Hawaii - Day 2
Thursday, March 3
Julie woke us up at 4 a.m. YEOW! With the 4-hour time difference, she was actually sleeping an hour later than normal for her, but still. We got up, fed Julie a little something, showered and dressed and it was still only 5:45. We were at the Denny's two blocks away by the time they opened. We had a decent cheesy-diner breakfast, but including some fruit and oatmeal for Julie we spent about $30 and I started to tally the cost of eating even the cheapest meals for a week and thought we'd better find a grocery store fast. Luckily, there was one right across from the Denny's. I bought breakfast and lunch supplies for a couple of days and was glad we had a refrigerator in the room to store them in.
I guess this is as good a place as any to remark on Julie's overall diet during the week. She ate more junk in the last week than she's had her entire life before. Normally, she eats mostly fresh fruits and vegetables, milk, yogurt, cheese, fresh chicken and meat, oatmeal and rice with a bit of whole grain cereal and crackers thrown in along with a few raisins when we're out and about. This week, she ate a ton of breakfast cereal; more Gerber Meat, Chicken and Turkey sticks than I can count (and which I swear I will never again buy); lots of cheese and several servings of french fries. Not to mention ice cream and whatever else she could scavenge off our plates. Oh - and potato chips. We made the mistake of buying some to go with our lunch sandwiches, and it took her one meal to learn the word "chip". She'd wake up in the morning and say "chip" "Chip" "CHIP!"
One saving grace of the trip was the abundance of fresh pineapple. The kid couldn't get enough of it. She ate about two cups of it for breakfast every day, and more at other meals when it was available. Even so, we experienced some of the worst-smelling diapers of her life. Phew!
Anyway, after breakfast we went back to the hotel and dressed for the beach. Even with the time it took to dig out all the beach toys, towels, swim diapers, swimsuits, flip flops, and other accessories, we still managed to slather on sunscreen and hit the beach before 8 a.m. We had our choice of spots on the almost-empty beach. At first it was a little chilly, but the sun came up over the buildings and warmed things up pretty quickly. Julie didn't know what to think about all that sand and the waves at first, but once I got her down to the water's edge, she was squealing with delight and excitement as the waves came in.
I can't describe fully how wonderful it felt to be on the beach with my toddler, watching her experience the ocean for the first time. She loved it. Every time a wave would come in I'd say "Here it comes...Here it comes...weeeeee" and she'd shout "WEEEEE" and giggle as the water splashed her. She loved digging in the sand with the little tools that I brought along. I think she would have stayed there for hours each day just scooping the sand up and flinging it around if we let her.
A major goal of the trip for me was to avoid sunburn for all involved. I'm so white, I can burn to a crisp in about 15 minutes of midday sun without sunscreen. Julie and I both wore SPF 50 almost the whole time we were there, and we kept our beach trips early in the morning when the rays were less intense. Joe ended up getting a little pink on the one day he decided not to wear sunscreen, but none of us really burned. Hopefully, some day Julie will thank me for her wrinkle-free skin. We did get a little color over the course of the week, but I doubt anyone would notice it at a glance.
After our swim, we got cleaned up and hopped on The Bus to the state capitol. Doug, a friend of ours from Utne works for one of the state representatives, Marilyn Lee. He arranged to have us formally introduced in front of the legislature, and we thought that would be a fun way to kill the rest of the morning. I was really surprised when we got there by how laid-back their legislature is. Anyone can walk in right off the street, and the security was quite lax. Ms. Lee came up to the gallery to meet us and we had our picture taken with her:
Doug, Joe and I sat and chatted (with Julie in my lap of course) while we waited for the session to start. Lots of the reps had leis on, apparently from constintuents trying to suck up to them as Doug put it. He explained that some of the leis were a lot nicer than others and pointed out some like the ones we received when we arrived that cost about $4 and others with tiny flowers and more strands that cost $30 or more! We also noticed that someone had left papayas with notes at all the legislator's places. The day's session started with the leader pounding on his poi-grinder gavel, and they welcomed several groups of people including us. It was pretty cool. Doug was going to arrange a tour of the capitol building for us as well, but Julie started to get antsy and it was clear that she was ready to head back to the hotel for a nap.
Thursday afternoon after naptime I think we walked around Waikiki aimlessly for a while, then took a cab to dinner at a really good Thai restaurant. Maybe Joe will remember the name, but it was a slightly different style than Sawatdee, which we're used to at home. The tourist guide where I found the restaurant said they had traditional Thai dancers, which was part of why I wanted to go there...but since we ate early for Julie's sake, we missed the dancers. Another goal of the trip for me was to indulge in frou-frou drinks as they were available. The waitress offered me something they call a chi-chi that tasted a lot like a pina colada, and it was yummy.
After dinner, we walked around a bit more but ended up going to bed awfully early - I think we were all asleep by 8:30. The time difference, being in the sun a lot, and the fact that there wasn't much to do in our room with Julie sleeping all contributed to Joe and I getting to bed about 4 hours earlier than normal every night we were there.
