Hawaii Trip 3-dot #1

This and perhaps the next several entries are being posted from Hawaii, where I’m on vacation. As naturally I’d prefer to spend my time on the beach or somewhere similar, these are more a collection of notes rather than anything I’m actually taking any time to write. Read accordingly.

Made it with no major hitches. ANA ticket but flight here was United codeshare, their plane, their crew. Service was decent enough. Kaika was fine, didn’t quite understand what was happening to his ears on landing, but made it through. Lollipops help in this situation, according to ever-wise mother Naoko….File away in the “did I just hear that?” column: United pilot: “Our culinary chefs have provided you tonight with your choice of a beef or chicken entree. I know that it will be hard for you to choose which one to get, but I can assure you both are equally delicious.” On second thought, maybe he was taking the piss?….Couldn’t sleep a lick on the plane, tried to be a good boy and read my Japanese book and study the flash cards, mildly successful. But then looked at the flicks, caught the endings for 3, felt like I had seen the whole movie. Kind of like that idea that you can just watch the last 2 minutes of an NBA game. Anyway, sleep patterns have been all messed up, only 3 hours last night, spent 3am to 6am cycling endlessly through 77 channels on the tube.

We’re were worried my Japanese drivers license would be a problem, that an International one would be required, despite online indications that in Hawaii the Japan one is enough. A call before departure to Alamo produced a stoned-on-pakalolo sounding rep claiming the international one was needed. Alamo japan said “zettai iranai”. Well, the rep was stoned because it wasn’t needed, the Japanese one sufficed just fine. (Let’s see how it goes if I’m stopped by the cops for speeding or something.)….Despite the lazy rep, score a big plus point for Alamo in the “how bad is US customer service sweepstakes: even after I politely declined the $10/day SUV upgrade offer, the extremely pleasant Sheila at the Alamo Honolulu Airport counter gave us the SUV, on the house! And this on top of the fact that I went Priceline on this rental so we’re only paying $16/day for it (not including the insurance). And this is a brand new SUV, only 780 miles on the damn thing. I think it was a combo of Kaika’s big eyes and the fact that they considered me still “kamaaina.” Thanks Shiela, we owe you some serious omiyage (she has a dream to visit Japan)….I feel a bit guilty about the SUV considering that I’m ethically opposed to the beasts, but hell, I’m on vacation, I’ll leave my ethical reservations at home on this one.

We’re staying in a condo apartment owned by some friends of my mother, and getting a sweet sweet deal on it. Some folks up Washington state way, retired military I think. Lots of “war” related books, and a photo card from Bush/Cheney saying “thanks” and an American flag hanging to boot. What did I say about my ethical reservations? They also got us parking, a big plus in Waikiki. 2/3 blocks from the beach. 1 bedroom, nice large kitchen, cable tv, VCR. I can more than put up with the shag carpet and Weyland posters and Americana kitsch for this one.

Naoko must be up to here with my “that’s where I once carved my name in the tree” commentary as we drive around. Since we were here a year and a half ago, and probably already provided this commentary back then, I’m trying to cool it….But in a short 1 1/2 year, what changes. In a 2 block span, both the Wisteria and the Foremost milk dairy building (both here last time) are gone, big empty lots. Perhaps if I was living here I’d be more philosophical, but dropping in on my memories like I am, I can’t help but feel pangs of loss.

Have already spent way too much time in the various shopping establishments here, be it Daiei or Wal-mart or any number of toy stores. But soon we’ll hit the used book stores (store?) and it’ll be Naoko and Kaika’s turn to wait patiently….speaking of Wal-mart, they have this $2.82 deal where you can copy your flash card images to a CD, so rather than worry about having to offload my images to my MP3 player for backup, I can just get these CD’s made. I’ve been kind of going conservative in the shooting, and also deleting iffy stuff that I’d prefer to see larger before making the cut. So a good solution and I kind of wish I hadn’t bought that extra gig card before I left….Kaika is loving the toy stores although frankly there’s not much difference between those here and back home. But particularly a chain called Thinker Toys has a full Thomas train set up in each of their stores (well, the two we’ve already visited) and you can’t get Kaika to leave this.

Enjoyed the sunset yesterday, Kaika has now gotten used to sand under his feet, didn’t want to leave the beach even though it had gotten quite dark. He now seems to ask at almost every turn, “are we going to the beach?”….His “terrible two-ness” has been rearing its head a lot, lots of stuff like not wanting to get into the child seat, but nothing serious…..Needless to say my mother is just beside herself with joy at his arrival, can’t get over how cute he is, wants to buy him all kinds of clothes and toys and books, etc….