weekend. When they barbecue, we have a good view into their yard and everything smells heavenly.

Plus they have a swanky grill and a real yard. I covet their yard and their grill and their house, especially when they’re barbecuing:p

We broke out the grill two times this weekend. After we get started, it’s an all the time thing:D I was too caught up in the food and I forgot to take any pictures.

But here is a picture of someone else’s grill, our chimney starter (which starts the charcoal without any starter fluid), and our grill.

After it’s started, we move it up the stairs to the outdoor walkway right in front of our door and then we go sit on the couch and eat too much:p

CT’s birthday just passed this weekend (happy bday:) )

We bought her Darth Tater (cos I mean, it’s an evil spud! :D) But we liked it so much we bought ourselves Darth Taters of our own:)

Hasbro released this picture of Darth Tater when they announced it. It was on Yahoo’s most viewed/emailed pictures for a long time. Cute, ain’t he? :)

Today we went to Tupper & Reed on the way home cos it’s closing its Berkeley location for good. I think it might still have another location in the South Bay, not sure. Anyhows, we went cos we’d seen these cute frogs on their display a while back, so we went to see if they still had any.

Which they did! :) When you use the stick and stroke the back ridges, it makes a croaky sound. V. cute! :)