Kendra's Adventures

Goodbye, Harry Potter!

2011-07-15T20:36:00.003-10:00

Today marks the end of an era. It's the official release date of the final movie in the Harry Potter series: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. I haven't really given much thought about how I felt about a series I really love coming to an end, even though I had already read the book and knew the outcome, until I left the movie theater today and heard some people saying, "this is the last movie...it's the end..." in a sad tone. But it is sad - I often find myself comparing other books and movies to Harry Potter. Twilight for instance. Whoever said that Stephanie Meyer was the next J.K. Rowling is delusional. And don't even get me started on the horrible messages Twilight passes along to it's target audience: teenage girls. In any event, what I'm trying to say is that J.K. Rowling is "brilliant" (imagine that said in Hermione's voice) and I think the movies were well done, particularly in staying true to the books in every way.

Back to the movie...I must've stepped in doggy doo earlier this week because I got extremely lucky and was able to attend an advanced screening on Monday night. While my friend and I were waiting in line, the movie people announced that the screening was in 3D. Personally, I was a little disappointed to hear that announcement because I'm not big on the whole 3D craze. But I have to say, especially after seeing the movie again on the regular screen, that the 3D effects were pretty impressive. Not particularly necessary, but cool nonetheless. It almost made the 2D version a bit plain by comparison.

The movie lasted almost exactly two hours and I thought it was well done. Of course, there are a few things I would have liked to seen expanded a bit more, but that's one of the expected downfalls of turning a book into a movie. Was it my favorite movie of the series? I'm not sure yet -- I'll need to think about it a bit more. I tend to be sucked in by my love for the series and every book or movie I see seems to be "the best" (although I will admit that Order of the Phoenix was my least favorite book). The actors have definitely come a long way since the Sorcerer's Stone. And there are some great, laugh-out-loud funny, lines in the movie, some of which I don't recall being in the book and coming from people that you don't necessarily picture being humorous.

While I'm sad to see the series end, the timeless Harry Potter series will live forever in the books, DVDs, Blu Ray, and whatever other form of media comes along in the future. As for me, I will be spending my weekend re-reading The Deathly Hallows.

Vibram Fivefingers

2011-07-02T19:18:00.003-10:00

Today I went on an urban trek. For weeks I've been saying that I would go and check out Vibram Fivefingers at the Wheatgrass Center in Kaimuki, so today I decided to make an excursion out of it.

Here are a couple of links to the Wheatgrass Center and info on Vibram Fivefingers:
Wheatgrass Center

Vibram FiveFingers

I walked up to the Wheatgrass Center on Center Street off of Waialae Avenue in Kaimuki from my place - it took about 40 minutes at a casual pace. Vibram FiveFingers are available at many other locations including Uyeda Store, The Running Room, and Robin's, but I wanted to support the Wheatgrass Center since I used to work for the former owners, Jean and Wayne Fukuda, who have since passed away. Thankfully, the Wheatgrass Center has maintained great customer service, which is why many people choose to shop there, and I was not disappointed.

The two women working today were wonderful and patient in explaining the various FiveFinger models. A guy walked in about the same time as me and seemed to have a similar knowledge base as me, so that worked out well when the sales women were explaining things. I tried on a sample pair to get an idea of sizing before delving into a specific model and color. These guys have a pretty extensive selection! I decided to start off with a pair of Classics, pictured above, and maybe later on I'll look into some of the other models designed for running or more vigorous activity.

Why would I want a pair of gecko-footed looking shoes? (Especially since I loathe and am almost deathly afraid of lizards...) I started reading about them a while back and how they are supposed to be good for you since they allow your foot to work naturally, while offering protection. I also started thinking more about them because of my Pilates training. My Pilates instructor and I recently came to the conclusion that I walk funny. As a result, my calves are overdeveloped and there are some muscles and joints I should be using more while walking. Hopefully the FiveFingers can help me accomplish that, although I've also been making a conscious effort to not walk funny, which seems to be helping. It might also help straighten out my baby toe which has a tendency to curl inward. Maybe I should take before and after photos of my toes!

In any event, I've only had my Vibram FiveFingers for about 9 hours now, but so far so good. They are very comfortable. While you can order them online, I would strongly suggest trying them on in person. Besides the fitting sample, I tried on two pairs, the same size and style, and the one I ended up purchasing was more comfortable than the other pair I tried on. And if you're on Oahu, I highly recommend the Wheatgrass Center in Kaimuki, which has a great selection and offers great service too.

Twice a Week Torture

2011-06-11T14:24:00.003-10:00

My job basically consumes my entire life between January and April, and therefore gives me little time to squeeze in anything resembling exercise or fitness. Even when I do have time, I am usually exhausted and just want to lie in a vegetative state. However, while I was never the type to be involved in organized sports, I do like to be outdoors and participate in activities and exercise. In my younger days, I'd spend time skating, shooting hoops, or going to the beach. Depending on my social circles at the time, I also went through phases of shooting pool and fishing (I know, it's not exercise, but it is some form of activity!). My one pretty constant activity is walking, which at times has turned into jogging.

A while back, probably over 10 years ago, my friend Liann started teaching Pilates. Liann is one of those people everyone just loves to be around because she is always bubbly and positive. I'm pretty sure she could sell ice to Eskimos if she wanted to, and hence, when she asked if I wanted to come to her class, I quickly agreed. Really, how hard could Pilates be? Isn't it just stretching? The short answer is: HELL no!

What is Pilates? I'm really not good at articulating it, but I can tell you that it's not like yoga. While I have never tried yoga, its basis appears to be more of a spiritual practice that helps lead to mental and physical well-being. Pilates involves a lot of control and proper breathing to help build core strength. While you don't need equipment to do Pilates, there are some contraptions and tools that can be used.

Back to the torture sessions...way back then, I started off in a group class. For anyone who wants to try Pilates, you really can't learn it from a video. You need someone there to demonstrate and correct your technique and form. Over the years, I've been working off and on with Liann. A couple years ago, a small group of us would go to Kapiolani Park during lunch time. Then I started going to Liann's house with one other woman and Liann would train us both at the same time. But this year, it's just Liann and me. "No more hiding," she said. She will catch me if I'm cheating. Although most of the time, I don't realize I'm cheating until she points it out to me.

I decided that instead of once a week, I'd try twice a week. Pilates with a private trainer is expensive, but I'm at a point in my life where I feel that it's worth it for my health. Plus, Liann is a great trainer and friend. Not only does she help train me with Pilates, she'll look at other lifestyle factors and help guide me as to how else I can improve my health and fitness. She tailors my sessions to work on areas of my body (specifically, my hip flexors) that may need more help since I also do a lot of walking. She also stretches me out and "massages" me. I have quotes around the word "massages" because it's not like getting a massage at a day spa - it's more like shiatsu or sports therapy massage. She knows about all these weird muscles that most of us never heard of and she'll almost bring me to tears as she rubs these areas. But it's one of those "good pain" things.

And then there are the Pilates contraptions. The main one is the Pilates Reformer, or what I affectionately refer to as the "torture device," which can be used in may different ways to work various muscle groups. We've also used exercise balls, resistance bands, and foam rollers. While Pilates does involve stretching and can actually lengthen you, it also works on building muscle. I can tell you that my abs, arms, and legs feel it.

I just completed my 4th week and there have already been noticeable results. Changes were noticeable just after my first week - at first I thought it was in my mind, but then Liann said, "Is your body changing shape already?" I've also been walking pretty frequently, about 3-4 times per week and have been more cognizant of what I'm eating. Since the beginning of May I've lost about five pounds, but more importantly, I've lost inches and my body has changed shape by becoming leaner and toner. My flexibility has also improved.

I have a ways to go and need to work on setting more concrete goals, but Pilates combined with walking, has proven to be a satisfying way for me to get fit. Pilates is more of a strength-training type of exercise and walking is my cardio exercise, so the two balance well. Together with being more aware of what I'm consuming and throwing in an occasional hike or swim, my fitness regimen is well-balanced and works for my lifestyle.

Resurrection!!!

2011-06-09T22:37:00.003-10:00

Yes, yes, it's been over a year and a half since I have updated my blog. At this point, I think my already very limited readership has probably dwindled down to one person. My guess is that sometime this weekend, I will get an e-mail from Florist Girl saying, "you updated your blog!" And if I don't get that e-mail, then, well, I lost my one loyal reader!

What made me decide to update now? Who knows. I had all but abandoned Kendra's Adventures in favor of Facebook, which I've found to be a great way to multitask: it helps me keep in touch with friends and colleagues, particularly those who are far away, and it also helps me to chronicle my life. Some people think it's a self-absorbed thing to do, to have a page and a "wall" all about you. But I don't think of it that way (or maybe I'm more self-absorbed than I thought). I enjoy reading what other people are up to, where they are traveling, and how their kids are doing. And there are some people who post inspirational quotes every day - I love that, and sometimes those quotes are what help lift me up when I am feeling low.

Besides that, like I said, Facebook helps me kill two birds with one stone - I have a journal for myself, but I can keep in touch with people I otherwise might not have contact with. For example, I just got back in touch with someone I spent practically every day with during the summer before my sophomore year in high school. And even work friends - I can actually go several months without seeing people that work on the same floor in my building! But Facebook allows me to keep up with them. I have also found a niche for myself - food porn. People seem to like my food pictures, and apparently they have even inspired people to try places they'd never been before. Some people call and e-mail me asking for suggestions on where to eat lunch or take a visitor for dinner.

But back to the resurrection...I think it's a result of a culmination of realizations. First of all, everyone needs some kind of outlet. Personally, I think everyone should journal or have some means of reviewing their thoughts on a fairly regular basis. I believe it's important for one's mental health, as well as to sort out thoughts and problems. Secondly, I've realized that I keep way too much bottled up. The problem is I don't realize things are bottled up until some unfortunate soul in my life has the misfortune to be around when the cork pops to listen to me rant or suffer through me having a mini-meltdown. Thirdly, blogging is fun. Time-consuming, especially for someone as anal-retentive as I am, but fun.

One of things that inspired me to write today is reading other people's blogs. I love reading them, no matter what the subject or if its written by a complete stranger. Some bloggers are really great writers and offer great insight on a basic philosophical level. Of course others offer great insight on specific topics, such as food or vacations. While I hope a few people will read and enjoy my blog, as sparse as the posts may be, I am satisfied knowing that it is a creative and somewhat emotional outlet for me.

Last Full Day in LA...time for Kogi BBQ!

2009-11-01T17:13:00.005-10:00

This trip report is FINALLY coming to a close! I do have ulterior motives, since I promised to myself and my nine readers that I wouldn't post anything else until I finished writing about this trip. And this morning I went to Cream Pot, a restaurant I've been wanting to try for eons, so I'm itching to write about it. So onward with my final full day in LA!

I didn't have anything planned during the day of my third and last day in LA, so I decided to go shopping. I really am not that much of a shopper, and I do 95 percent of my clothes shopping on the mainland (especially Vegas) or online. If I buy clothes at home, it's usually because I need something in particular. I know, I should patronize business at home so at least my tax dollars stay there, but this is just one of my quirks. Ironically, I find things that fit better on the mainland too - ironic given that I am relatively short and you would think that short people stuff would be more readily available in Hawaii.

Anyway, I'm straying...so I decided to go to Del Amo in Torrance, one of my favorite malls. It's pretty large, and it would be easy to spend hours there, which I did. I managed to do a fair bit of clothes shopping. I also ate at Chick-fil-A for lunch. I didn't know that they had locations on the West Coast. The one and only time I ate at Chick-fil-A was in Nashville, TN, in 2006. I don't eat a lot of chicken, but Chick-fil-A is so good! I can't really describe why, it just is. I probably appreciated it even more since it's not something readily available to me.

I was scheduled to meet Florist Girl and her hubby at Glendale Galleria after she finished work. After shopping at Del Amo and dropping off the loot at the hotel, I decided to head over to the Glendale area early to avoid traffic. I think I left at about 2 or 2:30, and I still got stuck in traffic going north. I still made it to Glendale Galleria with sufficient time to look around before meeting up with Florist Girl. Glendale Galleria was a favorite of mine, but I didn't find much this time. I was also disappointed to see that a cute little tea shop had closed.

The reason I went up to Glendale was to find the ever-elusive Kogi BBQ truck! (Okay, maybe not that elusive...) Kogi gathered a large following by using Twitter as a tool to communicate its location to clientele. Jujubee and Eggo are big fans too. Unfortunately, they were unable to come out with us on our journey to Kogi bliss.

This was quite an experience that I was unusually excited about. I can't even fully explain my excitement, other than the elusiveness of the whole thing. And I'm not even one who necessarily cares for the elusive, and I definitely am not a fan of crowds, which I knew would be waiting at the Kogi truck. But I was still excited. I think it gave me some kind of adrenaline rush.

Florist Girl, the D-man, and I hopped in a car and went in search of the Kogi BBQ truck. I make it sound like it's hard to find, but it's not that bad. On Twitter they usually post what street or location they plan to be at a particular time. On this day, it was Eagle Rock. The D-man, who is also a Kogi fan, did some research and knew exactly where we needed to go. Parking can be a challenge - the truck was on a pretty busy street near a 7-Eleven and close to a strip mall with a Longs Drug Store. We parked on a side street near Longs.

We walked just a short distance to a street corner, which was the end of the line. My guess was that there were about 40-50 people in front of us, and the line wasn't moving. Florist Girl noticed that people weren't walking past us with food, and the truck may not have even been officially opened yet. Despite the wait, it remained an exciting experience for me. Several people walked by commenting on the line and wondering if it was "worth it." After waiting about 20-30 minutes, the line started moving.

Once we got close enough, we took a look at the menu. Not too complicated - tacos, burritos, and a few "Kogi Favorites" including Kogi Dogs, Kimchi Quesadillas, and Kogi Sliders. There was also a "Chef's Choice," which in hindsight we regretted not asking about. After we ordered, we moved off to the side and had to wait a few more minutes before our food was ready. And not everything was ready at the same time, but that allowed us time to wrap up the items we did receive. It's a pretty no-frills operation, so everything is served in little trays, and they have foil on the side for you to wrap up your food, as well as bag it and grab utensils and napkins.

While D-man waited for the food, Florist Girl and I walked over to the 7-Eleven to pick up drinks. They actually had a horchata fountain! I never had horchata before, and cheated by just putting a splash into the cup and tasting it before filling it all the way. I liked it a lot! Very cinnamon-y. Perhaps not the greatest choice of drink to accompany the Kogi BBQ food, but it was probably a one-time opportunity for me to try horchata for a while.

After we got all of our grub, we had to find a place to sit and eat. By now, the line had gone down significantly, and we wondered if we should have just waited until a little later (as opposed to the time the truck was scheduled to arrive)? But, we rationalized our decision by stating that they might run out of some food items at some point. We walked toward the car and noticed a little loading dock area behind Longs with a nice little sidewalk we could park ourselves on. Works for us!

We shared several items: the kimchi quesadilla, Kogi sliders, tacos (kalbi, spicy pork, and chicken), and a spicy pork burrito. The quesadills contained an interesting combination of cheese and kimchee - not as strange as you might think! It was topped with a sauce that tasted like it contained sriracha, but other stuff as well. I think D-man thought it had a hint of peanut sauce. This was okay, but not my favorite. Worth a try once, but probably would skip it next time. The sliders, however, were yummy! It included kalbi, a veggie mixture, cheese, and whatever special sauce they put on it. You can't go to Kogi without trying the tacos. They are only $2 a piece, and 3-4 of them would be a decent meal for most people. Although the combination of ingredients is tasty, the sauce is what makes these things so addictive. The D-man ordered a spicy pork burrito. On my next visit, I think I'm gonna order myself one of those. What's nice about going with several people is that you can share and try different items. Even as we sat there, a woman walked by and said, "was it worth the wait?" I think so!

After we finished our meal and our chatting, Florist Girl and the D-man dropped me off at my car and we said our goodbyes. It was nice being able to see Florist Girl every day of my visit to LA.

The next day, my flight wasn't scheduled to leave until late afternoon, so I had a lot of time to kill. I slept in and took a walk along the water, something I intended to do earlier during my stay, but surprisingly never found the time to do! When it was time to checkout, I piled my stuff in the car and headed for South Bay Galleria, a mall I came across while driving around the day before. This might be my new favorite mall in Southern California!

I was hungry since I hadn't eaten breakfast, so I went to the food court to scope things out. I came across a great place, Khan's Mongolian BBQ. Fast food Mongolian BBQ! I don't think I've had Mongolian BBQ since the place in Kaimuki closed. It was fast, good, and cheap! After eating, I shopped, not really intending to buy anything. After all, I had already packed my bags. But some kind of weird shopping bug suddenly took control of me and I went on a shopping rampage! In my own defense, I had been searching for pants the entire trip and couldn't find anything to my liking, until this last day. And there were some unbelievable deals all around! I think stores had marked items down in anticipation of the upcoming 4th of July weekend. I walked out of the mall barely able to carry the bags! I stood in the parking lot shoving everything into my luggage wherever I could find space, and one of my bags was overweight. However, the Hawaiian Airlines agent was nice enough to let me slide by!

And that concludes my trip report. It was a terrific trip, but after being gone for two weeks, it was really nice to be home and eat a home-cooked meal. I love eating out, but there is something comforting about preparing your own meal in your own kitchen. And yay! I actually completed an entire trip report for the first time ever! I have Florist Girl to thank for periodically bugging me and motivating me to finish what I started! Hope my nine readers enjoyed this report. And now on to other things!

(photos to follow)

Meeting Little Jake

2009-10-31T20:19:00.002-10:00

Day 2 in LA was reserved for Jujubee, another very good friend that I've been friends with since the 7th grade. She probably knows more about me than any other person on earth, and she always seems to understand me when others may not. I was especially excited about visiting her this trip because I would be meeting Little Jake, her newborn son, for the first time.

I decided to have breakfast at the hotel before departing on my journey to Glendale. This was actually my first trip driving on my own in the LA area. I had driven around Torrance on my own before, but not on the freeways. Although I am a pretty confident driver, the LA freeways were always intimidating to me, and when I would travel with my ex, he would do the majority of the driving, or would at least be in the car with me during those rare times that I drove in LA. The drive to Glendale would be a major test for me, since my drive into Redondo Beach was via the Pacific Coast Highway.

I managed fine, and was quite proud of myself! Although people complain about California drivers, I think they drive smart. They don't slow down to let you on the freeway, but generally, they leave enough space. You just have to keep up (as it should be - sometimes Hawaii drivers are too nice, and will inconvenience many others to be nice to one person). And I don't mind the speed at all. The only thing I was not comfortable with was the driving distance. They follow each other VERY closely there, and if you're not paying attention and someone slams on the brakes, it could be disaster - which is my theory about why there are so many massive pileups there. But, aside from that, it was fine, and I made it to Jujubee and Eggo's house safely and without getting lost.

Jujubee's mom was there visiting and helping with Little Jake, who barely made a peep while I was there! Eggo is such a good daddy and was caring for Little Jake while Jujubee and I caught up and drove out with Jujubee's mom to pick up lunch. While we were driving, I thought it was funny that there is a Honolulu Street in Glendale! Glendale is such a cute place, and we went to an area that was fully of boutique shops and restaurants. We decided to pick up lunch from Zeke's a BBQ place. I had a pulled pork sandwich, which was excellent! It was huge too, I don't think any of us, except maybe Eggo, finished our food.

I spent just about the whole day just relaxing and chilling with them, even getting so comfortable that I fell asleep for a little while! It's nice to have friends that you can do that with - just be comfortable doing nothing. Later in the afternoon, I was awaiting a call from Florist Girl, who I planned to meet for dinner. She came over to Jujubee's house since she also lives in the general vicinity.

Jujubee helped us decided on going to Dish for dinner, a nice, kind of homey, place in La Canada Flintridge, near Glendale. Jujubee even provided us with directions and a discount coupon! It's too bad I was being a dope and went the wrong way on the freeway! I was driving separate from Florist Girl, and we got separated. However, I realized my error immediately and knew how to get back the way I needed to go.

Dish is a very unassuming restaurant that seems to be pretty popular. The service was good and the prices reasonable. I started with a tasting flight of 3 2 oz. glasses of wine - a Riesling from Oregon, a Chenin Blanc from South Africa, and a White Shiraz from Australia. Although I love California wines, I decided to try wine from other areas. The food was awesome - I had a trout with tarragon butter served with fresh green beans, and potatoes w/ bacon (kind of like skillet potatoes, or maybe roasted). So good! I decided on trout since it's not something readily available in Hawaii, and definitely not as fresh. Besides the food, the company was good, as usual. Florist Girl and I were able to catch up even more.

Day 2 in LA was a most excellent day! Coming up, day 3 (pictures to follow)...

Journey to Redondo Beach

2009-10-24T22:01:00.003-10:00

After Avila Beach, I was headed to Redondo Beach, my final destination this trip. The Portofino Hotel & Yacht Club would be my home for three nights.

Mapquest told me the drive would be about 3 1/2 hours, so I planned on taking about four to five hours to drive from Avila Beach to the LA area. I tend to want to stop to take pictures and explore, so I padded the time. I anticipated getting there at about Noon, but I think it was closer to 1 p.m., after leaving Avila Beach sometime around 7 a.m.

The drive was interesting. A few years ago, I went to Santa Barbara, so I was looking forward to driving through the area since I enjoyed it so much. An unexpected surprise was to find The Hitching Post, the restaurant/bar seen in the movie "Sideways." I also drove past Eladio's, across from Stearn's Wharf, which I remembered being a great lunch spot (sole piccata, yum!!).

The Portofino was a nice hotel in a pretty convenient location on the water at Redondo Beach. I chose a room on the water, since I had read so much about being able to see sea lions from the room. I'm glad I chose the view of the water, because the view of the parking lot would have been quite boring. It was nice being able to open the balcony door and enjoy the sights and sounds.

My first item of business was to have lunch with an old friend from high school. I'll call her Florist Girl, since that's the first job I recall her having in high school. Florist Girl came to pick me up at the hotel, then we drove around a bit trying to decide what to eat, with the help of OnStar (or whatever navigational device was in her car). I mentioned Olive Garden, so we found one near Del Amo Mall. I know Olive Garden is kind of "generic" Italian food, but I still love it! It doesn't help that they taunt us here in Hawaii by showing all those commercials, even though we don't have an Olive Garden. But, I digress...I ordered a yummy Grilled Steak Crostada.

After that, Florist Girl offered to take me to Trader Joe's for my omiyage. I didn't want to buy much in Vegas since I still had a long trip ahead of me, so I saved the bulk of the shopping for LA. One of the big finds this trip was a salt that sure looks like Fleur de sel, but with a different name, and at a much lower cost. At TJ's, the salt was about 1/3 the price I paid at Foodland for a bottle of Fleur de sel that was 1/2 the size of the TJ's salt. More recently, I learned that TJ's sells some pretty awesome salami! You can bring it home since it doesn't need to be refrigerated until it's opened.

Florist Girl asked if there was anything else I wanted to do or see, and I couldn't think of anything, so we headed back to the hotel. However, we had a serendipitous moment. We spotted a Penguins! As in Penguins yogurt. When we were in high school, that was a pretty trendy thing. Although Florist Girl has lived in Southern California for a number of years, even she didn't know that Penguins still existed, so it was a pretty exciting find! We had to spin around and have some. I was glad we found it and decided to stop because it also allowed us to spend more time together to sit down and chat. Florist Girl is one of those people you can not see or talk to for a very long time, yet just pick up wherever you left off as if time hadn't passed at all.

