Michael Waring: January 2008 Archives
So although the visit to New York was short it was bittersweet. We won't be touching down again in the good old USA for over two months.
Our flight on Cathay Pacific was another morning flight. It looks like we'll be doomed to spend the rest of the trip gathering our stuff together early in the morning (because we couldn't be bothered the night before) and dashing to the airport. The Hilton Garden Inn furnished a not quite palatial van to transport us over to Terminal Five or Seven. Maybe Eight. It was early and I was a little bleary eyed from consuming too much pizza the night before. No beers because the Hilton didn't run to a mini-bar.
As valued First Class passengers we were permitted to go the British Airlines Terraces Lounge. Mary was of the opinion that it wouldn't be entirely appropriate to drink every single Heineken on the premises so I didn't. I thought about it though, because they were free. Snacks were not up to my requirements as they didn't have a single bag of pork flavored potato chips. I think the Empire is in decline.
The Cathay Pacific flight was pretty damn good and I'll touch on it in some more detail at a later time. The total flight time was around 15 hours and due to time changes we arrived in Hong Kong early in the evening. In order to get back in sync time-wise, we decided not to take more than a nap on board. A deeper sleep would leave us wide awake when we arrived.
Arrival at Hong Kong was smooth and really efficient. We were through Immigration and Customs in around 15-20 minutes total (getting off the airplane pretty close to first may have helped slightly) and collected our luggage and started looking for an ATM in less than half an hour of deplaning. Couldn't ask for more.
We caught a taxi to our first hotel. Interestingly, taxis in Hong Kong are color coded. If you need a taxi to Disneyland you take a green one, to Hong Kong Central a red one, and so on. This is really cool. Oh, and the taxis don't just have a plaque with the color code - the whole taxi is painted the right color. Our first night we were scheduled to stay in the Hong Kong Hollywood Disneyland Hotel or was it Hong Kong Disneyland Hollywood Hotel, or maybe, Disneyland Hong Kong Hotel Hollywood? Something like that. It's a hotel located on the resort grounds that was built using feng shui and Art Deco in equal measures. Possibly some bricks with a smidgen of concrete too. It was nice in the usual Disney way.
Anyway, we spent the first day in Hong Kong at Hong Kong Disneyland but that's a tale for another time, or actually another site - MouseSavers.com.
We stored our bags before we checked out of the hotel and entered the park for the day. Hot tip. Many of the other guests of the hotel appeared to do the same thing, but they didn't use Bell Services to collect their bags - they just brought them down to the desk in the lobby. This resulted in quite a large line around the time we were ready to take the shuttle to the park. It seems that paying out a few bucks in tips to the bellman bought us avoidance of a significant headache.
Anyway, at the end of our day at the park, which was fairly early - around three in the afternoon -we returned to the hotel and retrieved our bags and caught a cab to our next destination, the Peninsula Hotel in Kowloon, across the bay from Hong Kong Central. I was at this point a little confused and didn't realize till sometime the following day that we weren't in Hong Kong itself but across the harbor. Sometimes, I'm a little slow.
The Peninsula is an old and much beloved luxury hotel constructed during the height of the British Empire in 1928. A much more modern tower has been added on to the back of the original hotel, though we were lucky to score a room in the original building. Or unlucky - hard to tell, we were in the original building but only on the third floor and our view was of the YMCA across the street. The tower rooms can have a bay view.
After settling into the hotel we wandered about a bit to see the sights and get a feel for the hotel. It has the most shops of any hotel we've ever seen, and all of them pretty high end like Prada, Bulgari, and the like. Nothing we'd be interested in, or so I thought. On our wanderings through the shopping arcade we discovered a Coach outlet and in the window was the exact bag in the exact color that Mary had been looking for the last six months or so. Mary's birthday came a little early this year. Mine will probably be set back for the next two or three years.
So other than doing some shopping we spent a quiet time in the hotel during the evening as we had a voucher for dinner and we were tired from wandering around Disneyland all day. We did pop by the hotel bar but the fact that they not only permitted cigarette smoking but also cigars was a bit disconcerting. Normally I'm all for cigars but only my own - I don't want to have to sit and inhale other people's smoke. So we ran for it as soon as we finished our drinks.
On day two of our odyssey we decided to visit the bird market, following which we visited the flower market, the Ladies Market, and the goldfish market. All of these are located in close proximity in the Mong Kok area of Kowloon. There were many birds, flowers, women's clothes and goldfish to see. And some puppies. The markets, except for the Ladies Market, aren't really street markets in the conventional sense. They're not actually in the street - they're storefronts where the wares have spilled out onto the sidewalk and force most people to walk in between towering mounds of stuff or in the gutters, dodging traffic. They're quite interesting, or so Mary tells me, since she's the flower fancier in the family. I liked the puppies. The birds were interesting but I'm not a huge fan of caged birds, I like them flying free. Still the variety of the species available was remarkable.
