King "Qwong" and Uncle Ken

Firstly, sorry I don't have any pictures to show yet, but I forgot the cord for my camera. It's one of those laws of travel, that you'll forget something that's useful and causes enough trouble that you end up buying one on the trip.

Anyways, it's now late Friday, (~10pm local time), just got back from a very cool day. But first I should recap Thursday.

After Jenn woke up and we got rolling, we went and had lunch at Da Big Kahuna and I had Da Big Kahuna Burger, which was much like the Big Kahuna Burger from Pulp Fiction. Very tasty.

Then Jenn and I wandered up and down Waikiki beach, which took us from Diamond Head all the way to the marina. I ended up with blisters on my feet. We then went swimming in the pool at the hotel and headed to dinner after that.

We went to dinner at this place that server Okonomiyaki which is sort of a thick pancake with scallions and assorted meats in the middle covered in a special sauce. I somehow managed to spill my entire glass of scalding hot tea into my stomach and thighs. Not cool. I think I nearly had 2nd degree burns. The food was good though, which made up for the "tea incident" as it shall henceforth be named.

After dinner and returning to the hotel to change into dry clothes, we went down to the hotel bar for drinks on which to ponder our next move.

Our next move turned out to be staying in the hotel bar. Jenn had made friends with the bartender the previous night, and with my feet, I was not in a very mobile mood, so we drank. We made friends with Qwong, or Kong, it's somewhat unclear what the spelling and pronunciation of his name is. Anyways, Qwong is a older Chinese man, who's on vacation here, and is apparently rich, as he bought both Jenn and I and many other patron of the bar many rounds of drinks. We also met some locals, who come to this hotel's bar because it is open until 4am, and so they come here after getting out of their jobs. We got very drunk, at least I did, and at one point Qwong offered $300 for Jenn to one of the locals. Jason (the local) got upset by that, and of course Jenn wasn't about to do that, but it was all very amusing.

Eventually, we had to go find late night snacks and found a 7-11 where I purchased a Gatorade and a sewing kit. Jenn got a steam-bun and dim sum food. I had one more drink when we got back and then went to our room and passed out.

I was awoken this morning by the shoe repair place letting me know that my Birks we done, for as much good as they do me when they are repaired in Michigan.

A couple hours later, my Uncle Ken called, offering to tour us about the island. We took him up on his offer. He took us to a bunch of places and as befits my Japanese heritage, took a lot of pictures. Let me see if I can remember all the places we went.

We went to Ala Moana beach park and cruised through, and then went to Panic Point, after which he had to stop by the post office which is next to the cool statue of King Kamehameha. Then we drove past the Aloha Tower, and headed up to Punchbowl, the military graveyard where my Grandfather will hopefully be tranfered to someday. Then we drove up Tantulus Rd, which goes up the side of the mountain, very twistily and narrowly. We stopped for photos at the Manoa Lookout and drove back down to get some lunch at Sam's Delicatessen, which is a Korean restaurant. The food was awesome.

After lunch we drove across the Pali Gap and stopped for pictures at what is a spectacular vantage point. Then we drove down to Kailua, went to the beach, went to another part of the beach, drove up through Kane'ohe, and stopped at other beaches, all the way up the windward coast to the North Shore. We saw sea turtles on another beach, and stopped for pictures in front of the Hale'iwa sign. We wound our was back down to my Uncle Ken's house, where we saw his garden and home renovations. We went to dinner after that at Denny's (which was good, as everything is here) and then he drove us back to the hotel, where I'm dutifully documenting all this.

I may eventually revisit this day with an additional post that includes pictures and better descriptions. Whew.