Since it was a long day, I decided to stay in and order room service. The hotel restaurant, Baleen, has received some pretty good reviews. The food didn't disappoint. I had a bowl of clam chowder, which was made with smoked bacon and potatoes - and we all know that bacon makes everything better! Next was a reconstructed Caesar salad - I'm not sure what was "reconstructed" about it. I think this was pretty standard. Since I was only having soup and salad, I rationalized that I could also order a creme brulee - yummy! I love fruits, particularly berries, on the mainland.

To be continued...(pics to follow)

Hearst Castle

2009-08-14T20:14:00.007-10:00

Must...focus...finish...trip report...

I just realized I'm in the final stretch of my trip report. In part, that motivates me. But it also makes my mind start to wander and think about all the other things I want to post about! My first post after I finish my trip report is going to be about my 10 favorite restaurants on Oahu -- I got the idea after reading "What's YOUR Top 10?" on the Honolulu Advertiser's Urban Mix Plate blog, by Melissa Chang. I've already written them down, and it wasn't easy. I actually wrote down 11, and another restaurant that closed, but that I will always remember as one of my favorites. There are also a bunch of new-to-me food places I've tried recently that I want to write about, but I promised I'd finish writing about my trip before moving on.

Back to focusing on the trip report...

Another place I have long wanted to visit in California is Hearst Castle. It's in San Simeon, which is kind of an awkward halfway point between Los Angeles and San Francisco, which is part of the reason I'd never gone there before. They offer a number of different tours, so after reading the website, I had determined that two tours would be good for me to do in one day. Since this was the first time visiting Hearst Castle, I decided I should do Tour 1, the Experience Tour, first, which is recommended for first-time visitors. The second tour I chose was Tour 4, the Garden Tour, which also includes a tour of the largest guest house and the wine cellar. I booked the tours online as recommended on the website. The website is pretty cool, as it tells you how many spaces are available on each tour.

It took about an hour to drive from Avila Beach. There was lots of parking, although I messed up by automatically taking the first stall I saw in what I later found was an overflow parking lot. I could have driven further in to the main parking lot.

There is a Visitor's Center where you go to pick up your tickets and board buses up to Hearst Castle, about a 10-minute scenic ride up a windy hill. I booked my two tours back-to-back, beginning with the Experience Tour. The tour started off in an area overlooking the property and stretched all the way out to the ocean. Then we headed over to the pool, which you've probably seen in photos, movies, or tv shows at some point. I remember seeing it in the opening credits of "Dynasty." It really is a beautiful pool! Someone asked the tour guide if anyone ever gets to swim in it, and the tour guide replied that occasionally they have employee parties where employees can bring a guest to swim in the pool.

Both tours covered various outdoor areas and gardens. The types of trees, plants, and flowers are so varied, it's incredible. In fact, the guides explained that William Randolph Hearst basically built the home and grounds with items from an assortment of countries and cultures, even if they didn't necessarily "match," resulting in some critiques that the home was an atrocity. Because he was always working on making the home to his liking, it was never truly finished, and there are some areas where it is somewhat obvious that something was redone or built-over.

Other areas the tours covered included guest homes, a wine cellar, dining hall, billiard room, and an indoor pool styled after a Roman bath. Other interesting bits of trivia we learned are that Mr. Hearst felt that fruit looked best on the trees and shouldn't be picked. Whatever fruit was eaten was not from the grounds. Also, he liked the smell of flowers and wanted there to be a scent everywhere in the gardens. There are only nine gardeners that take care of the entire property! Besides the Castle itself, the property is vast. At one point it used to house zoo animals, but now is only home to cows, horses, and zebras. I was hoping to see a zebra, but no such luck.

After both my tours, I decided to check out the cafeteria for lunch. I was intrigued because of the Hearst Ranch beef, which is free-range and grass-fed. If you haven't tried it, grass-fed beef is awesome! I had a tri-tip sandwich w/ BBQ sauce, beans, and corn on the cob. Excellent! Although there was a very ominous-looking bird staring at me while I was eating.

After that I headed back to Avila Beach where I drove around a bit to explore along the ocean. And I couldn't let that nice hot tub on my balcony go to waste, so I ordered some really yummy food (pizza and a salad) from the little market on the resort property and relaxed in my room for the evening. The next day I headed to LA, so I wanted to be well-rested for the drive, which I estimated to take about 3 hours.

Next up...Los Angeles, here I come!

Highway in the Sun

2009-08-09T16:52:00.005-10:00

So many things to post about, so little time! Since I saw the movie, "Julie and Julia" today, I seriously considered deviating from posting about my trip to do a movie review, but I reconsidered and decided to stick to my guns and finish this dang trip report this century. Ironically, part of the movie storyline was about how Julie never finishes anything she begins. Boy, can I relate to that! That is why I am continuing on with my trip report before I begin posting about other topics. (But my brief comment about "Julie and Julia" is that Meryl Streep is a genius, and you should go see it!)

When I was researching my trip, I asked for suggestions on my Facebook page. One of my friends, Handsome Mark, used to live in California and suggested that when I make the drive south from Monterey along the Pacific Coast Highway that I leave no earlier than 4 p.m. and listen to C&K's "Highway in the Sun" as I make the drive. While I considered that option, I knew that what Mapquest said would be a 3 hour 20 minute drive would in actuality turn into a 5 hour drive because of all the stops I would make. I decided to plan on leaving Monterey before noon.

One of the nice touches at the Monterey Bay Inn was having breakfast delivered to your room included as part of your stay. It was a simple continental breakfast, but a nice touch nonetheless. After I enjoyed breakfast and packed up the car, I headed out on my journey. I contemplated going on the 17-Mile Drive, but decided against it because I knew that would take a lot of time, and I had done it before long ago. But I did make some time to drive through Pacific Grove, and briefly through a part of Carmel. Handsome Mark warned me that I should fuel up because there wouldn't be many (if any) options after I passed Carmel. A great tip!

This journey is what this trip was all about. For years I've been wanting to drive down the Pacific Coast Highway and see the bridge in Big Sur that I've seen in so many pictures. It was so worth it. I'm not a very good descriptive writer, so hopefully some of my photos can tell the story of this drive better than my words can. Words cannot adequately describe the physical appearance of the coastline, nor how I felt as I was soaking in its beauty. I saw rugged coastline, beautiful flora, and the Rocky Creek Bridge that I had seen in pictures.

I also came across some unexpected finds such as a beach that was home to many elephant seals. From the road they almost looked like driftwood, but I knew that dozens of people would not be standing along the beach just looking at pieces of wood. My first impression when I stepped out of the car was, "this place REEKS!" I mean, it was BAD! Yet, it was worth suffering through the smell to see the elephant seals up close in a natural setting.

Along the drive to my destination, Avila Beach, was Hearst Castle, which I was planning to visit the following day. I got slightly lost around the Avila Beach area because I did not follow directions properly, but I managed to find my way without losing too much time. I was staying at the Avila Village Inn, which is a couple miles away from the beach itself, but it turned out to be a very nice choice. It was a small lodge-like setting with probably only a few dozen rooms. I reserved a room with a hot tub on the deck, which I made very good use of. And the shower was the biggest I think I've evern seen in a hotel that I've stayed in. I joked to a friend that it could probably comfortably accommodate five people!

It was already late afternoon by the time I got settled, and I hadn't eaten lunch. I decided to get an early dinner and splurge on a place I read about on Yelp called the Cracked Crab in Pismo Beach, the next beach down from Avila Beach just about a 10 minute drive away. It's one of those places that just has paper on the tables and you can make as big a mess as you want, and I did! I was hungry, so my eyes were bigger than my stomach, as usual. I decided to have a cup of crab bisque, since they're menu says it's what made them famous. I wasn't ultra-impressed by it, but it was okay. But I was really looking forward to the main meal...it was really tough to choose. I considered surf-n-turf, but decided on a bucket for one where you choose two seafood items that are thrown in a bucket with corn-on-the-cob, potatoes, and sausage, served with rolls, drawn butter, cocktail sauce, and a yummy mustard sauce. I chose the Alaskan King Crab (for an extra charge) and shrimp, and it was so yummy!

After dinner I drove around Pismo Beach and Avila Beach a bit to explore and see what's in the area. I liked that area a lot and wished I had more time to explore. Pismo Beach is one of those beach towns you see in the movies where it's laid back and almost everything is within walking distance of the shore.

Up next: Hearst Castle. (Pics to follow soon...)

Otters, and Sea Lions, and Stand Up Paddlers...oh my!

2009-07-23T19:13:00.007-10:00

I love Monterey! The last time I was there was 1993, and it was only a day trip from San Francisco. During that trip, I was so excited to go there that I was inspired to read John Steinbeck's, "Cannery Row." This year, as I was planning my trip, I was sharing that tidbit with a friend and she suggested I read "Sweet Tuesday." Unfortunately, never did since I don't make the time for reading that I should, but I did start to pick up "East of Eden," which had fallen by the wayside a while back. Maybe I'll actually finish it before the end of summer!

As I was saying, I love Monterey! Since I was headed to Northern California, I decided that Monterey was a must. After my first visit to Monterey I kept saying that someday I'd go back and spend more time there. I didn't spend that much more time there on this trip, but at least I stayed overnight this time. I left Paso Robles at around 10 a.m., and it took about 2 hours to drive to Monterey. I was amazed at how easy it was to follow Mapquest's directions. This was a slightly complicated drive in the sense that I had to travel on a lot of different roadways, and a lot of the roads transitioned into different street names.

On the way there, I drove through Salinas, an agricultural town that serves as the locale of many of Steinbeck's books. There's a John Steinbeck Museum there that I considered visiting, but I decided I wanted to spend my time in Monterey, which was a good decision for me. I just love the feel of Monterey. It's such a nice, quaint place, busy enough to keep you occupied, but quiet enough to make you feel calm and give you a sense of inner peace.

I arrived at my hotel, the Monterey Bay Inn, and my room wasn't ready, so I walked down the street to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I didn't have to wait long to buy a ticket, but once I got into the aquarium, my first thought was, "what recession???" It was packed! I intentionally left Paso Robles a little later in the morning partly to avoid the "June Gloom" (fog) and partly because everything I read said the aquarium is usually crowded in the morning when they open and tends to be less busy in the afternoon. I asked a cashier in one of the shops if it's always that busy and she said it usually is, partly because school is out.

I spent a couple hours at the aquarium looking at the various exhibits and spending a lot of time outside at all of the different lookout areas. I took a number of pictures, although the crowds made it difficult to get some of the shots I wanted. After I was satisfied that I had seen what I wanted to see, I went on the hunt for lunch. I passed a number of restaurants during my walk to the aquarium, and noticed the Fish Hopper, a place I read about on review sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor. I decided to give it a try.

It was right on the water, so it was nice to be able to look at the ocean during lunch. I decided to start with a cup of clam chowder, which was okay. Not bad, not the best either, but satisfactory. It was tough choosing an entree, but I decided to select something different that I wouldn't find at home. I selected a dish with abalone, prawns, and scallops in a buerre blanc sauce, served over veggies and mashed potatoes. I completely loved the first few bites, but after a while, I felt like there was some kind of taste that was overpowering the seafood, particularly the scallops. Maybe they were just slightly too browned, I'm not sure. I'd give them another chance, but I did feel it was slightly overrated based on the comments I read.

After lunch I headed back to the hotel to check in to my room. The hotel was pretty convenient, right on Cannery Row and on the ocean, but it was just a tad isolated from where most of the action was. However, it was the closest hotel to the Fisherman's Wharf, and near a beach where there were a lot of sea lions. La Bellasera set the standard pretty high and was the best of my trip, so Monterey Bay Inn was a slight let-down, but it was still pretty nice, particularly with the ocean view. I was a little surprised that it had exterior hallways which gave it more of a motel feel, and there was a strange congregation of flies right outside my room for no apparent reason. There's also no restaurant in the hotel, although they offered room service from the restaurant in a nearby hotel. But other than that, it was fine.

After I settled in, I headed out for a walk, this time in the other direction toward Fisherman's Wharf. At the hotel, I could hear seals from my room, but couldn't quite see them. During my walk, I discovered TONS of them lounging on the rocks across the little inlet from my hotel by the harbor. I also saw a number of starfish there. I continued my walk all the way into part of Downtown Monterey before turning around. There were so many great little things to explore and take pictures of, and I noticed in Monterey that there were a lot of pretty flowers everywhere. Who knows, some of them might have been weeds, but they were still really pretty!

My last place to explore for the day was Fisherman's Wharf. There were quite a few shops and restaurants here, and I thought it was interesting how ALL of the restaurants had carts set up outside serving samples of their clam chowder! If I wasn't still full from lunch, I probably could've made a meal out of samples! After the wharf, I took my time walking back toward the hotel, stopping to take pictures and watching sea life. I was disappointed that there weren't more otters around, but was happy that I was able to see two of them frolicking in the water on my walk back.

Because of the lack of a hotel restaurant and the distance between the hotel and the rest of civilization, I decided to go in search of dinner even though I wasn't really hungry yet. I started to head back toward the aquarium, but didn't see anything that caught my eye, so I turned around back toward the hotel. On the walk back, I looked out on the water and saw a couple of stand up paddlers! Although I knew it wasn't just a Hawaii thing, it still took me a little by surprise. After this, I discovered a little Mexican take-out place almost right across the street from my hotel. Perfect! I could just take it back to my room.

The menu had a lot to offer, and it seemed really authentic. I mean, the guy cooking didn't even speak English, so I figured it had to be good, right?? I ended up ordering a combo plate with a cheese enchilada and chile relleno. The plate was served with rice and beans. I also picked up a watermelon soda, just because it looked good. I got it back to my room and decided to dine on my balcony overlooking the water. I took a couple of bites of the food and quickly assessed that it was like eating oil. That's the only way I can describe it. There didn't seem to be any flavor in anything except for the watermelon soda. I was pretty disappointed - in fact, probably the most disappointing meal of the trip, especially because I had gotten my hopes up because of the non-English speaking cook. Oh well, one not-so-good meal out of two weeks worth of eating out really isn't bad! And at least the view was perfect.

Next up: drive down the Pacific Coast Highway.

Goin' back to Cali, Cali, Cali...

2009-07-11T19:51:00.003-10:00

I'm determined to break my habit of not finishing trip reports, even though I've been home for a week and a half! One friend made a comment that I at least finished the Vegas portion, which for me is an accomplishment!

I'll try to break this up into bite-sized pieces, but this was my agenda for the entire trip, to put things into perspective:
Tue. June 16, departed HNL @ night
Wed. June 17, arrived Vegas around 7 a.m., stayed at the Plaza Club in Downtown
Mon. June 22, the baseball peeps left in the afternoon and I checked into Treasure Island
Wed. June 24, drove to Paso Robles, CA, stayed at La Bellasera
Thu. June 25, drove to Monterey, stayed at the Monterey Bay Inn
Fri. June 26, drove to Avila Beach, stayed at the Avila Village Inn
Sun. June 28, drove to Redondo Beach, stayed at the Hotel Portofino & Yacht Club
Wed. July 1, departed LAX @ about 6 p.m. to return to HNL

So why did I choose the route I did? I figured if I was going to Vegas, I might as well also go to LA to visit some friends, especially one that just had a baby. But it's been a long-standing goal of mine to drive down the California coast. I've been to Monterey before, and from Southern California, I went as far north as Santa Barbara, so I wanted to cover the area between those two points. I especially wanted to see Big Sur because of the arched bridge I've seen in so many pictures that I'm sure you've seen too. Planning stops was interesting. The drive from Vegas to Monterey is 8 hours, and I didn't want to do that in one day, especially by myself. The halfway point was Bakersfield...seriously??? Bakersfield is boring. In my hunt for an interesting place to stay, I found Paso Robles, which I'd never heard of before. In my research, I came to the conclusion that it would be the next up-and-coming big wine country of California. And there was a hotel, La Bellasera, that received stellar reviews, and I decided that is where I should stay after a long day of driving.

Back to my story...

Since I was driving beyond the halfway point between Vegas and Monterey, the drive was estimated to be about 6 hours. I knew I'd stop along the way a few times, so I decided I should allow at least 7 hours, which turned out to be a pretty good guesstimate. I decided I should leave Vegas around 7 a.m., but in actuality I woke up early and started the drive at about 6:15. I stopped off at Jack and the Box to pick up breakfast before hitting the freeway. Ironically, the one place I made a wrong move while driving was in Vegas, the place I know second best next to home! I was fine the rest of the way.

The drive was actually somewhat interesting. I guess part of it is because I'd never been that route before since I'm used to driving toward Anaheim or LA, but this route involved heading north toward Bakersfield. I stopped once I think around Baker, one of the very small towns after crossing the California border, simply because a wave of tiredness set in. I pulled into a parking lot (I think it was a Taco Bell) and slept just for 10 minutes, but it helped immensely. I was all set to go for another couple of hours.

After a while I needed to make another stop, partly for a "nature break" and also to fill up on gas, so I stopped in Mojave, a desert town with some kind of air force base. I had to go 1-2 miles away from the highway, but it was easy to navigate my way. I found a McDonald's with a clean restroom and picked up an iced coffee (for the first time EVER, they handed me the coffee before I even put the change away in my wallet - amazing!), then found a gas station. Gas stations are weird in California - so many different types. This one only took debit cards, for a service fee, and cash. But the cash machine is kinda cool, like a slot machine that you slide your money into. Anyway, after this, I was ready to go for another couple of hours.

I was about 90 miles away from Paso Robles and came across a cute little town called Wasco. Apparently they are known for roses or something, there were huge fields of roses that were very pretty. I decided to stop for another nature break and also to get a snack since I was getting a little hungry, but I didn't want to eat a full on meal yet. I found a Carl's Jr. that did the trick (the little crunchy burrito things are good!). Then I was ready to conclude my drive for the day.

I approached Paso Robles and followed the Map Quest directions. However, they steered me toward a street, that was supposed to lead me to my hotel, that was undergoing major construction. Fortunately, the construction guy directing traffic was very helpful and steered me in another direction to the hotel, which would have been more efficient than the Map Quest directions. I soon realized it was my fault that Map Quest told me to go that way, since for part of the drive, I was trying to avoid the 101 (freeway) for part of my trip.

La Bellasera turned out to be an AWESOME hotel! Definitely the best of the entire trip in many ways: nice room, nice facilities, good restaurant, great service, and good location. I was so glad that I booked this hotel, but a little sad that I was only going to be there one night. I probably could've stayed another couple of nights and found lots to do there including exploring Downtown Paso Robles and checking out some wineries. Oh well, something to look forward to on a future trip!

After checking in, I was ready to eat a full meal. I decided to head to Downtown Paso Robles. I didn't have anything in mind, but I did browse quickly through a tourist magazine for ideas, then I set out on my drive through Downtown. The Downtown area was very cute and quaint, lined with little shops and restaurants, and lots of parking along the streets. I spotted Vic's Cafe, a place I remember seeing in the tourist magazine, so I decided to give that a shot. It was a very casual place where locals seem to go. I ordered a Vic's burger that came with a bunch of toppings including guacamole and ortega chilis, with a side of potato salad. It was all very good, and very homemade. I walked around Downtown for a little bit, but I also wanted to check out a large strip mall I came across on the way to the hotel that had a Kohl's in it.

After that, I headed back to the hotel. As I was parking, I noticed there was a back way into the parking lot, and my curiosity got the best of me, so I jumped back in the car and headed out the back way. Lo and behold, another strip mall, right across the street! And there was a Target! This was perfect since Elastagirl asked me to pick up something from Target that she wanted after she returned home.

I just wanted to relax that night, especially after the long drive. The sun didn't set until around 8:30, so the days were longer there too. I ordered room service from the hotel restaurant, Enoteca, which turned out to be excellent! The person at the front desk recommended the filet mignon, as did the nice man I spoke to on the phone who took my order (he also said the lamb was very good). I enjoyed my meal along with some wine I brought with me from Vegas that I bought at Trader Joe's.

All in all, a good day that ended nicely at a beautiful hotel!

The Grand Vegas Finale

2009-06-28T19:17:00.006-10:00

Thankfully, the last few days in Vegas were pleasantly uneventful. The day following our day full of adventure was the last day for the baseball bunch. Their flight didn't leave until 6 p.m., so there was still time to squeeze the most out of Vegas. Unfortunately for me, that meant I had to do laundry because I still had over a week of vacation to go. I also used the time when the boys were enjoying a breakfast buffet, compliments of the hotel thanks to Coach T for asking for some kind of compensation for the boys being stuck in the elevator, to start loading up my car with all of my crap. On the way back from the parking garage I ran into a group of the baseball boys, "good morning aunty," they said to me. "Aunty." I have a hard time swallowing the fact that I can be an "aunty" to a 16-year old. Prior to this trip, it was acceptable for me to be called "aunty" by the oldest of my friend's children (so we're talking pre-teens). But now I guess I have to expand the acceptable level of aunty-ness to anyone who hasn't graduated from high school yet. I'm getting old.

After we loaded up the cars with everyone's luggage, we headed off to Boulevard Mall for some last minute shopping since there was time to kill. It was sad. This used to be one of my favorite "regular" (i.e. non-outlet) malls in Vegas, as well as Elastagirl's. But a lot of the shops have since closed, probably due to the economy as well as because there are so many other malls now. It wasn't nearly as crowded as it used to be several years ago. Nonetheless, the boys still managed to find a few last minute items, and it was a good place to grab a bite to eat. I've always seen the Chicken Company around, but didn't think much of it, and I don't really eat much chicken anyway. However, I tried a sample of their grilled chicken and it was good! Someone commented that the garlic chicken is good, so I ordered the spicy garlic chicken with tossed salad. What I like about this place is you can just order one meat and one side order - they didn't force you to order more than you really wanted.

After the mall, we said our goodbyes and went our separate ways, the baseball gang home to Hawaii, and me embarking on the solo part of my trip. I would be spending another two nights in Vegas at Treasure Island on my own for some fun and relaxation.

I went to check in at Treasure Island, now known as "TI," and found myself in a nice room on the 24th floor overlooking the Strip and the pirate show area. That night I was going to see "Love" at The Mirage, a Cirque du Soleil show based on music by the Beatles. I was in search of food prior to the show and stumbled across a place in The Mirage called Onda, an Italian restaurant and wine bar. I wasn't that hungry and I was in a relative hurry, so I ordered a Caesar salad and an antipasti platter, along with a glass of wine. The Caesar salad was good, although a bit overdressed, and I especially enjoyed the accompanying parmesan crisp. The antipasti platter was excellent with a couple of Italian meats, a couple of cheeses, and some roasted veggies. What intrigued me most were what I found out were roasted baby carrots.

After dinner I headed to the show. The layout of the theater is very unusual. Although there were a couple of technical glitches in the beginning that caused the show to be interrupted and paused for a few minutes, the show was amazing! While Beatles music is always good, what particularly impressed me were the effects used in the show. I don't want to give away anything because if you go, you should go without any expectations of what will occur, but suffice it to say that it is very good and I don't think anyone can deny the impact of the effects and feats on the audience, regardless of how you feel about the Beatles.

The next day I had myself booked for an almost-4-hour spa package at the TI spa, Wet. The facilities exceeded my expectations. While I haven't experienced that many spas, the most memorable one for me is the Spa at the Grand Floridian in Disney World. Wet, while different in theme, was a very nice, very large facility. Some of the reviews I read made it sound like it was really small. I have no idea what those people are talking about - if Wet is small, I can't imagine what "large" is!

In any case, I booked the Autograph package which includes a massage, facial, pedicure, and manicure, in that order, all with separate therapists and aestheticians. I had Charlene for my massage, which was okay. Some parts were really good, but some were just "okay." She did a really good job on my shoulders though, which I told her were probably my biggest problem area. I really enjoyed Linda, who did the facial. Kim did my pedicure, and she didn't have the best personality, but she did a good job - although this was my very first pedicure, so I have nothing to compare it too! She was pleasant enough, but didn't seem as skilled at making conversation. Finally, Sonia did my manicure. Sonia was extremely good at making conversation, and I enjoyed talking to her. She did a good job on my nails too, but again, this was my first manicure. I decided that I'm not a girly girl and manicures for the most part are probably wasted on me. That was only about 5 days ago and already the nail polish has begun to peel off - but I blame myself since I'm not dainty and careful about my nails.