Julie woke us up at 4 a.m. YEOW! With the 4-hour time difference, she was actually sleeping an hour later than normal for her, but still. We got up, fed Julie a little something, showered and dressed and it was still only 5:45. We were at the Denny's two blocks away by the time they opened. We had a decent cheesy-diner breakfast, but including some fruit and oatmeal for Julie we spent about $30 and I started to tally the cost of eating even the cheapest meals for a week and thought we'd better find a grocery store fast. Luckily, there was one right across from the Denny's. I bought breakfast and lunch supplies for a couple of days and was glad we had a refrigerator in the room to store them in.
I guess this is as good a place as any to remark on Julie's overall diet during the week. She ate more junk in the last week than she's had her entire life before. Normally, she eats mostly fresh fruits and vegetables, milk, yogurt, cheese, fresh chicken and meat, oatmeal and rice with a bit of whole grain cereal and crackers thrown in along with a few raisins when we're out and about. This week, she ate a ton of breakfast cereal; more Gerber Meat, Chicken and Turkey sticks than I can count (and which I swear I will never again buy); lots of cheese and several servings of french fries. Not to mention ice cream and whatever else she could scavenge off our plates. Oh - and potato chips. We made the mistake of buying some to go with our lunch sandwiches, and it took her one meal to learn the word "chip". She'd wake up in the morning and say "chip" "Chip" "CHIP!"
One saving grace of the trip was the abundance of fresh pineapple. The kid couldn't get enough of it. She ate about two cups of it for breakfast every day, and more at other meals when it was available. Even so, we experienced some of the worst-smelling diapers of her life. Phew!
Anyway, after breakfast we went back to the hotel and dressed for the beach. Even with the time it took to dig out all the beach toys, towels, swim diapers, swimsuits, flip flops, and other accessories, we still managed to slather on sunscreen and hit the beach before 8 a.m. We had our choice of spots on the almost-empty beach. At first it was a little chilly, but the sun came up over the buildings and warmed things up pretty quickly. Julie didn't know what to think about all that sand and the waves at first, but once I got her down to the water's edge, she was squealing with delight and excitement as the waves came in.
I can't describe fully how wonderful it felt to be on the beach with my toddler, watching her experience the ocean for the first time. She loved it. Every time a wave would come in I'd say "Here it comes...Here it comes...weeeeee" and she'd shout "WEEEEE" and giggle as the water splashed her. She loved digging in the sand with the little tools that I brought along. I think she would have stayed there for hours each day just scooping the sand up and flinging it around if we let her.
A major goal of the trip for me was to avoid sunburn for all involved. I'm so white, I can burn to a crisp in about 15 minutes of midday sun without sunscreen. Julie and I both wore SPF 50 almost the whole time we were there, and we kept our beach trips early in the morning when the rays were less intense. Joe ended up getting a little pink on the one day he decided not to wear sunscreen, but none of us really burned. Hopefully, some day Julie will thank me for her wrinkle-free skin. We did get a little color over the course of the week, but I doubt anyone would notice it at a glance.
After our swim, we got cleaned up and hopped on The Bus to the state capitol. Doug, a friend of ours from Utne works for one of the state representatives, Marilyn Lee. He arranged to have us formally introduced in front of the legislature, and we thought that would be a fun way to kill the rest of the morning. I was really surprised when we got there by how laid-back their legislature is. Anyone can walk in right off the street, and the security was quite lax. Ms. Lee came up to the gallery to meet us and we had our picture taken with her:
Doug, Joe and I sat and chatted (with Julie in my lap of course) while we waited for the session to start. Lots of the reps had leis on, apparently from constintuents trying to suck up to them as Doug put it. He explained that some of the leis were a lot nicer than others and pointed out some like the ones we received when we arrived that cost about $4 and others with tiny flowers and more strands that cost $30 or more! We also noticed that someone had left papayas with notes at all the legislator's places. The day's session started with the leader pounding on his poi-grinder gavel, and they welcomed several groups of people including us. It was pretty cool. Doug was going to arrange a tour of the capitol building for us as well, but Julie started to get antsy and it was clear that she was ready to head back to the hotel for a nap.
Thursday afternoon after naptime I think we walked around Waikiki aimlessly for a while, then took a cab to dinner at a really good Thai restaurant. Maybe Joe will remember the name, but it was a slightly different style than Sawatdee, which we're used to at home. The tourist guide where I found the restaurant said they had traditional Thai dancers, which was part of why I wanted to go there...but since we ate early for Julie's sake, we missed the dancers. Another goal of the trip for me was to indulge in frou-frou drinks as they were available. The waitress offered me something they call a chi-chi that tasted a lot like a pina colada, and it was yummy.
After dinner, we walked around a bit more but ended up going to bed awfully early - I think we were all asleep by 8:30. The time difference, being in the sun a lot, and the fact that there wasn't much to do in our room with Julie sleeping all contributed to Joe and I getting to bed about 4 hours earlier than normal every night we were there.
posted by Shelly Kang at 1:33 PM
1 Comments:
One editorial correction: it turns out that the fruit on the legislators' desks was cacao (i.e. the plant that chocolate is derived from).
Don't ask why.
They were delivered with instructions for how to process it into chocolate, which is an incredibly tedious multi-step task. It sure makes 50 cents for a candy bar seem like an incredible bargain.
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