A Week--I Mean a Day--in Honolulu

You've heard of "dog years", but have you heard of "Honolulu days"?  We got seven times more action/excitement/crap/fun/stress in our four days in Honolulu than our usual four days on Kauai (except maybe during a hurricane).  If you're one of those who consider Kauai "anti-aging," then Honolulu must be "pro-aging"!

First 24 hours:

Our stress began on Kauai because for the first time in over 30 years of traveling, we almost missed our plane.  Just wanted to inform my five readers (yes, I believe I have five now!) that if you're not at the airport within 30 minutes of your flight, they will not check you in.  Do you remember the good old days when 30 minutes was the usual for a lot of people?   Leonard had to work late so I thought I could check in online, but later found that web check-ins are only allowed up to 2 hours before flight time.  When we got to the airport 25 minutes before flight time, I expected to check in at the counter, but was told we were too late and would have to stand-by for our flight or go on the next flight. Thankfully the security  wasn't crowded. [It's a good thing we were rushing, I didn't have time to feel resentfully embarrassed about the BODY SCAN I went through! My attitude was more like "Quick, here's my body, get it over with!"]  We got to the gate as they were boarding and the agent at the desk fixed our ticket so we could get on board ok.  Big whew!!

The flight actually left three minutes early and we got there promptly, but Dollar Rent-a-Car threw us the next stress.  There were two agents helping two customers and yet it took us almost a half hour to get our car.  We've been renting cars from Budget, Alamo, and Avis for years through third parties online and this was the first time we chose Dollar.  Is it just a coincidence that this was also the first time the online quote did not match the price Dollar actually charged us?  I recall renting from Dollar once about 15-20 years ago and we weren't very happy with them.  Well at least they're consistent! 

We automatically stopped at our favorite coffeeshop, Eagle Cafe on Nimitz Hwy. and they had just closed!  Are you beginning to sense a pattern here?  We ended up at Zippy's King Street, but the restaurant had a long waiting line so we had to go to the take out side (which also took very long).  It astounded us that even after 9 p.m. on the night before Thanksgiving, Honolulu people were flocking to Zippy's. 

Line in front of Lee's Bakery

My mother had asked us to go to Lee's Bakery to pick up a custard and peach/pear pie.  She had read an article that said Lee's was opening all night to avoid the long lines on Thanksgiving Day.  Well ha ha... there was a long line just after 9 p.m. with some people sitting on chairs they had brought.  Seriously,  I've tasted their pies and they're good, but not so good that I would wait in a line for them where you need a chair.  So we just kept driving.  (Next morning we went to Dee Lite Bakery--a bit more expensive, just as delicious, and no need to bring a chair).

As it turns out, the Dee Lite pies were the best part of our Thanksgiving "lupper"  (late lunch, early supper).  For the past five years my mom has been on a quest to find a good ready-made Thanksgiving dinner and we have yet to find it.  This year she chose the Hyatt Regency's "Turkey Dinner to Go" and everything in the very nice box was chilled and had to be heated up.  This involved a lot of transferring to pots/bowls which was more work than we cared to do (they should've packed the food in foil containers).  We followed the instructions for heating the turkey and although the skin was dangerously close to black,  parts of the turkey were still cold and disturbingly pink.    The cranberry sauce was tasty, the stuffing wasn't bad, but the mashed potatoes, gravy, yams, and pumpkin pie were unremarkable. The corn chowder was as thick as mashed potatoes.  I wondered if this meal was actually made by the Hyatt or just processed food they ordered frozen?

Rapunzel's pet chameleon Pascual was just one of the
funny delights in the movie "Tangled".

Happily our first day in Honolulu ended well at Ward Cinema where we went to see "Tangled".  I loved this movie!  And the popcorn was almost as good as Kukui Grove's! 

Note:  When I started typing this I intended to write about our four days in one posting.  I forgot my own premise that one Honolulu day = 7 Kauai days, and after writing about the first day I realized 4 days would practically constitute a book!  So please come back to read the next installment(s) which will include our interesting Black Friday, the strange Chinese restaurant incident, and the Russell Peters concert! AND of course my Honolulu restaurantlogue.



Now We're Cooking!

As I write this, Barack Obama is being called the winner of the Presidential election. America voted for HOPE in these tumultous times. It's been the most exciting election in my voting history, probably yours too, and I feel such a sense of relief and yes, hope, that maybe, just maybe the paradigm has finally shifted for the better. It has become more and more apparent that things are falling apart around us and we need a new recipe...and chef.

I flew to Honolulu on Sunday on a leaky Hawaiian Airlines plane. Yes, literally leaking on us. Oddly it wasn't raining outside. We weren't even in the clouds at the time. I just hope it was WATER that was dripping down the the passengers. The flight attendant passed out paper towels. One passenger had the inflight magazine on her head like a rainbonnet. That was a first for me after 50 years of flying. Crazy!

The irony is that the book I brought onboard to read was a "Monk" book. If you've seen the TV series or read the books, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. I sat there and smiled, thinking of how Monk would be reacting to droplets of an unidentified liquid falling on him from the airplane ceiling.

I think I'm Monk-ish in many ways and I noticed that while opening the tiny complimentary juice cup (to be discontinued soon, I'll bet). If you open it too quickly, juice splashes on you. You have to tilt the cup away from you a bit, then slowly pull off the foil. After drinking the juice, I neatly nested Jordan's cup into my own napkin-stuffed cup. Have you ever seen the late Phil Hartman's "Anal Retentive Chef" routine? He did this one bit on how the AR Chef throws away vegetable trimmings (wrapped neatly up, placed in a paper bag, folded over neatly then scotchtaped, etc.). Can you imagine the AR Chef meeting Rap Reiplinger's "Aunty Marialani"? Hey maybe like the Rock 'n Roll band in heaven, Rap and Phil are doing some hilarious cooking up there.

But I digress... I was talking about leaky planes. What this world is coming to IS leaky planes, $100 to fill our gas tanks, tainted food, schools with no supplies. Or how about 50 people in a standard 4-bedroom house like the one that collapsed in Kalihi last week? I was horrified to read that these people were paying $500 per month to live in a tarped-wall room built with pipes and scaffolding!

About a year ago a local news station urged viewers to write in a question to suggest topics and my question was chosen. I asked if Hawaii couldn't have rent control. When will the madness end? Someone ought to tell the legislature that Hawaii is an ISLAND state. There's no packing up and driving until you find a place you can afford to live. No driving to another state that has cheaper rent, everyone's pretty much stuck here so something has to be done. On top of our own local people being stuck homeless, there's evidence that Mainlanders are coming here to be homeless because of our warm weather. Hopefully now that Obama is President and Government is more likely to be viewed as "the solution," we can work on this problem as well as others.

I try hard not to be upset at how Kauai and our Hawaii is changing. We've lost so much of our paradise to development. My mantra is "It's part of the process," and I wish I could remember the writer who told the story of meeting a Tibetan monk who had witnessed atrocities committed by the Chinese soldiers invading Tibet. The writer asked him why he seemed to harbor no hate for the Chinese and the monk simply said what happened in Tibet was "part of the process of Life." [Adrien Monk would hardly have the same attitude so his name was ill-chosen.]

Buddhists might be viewed as "wimps" who complacently accept and don't fight back, but it's not as simple as that. Understanding what is "part of the process" and then accepting it if you can't change it, is, I believe, a major ingredient to a happy, healthy life. Take that and cook it, Rap and Phil!