After the spa I went to Canter's Deli in the hotel and ordered a pastrami sandwich on rye served with fries and a pickle spear. Everything was very good! That night I had a ticket to see "Phantom of the Opera" at the Venetian. I didn't have much time for dinner, so I just had an antipasto salad in the Venetian food court, which was pretty good.

"Phantom" was also excellent! I am partial to "Phantom" since it is my favorite play and I love the music of Andrew Lloyd Webber, but this performance was exceptional in every way. The actors were terrific, but I would go again just to see the theater. I booked a seat in the front row of the mezzanine, so I had an excellent view of some of the effects. Most people know about the chandelier, but there are other effects that occur that are amazing, and even the chandelier is probably nothing like you've ever seen.

If you decide to see shows in Las Vegas, especially in the near future, try checking the hotels' websites for special deals. I got 25% off both shows that way. I think Vegas shows are hurting too, so they're offering some really good deals.

That's about it for the Vegas portion of my vacation. The next day I left Las Vegas and began my California Adventure. Stay tuned...

The Vegas Adventure Continues

2009-06-26T18:08:00.011-10:00

Let's see if I can finish up the group portion of the Vegas trip in this one post!

I'm already starting to forget what happened on what day! But I do know there was a lot of excitement on Sunday. But before I get ahead of myself, let's see if I can get through Saturday. There was one baseball game on that day in the morning. The boys wanted to ride the New York New York roller coaster, so we headed back to the Strip. While I love roller coasters, I was slightly reluctant to ride this one because I saw it being built, and my memory of it was the track ending mid-air! However, I didn't let that stop me, and I decided to ride it, but only once - the boys bought an all-day pass. It was quite exhilarating! There was a steep incline at first, and we were headed straight into the sun. At the highest point, it seemed like we could see all of Las Vegas, and we were definitely higher than the Statue of Liberty in front of the hotel. While I'm glad I tried it, once was enough!

After we got off the coaster, The Coach was waiting for us with some Nathan's hot dogs, which were really good hot dogs! That night was a fairly early night since our game the next day started at 7:30 a.m. The adults went to The Cal and had dinner at Aloha Specialties. I just had a large saimin with veggies (which was obscenely large - even the small was huge) and tofu. In the past, I really liked the tofu which was topped with bonito flakes, but this time I was disappointed. The portion was smaller and it looked like they just dumped it on the plate istead of displaying it in a neat square.

Sunday was quite a day! We had a 7:30 a.m. game so we dropped the boys off really early, then the girls went to Smith's in search of food. This was not satisfactory, so we also went to Sonic, where I supplemented my ham sandwich from Smith's with tater tots with chili and cheese. A couple of the girls got burgers. Keep in mind that this was for breakfast!

We won that game and were scheduled to play in the finals sometime around 1:30 p.m. We took the boys to In-N-Out Burger for lunch. Yes, burger number 2 for some of us! It was still early, about 10 a.m. The boys went to the door and it was locked, then we realized they didn't open until 10:30. But we were in luck, the manager opened the doors for us! Cool! If you go to Vegas, please go and patronize them - this is the one near Sunset Station and Galleria at Sunset. Elastagirl thanked the manager for opening and he said he remembered his days of playing ball. It was probably a good business call anyway, there were a number of other people who came in as well.

The afternoon game was the final game that we played against a team from California. The team was physically huge. They did not look like high school players at all. I later found out that they had all graduated, while our team was primarily made up of sophomores and juniors. Not really a fair game, and the other team won by one point. It was a good game though, and the boys still got a trophy for coming in second. Good for them!

From this point, all hell broke loose! On the way back to the hotel, Elastagirl and I were having a good ol' time talking about all kinds of things, including aliens (since Area 51 is nearby Vegas). We were talking so much that we completely missed the freeway cutoff! And The Coach was following us too. Oops. So we got off on the next offramp. But that was still wrong, we were supposed to get off the next one. That's okay, we'll figure it out. We ended up at a kind of strange intersection where we had to turn left on the right side of a median. But we ended up turning to the left of the median...facing oncoming traffic! And worse yet, The Coach followed us too! S!*t, what are we going to do??? I tried to quickly assess the situation. I didn't think we could make it over the median. Fortunately, the oncoming traffic had a red light. In my assessment, making a left turn was the only way to go...against the light! As soon as I saw that the coast was clear, I told Elastagirl to go, and The Coach followed. The passengers in our van were eerily quiet, at least for a while. Then there were some, "ho, aunty" comments going around, as well as, "that was too much excitement for me!"

But that wasn't it. We went back to our rooms and were supposed to meet downstairs at 6:30 to take the boys to go bowling. The brother of one of the adults works at Green Valley Ranch and could set up bowling for us. We got back to the hotel around 5, and Elastagirl and I couldn't get into our room. Our keys didn't work, but we noticed the lights didn't go on either. She explained this to the front desk, but they just gave us new keys...which still didn't work. Front desk says they'll call an engineer. At this point, we decided to just sit on the ground outside our room as we waited. Engineer comes along, a nice guy who was very helpful, and sticks what I call a slim jim for hotel room doors, under the door to open it, so at least we could get in the room. He can't figure it out either and says he has to have security reset the door. Without going into further detail, it turned into a big mess which resulted in over 1 1/2 hours of lost time and an angry Elastagirl. We might've had to change rooms. We ended up just leaving the room in the hands of security and the engineers, we couldn't wait any longer.

But that's still not all! We get downstairs and one of the moms comes around and says some of the boys are stuck in the elevator and have been there for a while! She found out because her son called her on his cell, but then lost service. Another mom comes around and is talking to the useless security guy at the Plaza, who apparently made a comment that she could call the fire department if she wanted to. So she did. The boys had already been stuck for 40 minutes. The fire department showed up! I'm not quite sure what happened at that point, but I know that just a couple minutes after the firefighters arrived, the doors were opened and the boys got out. Ten of them were in there and their biggest complaint was that it got really hot, and someone farted. They all had to file reports with the hotel. We were supposed to be bowling at 7, but didn't leave the hotel until 7:30.

But that's not all...the guy who arranged the bowling and one other van disappeared, but we knew where Green Valley Ranch was, so we headed there along with The Coaches van. Besides that, Elastagirl's aunty and clan were also on their way to Green Valley Ranch. Just as we're pulling into the driveway at Green Valley Ranch, someone calls and asks where we are, they're at Red Rock already. Red Rock??? On the other side of town??? There was some kind of misunderstanding, so now we had just hauled our butts to Henderson (east of Las Vegas) when we were supposed to be on the far west side of Las Vegas.

We finally made it to Red Rock and had a great time. The boys bowled while the adults went in search of food. The Coach said that Rubio's has good fish tacos, so I decided to try that. It was good! But I found the special fish taco to be better than the original. After we ate, we headed back to the bowling alley and Elastagirl and I played pool for a little while. At least the day ended well!

To be continued...

Vegas continued...

2009-06-24T16:30:00.013-10:00

Okay, in typical Kendra fashion, I am behind on my blog, particularly since I'm no longer in Vegas! Let's see if I can catch up in one or two posts.

The afternoon of our first day, we had to go to Costco to pick up items for the baseball boys like bottled water and snacks. It turns out there was one just a couple minutes away from the hotel. It was so deserted, it was almost eerie! It almost felt like we were the only ones in the store. The Costco was pretty cool - literally. There was one entire section in the back that was a giant refrigerated room, cooled to 42 degrees, where they stored all the produce. They even provided jackets outside the room. The other thing I thought was interesting was how they sold snacks individually, so you could buy one small pack of cookies or muffins rather than having to buy a dozen of them. Oh, and water was unbelievably cheap! A 36-pack of water was only $2.99 (after $1 instant rebate)!

The first night in Vegas, we had dinner at the Main Street buffet, which was quite good. There was a wide selection of food, and I think the cost was about $10.99. One of my favorites was the brisket, which was seasoned very nicely. Some other tasty items were the garlic bread, ribs, and taquitos. After dinner we walked down the Fremont Street Experience which was accompanied by the music of Queen, which was pretty cool. We also gambled a bit at Main Street where I made a little money on a Treasure Chest poker machine.

The next day, Thursday, was the first day of the baseball tournament. The team was scheduled to play two games, the first at 10 and the second at 5:30. Both games were very good, but we lost. The games were played at the baseball field at Basic High, in Henderson which is a pretty nice looking school with nice sporting facilities, as far as public schools go.

Between the games, rather than drive back to the hotel, we drove to the Galleria at Sunset Mall. Surprisingly the baseball boys seem to enjoy shopping! It was at their request that we went to several malls. While the boys, including the coaches, walked around, the girls decided to have lunch at Chevy's Mexican Grill at Elastagirl's recommendation. This turned out to be a great choice. Elastagirl said the guacamole was really good, so we ordered it. It's cool that it's prepared tableside, and it was probably the best guacamole I've ever had. When I get home I want to try to replicate it. A couple of us also ordered watermelon margarita's, another good choice. I was torn on what to order since everything sounded good. Fortunately, one of the other ladies ordered first, a make-your-own combo which I hadn't seen on the menu - this allowed me to get two of the items I was eying, the tortilla soup and Santa Fe salad. Everything was very good, including the chips and salsa.

For dinner that night, we decided to go to The Cal and have dinner at the Market Street Cafe. They had a special for $7.95 that included prime rib, salad bar, and a cherries jubilee. A great deal, and tasty! The salad bar was very nice too.

On Friday we had to wake up very early for a 7:30 a.m. game. We lost that game too. That afternoon we went to the Premium Outlet in Downtown, and at night we headed for the Strip. We started out at Fashion Show Mall, then had dinner at the Flamingo buffet, which was just "okay." We had some service issues with them too, which created a lot of confusion. Fortunately, we had a wonderful waitress who lived in Kaneohe before moving to Vegas. She helped to make the experience better. A tip for anyone who eats here: the crab is on ice, but you can hand it to a dude next to the prime rib and he'll heat it for you by throwing it into a basket and lowering it into some hot water.

After dinner, we headed to the Forum at Caesar's Palace. It was funny watching all of the baseball boys pack themselves like sardines into an elevator on the Strip to go up to the walkway that crosses the street. We watched the Bellagio water show then headed to the Forum at Caesar's Palace. At Caesar's Palace, the adults were pretty tired of shopping and just wanted to lounge. The boys walked around and watched the moving statues before we left for the evening.

To be continued...

Bright light city gonna set my soul, gonna set my soul on fire...

2009-06-19T21:18:00.005-10:00

Well, I don't have a whole lot of money that's ready to burn, but so far I've done my part to help the Las Vegas economy recover from whatever financial straits it might be in!

We've been here in Las Vegas since Wednesday morning, and it's been quite an adventure. "We" is myself along with a couple of friends and some Kailua High School baseball team members who are participating in a wood bat tournament in Henderson. So far I've primarily been the tag-along and sometimes designated driver (not necessarily for alcohol-related situations!).

The morning we arrived was somewhat of a challenge for all of us with logistical issues such as car rentals and miscommunication with the hotel. After that, things have gone pretty well *knock on wood* except for the baseball games!

So far three games have been played and all have been lost. However, the games that have been played have been for seeding purposes, and supposedly the real action begins tomorrow.

As for leisure activities, we started off the first day at the Adventuredome at Circus Circus. Prior to Wednesday, I hadn't been there since it first opened, I think over 10 years ago. It was fun going there again.

After that, we were starving and ate at a place called MexItalia (can you tell what kinds of foods they serve???) in the hotel.
The Mexican items turned out to be good choices, although Elastagirl wasn't thrilled with her Italian dish. I ordered a Mexican pizza thinking it would be something along the lines of a Taco Bell Mexican Pizza. It turns out that they actually put it in a pizza box! It was ridiculously large for one person and I only ate two of the eight slices (and even that was pushing it). But it was really good, and a good deal at $8.99.

Getting tired...or shall I say, AM tired...to be continued soon.

Leaving Soon for Sin City!

2009-06-16T15:26:00.003-10:00

Thought I'd post a quick preview of my trip before I depart tonight for Las Vegas!

Tonight I begin my two-week adventure in Las Vegas and exploring California. I haven't been off the island since October, so I'm really excited to be getting off the rock! I feel like I need some really good R&R.

My adventure begins in Las Vegas where I'll be helping a friend out with a baseball tourney (probably running errands, helping to keep an eye on the players, etc.). I'll also be squeezing in a couple of shows, "Love" and "Phantom," as well as a luxurious few hours at the Wet Spa at Treasure Island (now known as "TI")! I'm looking forward to traveling with Elastagirl since it's been quite a few years since we've traveled together.

After Sin City, I'll be driving over to California. I've always wanted to drive down the coast, and I've never covered the area between Monterey and Santa Barbara, so that was my goal for this trip. I'll post more details on how I chose my locations later, but I'll be stopping off in Paso Robles, Monterey, Avila Beach, and Redondo Beach. Some of the attractions I'll be covering include the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Hearst Castle. I also hope to book a walking tour in Carmel.

While I'm in Redondo Beach, I plan to visit my aunty and a couple of good friends. One of these friends is having a baby, TOMORROW! (This, according to a text message I received from her today!) I'm hoping that I'll be able to visit with them and meet the little guy.

Keep posted, I plan to post updates daily, including pictures!

It's Alive!

2009-05-16T21:47:00.002-10:00

So if anyone is still reading this, I haven't completely abandoned my blog! I just neglected it for a good, oh, 3 1/2 months? Those of you who know me and know what I do for a living know that I don't have much of a life between January and May, although this year I did manage to squeeze in some social activity during that time, which is pretty amazing. I've also been preoccupied with other social networking tools like Facebook and Twitter, which have helped me keep up with what my friends are up to and have also proven insightful for work as well.

I'll get around to posting reviews at some point, but one of my new-found sources of enjoyment is Sweet Home Cafe. It's a Taiwanese hot pot place located in the strip mall across from Old Stadium Park on King Street, just before Isenberg (there's a Kozo Sushi and Kiawe Grill in the strip mall), and it just plain makes me happy.

In Kailua, there's a place called Crepes No Ka Oi that is also worth trying. They have both savory and sweet crepes, and I tried both. They also have a nice selection of fancy teas. Again, will post a full review later, but if you're in the area and looking for something new to try, go for it!

I've spent a lot of time cooking meals for myself at home too. Whole Foods has become my source of grocery-shopping pleasure. Yeah, it's expensive, but what do you expect when you're buying stuff that's pesticide and hormone-free? The local stuff really does taste better. Hopefully there will come a time when our agriculture industry grows to a point where the local stuff will be cheaper than the mainland stuff.

What else have I been up to? Well, all nine of my readers know that there have been a number of changes in my life over the last year, including transitioning back to singledom (and if you didn't know, well, now you do!). Thankfully the split was very amicable and we're still friends, so that makes things much easier. Being single again has made me refocus my life on other things, including strengthening friendships, as well as creating new ones. While I never "lost" my friends, I think the amount of time we spend together goes up and down depending on what is going on in everyone's lives. I feel fortunate to have the friends that I do, most of whom I've known for a good 20-25 years now! I'm also fortunate that I consider all of my coworkers friends too.

Now that I have a life again, I've also been thinking of where I want to travel this year. Unfortunately, no travel for work this year because of budget restrictions. But I'm just thankful to still have a job after seeing what others have gone through. However, I'm still going to do my part to support the economy by traveling this year! My first trip is in about a month to Las Vegas and California. Part of my time in Vegas will be spent helping a friend with a baseball tournament, but of course there is always time for shopping and other delights! Then I plan to drive to Northern California and down the coast, ending up in LA where I have an aunty and a couple of good friends to visit. Later on in the year, maybe September or October, I hope to swing a visit to the northeast (Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont). I absolutely love the peacefulness and quaintness of New England!

So all in all, I would say life is pretty good! I have a good job that I enjoy, and I have great friends to help make life all the more enjoyable! More to come later...

Disney World, Here We Come! (Yeah, I know, it's 3 months late...)

2009-01-30T23:23:00.006-10:00

Okay, so a lot has been going on in my life over the last three months and I've been slacking on the blog posts! I had a discussion in my mind about what the topic of this post should be, and I decided to continue where I left off in Florida.

After the conference in Tampa, my three coworkers and I drove to Orlando to spend some time in Disney World. This was a first-time event for two of my coworkers, the Hamster and Finance Man (I guess now he's Judiciary Man, but we'll just call him Finance Man for purposes of this post). Gym Boy and I have both been there several times. What really made this trip enjoyable for me was seeing the reaction of the Hamster and Finance Man as they experienced things for the first time. Even though much of it was not new to me, the newness they were experiencing made it much more pleasurable.

The Hamster, Finance Man, and I all had rooms at the POP Century resort, while Gym Boy had a room at All Star Sports (a long story which is a sore subject that we won't get into here!). These are all "value" resorts by Disney standards. Basically, it's like a motel, but Disneyfied. Disney was very smart in creating their resort system -- value, moderate, deluxe, and home-away-from-home. The price levels are commensurate with the level of amenities provided, as well as convenience to the parks. But a value resort is still better than staying offsite, in my opinion. Transportation is very convenient, and one of the best amenities is package deliveries. You can even have one small item delivered from the parks to your resort.

I did not make any special requests for my room, but was quite pleased with the location. Top floor (4th), with a view of Spaceship Earth way in the distance. I also had a view of a lake. The room itself was adequate and comfortable for my needs, but again, it's Disneyfied, so that makes it more special than staying offsite. The "mousekeepers" do special things like making towel animals and leaving them in your window to greet you upon your return from the parks.

But you know what my favorite thing is about POP Century? The Food Court. It's the awesomist food court ever. Just ask the Hamster. The Hamster never lies. Well, almost never. Even during slow periods of the year, it's open from 6 a.m. until midnight. It's kind of like a school cafeteria, where you grab a tray and you can go to different stations to select different types of food. There's also a general area with a refrigerator if you just want to grab something and go. Then you go to a bank of cashiers and pay for your food. It's super convenient if you just charge it to your room. You don't even have to sign for it. And the food is actually pretty good! My favorite is the pizza, especially for a late night snack.

One last thing about the food court, and this is something offered at all Disney resorts -- refillable mugs. The initial cost may seem pricey, about $12-$13 for a plastic mug, but if you fill it at least 4 or 5 times, you've already made up the cost. Plus, once you've paid for the mug, you don't have to wait in a line to get your drinks filled since the drink station is beyond the cashier. There is a whole slew of drinks to choose from, including hot chocolate! One woman told me that you can even get milk or orange juice if you take the mug to the bakery area. We all got a mug. I only used mine at night after spending the day in the parks, but my cohorts used it for breakfast too.

I'll stop here and will continue later -- it's not much, but it's a start! Coming soon...day 1 in the Magic Kingdom and getting soaked in EPCOT.

Dolphin (NOT!) Cruise and International Plaza

2008-10-14T15:38:00.009-10:00

On the last day of these conferences I attend, there is usually some kind of social activity offered after the serious stuff is over. This time it was a dolphin cruise off of Clearwater Beach. Sounded like fun, so we decided to go.

We hopped on a superstretch tourist bus (complete with the bendy thing in the middle) for a ride to Clearwater. The ride was longer than I expected, maybe about one hour -- I thought it would be more like 20 minutes. Sometime toward the end of the bus ride, one of the conference coordinators said that the dolphin tour people canceled at the last minute because of some kind of problem with the boat. Fortunately, the bus driver was able to suggest another boat company that might be able to take us.

We arrive at the harbor, and we're watching the conference coordinator walk over to "The Calypso Queen," which apparently is the replacement boat. I need to add a picture of it later (UPDATED to add photo at left!), but just picture the cheesiest boat you can imagine -- yellow, with a fake coconut tree on top. The logo on the flag consisted of martini glasses, and the interior was even more cheesy, with tropical print plastic seat covers over all the chairs. But, my theory is that at least we have a story to tell, and this boat was definitely more interesting than the one we were supposed to be on (see picture on the right)! While we didn't see any dolphins, the captain pointed out some nice homes that belonged to celebrities such as John Travolta and Tom Cruise. The cruise lasted a little over an hour.

The adventure didn't end there. On the bus ride back, I noticed that we had been sitting at a traffic for quite a while. Several minutes went by and I saw cars passing us on the left as we just sat there. The conference coordinator came on the PA system again and said something about a truck hitting the bus. None of us even felt anything! So, we sat there for a while. One person commented that it's too bad this didn't happen near a Starbucks or something. Instead we were stuck in a boring area surrounded by houses on one side and a couple of office buildings on the other. After a while, the bus moved. But we were turning right onto a side street to get out of the way of traffic. Bummer. Stuck there for a while longer. At least we were having a good time on the bus sharing stories and getting to know people better. I think the whole ordeal took about an hour. Again, I just looked at it as another story to share when I get home!

After we got back to the hotel, we decided to hop into our car rental (our friends picked it up at lunch so we'd have it ahead of time for our drive to Orlando) and go to a mall. The hotel gave us directions to two malls on the same street. We ended up at International Plaza. It was a very nice mall, although surprisingly dead. I guess everything in Tampa is dead! We went shopping for a while, then set out to find dinner.

We found an outdoor restaurant and entertainment area. THIS is where everyone was! No wonder the mall was so dead, everyone was out here eating, drinking, and having a good time! There were a number of places to choose from, but we chose a quiet place that had no wait or huge crowd, the Gallery Bistro. Although being that quiet was a little scary...was something wrong with it? The food was terrific. We all started with a cup of blue crab and corn chowder, which was most excellent. We shared an appetizer of bistro chips, which were freshly made potato chips topped with a balsamic syrup and gorgonzola cheese...yum! For my entree, I had a cobb salad. It was good, but too huge after eating the soup, and a bit overdressed. I should have just ordered a small salad (which was still pretty big!) like my friend did.

Once again, our adventure was not over. By the time we finished dinner, the mall was closed, and we couldn't go back to the car the way we we came in. We found an escalator down to the parking garage, but we were parked on the other side of the mall, so we started walking. Then a security truck pulls next to us...uh oh, were we doing something wrong? Were we going to get busted? "Do you guys want a ride?" the friendly female security guard asked. There were five of us, so two walked and three of us hopped in with her. I figured she was probably bored and enjoyed having some company for a little while! We have found the people in Florida to be very friendly overall.

Coming up...driving to Disney World!

Ybor City

2008-10-14T14:19:00.007-10:00

When researching what to do in Tampa, you will most likely come across a suggestion to take a streetcar to nearby Ybor City. Sounds like a fun thing to do, so we did. The street car ride was kinda fun, and the stops are pretty convenient.

When we got off in Ybor City, I didn't really know what to make of it at first. It seemed pretty dead. What kind of place is this? We figured we'd be able to cover the whole thing in an hour and go back to the hotel! However, it began to grow on me.

While I've never been to New Orleans, I imagined that Ybor City shares some similarities with the French Quarter in its quirkiness and kind of dark nature. We later learned that we were there on what is typically a quieter night. Apparently things pick up from Wednesday to Saturday, and we were there on a Tuesday night. A lot of stores had "Sorry We're Open" signs in the window. They definitely have a sense of humor here!

There were also a lot of "Guavaween" signs. I wish I'd taken a picture of one. We heard that a long time ago, someone had set out to make Ybor City a kind of guava capital, but it didn't take, and now Ybor City pokes fun at itself by celebrating Guavaween during the Halloween season.

There were a number of interesting places to consider for dinner. Initially I was looking at a place called the Green Iguana, a bar and grill type of place. There was another place that had wood-fired pizzas that sounded interesting. We let one of my coworkers choose, and she felt like eating Greek food, so we headed for Acropolis. It turned out to be an excellent choice! I ordered the mousaka and a glass of wine. They had a pretty extensive selection of Greek wine.

Before we decided on dinner at Acropolis, we walked by a place that served crepes. We decided ahead of time that we would go and have a crepe for dessert, so we made sure not to overstuff ourselves at dinner. The crepe place ended up being a good choice too. So good that I didn't even think of taking a picture of it before we started digging in! (UPDATE! Found a picture taken by my friend...) My friend and I shared one that had Nutella, bananas, and walnuts in it, and was topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

While Ybor City appeared to be dead, Acropolis was quite popular, which isn't surprising given the goodness of the food and the funness of the live Greek entertainment, complete with napkins falling from the sky and dishes breaking. There were definitely more people walking around by the time we left, around 9 p.m. The cigar shops were pretty interesting too. We got to see cigars being rolled, and the guy in the window even posed for my friend. I'll have to post that pic later when I get it from her. All in all, a worthwhile adventure.

Cafe Dufrain

2008-10-14T13:51:00.003-10:00

Okay, it looks like Blogger is finally letting me do my thing, so I have some major catching up to do! I'm in Disney World right now, and today was a lazy day for me consisting mostly of shopping and taking pictures. Tomorrow is my spa day, so I want to be nice and rested and relaxed for that!

Back to last week...so last Tuesday, lunch was not included in our conference, which kind of sucked given that we only had a little over an hour to walk around and find something. We went on a little bit of an urban trek thinking we could find something over a nearby bridge, but to no avail. So we basically ended up just a short walk away from the hotel at a place called Cafe Dufrain, which I had on my list of possible restaurants to try. It turned out to be a good choice.

It's a cute little place with indoor and outdoor seating. Two of my friends had a pulled pork sandwich, and my other friend and I both had the chicken rigatoni, which was excellent! It was in a creamy sauce which was very tasty. And I still say you can't beat the taste of fruits and vegetables on the mainland. Our produce at home sucks, unless it's locally grown. So all of you who live in Hawaii, SUPPORT LOCAL AGRICULTURE!

Our little adventure ended up making us a half hour late in returning to the conference, but, oh well...at least we returned! A lot of other people didn't!

Coming up...Ybor City.

Splitsville!

2008-10-06T17:56:00.003-10:00

I gotta write super-fast since Blospot has not been cooperating with me these past couple of days!

Most of today was spent in a conference, which for the most part was pretty good. Especially the lunch part! The hotel food was surprisingly good, and you really can't beat mainland fruits and vegetables. Most of the stuff you get in Hawaii, especially things like berries, suck.

Anyway, tonight we started out with a conference-related reception. Again, good food: mini beef wellingtons, mini chicken quesadilla rolls, really good cheese, fruit, veggies, and spring rolls. Then we decided to venture to a place called Channelside. But it was pouring, so we caught a taxi. It only took us about 5 minutes to get there. Channelside is an entertainment complex, pretty similar to Aloha Tower. And just as dead. Which is really sad, because it seems like a really cool place. There are a number of hotels in the area, so I'm not sure why more people don't go there. It appears that some places close pretty early too. I guess that's what happens in downtown locations.

Anyway, so we went to a place called Splitsville. It was a bowling alley, pool hall, and bar, all in one. The layout was quite weird, with the pool tables right BETWEEN the bowling lanes! We decided to shoot some pool and have a drink while we were there, before they got taken over by a private party. After that, we headed over to Hooters. Believe it or not, I've always wanted to try their buffalo wings. We got the boneless chicken, fried pickles, and a steak quesadilla. It was all pretty tasty, as was the mojito!

Enough for today. Tomorrow is another conference day, and hopefully a trolley and street car ride to Ybor City tomorrow night!

I have arrived!!

2008-10-05T17:53:00.005-10:00

Quick post, since I am about to drop dead from tiredness! I did not get a lot of sleep on my flights here -- from Honolulu to Houston, then Houston to Tampa. We had a 4 hour layover in Houston, and we managed to get one hour of sleep there.

We arrived in Tampa at about 5 p.m. and are staying at the Westin Harbour Island. The weather was not good, as it was pouring on the ride over from the airport, so we decided to stick close to the hotel. Besides, we're all dead tired! We found a very nearby restaurant called Jackson's. At first it looked a little to frou-frou, based on the atmosphere, but it turned out to be a very good choice and not over the top at all.

I started with a wine flight (4 white wines) and had an entree consisting of grouper topped with lump crab meat, served atop a potato cake and some stir fried veggies. It rested on a bed of cream sauce that was wine-based, but I can't remember the name of the wine. Two of my friends had the shrimp & scallop linguine, and another friend had a chicken focaccia sandwich served with french fries.

Tomorrow begins our conference, but hopefully we'll be able to find something equally good to eat for dinner tomorrow!

Leaving for the airport!

2008-10-04T17:34:00.004-10:00

Just a quick post to say I'm leaving for the airport soon! I arrive in Tampa late Sunday afternoon, Tampa time, which is 6 hours ahead of Hawaii right now. I got up early and stayed up in the hopes that I'll sleep on the plane and won't have too many problems getting adjusted, but we'll see. I always have a hard time flying directly to the East Coast!

Hope you all keep checking in...I am really going to make an effort to post something at least every couple of days!

Preparing to go on Vacation, and other Random Musings

2008-09-27T20:57:00.003-10:00

Once again, I'm a slacker. I should probably stop saying that -- rather, my problem is that I sometimes have too MUCH to share! For example, last weekend I went to see Burn After Reading and a few days ago I went to see a special viewing of Flash of Genius (thanks Vegas Girl for the invite!). As far as food goes, I've been wanting to share a number of places. After Flash of Genius, we needed to find something that was open at 10 p.m., and I remembered some friends telling me about Kanpai, which is in the former Dixie Grill/Tio's location -- I'll post a formal review later, but suffice it to say that the food is good! I've also been wanting to share some of my favorite, somewhat regular places with you such as Kiawe Grill, Diamond Head Market and Grill, 3 Star, and Jus' Tacos. *Sigh* those will come in time, which I'm running out of.

My primary focus now is my upcoming trip to Florida. Part work, part play. I've been a little bit in denial about the trip. I think a lot of people are like me in that they experience different emotional phases prior to going on a trip. At first it's, "yay! I'm going on a trip!" and countless hours are spent trying to figure out where you're going to stay, which flights to book, and what there is to do in the area. Then there's a lull. As the trip approaches, it's kind of like, "yay! I leave in a month!" but I don't do anything else, and I lose sight of it again. Then I hit a point where I felt like I should be excited, but I really wasn't. And about a week ago, I discovered a special event going on in Disney World, but I kind of put off calling because of the time difference. I finally called a couple days ago, only to find out the event is booked. Boo! I tried again this morning, but still booked. Now I've hit an, "oh crap, I leave in a week" point. So right now I'm working on a packing list.

Why am I making a packing list? Part of it is simply because I am anal retentive. It's in my nature. And I once stayed a weekend in Waikiki and forgot to pack underwear, and I had to go to Ala Moana to buy some, so that was an experience that scarred me a little. The other reason is that I am a sucker for gadgets. And I can't leave home without them. And if I can't leave home without the gadgets, I can't leave home without the chargers, extra memory, and accessories that go with them. So this year, for the first time, my packing list has subcategories. So under the "Check in luggage" category, I have an "Electronics" category, which reminds me to bring the chargers for my point-and-shoot camera, my Zen Vision, and my cell phone, as well as a power strip to plug all of these things into. But that's not all...last year I bought an SLR camera, so I have to carry that on with me, along with 4 lenses, extra memory, and the charger. And of course I'm carrying on the devices, so in addition to a bag especially to carry the SLR and accessories, in my carry on bag I will have my cell phone, point-and-shoot camera, and Zen Vision, plus my laptop and laptop charger since it's a long flight and I might have a chance to charge it while I'm sitting in the airport in Houston waiting for my connecting flight. *WHEW!*

I don't own the gadgets, they own me. And typing all this just reminded me that on Monday I should be receiving a tripod I ordered. Should I take that with me too??? Thinking about all of this makes me tired. Which is probably what set me into a lull with regard to thinking about the trip in the first place!

But, I have to get serious. The planning really does help because I won't be wasting my time trying to figure out what to do once I reach my destination. Of course, I'm not so anal and inflexible that things can't be changed, but at least there is some kind of plan in place.

I'll share more details in a future post, but in summary, I'll be flying into Tampa for a conference. Three of my coworkers will also be attending the conference. I refer to them as coworkers here, but they're my friends too. I feel very fortunate to have coworkers that I am close to and that I have fun with. In a way, it's sad too, because the reason we are so close is that we probably spend more time with each other than our own families and non-work friends! But that's okay...we have a good time together and that's what keeps us sane during some pretty stressful situations.

Anyway, so we'll be in Tampa for a few nights attending a conference, then we are all going to Disney World together (plus one coworkers' husband who will be meeting us there) to have some fun! This will also be a picture taking adventure for me. Hopefully my partners in crime will be patient with me if I have the urge to stop and take pictures!! I'll save the details of this for another post.

My plan is to provide quick updates to my blog daily, but we'll see if that happens since I had the same plan last year and I haven't even finished up those blogs!! Slacker...

Whole Foods

2008-09-21T19:47:00.003-10:00

I told myself when I heard that Whole Foods in Kahala Mall was opening on Sept. 10th that I would wait until the crowd died down a bit before I attempted to even go there. But even though I kept telling myself that, especially since in my old age I have grown to dislike crowds, a part of me REALLY wanted to go there. Last year I went to the Whole Foods in Henderson, Nevada and I fell in love with it. We ended up buying just as much omiyage from Whole Foods as we had from the Hawaii-favorite Trader Joes. Also, I just missed having a grocery store there. Although Star Market isn't my favorite grocery store, the convenience of having it in the mall couldn't be beat, and I actually used to enjoy cruising Star Market while waiting for a movie or killing time. They had a fairly decent wine selection there.

As I ranted about on my Facebook page last week, I was planning to see a movie last weekend, not even planning to go near Whole Foods, and I couldn't find a parking stall! It was crazy --- worse than the holidays! Later on I found out that on top of the Whole Foods crowd, there was also some kind of Aloha Festivals activity going on that day. A few days later, on a weekday after work, I went to the mall to go to Barnes and Noble, but I didn't go to Whole Foods since I wanted to get home and go for my afternoon walk.

Third time is a charm...today I decided to go to the earliest showing of "Burn After Reading" (which I'll review sometime soon -- suffice it to say that I didn't think it was all that great), and I had some time to kill before the movie started, so I went into Whole Foods. At about 10:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning, there was a pretty big crowd there, but not big enough to detract me.

I thought I had died and gone to grocery store heaven. I walked in and immediately headed for the prepared foods section. The selection was amazing, and very fresh. Almost anything you could think of that you'd want on a salad was there. The baked goods looked amazing too. And the sushi...the sushi was pre-made, and very expensive -- about $10-$13 for a bento container -- but the quality of the fish was excellent. A million times better than the crap I bought from Kozo Sushi a couple weeks ago.

Then I moved on to the butcher counter. YES!!! Finally a store with a real butcher counter. Safeway Kapahulu has one too, but the selection isn't as extensive. Again, expensive, but the quality can't be beat. And they have unusual items like buffalo. One day I will splurge on an aged rib eye from here. What's amazing about this butcher counter is that they also have fowl available -- I think Safeway only has meat and fish.

I kept moving along the perimeter, since the fresh items were what I was most interested in. I got to the fish. Again, a nice counter. And the poke had me at hello...if I weren't going to a movie, I would've bought some on the spot. I decided that I'd have to come back after the movie to get some. I could already tell by looking at it that it was going to be delicious. No stringy stuff like at Fresh Catch, nice color, ingredients I liked...I had to have some. But it would have to wait until after the movie.

I went to look at the cheeses. Probably not the biggest selection I've seen, but some unusual items that I hadn't seen in other stores. What I like about their cheeses is that the had reasonably sized wedges for purchase. A lot of stores have ginormous hunks of cheese that is just way too much for most people unless you're serving a big group. I thought for the quality, the price seemed on par with other stores. By the way, in terms of a giant selection, I don't think Kapahulu Safeway can be beat.

The wine selection at Whole Foods was quite nice, although I didn't browse that thoroughly. They did have more regional variety than most other grocery stores. I will have to spend more time there to make a better assessment. Again, prices seemed fair on the wine. I sped through the produce section before heading to the movie.

After the movie, I came back and went straight for the poke. I ordered a half-pound each of the ahi limu and ahi alaea at $13.99/lb. I know, most of you are saying that's expensive. Especially compared to the $7.99/lb. I paid at Fresh Catch. Again folks, this is about quality. One of the best poke I've ever eaten was at Ruger Market, which also charges $13.99/lb. But at Ruger, I can see the body of the fish lying behind the counter. And they don't mix the ingredients until you order it, so it's like custom poke. Whole Foods isn't exactly custom, but lemme tell you, it's fresh. The batches they produce aren't excessive, so it's unlikely that the poke on display has been sitting there all day. And who knows, maybe if you asked them, they would custom make some poke for you?

My next stop was the cheese. I'd been wanting to make a salad with romaine, apples, pine nuts, and blue cheese, so I picked up a wedge of Danish blue cheese. I decided to take a quick peak down some of the aisles. While they had some unusual brands, they also have some of the standard brands you'll see anywhere, like Lee Kum Kee brand sauces, Hinode rice, Coral tuna, etc.

Now I'm going to get on my soap box about prices. People say it's expensive. Of course it is...you're paying for stuff that's organic, free range, GMO-free, etc. You cannot go to Whole Foods and expect to pay Safeway prices. And Whole Foods will probably eventually be one of the biggest supporters of local agriculture (and I'm not only talking about fruits and vegetables, I'm talking about beef and poultry too -- I LOVE local beef!). My hope is that one day our agriculture industry will be able to grow so that we become sustainable and will not depend on beef and produce to be flown in from the mainland -- which, I might add, adds to our carbon footprint because of the fuel used to ship that stuff here. If our local agriculture grows, hopefully the prices will come down at some point.

That being said, I'm not defending Whole Foods pricing altogether. When I do shop here, I will probably stick to the perimeter and stay away from the aisles. Why? All those name-brand things I mentioned earlier that you can find in "regular" grocery stores ARE expensive, maybe even up to twice the amount you'd pay at Times or Safeway. Of course, you're paying for convenience. Eventually I will familiarize myself with their products and will know what I can find at Times (where I usually do my grocery shopping) at a lower price. For now, my plan is to go to Whole Foods for the perimeter stuff only, an go to Times for non-perishable items.

Ooh, and one more thing about Whole Foods...there is a truffle counter! I didn't get a chance to look closely at it because it generated a huge crowd, but it looked interesting! They also offer quite a bit of seating both inside and outside the store if you want to eat there.

So, for those of you in town, go and check it out sometime. Even if you can't afford it, you will find something there that will amaze you! I can't wait until the Kailua location opens, which will be the largest one in the islands.

Fresh Catch

2008-09-14T18:11:00.003-10:00

My computer situation is a little scattered right now, so I'll have to add the pictures later, but I wanted to post about Fresh Catch on Waialae while it's fresh in my mind.

Fresh Catch just opened maybe a month or so ago in the building that used to be Pizza Hut (you can totally tell that it used to be Pizza Hut, except that it's now blue instead of red). Click here to read Nadine Kam's review of Fresh Catch in the Star Bulletin. She gives it four stars, which is really generous for her, so I expected a lot.

One of my friends described it very succinctly as being like a Yama's (on Young Street), and I agree with her assessment. It's like a poke counter/take out restaurant/convenience store. When you walk in, there is a rack of pre-made bento, which wasn't all that appealing to me. I've seen better. There's also some shelves with other food items that I didn't look closely at, and some refrigerators stocked with drinks. There are also tables to sit down to eat your grub.

The main attraction here is the counter. There is a poke counter and a menu behind it if you want to order meals. It looks like they have some items every day, and each day of the week they have an additional "special" item. Be sure to ask if they have any other specials besides what's listed. The Sunday special is clam chowder, but he also rattled off a couple of other specials that weren't listed like a fried ahi belly and a baked salmon. I really want to try the ahi casserole (you can see a picture of it in the Nadine Kam article) because it looks a lot like the crab stuffed ahi I used to get from Masa's on King Street a long time ago. But that's a Thursday special. Today I had my heart set on poke.

The selections they offer are quite interesting and diverse. They had something that looked like a cross between tako poke and lomi salmon, and they also had some poke that were made out of smoked fish. I had my heart on something basic like ahi limu or ahi shoyu poke. I was a little disappointed in the quality of the fish, based on appearances. It wasn't as fresh-looking as I imagined it being, and not as high quality either. I could see the stringy stuff in the ahi limu poke, and it wasn't as red as really fresh fish is. Although, I'm not sure if they can get fresh fish on Sundays, so I will try again on other days to see if the quality differs. Based on appearances, the ahi shoyu looked the freshest, and also closest to being gone, indicating to me that a lot of people ordered it, so I asked for a half-pound (today it was $7.99/lb).

There was a woman in front of me when I arrived, who apparently knew one of the guys behind the counter. She had also ordered the ahi shoyu poke, but she ordered something called ahi dynamite. I looked at it, and it looked like something that would be on sushi -- chunks of ahi mixed with mayonnaise, what I presume is Sriracha sauce, and tobiko, and a few green onion slices. I thought it would be awesome over a bowl of hot rice, and I did need something for dinner tonight. So I got a half-pound of that too ($10.99/lb). They gave me exactly half-pound of the ahi dynamite, and .48 pound of the ahi shoyu poke -- this kind of impressed me because 90% of the time when I order stuff by the pound, they will always try to give me over the half-pound mark.

Service was friendly too. Not the fastest, but the two guys behind the counter were very nice and helpful. The guy who rang up my purchases knew the lady who was behind me, who I started up a conversation with, and we ended up talking to the guy behind the counter who packaged my food when he found out we were both first-timers to the shop.

I didn't really eat lunch since I had a late breakfast, so I snacked on the ahi shoyu poke when I got home. It was pretty good, but a little sweet for my taste, closer to teriyaki sauce than shoyu. For me it was above average, but I've had better at Yama's and Ruger Market (which is probably the best and freshest, but also the most expensive), and even Foodland.

But the ahi dynamite really is dynamite. I made a nice batch of fresh, hot rice (using my microwave rice cooker and my expensive rice that I thought was Japanese but is actually produced in California that I bought before the rice prices skyrocketed) and put a generous serving in a bowl. I sprinkled furikake over the rice, then topped it with not quite all of my ahi dynamite, then I sprinkled some additional green onions on it. It is an awesome meal! By itself, the ahi dynamite is pretty spicy. It's still spicy with the rice, but the rice tames it a bit. But be sure to have a glass of water on hand when you're eating it.

While I wasn't as impressed as I thought I would be with Fresh Catch, I haven't tried enough stuff to form a solid opinion of it. And I was impressed enough to want to go back and try other things. My only slight disappointment was the quality of the fish used in the poke. Hopefully I will be able to go back on Thursday for the ahi casserole, and maybe the fish in the poke will be a little fresher.

Their posted hours are 8:00 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., except for Sundays when they close at 5:00 p.m., and they are closed all day Wednesday. (I heard that they will instead be closed on Mondays instead of Wednesdays.)

Vicky Cristina Barcelona

2008-09-07T20:54:00.004-10:00

This afternoon I went to see Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Based on previous reactions, I'm guessing most of you have never heard of it. It's a Woody Allen film that I had seen in some movie trailers, and I think I may have also read about it in a magazine. It seemed interesting, so I selected it as my movie of the week, and it didn't disappoint.

In simplistic terms, this movie is probably best described as a romantic comedy. My take on it is that it's a movie about love, and how everyone has a different interpretation of what "love" is and what they're willing to do to find true love.

The story begins with Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson), two friends on their way to Barcelona for the summer. The movie is narrated, which some people may find annoying, but I thought it added to the movie's charm. The narration begins by explaining that Vicky and Cristina have very different views on love, Vicky being very practical and Cristina being more spontaneous and unsure of how she really feels. Vicky is engaged to someone who will provide her security, but is otherwise seemingly boring. They are staying with a relative of Vicky's, Judy (Patricia Clarkson) and her husband Mark (Kevin Dunn), who have what seems to be a perfect life in a beautiful home.

The adventure starts when Vicky and Cristina go to an art exhibit and Cristina is immediately enamoured with a man in a red shirt, who Judy explains is a painter who had a tumultuous relationship with his ex-wife. After the event at the art gallery, Vicky and Cristina are having dinner when they spot the painter, Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), and he approaches them. Basically, he propositions them. He says he is going to another city for the weekend and invites Vicky and Cristina to go with them. Vicky immediately rebuffs his advances and his invitation, while Cristina is intrigued. They end up accompanying Juan Antonio.

It is from this point on that the story takes some twists and turns. Suffice it to say that both Vicky and Cristina have different types of encounters with Juan Antonio. For a while, Cristina and Juan Antonio seem to have a pretty good thing going. Until Juan Antonio's ex-wife, Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz), shows up, then all hell breaks loose. Really, it's not an exaggeration. In my opinion, Penelope Cruz stole the show. She was feisty and hilarious, and her exchanges with Juan Antonio were priceless. Those scenes alone were worth going to see the movie.

I'm not sure the movie ended the way I wanted it to, although I really can't imagine any other ending. I think it ended the way it probably should have.

One thing I appreciated about this movie was that it made good use of all of the characters, and I felt satisfied that their stories were told to their fullest. I've seen some movies recently where I felt like some of the characters were underdeveloped, so it was nice to feel "complete" walking out of the theater.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona is a great way to spend a couple of hours if you want to laugh and have a good time. While this is probably on the "chick flick" side of the movie spectrum, I hope men aren't turned off. The humor should appeal to just about everyone, and the men will probably also enjoy the women in this movie. And again, Penelope Cruz is terrific in her role as the somewhat psychotic ex.

Coming up next weekend (if all goes as planned): Burn After Reading.

Facebook and Finding Long Lost Friends

2008-09-05T22:34:00.004-10:00

I think this blog template is a little too pink...I might have to change that after I post this.

Anyway, I was reminded today that I never followed up on my class reunion. It was held at the Koolau Golf Club about a month ago. I went with my gal pals, the ones I met in intermediate school and still hang out with til this day. I should note that one of these gal pals, who I'll call Elastagirl, is actually a year younger than me, but she hung out with us more than she did people in her class, so we invited her as our guest. We met The Stuff Guy (TSG) there and grabbed a table. The atmosphere was casual, which was nice. It was in a place called "Honeys," a place I presume is normally some kind of a restaurant. $25 got us heavy pupus, which was actually a pretty decent meal -- except there was no rice, which was odd considering that mac salad was one of the dishes. No host bar.

The drinks here were kind of pricey, which was probably a good thing since it helped to control how much I drank. I decided to limit myself to two drinks, in part because at some point I would have to drive from my friends house in Kailua to my house in town, and in part because I got plastered at my 10th reunion and had to have a friend drive me home.

Although I always enjoy seeing old friends and finding out what's going on in everyone's lives, this reunion wasn't as much fun as the 10th. I think part of it was that I wasn't involved in any of the planning, which is one of my "things." I'm pretty sure anyone who has known me fairly well at any point in my life, including now, will tell you that I was always involved in organizing or planning something. Nonetheless, it was still a somewhat eventful evening.

People seemed to hang out with their old high school cliques. I didn't socialize nearly as much as I did at the 10th, although I did speak to a couple of people that weren't part of my high school social circle. I was able to socialize with those I was most interested in catching up with, like our class president. At our 10th reunion, she had 3 children and said she and her husband wanted a total of 6...and they obtained their goal!

Ooh, and there were also door prizes, so that was cool. I won a $10 Starbucks gift card and a bag.

There were a few surprises in store for me. The first one was seeing a guy I had a love-hate relationship with in high school. I think the last time I saw him was probably about 18 years ago. He was literally the only person I knew in high school that I did not recognize at the reunion. I only knew it was him by looking at his name tag. So it was nice catching up with him in a civilized manner. The other surprise is one of the long-lost friends I got back in touch with earlier this year. He was supposed to return to the mainland before the reunion, but managed to stick around to attend.

It ended up being a fairly early night since we got kicked out of the place sometime around 10:30. Some people were going to head off to a bar in Kailua to continue the party, but my group chose to go home.

So what do I do when I go home? What I do practically every night...I log on to GMail and do other stuff on the computer. And who do I find also on GMail? TSG. Remember when people used to call each other on the phone? Although I had a number of people in the intermediate, high school, and early college days calling me, usually because they needed someone to talk to and I kind of became the Charlie Brown psychiatrist, I was never really much of a phone-talker. I always liked writing better, so GMail chat is great for me. Plus you can walk away if you need to and come back to the conversation when you're ready. Anyway, I'm getting side-tracked...my point is that TSG and I were chatting, and then I got Elastagirl to sign up for GMail since she and I were e-mailing each other back and forth at the same time. That way we could group chat.

Then Elastagirl sends me a link to the Facebook page she just signed up for. I look at it and immediately dismiss it as a Myspace-kinda-thing that I have no interest in doing. I'm telling TSG about it and commented that I can't even keep up with my own blog, why would I want to do Facebook? But I sign up mainly to look at Elastagirl's page. Then Facebook ends up "finding" people I know! Cool! So I add them as friends too. Now, one month later, I'm up to 45 friends and I spend time on it every day while I'm doing other stuff on the computer.

I've been questioned about "what's so great about Facebook." I have nothing else to compare it to, so I can't tell you whether it's "better" than MySpace, but I can tell you that Facebook can be used for many purposes and those on Facebook have a great deal of control over what they want to share on their pages and who they want to share it with. I've seen people use it primarily as a source of advertising for their business or cause, and some people who just use it for plain ol' fun, which is me.

It's also been a great tool to reconnect with people who seemingly dropped off the face of the earth. For example, I found a couple of high school classmates that I don't think I've seen or heard much of since high school, but I was curious about, especially after the reunion. I was actually amazed that they remembered me...or perhaps they're just not very discerning about who they add as "friends" on Facebook. =) I've also been able to reconnect with people who have moved and I haven't heard from in over 10 years.

Ironically, I don't necessarily chat or otherwise communicate with some of these people, but it's fun to look at their Facebook pages and see how their personalities are reflected through the content of the page. Some pages don't really have much on them, but others have all kinds of stuff like what their favorite tv shows, movies, and music are. I also really enjoy looking at the pictures people have on their pages. I try to find what I enjoy looking at on other people's pages and add those features to my own page.

Facebook has also helped me to develop relationships with people I know through work. There are people in my building who I have as Facebook friends that I have probably chatted with more on Facebook than I have in person! I also get to see a more personal side of these people than I would at work. It's nice to find something in common with people I work with, other than work.

I guess I really shouldn't be surprised that I ended up liking Facebook so much. Like I said, I was never much of a "talker" (believe it or not...I know some of my friends are laughing at that comment and saying, "yeah, right!"), and as soon as I learned about chat rooms, like Interact way back in the early 90s, as well as other discussion boards, I was in them. Facebook allows you to keep in touch with others as time allows and in the manner you're comfortable with.

So, if you're interested in keeping in touch with your current friends, or maybe finding some long lost friends, check out Facebook. But beware...you could become an addict like I have.

Longhi's

2008-09-04T09:56:00.011-10:00

Last Wednesday I had lunch at Longhi's with several of my coworkers. I had been there twice before, once for my birthday a REALLY long time ago shortly after it first opened, and about three years ago for a holiday dinner with a couple of friends. This was my first time having lunch there.If you've never been to Longhi's before, the first thing you should be warned about is that they don't have rice. At all. For me, it's not that big a deal. I'm not the type that needs to have rice with every meal. But if you are that type, you may have some issues with Longhi's. But get over it, because it's worth going there even if they don't have rice.

First of all, the atmosphere is somewhat casual. You don't need to be super-dressed up to eat here. At lunch, a number of people were wearing shorts. Some, like us, appeared to be taking a break from work. I like this because the food is upscale, but the atmosphere and service are down to earth. Also, you can't beat the view. It was a gorgeous day...

On to the food...two of us shared a half-portion Longhi Longhi salad, which is essentially a Caesar salad. The croutons on this salad were amazing! They appeared to have herbs in them and were freshly prepared. They also served us some very yummy bread, kind of like bread sticks -- one had a marinara-like sauce on it, the other jalapenos, and both were covered with cheese.

Making a decision on an entree was difficult because of the many tempting choices. Our waiter immediately tried to sell us on the fish, a house special. Although his description of the fish was tempting, the veal scallopini caught my eye since I rarely get to eat veal. There are four different preparations available: picatta, marsala, parmesan, and Mediterranean. I immediately had my heart set on the picatta. My other friend also had her eye on the picatta, but she was curious about the Mediterranean preparation. Our other two dining mates both wanted the fish. When our waiter described the fish, he said it was served over a piece of garlic toast. However, it was unclear whether the veal was served with pasta or some other kind of starch. We asked, and he explained that "they" (the powers that be -- he actually seemed quite apologetic and not really understanding of the logic behind this) believe the veal should be served alone, but that he could have some pasta served on the side. He said we could get any type of pasta that they had available, and that one side order should suffice for two people. My fellow veal-eater and I ordered a side of cappelini (angel hair) to share.

We all enjoyed our meals immensely. We each tasted each others dishes and everything was equally delicious. The fish was cooked to perfection, and the garlic toast, seemingly a strange partner for the fish, was quite good -- although it was clearly a heart attack-inducing piece of goodness. Both of the veal dishes were excellent. I loved the picatta, and I piled a mound of the pasta on my dish to absorb the sauce. My friend did the same with her Mediterranean veal. The Mediterranean had a bit of a kick to it, but it was quite tasty and not overpowering.

I feel that the portions served here are "right-sized." I really believe that too many restaurants serve portions that are way too huge, unless you plan to share one dish between two people. That creates a lot of waste, not to mention obesity, but that's a topic for another soap box. Anyway, for me the portion is just right.

Although the portion was "just right" and I was pretty full after the entree, dessert was irresistible. I think any restaurant who wants to sell desserts needs to use a dessert tray, rather than a menu. I can tell you that I am far more likely to order a dessert that's sitting in front of my face, than one that is only described through words on a menu. Longhi's goes one step further by letting you take the dessert that's on the tray, so there's no waiting. We ended up sharing three desserts: a carrot cake, a berry glace, and a banana creme pie. All were extremely yummy! The carrot cake was the largest carrot cake I've ever seen in my life. I selected the berry glace because I remember ordering it on my last visit and I enjoyed it a lot. The banana creme pie was full of banana flavor and was probably the favorite of the table. We must've eaten it very quickly because I didn't even get a chance to take a picture of it. We ended up taking most of the carrot cake back to the office to eat the next day. It was terrific, but we decided that was the one that would hold best for one more day.

All in all, an excellent meal. The service was pretty good, although we seemed to have lost the attention of our waiter toward the end of the meal. But when he was there, he was great. Our waiter was very good about bringing us things we asked for and providing descriptions of items we asked about. The next time you're in the mood to splurge on a nice leisurely lunch, consider Longhi's at Ala Moana.

Bottle Shock

2008-08-24T20:35:00.003-10:00

On Thursday I had my mind set on seeing Tropic Thunder this weekend, but then a coworker who knows me all too well said, "I'm surprised you're not going to see Bottle Shock." I had never heard of Bottle Shock before the Hamster mentioned it to me, so she told me that it was about wine. She knows I liked the movie Sideways, so she thought I would like Bottle Shock too. On Friday, I found a review of it in the Advertiser's TGIF section, and my interest was further piqued by seeing that Alan Rickman is the star of the movie. Somehow I developed a little crush on him after seeing him as Snape in the Harry Potter movies, so I find myself interested in other movies he's been in.

Anyway, on to the movie...I was even more pleased to see some of the names listed in the opening credits. For example, Bradley Whitford -- unless you've watched West Wing, or the short-lived Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, you probably don't know who he is, but suffice it to say that he's a good actor and I would love to see him in more substantial movie roles than he's had so far. I was also surprised to see Dennis Farina listed in the credits!

Apparently Bottle Shock is based on a true story of the up and coming wine of Napa Valley in the mid-1970s. Rickman portrays Steven Spurrier, a Brit who owns a shop in France that specializes in educating people about wine. However, this business doesn't seem very successful, as the only person who ever seems to be in the shop is Maurice (Farina), an American who seems to be trying to get as much free wine as he can get. However, it is Maurice that points out that Spurrier needs to change his marketing technique.

In the mean time, in Napa Valley, we see Bill Pullman's character, Jim Barrett, and his very unmotivated son Bo, struggling to run Chateau Montelena. Spurrier shows up in Napa looking to find some decent California wine. As we see with his exchange with Jim, Spurrier expects California wine to be mediocre at best. The dialogue between the two of them is hilarious and is probably the funniest part of the movie.

After Spurrier selects what he thinks is the best wine in California, he sets out to organize a tasting in France, where everyone thinks that if it isn't French, it isn't real wine. Spurrier wants to show people that there is more to the wine-tasting world than just French wine. Jim thinks the whole thing is rigged and that Spurrier just wants to make a fool out of him and everyone else in Napa, but Bo thinks that Spurrier should be given a chance, leading to some deeper issues where Bo gets to prove that he can be motivated.

The above is probably the strongest part of the story, and what happens during the Paris wine tasting is predictable, but still funny. What I felt was weak, and maybe even unnecessary, was the love story in the movie. There is an intern, Sam, who arrives, and while she kind of adds to the story, the love triangle between her, Bo, and Gustavo (played by Freddy Rodriguez, who has been on Ugly Betty -- he's the one I'm routing for in the Ugly Betty triangle, but I don't think things are going to go my way with that one), is weak. While the storyline about Gustavo is interesting, I don't think they developed it as well as they could have.

Some other underdeveloped and underused characters are Mr. Garcia (played by Miguel Sandoval who is the District Attorney on Medium) and Professor Saunders (Whitford). I was sad that Whitford only appeared for a brief minute or two. I felt that if they were going to do that, they might as well have just got a no-name actor to play that role! What a waste of good talent. At least Sandoval got a little more time and humor made his character stand out more.

Overall I really enjoyed this movie, especially knowing that it is based on fact. Since I went to Napa Valley last year, I have a better appreciation of it. Also, this movie touches upon accepting payment for wine tastings, something that is quite common now, but was almost unheard of in the mid-70s. That part is kind of funny too. While I wished some of the characters were better developed, and I felt like maybe they overedited the movie or something, I would still recommend it to anyone who wants to see something rather light-hearted and who has an appreciation for wine.

P.F. Changs

2008-08-23T21:32:00.010-10:00

A friend gave me a gift card to P.F. Changs a while back and Hedgehog and I never used it (although we greatly appreciate them, we are really horrible about using things like gift cards and always end up using them a really long time after they've been given to us!). I decided to ask a couple of friends, The Stuff Guy (TSG) and Vegas Girl, to join me in using the gift card in Hedgehog's absence. I decided on a week night since I thought the crowds might be kinda crazy on a weekend, so I made a reservation for Thursday at 7:15.

Parking is located behind the restaurant in the Hokua condo. There is a convenient entrance to the restaurant from the parking lot, though you still need to walk to the podium at the front of the restaurant to be seated.

We were seated immediately upon checking in and were given a table. There are a handful of booths, but most of the seating is table seating, and there is also an outdoor seating area. Diners can see into the kitchen, although there is glass separating the dining are from the kitchen, which probably keeps out excess noise. Upon being seated, a server showed up and immediately brought us 3 glasses of water while we decided on what we really wanted to drink. TSG ordered a beer that sounded very exotic and was supposed to have a hint of orange in it. I ordered a glass of Ste. Michelle Riesling, something fairly standard, but very good and always reliable.

Note that this is not my first experience at P.F. Changs, but the last time I ate there was in Vegas several years ago. I remember the decor and some of the food, including some kind of duck with buns and noodles that we had fun adding sauces to. The most memorable part was the Great Wall of Chocolate that we ordered to go. It literally was a wall of chocolate cake, and the to go box for this was a rotisserie chicken container! Back to the experience here in Honolulu...

The menu is pretty extensive, so it took a little while to navigate and narrow our choices down. We started out with five dishes in mind, but decided it was too much and narrowed it down to four, which was still a lot. These were our selections and what we thought of them:

Vegas Girl's only "must" was the lettuce wraps. The filling is made of chicken and the iceburg lettuce was very cool, crisp, and refreshing. The chicken was served on a bed of nice and crispy bean threads (I know, doesn't sound appetizing, but they're really yummy!). P.F. Chang's provides a plate of sauces and condiments which we experimented with when eating the wraps.

After the lettuce wrap, our remaining dishes came out all together, and rather quickly. We were actually quite amazed at how quickly the dishes arrived! However, the eating part took us a while since the portions were huge.

I was intrigued with the description of Tam's Noodles: "a unique gnocchi-like noodle stir-fried with sliced beef, shrimp, and chili peppers in a subtle abalone sauce." The gnocchi-like noodle sounded interesting to me. However, some of our group cannot eat shrimp, so we asked for it to be left out, which was absolutely not a problem. In fact, our waitress offered to substitute pork or chicken for the shrimp, so we chose the chicken. This was a terrific dish with a bit of heat. The "noodle" was nice and chewy. I would definitely order this again.

When we were looking over the menu, we decided we needed something with vegetables, and I suggested a salad. We pondered the Chicken Chopped Salad, but it sounded very ordinary and we ended up selecting the Warm Duck Spinach Salad. It turned out to be a good choice. Once again, the crispy bean threads served as a bed for the salad. The spinach was appropriately wilted, and the duck was really yummy (for a moment I thought I was eating kalua pig, but wrong animal!) There were some mandarin oranges, and my favorite part was the toasted almonds.

The fourth dish was mu shu pork, which I think was tied for a favorite of mine with Tam's Noodles. It's not something I would normally order in a Chinese restaurant, although I would describe P.F. Changs as Chinese fusion. Don't go here expecting something you would get at your neighborhood Chinese restaurant. Back to the mu shu pork -- the "pancakes" were kind of tortilla-like, and were wrapped for us table side by our server. She made about four of them, and left a dish with the remaining mixture (which was a lot!) and a little bowl of hoisin sauce.

I wasn't going to order dessert, but Vegas Girl mentioned that as we walked in, she noticed a tray with shot glasses on them that were filled with desserts. She asked our server about them, and they're kind of like little sampler desserts, and they're only $2.50 each. Vegas Girl ordered a S'mores and I ordered tiramisu. The size of these were perfect. I would include a picture, but unfortunately the desserts are out of focus, and nothing drives me crazier in a food review than blurry pictures!
With all this food, it's not surprising that we had leftovers. A LOT of leftovers! While the food came out really fast, it took us a long time to eat until we were full. We left the restaurant about 2 hours later. Our bill for all of the food and drink came out to about $70, not including tip. We probably could have done well on three dishes, but it was more fun and allowed for more variety by selecting four.

This probably isn't a place I would frequent, partly because of the prices, and partly because it is a chain. If I were going to select somewhere to have dinner, I would probably choose something more unique. But if you've never tried it and have wanted to, give it a try. Chances are you won't be disappointed. I thought the service was very good too, which always adds to the experience.

Charlie Barlett

2008-08-22T20:22:00.003-10:00

"So when you're near me, darlin' can't you hear me, SOS..."

Oh, *ahem*...excuse me...I'm still on my Mamma Mia! kick, which has been renewed upon the arrival of the Soundtrack that I ordered from Amazon this week. I'm playing it for the second time straight and have been singing along for the past two hours.

Anyhoo, so once again, I have way more things to share than I have time to write. I haven't downloaded my pictures yet, so I'm going to stick to a movie review which doesn't involve pictures.

As I mentioned a couple posts ago, I love Netflix. Even when they make boo-boos, they make things right. If you've been living under a rock, a couple weeks ago there was some kind of major glitch in the Netflix distribution system which resulted in a LOT of people not receiving their movies for days. I was one of those people. The first movie I received following this glitch which left me movie-less for about five days was Charlie Bartlett. I know what you're thinking..."I've never heard of it." I said the same thing. I read about it in a magazine, either Time or Entertainment Weekly. I read so much crap that I can't remember where I read things anymore. And sometimes I just make stuff up. But Charlie Bartlett is real, very real.

Whatever I read or made up made the movie sound like it was pretty good. Besides, Robert Downey, Jr. (RDJ) is in it, so how bad can it be? When I looked it up on Netflix, it was listed as a comedy, a plus in my book. So I took a chance. I didn't regret my decision.

I watched in on Wednesday night and kept it so I can watch it once more before I return it. That's how much I enjoyed it. RDJ is not the main character in the movie, that would be Anton Yelchin who plays Charlie Bartlett, a teenager. RDJ plays a school principal. I have to say that I was extremely impressed with Yelchin's performance in this movie. I can see great things coming from that young man and I think he's someone to keep an eye on.

So Charlie is a bit of a misfit. He's been expelled from a number of private schools and his main goal in life is to be popular. And he obviously comes from wealth. After getting expelled for the umpteeth time, he and his mother discuss their options and it seems that public school is it. So he goes in looking like the spoiled rich brat that he is and everyone hates him and the school bully immediately selects him as his favorite punching bag. But Charlie finds his niche.

Charlie gets prescribed ritalin and quickly figures out that it makes you high. So what do teenagers like to do? That's right, get high. Charlie ends up selling his ritalin to fellow students, but he also ends up being the school psychiatrist. He actually listens to the students, in addition to "prescribing" them drugs. This of course makes him popular.

However, his new career gets him into a bit of hot water with Principal Gardner, whose daughter also happens to be a student at the school. I don't need to tell you that means that she and Charlie have a thing for each other, further adding fuel to the fire for Principal Gardner. Charlie's popularity comes at a price.

While this movie was very funny, it was also quite touching because of the relationships Charlie ends up forming. He is the only person who listens to everyone, and he offers his advice and tries to help people solve their problems. Charlie also has some of his own personal psychological things to sort out, so there's a lot of irony in this movie as well.

I'll leave my review at that because I think the movie needs to be watched to truly be appreciated. While there are a few heavy moments, for the most part it is very funny and a well-made movie overall. If you're looking for something to put in your Netflix queue, give Charlie Barlett a chance.

Burgers on the Edge

2008-08-17T14:40:00.009-10:00

I have a number of things I'd like to share with you that I've been doing over the past couple of weeks, but the first thing I want to talk about is Burgers on the Edge. If you're not familiar with it, it's a relatively new burger joint that opened in what's referred to as "Safeway Center" on Kapahulu Avenue. I read about this place, which is owned by the owners of Formaggio, and a friend of mine recommended it highly. He forewarned me that ordering can be complicated because of the various choices, and he suggested I get the truffled fries. He also forewarned me that it's a little pricey.

This is kind of a quasi-counter service place, similar to the way Kakaako Kitchen is run. You place your order and pay at the counter, they take your name and give you a number, and they'll bring the food out to you. I like this kind of set up. I neglected to take a picture of the outside, but I ordered my food to go, so here's a picture of the bag:

The style of the bag is actually pretty reflective of the decor and ambiance you can expect from BOTE. It's kind of chic and modern, especially when you see the digital menu on the lcd tv screens as you walk in. There are a lot of stainless steel touches as well. There's limited seating in the building, but quite a number of tables can be found just outside, some lining Kapahulu Avenue, and some on a patio area between Kapahulu and the Safeway parking lot.

As a side note, I don't care for the parking fronting Safeway. It's always super crowded there, and I just feel it wasn't designed very well. However, I LOVE the rooftop parking. Everyone is so busy trying to get a prime spot downstairs that it's rarely crowded on the roof. And besides, the stalls are much bigger, and there's a nice view from the glass elevator.

Back to BOTE...because my friend warned me about the complicated menu, I did some advance research and found the website (see the link above) and studied the menu. There are 4 steps:
(1) Choose a burger: the "standard" is a 1/2 lb. ground chuck patty, which starts at $8.49, and this is what I got.
(2) Choose one cheese: there are ten to choose from. I selected the gruyere.
(3) Choose a sauce: there are 12 to choose from. These are fancy sauces. If you just want ketchup and mustard, they have that readily available at a condiment station. I chose the roasted garlic aioli.
(4) Choose up to four toppings: there are 16+ toppings! These range from veggies to fruit to more meat. You can even add an egg! I selected only three: apple wood smoked bacon, romaine hearts, and roasted red peppers. The cashier asked if I was sure I didn't want a fourth topping, but I was sure -- my mind was made up before I arrived.

So, let's put it all together in one place -- I had an on the edge burger with gruyere cheese, roasted garlic aioli, topped with apple wood smoked bacon, romaine hearts, and roasted red peppers. this turned out to be a great combination! The bread is kind of focaccia-like. Different for a burger, but good. It can be a little hard to eat since it's softer and more crumbly than a traditional hamburger bun, but I still liked it.

The burger itself may not have been the best I have ever eaten, but it really worked together with all of the ingredients. The burger was juicy and had a smoky, charred flavor to it, and it was cooked medium, which I was happy to see. One newspaper food reviewer really enjoyed BOTE, but said that on several occasions, the burger was overdone. One thing about BOTE is that they don't ask you how you want it prepared, so if you want it a certain way, be sure to tell them.

With regard to the toppings, the quality and taste of everything was very good, but I have to say that the bacon was particularly yummy! Gruyere makes a nice cheese for a burger too.

I also ordered the truffled fries for $4.89. A little steep for fries, but it was a HUGE order (two people could easily share), and they were mighty tasty! My only slight disappointment was that I hoped they would be fresher when I got them, especially since I had to wait about 10-15 minutes for my order. But they were still good, and tasted like garlic fries. The poor couple in the elevator with me were jealous!

So I spent a total of $14.01 for these two items, which is kind of a lot for one person (and I didn't even order a drink). But I would say that it is worth an occasional splurge. If someone else were with me, we could have easily split the fries and still had leftovers. You can get "plain" fries for $2.89. they even have sweet potato fries! Even though it was pretty pricey, for me, this was a lot of food, and I ended up only eating half the burger (after all, this burger is half a pound!) and less than half the fries. I took the rest to work the next day for lunch, and shared some of the fries with my coworkers. Fries aren't too bad if you heat them up in a toaster oven.

The combinations are endless. if you don't want to make choices, they have some pre-set burgers, although one of the workers commented that she'd rather build her own. They also have an "Off The Edge" burger made of Wagyu beef for $12.40. You can also get a chicken breast sandwich, portabella mushroom sandwich, or turkey burger. I'm already thinking about future orders: an Italian burger w/ mozzarella, Italian marinara, grilled onions, portabella mushroom, and sundried tomatoes. Or BBQ-style: pepper Jack, Smoked Hickory BBQ sauce, apple wood smoked bacon, grilled onions, and dill pickle chips. You could literally have a completely different tasting burger every time you go there just by making different combinations of toppings.

Besides the food being good, the service was good too, although you should prepare to wait at least 10 minutes for your food. They market themselves as "gourmet burgers at a fast food pace," but if I waited 10 minutes for fast food, I'd be pretty ticked and probably would leave. I would compare this to Kakaako Kitchen, gourmet food in a counter service setting. Slower than fast food, but quicker than fine dining. There are people standing at the door ready to help you understand how the menu works. They even have little slips of paper where you can check off the items you want and hand it to them, although I grabbed a couple as menus to share with friends.

I couldn't afford to do this regularly, especially if it's just me eating, but I would definitely go there with a friend and share an order of fries, or treat myself every pay day. I hope you'll find some time to treat yourself to a Burger on the Edge someday soon.

The Bucket List

2008-08-10T20:40:00.005-10:00

I'm a big fan of Netflix, primarily because I'm lazy. I think I've stepped foot in Blockbuster once since I joined Netflix a couple years ago. Another plus is that you can keep the DVD as long as you want. They just won't send you a new one until you return the one you have. I've returned things the next day, and I've return things a month later. No one cares (except at about $9 a month, I really should watch at least 2 discs to make it worthwhile).

Yesterday I watched the Bucket List. I wanted to see it when it came out in the theaters earlier this year, but I was too busy at the time. A coworker confirmed that it's a good movie, he got it from Netflix a few weeks ago. I thought it was a good movie as well, and I'm not really sure why it didn't do better at the box office. Though I suspect it's because it's like a chick flick, except with guys starring in it.

A brief synopsis: two men, Edward (Jack Nicholson) and Carter (Morgan Freeman), are strangers sharing a hospital room and both are diagnosed with terminal cancer. Carter is making a "bucket list" - what to do before he "kicks the bucket." However, he actually starts this list before he gets the news that his cancer is terminal. Edward, a billionaire, really takes to the idea of the bucket list and urges Carter to join him to fulfill everything on the list. Money is no object.

To the dismay of Carter's wife, the two men take off around the world to fulfill some of the things on the list together, even though the items on the list were conceived individually. So Carter ends up doing some crazy things that are Edwards ideas, and vice versa. That's what adds humor to the movie.

I expected the movie to be extremely funny, based on the previews. And the funny parts were pretty funny, but it was also a very touching movie about friendship and dealing with death. Of course, part of it is dealing with death and making sure you'll have no regrets when your time comes.

The unlikely friendship developed between Carter, a mechanic, and Edward, a billionaire who happens to own the hospital they're in, adds to the depth of the movie. I was also very pleased to see Sean Hayes in the movie. He played Jack McFarland ("just Jack") in Will and Grace. I loved his character in W&G. He was good in the Bucket List too, although they probably could have made better use of him comically.

I thought this was a very good, multi-faceted movie. I would definitely watch it again. The DVD has a special feature that talks about a bucket list book, where celebrities wrote their own bucket lists. Proceeds from the book will go toward cancer research. I have to go look that up on Amazon. After seeing the movie, I want to create my own bucket list. You should too.

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2

2008-08-09T13:42:00.005-10:00

I have always loved movies. They're kind of therapeutic for me. It's kind of an escape from reality for a little while, and I really appreciate the artfulness of movies, no matter how good or bad they are. There is usually SOMETHING interesting in a movie, whether it be the plot, the characters, the special effects, the acting, or the setting.

Since my significant other (who from here on shall be referred to as "Hedgehog") is living on the other side of the world until sometime mid-2009, I have tried to thinking of things I really enjoy that I want to focus my time on. Movies are one of them. I decided I would try to see one movie each week, and I've done that for about the past 4 weeks. This week I decided on Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2.

I watched the first Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants on DVD, probably a year and a half after it was released in theaters. I didn't have a desire to see it when it first came out, but then I discovered Ugly Betty and started to love almost all things America Ferrera. If you are also an America Ferrera fan, watch Real Women Have Curves. I ended up really enjoying the first Sisterhood movie. Again, not Oscar material, but I thought it was a really great story about friendship (although it is really bizarre that the same pair of jeans would fit four women with drastically different body types and heights).

When I heard Sisterhood 2 was being made, I knew I'd see it because I liked the first one and I also wanted to see America Ferrera since I still have to wait another month and a half to see her on some new Ugly Betty episodes, but I didn't really have high expectations of the movie. I mean, what else could they do? The pants had already been all over the world in the first movie, which took place after the four girls graduated from high school. Now it's three years later. What have the pants been doing since?

For those of you who are not familiar with the story of the first movie, the four friends decide to rotate the pants in one week intervals and send it off to the next person with a note about what happened to them while the were wearing the pants. This goes on the whole summer, with the friends sharing their life-changing experiences with each other as the pants go from one friend to another. The pants are supposed to bind them together, no matter where they are.

Sisterhood 2 is predictably the same, since the pants still travel from one friend to another. But this time, the experiences of the friends are different and more mature, although they do have their childish moments. I suppose part of the movie is the transition of the women into adulthood where they have to deal with more adult situations, and being able to confront their emotions head-on rather than letting them stew. Besides having their own personal struggles, the women struggle with each other, trying to find a way to maintain their friendships with each other on top of the stuff they're dealing with personally.

Besides the story of friendship and personal revelations, I just enjoy the scenery in the movie. There are scenes in Vermont, Yale, New York, Turkey, and Greece. (Well, I'm not really sure it was really Turkey, but that's where Bee, the tall blonde one, was supposed to be!)

I kind of doubt many guys will like this movie, unless you're extremely in touch with your sensitive side, or you think the main characters are attractive. The majority of the people in the theater were women, with a few husbands and boyfriends who were probably reluctantly dragged along. But if you're a woman, and you're in the mood for a chick flick, give this one a chance.

The Dark Knight

2008-08-03T20:01:00.004-10:00

Before I start with The Dark Knight, I have to say that I went to see Mamma Mia! again today, and I enjoyed it even more than I did the first time! It's just such a FUN movie. It's definitely something I will buy as soon as it comes out on DVD.

On to The Dark Knight. There was so much hype about this movie, I was almost afraid to see it. Sure, I was intrigued, and I thought Batman Begins was terrific. Heck, I even liked all the "other" Batman movies with everyone and their brother taking turns playing Batman. I've decided that almost anyone looks pretty darn good in that batsuit. But I've always been a sucker for Batman -- he's my favorite superhero, although Iron Man may rival him in my book. Especially if it's Robert Downey, Jr. playing him.

But, I digress...as I was saying, I was almost afraid to see it. I was looking forward to it for a really long time, and with Heath Ledger's passing the hype multiplied exponentially. THAT is what scared me. I started to think that the movie in no way would live up to expectations, especially with people talking about how it was Heath Ledger's best performance, that he was a genius, blah, blah, blah. I was beginning to convince myself that everyone was just saying that Heath was great in it. But you know what? They were right.

I subscribe to Entertainment Weekly magazine, mostly because it keeps me informed about movies, tv shows, music, and books that are out there. I read an article about Heath Ledger's performance in The Dark Knight, including how his look as the Joker was in-part created by him. He decided to see what it would look like if he just started smearing makeup all over his face. This gave him a darker, mad look than Jack Nicholson's precisely-painted look in the 1989 version of "Batman."

Heath's performance was a far cry from Brokeback Mountain, which is probably what makes him shine as an actor. I found myself "looking" for Heath Ledger in the Joker's face. But all I could see was the Joker. I really believed that he was pretty psycho. Some of the facial expressions and quirks were really amazing. The movie was worth seeing just for his performance alone. However, there was another actor who really impressed me in this movie, Aaron Eckhart, who played Harvey Dent, an Assistant District Attorney. I've seen him in other movies before like "No Reservations," but I really enjoyed his performance in The Dark Knight. I don't want to give away too much for those of you who haven't, but intend to, see it, but suffice it to say that something occurs in the movie that really allows him to stretch himself as an actor and makes him shine.

As far as the plot goes, it's pretty good. Maybe not stellar, and it's fairly typical of superhero movies, but I have to say that I was shocked at the turn of events in this movie. I am normally the type that is pretty good at guessing where things are going and anticipating surprises, but there are a couple of things that happened in this movie that really surprised me. I kept thinking, "no, that's not right, something's going to happen to turn this around." But it never did. So that element of surprise really added something for me.

The short synopsis is that Batman, played by Christian Bale who I think has the greatest looking Batman lips ever, is trying to stop the Joker from wreaking havoc on Gotham City. In the meantime, Batman is trying to figure out if he can trust the new assistant DA, Eckhart, who happens to be dating his former flame, Rachel Dawes (now played by Maggie Gyllenhaal -- Katie Holmes played this role in Batman Begins). So, predictably, there is also a love-triangle in this story as well.

And if you want to play a little game of Six Degrees of Separation: Maggie Gyllenhaal is the older sister of Jake Gyllenhaal, who was Heath Ledger's lover in Brokeback Mountain. Which, by the way, is a movie I didn't "get." Don't get me wrong, my views on same-sex relationships are very liberal, and I don't mind it being the topic of a movie, but whether it was two men, or a man and a woman, I still didn't get it, nor did I get what the big deal was about that movie. I was glad that "Crash" beat it and won the best picture award during the 2005 Oscars.

Once again, I'm getting sidetracked. Suffice it to say that this is a good movie and you should go see it. While I am more likely to watch Mamma Mia! over and over and over again, The Dark Knight definitely has a broader appeal and seeing Heath Ledger as the Joker is worth the price of admission alone.

Random Musings

2008-07-28T21:02:00.006-10:00

Yeah, yeah, I know I owe my loyal readers, I think I'm up to 8 or 9 of you now, a bunch of reviews on a bunch of stuff. You don't even know what I owe you, because I've been keeping a mental list, but I feel like because it's in my mind it's a done deal...I owe you. I owe you reviews on the movies Kung Fu Panda, Get Smart (although I fell asleep thru some of the best parts -- but don't hold that against the movie), and most recently, the Dark Knight. I also plan on a bunch of food reviews: a second review of J.J.'s French Pastry and breakfast and Diamond Head Market and Grill.

But for now I just feel like babbling. Maybe if I babble a bit, I'll get all of the excess energy out of my system and be able to focus on finishing the reviews I owe you. So what is it I want to babble about? Well, all kinds of things really, which is probably why my mind is so cluttered.

A while back, I mentioned that my reunion is coming up. This weekend, in fact. Part of the fun of a reunion is not just the reunion itself, but all the things that come along with it like planning, and the "are you going?" stuff, as well as catching up with people you haven't seen or talked to in a while. The funny thing is, there are some people who you can not talk to for 5 or 10 years, yet you can pick up as if you just spoke with them yesterday. And I find this applies to all kinds of friends, from the super close ones you were friends with for years, to the ones you may have had a sort of short-term friendship with. Applying a timeline or term-limit to a friendship is really a misnomer. Although I have had one or two friendships that have been terminated for one reason or another, I really consider the majority of my friendships to have a life term.

Why am I getting all "deep" about this stuff? I guess every so often I really think about how important friendship is to me, and my reunion has led me to "renew" some of my friendships, long-distance and short-distance. So today, one of my long-distance friends who is visiting from the mainland and one of my short-distance friends and I spent the day driving around the island, which reminded me of what we used to do 15 or so years ago. While we were driving around, we pieced together what's going on with who, and reminisced about what teachers said when we were in 7th grade, the teachers we had in high school, and how we used to get into trouble in trigonometry class.

I only communicate with my long-distance friend maybe once a year. This visit was unusual since I recently saw her in November. And my short-distance friend, until earlier this month, I probably haven't seen or communicated with for maybe 3 or 5 years. Does that really matter? Really? No, not at all. Life goes in cycles. We all have lives. I don't hold it against anyone, and I hope they don't hold it against me. Friendships should be based on quality, and not the quantity of time spent. People have different philosophies on this...some people feel it's good to know lots of people and to constantly be surrounded by them. I probably know more people than I think I do, but I don't care about that. It's my oldest friends that I consider my closest, regardless of the cumulative amount of time I've spent with or communicated with them. Even though I've developed some pretty close friendship in my adult life, even the closest of those friendships do not hold the same bond that my older friendships from intermediate and high school days do.

Anyway, I'm getting too deep. So deep that I'm starting to confuse myself and my brain is starting to hurt. So let's talk about something to relieve the pressure on my brain, and yours too, if you're still reading.

So my short-distance friend has introduced me to his own blog, which has links to his friend's blogs. My blog is linked on his site now (thanks!). Sometime soon I'm going to revise this blog and will add links to other blogs as well. Anyway, so his friends have some really cool blogs! And likewise, his friends blogs have links to their friends blogs, which are also cool! One of the fun ones I spent a bunch of time on last night was about bentos. This girl has an obsession with creating festive and colorful bento. Some of you have probably seen e-mails going around with cutesie pictures of bento, and I suspect a lot of those pictures came from her site. Some of the other sites have stuff about food, weight loss, pregnancy, photography, and travel. All cool stuff! What I think is really cool is that I find myself enjoying reading about these people I don't even know. Their blogs are exemplary of them and their interests, and they are very skilled in conveying their thoughts, emotions, and opinions through their blogs in an entertaining and compelling way. I can only hope that someday my blog will emulate what so many other blogs have to offer.

In addition to my class reunion, this weekend I'm also getting together with some girls I worked with a LOOONNNGGG time ago at Bank of America. To give you an idea how long ago this was, I left that job in January 1998 -- yep, 10 years ago. I've been really lucky that with all of my jobs, I've made some good, lasting friendships. The "bank girls" get together a couple times a year. Usually we have a holiday get together, and maybe one or two other outings. Out of this group, only one is still at the bank (now American Savings) -- this Sunday makes her 20th year anniversary with the bank! Amazing! And congratulations!

Ok, I think I have gotten the excess energy (and thoughts) out of my system for now. My short-distance friend refers to this as "brain dump," which is quite literally what it is. Thanks for hanging in there with me. And remember, I owe you...

Iron Man

2008-07-19T20:58:00.004-10:00

Ok, now that I've reviewed Mamma Mia!, I can go back to Iron Man, which I saw what seems like a really long time ago. Is it even still in theaters? Oh well. I liked it enough where I still remember some of the details.

I'm not much of a comic-book person, so I can't really tell you about Iron Man from that perspective. However, I can tell you that it was a great movie from many aspects: good story, good character development and interaction, and good casting. And it was just plain fun. And Robert Downey, Jr. is in it, so how can you go wrong? Who cares if he had a drug problem.

I have to say that the beginning of the movie is not what I expected, I guess because I'm not familiar with comics and Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.). But I don't think I'd be giving too much away by saying that the story begins with Tony Stark, the very rich head of a company that develops weapons, in the Middle East, confronted in a situation involving a weapon made by his company, Stark Industries. What happens to him because of this weapon is what leads him to become Iron Man. Iron Man's mission then becomes, ironically, to get rid of all such weapons, including the ones produced by his own company. This creates some problems with other people in the company.

I love that Terrence Howard is in this movie as Tony Stark's best friend, Col. James "Rhodey" Rhodes. His friendship with Tony is an interesting one, almost strange in its closeness, and he adds levity to the story. I also love that Gwyneth Paltrow is in this movie as Tony's assistant, Pepper Potts. I haven't seen her in a movie in a long time. And it took me quite a while to even realize it was her in this movie, with her red hair! Something about her demeanor in this film is much more alluring than I remember her being in other films.

I'll leave it at that since I don't want to say too much. Suffice it to say that there is something for everyone in this movie. You want action? You want romance? You want to see hot guys? Hot girls? A good storyline, especially for a super hero, comic book flick? You got it.

Oh, and one more thing. Stay until the VERY end of the credits. If you have to pee, go when the credits start rolling, but go back to the theater.

Mamma Mia! (The Movie)

2008-07-19T20:28:00.004-10:00

I know I'm super-behind on the movie reviews, but I have to do Mamma Mia! first because I just saw it today and I'm really excited about it.

This movie has gotten mixed reviews. I saw the play in Las Vegas a couple of years ago and LOVED it, and I knew the movie could possibly be a let-down, so I didn't want to get my hopes up too high about it. And while I like Meryl Streep, I thought this might be a stretch, even for her. However, I was not let down at all! I liked this movie a lot, and would gladly pay another $6.25 (matinee price) to go see it again. Heck, I'd even pay the $8, or whatever it is, to see it again at night!

My theory about the people who didn't care for this movie is that they went in with different expectations. This isn't the kind of movie you go to see because you think Meryl Streep is going to be nominated for an Oscar for her performance, nor is it a movie you go to see because you think Pierce Brosnan is going to be giving a James Bond-type performance. This is the kind of movie you go to see because:

You love ABBA music
You want to see Pierce Brosnan just because he's hot, even for an older guy
You want to see if Meryl Streep can really sing
You enjoyed the play and want to see if the movie is just as good
You just want to relax, forget about the real world, and have a good time

I went to the movie for all of the above reasons, except maybe for #2 and #3. Well, partly because of #3. And well, yeah, I guess Pierce Brosnan looks pretty good too, for an old guy, but I'm kind of partial to George Clooney. In any case, if you go to see it just because you want to have a good time and don't really give a rip if the acting or singing is worthy of an Oscar or a Grammy, chances are you'll have a good time.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the storyline, the basic premise is that Sophie (Amanda Seyfried), the 20-ish lead character is getting married, and her mother, Donna (Meryl Streep) has never told her who her father was. It turns out that mom was a bit promiscuous in her youth, and there are 3 possible fathers: Bill (Stellan Skarsgard), Samuel (Pierce Brosnan), and Harry (Colin Firth). Sophie wants her father to walk her down the aisle, but because she doesn't know which of the three is her father, she invites all three of them to her wedding, unbeknownst to her mother. You can probably guess that this is where the chaos begins.

On top of all of this, Donna has a couple of wacky friends, Tanya (Christine Baranski) and Rosie (Julie Walters). For those of you who don't know who Julie Walters is, she plays Mrs. Weasley in the Harry Potter movies -- I couldn't even tell she was the same person in this movie! And she was really a show-stealer.

The story is set in Greece, where it was primarily filmed, so the scenery in the movie is beautiful. I felt that Meryl Streep was quite impressive as this is a very different role for her, and her singing was actually quite good! Pierce Brosnan's singing on the other hand, was not so great. Something about his tone was a little grating. However, he played his character brilliantly, and I felt that I saw a side of him (a goofball side) that I haven't seen from him before. Although his singing wasn't the greatest, I would still rather hear his real voice than a dubbed one.

I won't give away any more of the story, because the premise already tells you that 3 possible fathers who don't know that they may be Sophie's father, a mother that doesn't know that these men are invited to the wedding, and 2 crazy friends, plus all of the other characters, is a recipe for a rollercoaster-ride of a story. And it's all based on music by ABBA! I find it amazing that they can make the songs tell the story and express the emotions so well. My only slight disappointment with the film is that I felt that the songs should have been longer. I'm not sure if it was overedited, but I think some of these actors could've really gotten into singing some of these songs and it might've made for a better movie than it already is (in my opinion).

So if you want to see a movie just for a good time, where you can forget about things for a while, and not leave the theater wanting to kill yourself, then go see this movie. Disclaimer regarding killing yourself...if you hate ABBA music, then this movie may want to make you kill yourself, and you probably shouldn't see it. Otherwise, you should be fine.

The Kite Runner

2008-07-06T17:52:00.004-10:00

I'm going to do my first ever blog book review. While I don't read as much as I did during my college years, judging from discussions with friends, I'd say I probably read more than the average adult does. In my younger years, I read a LOT of novels, mostly romances and some adventure-type books. Now I read a lot of personal development and travel books, but not as much fiction, other than the Harry Potter books, which I can read over, and over, and over...

At the urging of someone who reads a lot of fiction, I read The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini. I had heard of it before because there is a movie by the same name, which I have in my Netflix que. Many of the comments from the reviews on the cover and inside of the book use the word "powerful" to describe the book, and powerful it is.

It is the tale of two boys and their trials and tribulations in modern Afghanistan. The story begins in the mid '70s and spans about 3 decades. The writing style is interesting. At times I had to pause and think and go back a few pages partly because the time periods skipped a few times throughout, and a couple of times the narration changed. For the most part, the story is told from the point of few of the main character, Amir, one of the two boys whose lives are intertwined in so many ways.

This probably isn't the book to read if you're looking for something uplifting. While there are points that are uplifting, it's usually part of the aftermath of a particularly disturbing occurrence. I couldn't help but wonder if the author wrote this based on some of his personal experiences in Afghanistan, as there are some similarities between his life and that of Amir.

The other boy is Hassan, who is the son of the servant to Amir's family. However, while Hassan and his father are servants and there is a distinct line between their family and Amir and his father, who is very wealthy, they are strangely connected and have chosen to disregard their ethnic differences, which would normally be unacceptable in their society. The story begins by weaving the lives of Hassan and Amir together, how they enjoy their time together and are portrayed almost like best friends, yet there is still a barrier between them that allows Amir to be superior to Hassan. But Hassan's loyalty to Amir never fades. It is Hassan's loyalty to Amir that seemingly results in a tragic incident that changes their lives forever, and that is where the bulk of the story lies. And let me tell you, it is haunting, especially because what happens in this book is probably based on things that have actually occurred in Afghanistan. The possibility that this is real is what makes it haunting.

However, despite the haunting and powerful nature of this book, it is also fascinating. Despite the fact that I am a history major, I really suck and remembering the details of history. Most of my studies focused on Asia and the Pacific, and a little bit of European history. But I probably know the least about the Middle East, and particularly the modern history of that region, which we should probably all make ourselves more aware of given the state of our nation and our current interaction with that region (don't worry, I'm not going to get into a discussion about the war!).

I also found this book interesting because it kind of ties in to a movie I recently watched, Charlie Wilson's War. I won't review that movie here, but perhaps I'll get to that one day. Suffice it to say that I enjoyed that movie a lot, partly because it stars Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts, two of my favorite actors, but also because it's an interesting and little known story based on factual occurrences and the real Charlie Wilson, a Senator from Texas who makes it his mission to do something about the Russian occupation of Afghanistan in the '80s. This is a topic I knew absolutely nothing about. Charlie Wilson's War and the Kite Runner both discussed it from different perspectives, yet not so different.

I don't want to give away too much about The Kite Runner in the event you decide you want to read it, but it is a very interesting, well-told, haunting story. You will learn about Afghanistan while reading about the experiences of Amir and Hassan. I'm a sap and shed some tears reading this story, but I won't be giving away much by saying that there are a lot of sad and tragic things that happen. While it's not the most uplifting story, it is worth reading.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

2008-07-02T21:40:00.004-10:00

To be honest, I can't remember when I saw this movie. I think it was sometime in the middle of May. Did I like it? Yes, I liked it well enough, but I think I liked the first movie (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe) better. You could probably see Prince Caspian without having seen the first movie, but the first movie lends perspective.

Prince Caspian takes place several hundred years after the first movie, but with the same kids who've only aged the few years between the movies. I was sad to see that the beavers weren't in the movie. I'm not sure why they weren't in the movie when some other characters miraculously lived another few hundred years. Anyhoo, the kids are on a quest to first find Prince Caspian, heir to the throne of Narnia, and to overthrow the evil ruler. In addition to their endeavor to restore power to the rightful heir, there is also some debate and a sort-of search for Aslan (the lion).

I enjoyed the cinematography and some of the locale of the movie. There were also a number of moments that keep you on the edge of your seat, and a great battle scene. It was a good movie, clean and good for older kids, but it may be too violent for younger kids. It was worth seeing in the theater once, but if you didn't get the chance, I don't think you would be missing much if you only get to see it on DVD. Of the four movies I've seen so far this summer, I would rank this as my least favorite. Not because this is a bad or boring movie, it's just that the other movies, especially Iron Man and Kung Fu Panda, were more entertaining and are the movies I'd be likely to go back to the theater to see again, if I had the time.

Prelude to Movie Reviews

2008-07-02T21:31:00.004-10:00

Okay, so one of my nine loyal readers reminded me what a slacker I am and that I owe you a few movie reviews. Way back when, I mentioned two movies. I think I'm up to four now:
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
Iron Man
Kung Fu Panda
Get Smart

I have to forewarn you that I suck at remembering details. And cold, dark places, like movie theaters, make me fall asleep. I was just telling a friend, one who I'll be traveling to Disney World with, about all the good napping places in the parks such as the Tiki Room, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Great Movie Ride, Spaceship Earth, and the Universe of Energy. You know why they're good napping places? You guessed it...because they're cold and dark.

And you know why I'm writing this post that simply lists the movie reviews I owe you? Because I'm a slacker. And I'm gonna forget. You'll be lucky if I get anything right on the Prince Caspian review, so I would definitely check with at least two other sources before following my advice on any of these movies.

Okay, okay, I'll stop babbling now and start posting those reviews.

Cafe Kaila

2008-06-30T21:04:00.007-10:00

Since I had the day off, I thought I'd treat myself to breakfast. I'd heard from a coworker about Cafe Kaila, in Market City Shopping Center, so I decided to give it a shot. It looks like it's only open for breakfast and lunch, but the only time I go to Market City is for dinner. From what I gather, it looks like Cafe Kaila's been open a little over a year.

I walked in at about 8:30 a.m., and there was only one other table occupied by a couple. At first I thought, "oh no, this place isn't going to last long!" How can a place stay open from breakfast through lunch with only one occupied table?? This thought was fleeting. By the time I had finished my meal, the place was pretty full. Granted, it's not a huge place, but I was impressed with the number of people who came in after me, as well as the number of people who came in to order coffee or take out.

My first impression as I walked in was that it's a very comfortable, friendly, and clean environment. Everything looked like it was in place, and it had a very inviting feeling about it. Nice and pleasant, but not too stuffy. As I walked in, there was a sign that said to grab a menu and find a table, which I did. Someone immediately came to greet me and left me a glass of water. I perused the breakfast menu. There was also a lunch menu, which I glanced at briefly, but I mostly focused on what I wanted to eat in the immediate future. The bulk of the breakfast menu looked like it consisted of pancakes and egg dishes. I decided that an omelet sounded good. There was a place in Downtown, Hanalei's Bread and Breakfast, that had the most awesome omelets, and I'd never found one as good. (We heard that Hanalei's had moved near Aala Park, but I'm not sure if it's still there.)

There were a number of omelets on the menu, but there was a "create your own" offering a choice of 2 veggies, 1 meat, and 1 cheese, which was perfect for my taste in omelets. My favorite omelet ingredients are spinach, mushrooms, and bacon, with cheese of course. There were quite a number of cheeses to choose from, and I selected the Monterey Jack. And they use THREE eggs in their omelets! There was a choice of rice or potatoes, and I decided on the potatoes, a choice commended by the waiter. He commented that the potatoes are red potatoes with rosemary, which sounded delicious, and unexpected for breakfast! I also had a choice of toast, and I selected the wheat. I also had a cup of coffee, which came in a clear glass cup.

This meal did not disappoint. While I loved the Hanalei omelets, they were "greasy spoon" omelets laden with butter and fat. Not that I'm complaining about the Hanalei omelets, because they were darned good! But the Cafe Kaila omelet was the omelet of royalty. Like the atmosphere of the restaurant, the food was pretty, clean, and fresh. The eggs were nice and fluffy, and all of the ingredients were very fresh. Fresh spinach, fresh mushrooms, fresh (and very crisp and tasty!) bacon. The cheese was excellent as well. The omelet was a nice size, and its contents were nicely balanced. The ingredients complemented each other, everything with its own individual taste, yet nothing overpowering another. The potatoes were also very good and tasty. Some pieces may have been a tad undercooked, but nothing to complain about. The toast was made from "good" bread, not the small cheapy type of bread.

In addition to the food being good, I found the service to be very good as well. There appeared to be a team of three people there, each having their own duties, but all helping each other out without the "that's not my job" attitude that is often found in restaurants. Another thing I noticed was that some of the people who came in after me appeared to be regulars, based on the greeting received by the waiter and their immediate knowledge of the menu. What I appreciated is while the waiter acknowledged them as returnees, I felt that he was just as pleasant to me as he was to the regulars. Why do I mention this? I've been to a few places with a regular following where I felt the waithelp were almost snobby to non-regulars like myself, and super-nice to the regulars. I can understand being a little extra-friendly with regulars (and we've been known to receive such treatment), but servers should at least have a baseline level of friendliness with non-regulars. *Stepping off the soapbox now* So, what I'm trying to say is that Cafe Kaila succeeded in making the regulars feel special, as well as making a newcomer like myself feel welcome and willing to return.

So, if you're ever looking for someplace to have a nice breakfast, try Cafe Kaila in Market City Shopping Center. Someday I'll try lunch there and will share my review with you.

2008 Travels and Other Musings

2008-06-22T02:16:00.004-10:00

So guess where I'm going this year? I'm going to DISNEY WORLD! Woo hoo! I am very fortunate to have the opportunity to travel for work seminars, and this year I am attending a conference in Tampa in October. How could I go to Tampa and not take the 1 1/2 hour trip to Orlando to visit Mickey and friends??? I am also fortunate that I actually LIKE my coworkers...after all, we spend more time with each other then our loved ones at times! So the coworkers attending the conference will also be going to Disney World, some for the first time.

The unfortunate side of things is that this may be my one and only trip for the year. My significant other is being activated by the reserves and will be heading to training and then on to the Persian Gulf for a year. Yeah, it sucks. But there's nothing we can do about it, so I'm trying to maintain a positive outlook by thinking of all of the projects I have no excuses for not completing, including getting myself on a regular exercise routine, organizing all of my junks, and finally completing scrapbooks from nine years ago!

I don't mind traveling alone, and actually enjoy it sometimes since it allows me to do things at my own pace without having to consult anyone or field complaints about the choices I've made. I have contemplated going on other trips, such as going to Vegas to help with the Super Run car show, but airfares are so expensive! Try $700 - $800, for ONE person! I've also contemplated a trip to Sedona, Arizona, or Maine, which I totally fell in love with in 2003 (again, a conference trip). I want to use miles that I've earned before the airline industry totally goes down the toilet. But even if the flight is free, I would still have to pay for hotels, a rental car, food, and shopping. I decided that maybe I'll forego the additional travel this year and just focus on Disney World. After all, I only make it there every 3-4 years, so I might as well splurge! I know, I know, some of you are saying, "ONLY every 3 or 4 years? I haven't even been there once!!!" But when you are a Disney addict like me, you suffer from withdrawals. And I haven't even been to Disneyland, California, in about 3 years!

So what am I going to do in Disney World? Well, part of it depends on my coworkers. Since I have already been there, my list of "must dos" is relatively short. And I'll have a couple of days on my own, so I can use those days to do things that they might not be interested in or may not be a priority to them. For instance, the spa. In 2002, I went to Disney World with another coworker, and we booked facials at the Grand Floridian Spa. Boy, was it wonderful! I'm thinking of booking a massage or some kind of treatment there again. And I'm also considering booking Afternoon Tea at the Grand Floridan, perhaps after my spa treatment. So many things to do!

Anyway, I will keep you posted as my Disney World plans firm up. All I know for now is that I'm booked for 8 nights at the Pop Century Resort, a "value" Disney resort. I also know that the EPCOT Food & Wine Festival will be going on at that time and that I will definitely be partaking in some of the food and wine offerings!

Nordstrom's Marketplace Cafe

2008-06-22T01:33:00.004-10:00

My new favorite place to eat is the Marketplace Cafe in Nordstrom at Ala Moana. I heard and read a lot about it when it first opened, but Catherine Toth's review of it in her "Daily Dish" blog is what really pushed me to go there. Read Cat's review here.

I first went there about a month ago, and upon entering, it was a little overwhelming. There was a sign saying to grab a tray, which we did, then we just stood there in awe. Fortunately, the staff is prepared to handle people standing there with their mouths open and suffering from temporary paralysis. She explained that we could look around, then order through the staff.

There are several different sections or stations. The first is primarily sandwiches and soups, and some entrees. I ordered a cup of tomato basil soup, per Cat's review, from this station. The next station consisted of pizza, pasta, and salads. Again, per Cat's review, I ordered the bleu cheese and pear salad, while my dining partner ordered the mushroom and pepperoni pizza. Then, a golden ray of light led us to spot some of the freshest fish we'd ever seen sitting on the counter behind the salads. We noticed that one of the dishes displayed with the salads was poke. We HAD to order it. The last station was a dessert counter. The desserts looked awesome, but we were too preoccupied with the other food and skipped it. Finally, we approached the cashier who will also provide glasses for drinks.

Let me step back a moment...one of the great things about the Nordstrom Cafe is they use REAL food displays, so you'll see almost exactly what you'll be getting. The other thing you should know is that they'll make what they can for you as soon as you order it, like soups and salads (including the poke). For other items that require more preparation time, they will provide you with a "ticket," which will be rung up at the register. The third thing is that the standard beverages are actually pretty cheap here! At about $1.95, it's cheaper than most other places we frequent, including Chili's. And yes, refills are included.

After you pay, you head into the dining room and find a seat. I've been there four times so far, and we've never had a problem finding a seat right away. You can eat outside too, but at Ala Moana, that doesn't appeal to me. I just picture myself choking on the bus exhaust fumes while trying to enjoy my dinner. If all goes well, a server should show up shortly after you seat yourself, and they will take the ticket from you and place the order for anything that you weren't immediately given.

As for the food, everything I've tried has been awesome! I am totally in love with the tomato basil soup and the artery-clogging crostini that comes with it! The blue cheese and pear salad also proved very worthy, as did the pepperoni and mushroom pizza (which is a pretty nice size for a one-person meal). But the poke...I heard angels sing as I bit into the poke and the unusual chips that came with it. The poke is tossed with a shoyu-based sauce and spread on a bed of an Asian slaw that is also tossed in a light dressing. But the best part of this dish is the won ton chips served with it. These are no ordinary won ton chips. They have furikake and who knows what other addictive substance sprinkled all over them. We figured out that this dish was probably meant to be eaten together by putting a little bit of the slaw and the poke on the chip. Heavenly!

It's been hard for me to stray from the above dishes, which I've eaten more than once. I have also tried the mushroom ravioli, which was excellent, and a special French dip sandwich served with seasoned fries. The French dip was good, but our service experience on that visit slightly marred the taste for me. Without going into all of the gory details, there were three of us and our food came out at drastically different times, leaving me waiting a good 20 minutes or so for my sandwich. By the time it came, my two friends had just about finished their food. However, I must say that our waiter handled the situation well and even offered me a soup while I waited.

This restaurant is a cross between cafeteria-style and table-service. It's nice that the servers refill your drinks for you (or they should) and come and check on you periodically to see if you need anything. On our first visit, we weren't sure how to handle the tipping. Surprisingly, a number of people left without leaving a tip! We don't leave as much as we would at a table-service restaurant, but we do leave something since they do bring out food, provide refills, bring you take-out containers if you need them, and periodically check to see how you're doing. On my last two visits, we noticed that they started leaving bill trays, except that since the food is already paid for, the trays have a card with the servers name and chocolate mints (which are REALLY good -- do not leave those behind!), presumably to encourage tips.

While some people think it's ridiculous to pay $10 for a sandwich, this is not your everyday sandwich place. And overall, the prices are very reasonable, with most items being in the $10-$12 range and having fairly generous portions. We have eaten meals here for less than some meals at Chili's. And even Zippy's prices are creeping up there. Besides, the quality of food here is excellent. Dishes are prepared to order, and for the most part, they are quite efficient and it's speedier than eating at a table-service restaurant. We feel the food and service are worth it, and it is definitely someplace I will frequent. Give it a try!

Cafe Imperial (or Kaffe Imperial??)

2008-05-28T21:25:00.005-10:00

I have quite a bit of catching up to do with my reviews. I have two restaurants and two movies to share with you. I'm going to begin from the oldest to newest.

Last week, I was once again in the mood to try something "new." I'd been wanting to go to Cafe Imperial on Kapiolani. We tried going there once before on a holiday, but they were closed. This time they were open. Here's an Ono Kine Grindz review: click here. Cafe Imperial is known for their katsu.

The restaurant is located in a tall building at 725 Kapiolani Blvd., which is diagonally across from the Lexus dealership. You can enter the parking garage from Kawaihao Street, and you'll need to take a ticket and get it validated. The restaurant is fairly small, but was not very crowded when we arrived for dinner. I would imagine it would be crowded during lunch since it's an office building. There appeared to be just one waitress who couldn't decide where to seat us, or maybe she expected us to choose our own table. She ended up leading us to a table that was a bit awkward with a big pillar next to it and a fairly large party sitting right behind us. Normally I wouldn't think much of this, except that there was only one other occupied table, and there were other options available. Oh well, not a huge deal.

Upon receiving the menu, there are many appealing options ranging from a variety of different katsu, to udon and other noodle-brothy things. A great majority of the items were under $10, and I don't think anything was over $15. There were also some side dishes that sounded good. I decided to try their tonkatsu, which is what they're known for. At $8.95, this was a bargain. My dining partner had a combination katsu, which was somewhere around $12.95. I love trying gyoza from different places, and I decided to order it since it was on the menu. 8 pieces seemed like a good deal.

While we were waiting for our entrees, we were served some soybeans and miso soup. The miso soup was rather boring and unflavorful, but not horrible. Just there. Then the gyoza showed up. Sure, there were 8 pieces, but just looking at it I could tell it was not going to be nearly as stellar as the gyoza I love at Gomaichi. Not even halfway stellar. The gyoza looked rather soggy and was not fried crispy on one side as most gyoza are. I picked one up and noticed that the skin was torn on quite a few of them. I dipped it in the sauce and took a bite. The sauce was quite good (but they didn't give enough for 8 pieces), but the gyoza was pretty lukewarm and no where near the quality of gyoza I've had at Gomaichi, Hokkaido, or just about anywhere. Pretty disappointing, especially for a place specializing in Japanese food. After telling a friend my experience, she suggested that perhaps the gyoza were frozen. I think she was right. And they were just boiled, not steamed and fried on one side like most are. In other words, don't get the gyoza. You won't really need any other appetizers anyway.

When our entrees arrived, my spirits lifted after seeing the huge portion and all the stuff on the plate. The plates came with rice, a couple types of tsukemono (pickled vegetables), a Japanese-style potato salad, two slices of cucumber, and a wad of shredded cabbage. Yes, you heard me, a wad. There was a pretty generous portion of tonkatsu, nice and hot, and just the right thickness. The combination included chicken, pork, shrimp, and scallop, all cooked katsu-style. There was a lot of chicken and pork, but the shrimp and scallop were pretty scarce -- I can't remember which was which, but there was only one piece of one and two pieces of the other. My partner said the scallop was very moist, but the shrimp was just okay. You can put as much sauce as you want on your katsu since the sauce is a condiment on each table. I started off with just a bit, but ended up using a lot. The sauce was a Japanese-style sauce that you could probably get at Marukai or Don Quijote, but it was still good. Especially because I don't eat tonkatsu all that often. The entrees made up for the weird seating, the bland miso soup, and the junk gyoza.

We ended up having a lot of leftovers, so I asked for a box. I should have specified what size box I wanted. She just gave me a small box, and I couldn't fit everything I wanted to in the box. I should have asked for a larger box or a second smaller box, but at that point, I didn't really care, as long as I could take the yummy leftover katsu home.

While it wasn't a perfect dining experience, it was still a good one. The slight service imperfections can be overlooked -- the waitress, while maybe not the sharpest tool in the shed, was still nice and obviously a hard worker and provided the service that we needed. I could do without the starters and appetizers, but the entree totally made up for any shortcomings of the gyoza (which I would not order again) and miso soup (which was included with the meal anyway).

Yet another food review...Kalapawai Cafe

2008-05-10T22:25:00.003-10:00

I decided I should write a review as soon as I can after I have eaten at a restaurant rather than waiting two weeks. So tonight, a friend and I tried Kalapawai Cafe in Kailua. Those of you from or familiar with Kailua might be thinking, "Kalapawai, isn't that the store by the beach?" Kalapawai Cafe is associated with the Kalapawai Market, but it's not the little shop you go to to pick up a soda on the way to the beach. Oh no, this is a very different experience.

I had my eye on the Cafe for quite a while now, but since we are creatures of habit and always go to Fat Boys, Amina Pizzeria, or Round Table Pizza, we didn't have an opportunity to try it. Then recently, I read a review by Wanda Adams in the Honolulu Advertiser. She gave it four out of five forks, which is a pretty high mark coming from her.

This is an interesting place. It's kind of like a deli, where you can go to the counter and order items to heat-and-eat at home, or you can order a sandwich, salad, or pizza. They also serve breakfast. From 5 p.m., it turns into a table service restaurant. We arrived at about 6 p.m. tonight (a Saturday), and while a number of tables were taken, there was no problem getting seated right away. We were immediately provided with water, although we had to wait just a bit for our server to arrive.

We were tempted to order an appetizer, but decided against it since we both wanted a starter. I was going to order a side of fries, until our server informed me that the entree I was thinking of getting already came with fries (the menu items seemed to list only the main part of the entree, not the side dishes, so you should ask about what comes with the dish). Our server was pretty good, but I felt things could have been done a little better. For example, I don't think we were ever asked if we wanted anything other than water to drink, which led me to forget to ask for a flight of wine which I asked for after placing my food order.

A wine flight consists of 3-2 oz. pours of wines you select from a specific list. I chose a rose, a semillon (which I had never heard of before -- it was a delicious white wine), and a pinot noir. The pinot listed on the menu was not available, so they substituted another pinot, which was fine. However, my server never told me what it was replaced with. I didn't really care, but it would've been nice if the information was volunteered.

For starters, my friend ordered the Maui Onion Soup, which my friend greatly enjoyed. I started with a side Caesar salad, which turned out to be quite a big portion for a side order! It was slightly different from a traditional Caesar, with a lighter dressing, and chopped sun-dried tomatoes. Our server's second mistake was not offering me any fresh ground pepper, which I later saw was available when I spotted another server carrying the pepper mill to another table. However, I have to say that what I enjoyed at this place, which possibly led to the forgetting of offering fresh ground pepper, is the team server approach. Other servers brought our food and took plates away, so we were not completely dependent on our server alone. I actually prefer this kind of team work to the "you take care of your own station" type of place.

Anyway, off my soap box about service...for our entrees, my friend ordered a parmesan-crusted stuffed chicken breast (I think it was stuffed with spinach and riccotta) which was served with vegetables and what looked like homemade pasta. she gave me a piece of the chicken and it was excellent, and both visually and edibly moist. I ordered the steak frites with peppercorn sauce, served with shoestring fries. The cut of steak was a bit different, I think maybe a flank steak. My only minor complaint about this entree was that I ordered the steak medium rare, but it was done a little more toward medium -- in hindsight, I suspect this may have been intentional given the cut of the meat.

We looked at the dessert menu and while there were some tempting options, nothing really grabbed us, so we ended our meal there. I could not finish my meal, so they boxed it up for me. Our check came out to about $59 plus tip. While our server could have done things a little better, overall the service was pretty good and I would definitely recommend it to others. I also want to go back for lunch and try their sandwiches, which are only available during the day. There are a number of other items that looked good in the deli counter and that I saw others eating (brushcetta and pizza come to mind).

So the next time you're in Kailua looking for some grub, go and check out Kalapawai Cafe!

J.J. French Pastry

2008-05-10T15:10:00.004-10:00

While I always have these grand plans to try new restaurants, we inevitably find ourselves eating at the same places over and over again because we like the food and the service so much. One of those places is Gomaichi. Gomaichi's one downfall is they have a tendency to close on random nights without notice, which is what happened to us a couple weeks ago. So after driving by and seeing the lights off I say, "why don't we try something new?" Sure, that's easy enough to say, but it's not always easy to actually THINK and FIND that something new to try. I suggested we try J.J. French Pastry on Waialae. By the way, when I say something "new," I don't really mean new as in it just opened, but more like "different," as in some place we've never tried before even though it's been open for years.

So we drive around looking for street parking, which we later found out was unnecessary because J.J.'s shares a parking lot with other businesses behind the building in which it's located. We entered through a door to find a very contemporary cafe-like setting, and the desserts in a bakery-like case immediately catch my eye. J.J.'s is known for their chocolate pyramid dessert. It happened that we new one of the waitresses, another bonus. She asked us which side of the restaurant we wanted to sit in...the cooler side or the warmer side. The cooler side was the side we entered through, with the contemporary decor. J.J.'s recently acquired the next unit, which is the warmer side with a Parisian theme, complete with an Eiffel Tower. Well, an Eiffel Tower painted on the wall. We settled on the warm side.

I love to watch other people receive their food because it helps me decide what I might want to order, and I also love to see the expressions on their faces to see the delight the food brings them (or the sense of disappointment or the "what the heck is this?" look, but more often than not, it's a look of joy and appreciation). One thing I noticed is the eclectic, mismatched but not cups and saucers. And EVERYONE gets dessert. You can't go here and not order dessert, I don't care what diet you're on.

Ordering was tough here. There are a lot of different things on the menu, and they make it easier, yet harder, by having fixed price (prix fixe) menus. There are pizzas, salads, pasta, sandwiches, and other entrees on the menu. My dining partner got the 4-course menu which came with asparagus soup, a salad/appetizer (it looked like a salad with a summer roll-like thing), an entree, dessert, and drink. He ordered the Lao Pot Pie for his entree. I had a 3-course meal with a salad, entree, dessert, and drink. I ordered the Fisherman's Pot Pie for the entree.

The salad had a nice, light, ginger sesame dressing. The pot pie's were not the traditional pot pies, but with puff pastry which was fresh, light, and crispy. The Lao Pot Pie was made with a tomato-like sauce, and the Fisherman's Pot Pie contained a light, white sauce that had a hint of coconut milk in it. Both dishes were "just-right" portions and consisted of just the right amount of protein and vegetables. Besides, we already had soups and salads and dessert was still on its way.

Ooh, the desserts...when you're done with your meal, you get up to look at the dessert display and choose what you want. The chocolate pyramids cost a dollar more if you order one of the fixed price menus. We settled on a lilikoi mousse cake and a chocolate orange mousse cake. They put the desserts on nicely dressed plates with a mini-serving of creme brulee -- yummm!! Our friend was nice enough to give us little mini-pyramids which were also VERY good! Our complete dinners totaled just under $38, plus tip. Not a bad deal at all! We left satisfied and happy. The next time I'm trying the hen, which seems to be a dish they are known for.

If you go there, I would suggest one of the fixed menus. And big eaters may want to order an appetizer in addition to an entree, which as I said, for me, are "just-right" portions. The pizzas are a bit small and are really meant to just be an appetizer, or something to be combined with a soup or salad (we saw a growing young man next to us eat the pizza and asking for a menu so he could order something else -- he decided on a pasta). Also, the food here has a Laotian spin on things, so people who like very traditional tasting food might want to ask questions (especially about the sauces) to find something that suits their taste.

All in all this was a great find and a great "new" experience!

J.J. French Pastry
3447 Waialae Avenue
Honolulu, HI 96816
(808) 739-0993

Tango Contemporary Cafe

2008-04-13T13:47:00.003-10:00

Thought I'd squeeze in a quick restaurant review since I've been slacking on updating my blog once again!

Yesterday, a friend and I went on a free Downtown Honolulu architectural tour, which I will write about sometime soon. After the tour ended, we were in search of food. After much discussion, we unanimously decided to try Tango Contemporary Cafe, which neither of us have tried before, but we both heard good things about.

Tango Cafe is located next to P.F. Chang's, right down the street from Ward Centre. We tried parking in the parking lot behind the Cafe (which is actually part of a condo whose name escapes me). We pull up to the thingy where you push the button to get a ticket. I push the button. Nothing happens. I push the button again. Still nothing. My friend leans over and says, "it's out of tickets!" Sure enough, the digital screen is saying the machine thingy is out of tickets. "Their loss," I say. We end up parking at Ward Centre and walking. We already walked 20 miles on the architectural tour, what's another mile? (Slight exaggeration, but not much!)

Considering it was after 2:00 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon, it was quite crowded, but there were seats available. It took them a couple of minutes to seat us, but we had time to look over the menus posted in little stands near the entrance. Prices were quite reasonable for lunch, ranging about $6 - $14. Many items were $10 or less. We were provided menus and water promptly, and a server came to ask us if we wanted anything else to drink a minute or two later. My friend and I both ordered Italian sodas, mango for her, passion fruit for me. Cream was provided on the side. These cost about $2.75 and were okay. I think my friend liked hers more than I liked mine. Next time, I'm going to try an iced tea.

We both started with the sweet caramelized onion soup ($5.50). This was not exactly like a traditional French onion soup, but it was very yummy, and probably a lot healthier than French onion soup since there wasn't a layer of cheese on top of it. The onions and broth were very tasty, and it was topped with a slice of French bread which was topped with just a little bit of cheese (parmesan I think). This was a nice start to the meal.

We both struggled in deciding what to order and were craning our necks looking at what other people were eating. The couple next to us had a portabello "burger," which was basically a portabello mushroom sandwich and did not involve any hamburger, and a ham, salami, and brie on naan bread sandwich, which both my friend and I considered. I finally decided on a classic burger ($8.25) and my friend ordered the herb butter sirloin steak ($13.50).

We were both pleased with our selections. My burger was served on a really yummy, soft, bun that looked healthy (it had seeds and stuff on the top), but it tasted really good! Mayo was on the bun, and there were onions, lettuce, and tomatoes on the burger. The hamburger itself was very tasty and tasted very homemade. I was offered fries or greens, and I chose the fries. They were thick, but not quite as thick as steak fries, and were nicely salted. I was given mustard and ketchup on the side. There was also a small side of what seemed like a carrot/raisin slaw. I'm not a fan of raisins, but I did eat the carrots which were good. They probably would have been good on the burger.

My friend's steak looked REALLY good, and it impressed our neighbors (with the portabello sandwich and naan bread). At first, they placed the plate in front of my friend which only had fries and something else I can't remember at the moment. As a side note, although I had my camera on me, it completely slipped my mind to take pictures during lunch! Anyhow, another server followed with a cedar plan with the steak on it, already sliced, with the herb butter on top. It looked and tasted yummy! The menu says it's a 6 oz piece, but it seemed bigger, especially since my friend ordered it well done and it must've shrunk quite a bit. Because our neighbors were in awe of the steak, I took the opportunity to ask her (the one with the naan bread) how her sandwich was, and she said she enjoyed it. In the meantime, the guy with the portabello sandwich asked one of the servers where he'd seen him before. Turns out a bunch of the servers previously worked at On Jin's, which has since closed. I got the impression that the portabello mushroom dude was a frequent diner at On Jin's and may now choose Tango Cafe as his new frequent dining spot.

While we were eating our meals, we discussed whether or not we would order dessert because the menu looked so good. Then, our neighbors on the other side received their desserts: one had crepes, the other bread pudding. We were sold. I cut my burger eating short so I'd have room for dessert. My friend ordered the crepes. The waitress thought we would be sharing...how silly. I ordered the lemon creme brulee and a cup of coffee, which they make fresh.

The crepes, I think 3 of them, were served with a warm berry compote and a scoop of vanilla ice creme. The lemon verbana creme brulee was served with berries on the side as well. The coffee arrived with a slight foam on the top, and although it was a bit strong for my taste, it was very good coffee, and it's strength was toned down by my liberal sprinkling of splenda and splashes of cream.

We ended up spending about $50 for all of this, but it was worth it. The food and service were both very good. I probably will just stick to an entree and an iced tea the next time, but this was a splurge since it was our first time and we were also very hungry after our urban hike. I am also anxious to try dinner there, which is slightly more expensive.

A couple of observations: I was ogling some other things that other guests were eating that looked really good, like the salmon salad and trio of sandwiches (the trio can change daily). Our neighbor's bread pudding looked excellent too. They seemed to try to make things slightly healthy here, but in a balanced way -- nothing looked like it would taste like cardboard. I noticed that they use a light hand with ingredients like cheese, and they have healthy options like salads and greens instead of fries. And the sandwich buns have grains in them, but I can tell you that mine was nice and soft and looked like white bread, except it was sprinkled with some oats and nuts on the top.

They also serve breakfast, which I hope to try someday. Give this place a try, and tell your friends about it. But not too many friends. We don't want TOO many people to find out about it and crowd the rest of us out!

More Anchorage Eats...

2008-03-02T21:42:00.006-10:00

I decided to focus this post on the food we ate in Anchorage. Why? Because, now that it's five months after I've completed my trip, the first thing I remember when I think of Anchorage is the food! I was pleasantly surprised with the food in Alaska because I really wasn't expecting much, especially after reading people's reviews on travel websites. What were those people thinking??? What did they eat? Just about everything I ate was wonderful, including the hotel food!

During our stay in Anchorage, most of our breakfasts and lunches were provided as part of our conference. The hotel food was quite good. At least twice, we had full breakfasts with cheesy eggs, and what we suspect was reindeer sausage. The lunches were pretty good, although they got to be pretty standard after a while since there wasn't as much variety as I've experienced at other conferences. There were a lot of wraps and sandwiches, including boxed lunches for us to take with us one day when we took a bus to go on a "photo safari."

Our second night in Anchorage, we went to the Glacier Brewhouse, which turned out to be quite a find. It was very close to our hotel, and it had everything to offer -- a great atmosphere, great food, and alcohol! I could not go to Alaska and not have Alaskan king crab. I also had a salad to start (I think it was the blue cheese salad). I'm not sure if the crab was any different than the crab we can get here at Costco or Sam's Club, but somehow it just tasted better eating it IN Alaska! The Glacier Brewhouse is known for their prime rib, but by the time we got there, they had run out (I think we waited about 45 minutes before we got a table, that's how popular it is!).

On day three, breakfast and lunch were once again at the hotel. For dinner, we made an attempt to go to Humpy's, a place I learned about on one of Rachael Ray's shows (I think it was Tasty Travels). However, it turned out to be another popular place! I was slightly disappointed to learn that this was actually more of a bar than a restaurant, so it was one of those places where you had to kind of wander around and see if you can find a seat. We were unsuccessful, so we attempted to go back to Sack's Cafe, where we had lunch on our first day. The dinner menu looked a little pricey, but we were game, so we walked in. But they were all booked too! So, we went back to the Snow Goose. Third time's a charm.

When we walked in, we noticed something going on in a private room off to the side. It looked like some kind of ballroom dancing class! It was really cute watching older couples dancing. Anyhoo, back to the food...they had some interesting things on this menu, so I decided to try something I would not likely find elsewhere. I ordered a caribou burger with fries. I enjoyed the burger, although I'm not sure it tasted significantly different from a traditional hamburger, which I suppose is a good thing! One of my colleagues said she thought the caribou burger affected her somehow because she had really strange dreams that night!

I will end my post here. I think that takes us half way through my stay at Anchorage, although I will definitely have separate posts on some of the places we visited in or near Anchorage including Hatcher Pass, the Native Alaska Heritage Center, and the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center.

More on Anchorage...

2008-02-24T22:26:00.007-10:00

I'm back with more on Alaska. The last post only covered half of the first day, so we'll see how much I can cover in this post!

Downtown Anchorage is a great walking town. We did not have a car, and really didn't need one, at least not while we were attending a conference there. Our first afternoon, we spent a bit of time just walking around, checking things out. We came across a scenic lookout, Resurrection Bay. The water itself was not much to look at, and looked more like mud flats. But looking out into the distance was a very unique experience for us, seeing snow-capped mountains. Since it was fall, we also saw autumn leaves, something we never see in Hawaii.

As I mentioned in a previous post, there are number of tourist traps in Anchorage, and I think we walked into just about all of them. For any future Anchorage travelers, before you buy anything, look in all of the shops first. You will probably find that the exact same item can be priced very differently in a number of shops!

We found a number of restaurants within easy walking distance of our hotel. I think I am going to steal an idea from another blogger and list the restaurants here now, so you can look at them whenever you'd like (since you know it's probably going to take me another six months before I finally complete posting about my entire Alaska trip!):

Anchorage:
Sack's Cafe
Snow Goose Restaurant
Glacier Brewhouse
Crow's Nest (we only had a night cap here)
Fletcher's
Snow City Cafe

Seward:
Christo's Palace
Chinook's
Apollo

Alyeska:
The Pond Cafe (served in the Aurora Lounge)
Double Musky Inn

And here are the hotels we stayed in:
Hotel Captain Cook, Anchorage
Holiday Inn, Seward
Hotel Alyeska, Alyeska

We ended up eating at a couple of the restaurants more than once, partly because we couldn't get into some of the restaurants we wanted to try because they were crowded, and partly because we just really enjoyed the food and atmosphere. Snow Goose was one of the places we ate at twice. On our first visit, I tried the crab stuffed halibut. My point of view is that almost anything stuffed with crab has to be good! Alaska is known for halibut, and it's also known for crab, so I couldn't go wrong. It was served with asparagus, and probably some kind of starch that I can't remember at the moment. In any case, it was good enough that we didn't mind going back again later during our trip.

That's it for now...gotta get to bed since I have to go to work tomorrow to be able to earn enough to pay for all of my adventures! But hey, at least I'm starting to make a dent on posting about the trip I took 4 1/2 months ago!

Tokoname

2008-02-23T22:38:00.008-10:00

Tonight we tried something new, Tokoname in Kailua. It's a Japanese restaurant that's been open for about a month. The owners are two brothers who are friends of a friend. They're nice guys, and they're doing a really terrific job with this venture.

Tokoname's menu offers quite an assortment of items, including sushi. Something is sure to please any palette. I was quite torn between the rib eye steak, which I heard comes on a sizzling platter, the shrimp tempura, or the tonkatsu. Items can be ordered ala carte or as a teishoku (a set, or complete meal, that comes with a tossed green salad, rice, miso soup, and tsukemono - Japanese pickles). When we walked in, we saw some friends who were also trying Tokoname for the first time. They ordered the shrimp tempura, teriyaki steak, and the dynamite sushi roll. As we were chatting with them, we heard distinct sizzling sound -- apparently a rib eye steak being served. My mind was made up.

I decided on the rib eye. Sadly, by the time it arrived at our table, it was no longer sizzling, but it didn't matter. It was just as tasty even without the sizzle! And I didn't have to worry about anything getting splattered on my blouse, the one downside of a sizzling platter. Before the rib eye arrived, we were served the miso soup. It was just the right size and flavored well, containing tiny cubes of tofu and pieces of konbu (seaweed).

We didn't wait too long before the rest of the meal arrived. My rib eye arrived first, and it was a HUGE piece! It had to have been at least 12 ounces, and it filled up the entire sizzling platter. It was cooked just to my liking, medium rare, and already sliced in just-right-sized pieces. I was already in heaven looking at the steak, then tasting the first piece, and then I discovered that the steak rested on a bed of grilled onions and mushrooms! They were cooked just right. There was a hint of ginger on the steak, and it was seasoned just right to give it a little flavor, without overwhelming the taste of the beef, which seemed to be very good quality and was extremely easy to chew. The 3 pieces on the end were mostly fat, but that is to be expected with a rib eye.

We didn't wait long before the unagi and the rest of our teishokus arrived. My dining partner enjoyed his unagi, which was a generous portion. I commented that it looked different from unagi he's ordered at other restaurants.

The other items that come with the teishoku are quite yummy, and meticulously presented. The green salad is actually a pretty generous portion, garnished with 3 tomato halves and served with just the right amount of a very delicious homemade dressing. And no, they won't share the recipe! There were also two types of tsukemono, and a dish with 3 thin slices of avocado (probably the only thing that could have been improved - the avocado was still a little hard for my taste), sliced cucumber, with a scoop of a crab salad (imagine the stuffing of a California roll) and topped with what I think was nori strips. It was a great combination of ingredients, and the crab salad had a little bit of kick to it. There was also a small bit of dressing on the plate. Of course, a teishoku is not complete without a bowl of rice. Something about this rice seemed a little different, in a good way. I'm guessing it was not your typical Hinode Calrose rice, but probably a higher quality rice, maybe the same type they use for their sushi.

And speaking of sushi, I couldn't resist ordering the dynamite roll, which received rave reviews by a Yelper and the friend we ran into there. I have to admit I ordered it on blind faith, and really didn't know what was in it. Even when it arrived and I tasted a piece, I still was not sure what it was. It was like a California roll topped with some kind of fish, and two kinds of sauces. But I couldn't tell what the fish was. I asked the waitress after we finished eating, and she said it was baked maguro (it was hot when it arrived). The sushi rice was very flavorful and nicely seasoned -- none of that plain unseasoned rice stuff at Tokoname! And considering how new they are, it seems like they've developed a little bit of a following already, and a number of people were ordering sushi. There were three people sitting at the sushi bar when we arrived, and they were still there when we left! I heard a lot of people ordering the spider roll, which is made with soft shell crab. I also caught a glimpse of the spicy tuna maki, which looked very good.

The service was very good, and they managed quite well with only two waitresses, and one of the owners helping to serve as well. The service is very comfortable...professional, yet informal, and very polite and friendly. I also enjoyed the atmosphere. It's a smaller place, I would guess seating 40-50 people, the furniture is nice, and they improved the interior, giving it Asian accents such as lantern lights. It also stands out from the street, making it noticeable to people driving by, which is important in a location like this one which is slightly off the main path, yet it is close to a few other table service restaurants in Kailua. (For those of you familiar with Kailua, it's next to Jack in the Box, on the same street as Assaggio's.)

The prices are very fair, and the meals are a good value, particularly considering the quality. The rib eye teishoku is one of the most expensive items on the menu, along with the sashimi, at $20.95. The Unagi teishoku is $18.95. Shrimp tempura teishoku is $16.95 (and it's HUGE!!! I'm ordering that the next time), and the lowest priced teishoku is the vegetable tempura at $12.95. Most of these items are available ala carte as well. The Dynamite roll is $8.95. I will try to take a picture of the menu and update this post later. They do not have a liquor license, at least not yet, but you can BYOB. And their beverages are almost a steal, at least as far as restaurants go, at $1.50 (canned drinks served over ice). Their lunch menu is very affordable, with items ranging $7.95 to $9.95, and I've heard they also have bentos available. And as if that weren't enough, they're open for breakfast too! I don't know what that menu is like though. When I find out, I'll let you know.

Oh, and if you know anyone looking for a job, please call them! Jeff and Brian are the owners. They need help in all areas! Yet, even though they're working with a skeleton crew, they do a great job, and I didn't feel that we waited very long for anything. And the quality of the food was excellent. If you're looking for something new, try Tokoname. We felt it was worth it to drive to Kailua from town just for dinner there!

Tokoname
442 Uluniu Street
Kailua, HI 96734
(808)262-TOKO (8656)

We THINK the hours are something like this, but please call to double check (they also may be closed for private functions on occasion):
Breakfast: 6 a.m. - 9:30 a.m.
Lunch: 10:30 a.m. - 2 p.m.
Dinner: 5 - 9 p.m.

Anchorage, Alaska

2008-02-10T21:06:00.002-10:00

I've realized that I can't procrastinate any longer. It's time for me to face the music and at least start telling my readers about my Alaska trip, especially since I think my readership may have increased to about five people.

As a recap, I went to Anchorage in late September for a work-related conference. My overall assessment of Anchorage is that I probably wouldn't spend a lot of time there if I was going on a pleasure trip, but it was a great place for a conference. The conference seminars were during the day, and at night, it didn't get dark until about 8 p.m., leaving us lots of time to walk around to shop, explore, and find a place to have dinner. I also thought that the food in Anchorage was actually quite good! When I was researching, it seemed like a lot of people said not to expect much from the food, but I respectfully disagree with those opinions.

Let's start with where we stayed -- the conference was held at the Hotel Captain Cook, which was a very nice hotel. Judging from the other hotels we saw, I would say that the Hotel Captain Cook is arguably the nicest hotel in Anchorage. We arrived at the hotel pretty early and had no problem checking in. The hotel has three towers, and we were placed in the tallest one. I was lucky enough to get a room on a higher floor. At first, the view didn't seem like much, probably because it was pretty overcast much of the time. However, when the skies cleared up, it was quite beautiful! I could see snow-capped mountains from my window.

After we got settled in, we went in search of food. We went to one of the places I found out about in my research, Sacks Cafe. This was a great restaurant! The decor was very nice, and the food was good and pretty affordable for lunch. I started with a cup of tomato gorgonzola soup, and had a reindeer sausage sandwich w/ fries as my main dish. Yep, you heard me, reindeer sausage!!! It was quite good! Not gamey, and very tasty. We soon found out that we would not be able to run away from reindeer sausage! The fries were served with roasted red pepper ketchup, which was excellent!

We spent the afternoon walking around getting acquainted with Anchorage. We found a number of tourist-trap shops, as well as some scenic areas and another good restaurant for dinner. I will save those for another post. Stay tuned for more on Anchorage!

Kailua High, Class of 1988

2008-02-03T21:16:00.001-10:00

Boy, am I starting to feel OLD! Most people who know me probably have no idea how old I really am, because for the most part, I still act like a 20-something. I am actually quite in denial about my age too, and honestly don't think about it much. So why am I thinking about it now? The primary reason is that this year marks 20 years since I have graduated from high school...TWENTY years! I still remember many events like they happened yesterday! All the high school dances, checking out guys from other schools (especially Pearl City), extracurricular activities like the Interact Club, and just how much FUN I was having. When I was in high school, the Safeway in Kailua on Hamakua Drive had just opened, as did the Kailua Zippy's. Prior to Zippy's opening in Kailua, we would drive to Kaneohe, or sometimes even Waiau (mostly because all the cute guys seemed to live in Pearl City), just to eat!

I also feel old at times when I find out how old some of the people are that work with me. Last year we had an 18 year old working in my office, and he didn't believe me when I told him that I was twice his age! I guess that's a good thing, but just the fact that I could be twice the age of anyone who's not still in high school kinda freaks me out!

So now I'm thinking about my 20 year class reunion. It's amazing how technology has made things so much easier. Ten years ago, I can't remember how, but our class president somehow managed to get in touch with a bunch of us to help plan the reunion. Now, since I haven't seen or talked to the class president since the last reunion, and I didn't have her contact info on me, I just googled her! Boom, her e-mail address pops up, and I can just e-mail her. Plus, I find a website, classreport.org, where a bunch of my classmates have already signed up to keep updated.

Some people dread reunions or just don't go because high school wasn't all that special to them. After hearing other people's high school experiences, I feel that I am actually quite lucky. High school was actually a great experience for me, and I realized that it really helped shape the person I am today. I am also grateful for my intermediate and high school experiences because it was what led me to meeting the people who are my closest friends today. While I have met other people after graduation that I am friends with, I know that my oldest friends are the ones that I really feel a special closeness with, even if we only talk to each other once or twice a year. I have classmates where I can not talk to them for years, but when I do talk to them, it's like time never passed at all.

Another reason I am looking forward to my class reunion is seeing the people I never really knew in high school. You know, the ones where you know who they are, but don't think they know who you are? At my last reunion, I was amazed that people in different cliques really did know who I was, and it was interesting to hear people's perceptions of me (most of them thought I was a bookworm -- although I was in advanced placement classes, I was also a slacker!). My 10th year reunion was a chance to get to know people that I didn't really know while we were in school, and also a chance to see how people changed over the years.

Anyway, I'm sure I have bored most of you to death, and promise that my use of this blog to share my innermost feelings will be quite limited. This post was partly a way to procrastinate the continuance of my Alaska trip report, which most of you have probably given up on! Thanks for hanging in there.

Formaggio Grill Kailua

2008-01-06T21:07:00.002-10:00

Today we made our weekly trek to Kailua and planned on stopping at Fatboys for lunch. As we drove by, the parking lot in the front was totally packed, which is very unusual, so we parked in the back. Fatboys was packed to the max, and we noticed that after what seems like years, Formaggio Grill (just a couple doors away) had finally opened! So we decided to give Formaggio a shot.

The atmosphere was nice and airy, with wide open windows and high ceilings. The decor was nice, but not too stuffy, and their wine display was pretty neat. Several dozen wines are "on tap," and there is a pretty large glass-enclosed wine "cellar" behind the bar. I'd estimate that the restaurant can seat about 75-80 people, including at the bar.

We were promptly greeted with a friendly smile and were seated immediately. We were informed that we could choose from either the brunch or lunch menus, both of which were quite extensive. Most items were priced from $10-$16, with some of the soups and salads offered between $6-$10. The brunch items ranged from omelets, to mahi with eggs, to six types of benedicts (including duck!), as well as savory crepes. The lunch items were also quite varied, ranging from large salads, to paninis and pizzas, and pasta. They also had ribs on the lunch menu, and I believe there was a notice that said steaks could also be ordered at lunch.

As we perused the menu, our waitress came by and took our drink order, two iced teas. The tea, while not overly fancy, was several notches above Lipton. We decided on a steak fajita pizza and the crab, spinach, mushroom, and artichoke crepe. After we ordered, we waited, and waited, and waited. I kind of wished I had asked to keep a menu to look at because there were some funny things on it, like a top 10 list of why it took 1 1/2 years to open. I also wondered what the dinner menu was like.

The waitress came by and offered to freshen up our teas and apologized for the wait. I asked when they opened and she said Friday. The wait didn't bother me excessively, because I know that all restaurants have some timing issues and growing pains the first few weeks. And I would much rather have someone at least acknowledge that there is a problem than to just ignore me until the food comes out, which has happened to me at a very well established restaurant.

The crepes came out first. There were two crepes stuffed with spinach, mushrooms, artichokes, and fresh crab meat, and topped with a lobster sauce. There were some roasted potatoes on the side. At first I thought the portion was a bit small, but I later decided that it was actually just the right size, and most other restaurants really do serve way too much food. Another plate followed, with 4 thin slices of toasted sourdough, served with a side of lilikoi butter and (I think) orange marmalade. The combination of the butter and marmalade on the bread was excellent! The crepes were very good as well, and I liked that the lobster sauce, while very creamy, was not overly rich.

It took a while, maybe another 5 minutes, before the pizza came out. Both the waitress and the manager apologized for the wait. The pizza was a flatbread-type pizza with a little bit of sauce and cheese, topped with some really tender steak and grilled red and green peppers. Again, it looked somewhat small, but is probably the portion size that people SHOULD be eating. My dining partner, while slightly disgruntled at the long wait, said the food tasted very good.

Our waitress was quite friendly and we had a nice chat. She talked openly about some of the timing issues they were having, and I think appreciated that we didn't snap at her about it as some other patrons must have. As I said earlier, I tried to be patient, as I figured I am taking my chances by going to a restaurant that has only been open to the public for three days. The food was good and all of the wait help seemed very friendly and worked as a team, which is another plus. Aside from the timing glitches, this was probably an above-average dining experience, and the waitresses' choice to talk openly about the wait almost made up for it.

Obviously, this is pricier than Fatboys and probably not something I would do for lunch every weekend, but I would definitely return and recommend it to others.

Formaggio Grill
305 Hahani Street
Kailua, HI 96734
(808) 263-2633