Ladies Market was the most conventional of the places we visited. Street stands set up on a number of blocked off streets so the paths between the stalls are dark and narrow. Most of the clothing on display was lower end stuff as one might imagine. We basically did one pass through and went on to the goldfish market. These seem like the perfect pets for a Hong Kong inhabitant as an article in the local paper announced while we were there that the average price for a square foot of apartment space now exceeded even Tokyo and New York. Needless to say we won't be moving there anytime soon.
After a long afternoon reviewing the wares on display in Hong Kong street markets, we were tired and ready for a little relaxation back in the hotel. We did contemplate popping out and getting a meal somewhere, but decided that we weren't all that hungry and so we contented ourselves with some of the fresh fruit left in the room. Strange and exotic fruits. The hotel had included a handy guide to local fruits, but interestingly enough at least one of the items in the room (which we later learned was a dragon fruit) wasn't in the booklet. I suggested that Mary take the first bite and see whether or not it was actually a fruit or a means of reducing the world population of American tourists. Mary didn't succumb, so my worst case analysis was a bust.
On the last day in Hong Kong we contracted for a tour through the hotel. Not a tour inside the hotel but one arranged by the hotel. It was surprisingly well attended with people from many of the hotels in the area. We don't usually like guided tours, but Hong Kong was rather confusing to get around for a first timer and since our time was pretty limited, we decided to take a half-day tour to visit the highlights of the city. It also meant that there would be a couple of shopportunities, including one where we had to hang out in a jewelry store till they let us go. Not my favorite. On the other hand we did get to view the whole city or at least a bunch of it from Victoria Peak, which from appearances is not actually the highest point in the city. It was still pretty high with great views, well, as great as they could be with a persistent haze. It appears for part of the year Hong Kong does have a fairly thick haze which may also be some smog. It makes sightseeing a little difficult.
Anyway, the tour was all right as a quick overview of the city. We enjoyed it but would have liked it better if there was less shopping and more seeing. We did also take a harbor cruise in the evening that was a free tour offered by the hotel. This, we concluded, was awesome and they had champagne, which ratcheted the awesomeness up another notch. The skyline of Hong Kong at night, as seen from the harbor, is spectacular and easily the highlight of the visit to the city. After the cruise we found a restaurant on the harbor front and had another Cantonese meal. It was quite good even though we ordered a strange combination of things because we were unsure how much came with each dish. As was usual - too much.
Hong Kong was really an interesting place to visit. The apartment towers located in all parts of the city and region are amazing feats of engineering. And up in the mountains that make up a large proportion of the land on the central island and in the New Territories there are buildings perched on the sides of slopes that don't seem they could support a shack much less a thirty story building. The people are really frenetic - you try and keep moving cause you're afraid that if you stop in one place to long someone will set up a stand and seel your clothes. Maybe even body parts. One fascinating item we picked up on our tours was that the Hong Kong inhabitants are totally insane over horse racing. It's like the biggest thing in the city, they go nuts for it and gambling on it. Funny.
And that concluded our visit to that mystical entrepot of the East, Hong Kong. It was fun, but as Mary and I talked about it later, out of all of the cities we think of as World Cities, like New York, LA, Paris, London, Tokyo, and so on, we think that Hong Kong is the place that we would feel least likely to ever live. The people are nice and the scenery is certainly impressive, but the overall impression is that everyone is running all day and all night long, trying to get ahead. There's something about the sell, sell, sell, attitude of the inhabitants that is both very exciting and very exhausting at the same time. It's certainly a great city to visit and shop in, but living there just leaves us a little cold.
Mary has written another Frugal Hedonist article that I've included below. It's in response to a question we've heard and even asked ourselves from time to time. Why do we stay in one type of hotel as opposed to another? And why don't we always stay in the least expensive or the most luxurious hotels all the time? So the following article outlines somewhat our reasoning on this issue.
So far on this journey we've stayed in four high-end (four and five-star) hotels as well as two mid-priced airport hotels. In fact, we have even bounced between these very different hotel types: after the Grand Hyatt Kaua'i, we had a quick overnight in San Diego, where we spent the night at the Homewood Suites at Liberty Station near the airport; then we flew to San Francisco, where we had a slightly longer stay (about 24 hours) and wanted to meet up with a friend for dinner downtown, so we opted to stay at the Four Seasons; and then we jetted off to New York, where we again had only a short overnight stay, so we chose the Hilton Garden Inn near JFK.
Needless to say, there is a significant difference between these hotel types. The most obvious is the surroundings: luxury hotels tend to offer spacious rooms (our Four Seasons room was easily four times the size of our Hilton Garden Inn room), often with enough seating for modest entertaining. We were able to have our friend visit with us in our room at the Four Season and we could all sit comfortably in armchairs. For a longer stay, or even a change of pace during a long trip, that extra space and the ability to spread out can be really relaxing.
Naturally the décor in a luxury hotel will be elegant, with soft comfy sofas and chairs and top-quality furnishings, including original artwork. Expensive and delicate fabrics will be used in the upholstery and draperies - in the case of the Four Seasons, that meant silk everywhere. Bathrooms are typically lavish. Most luxury hotels offer pretty, or even spectacular, settings or views, and if they are located in a city, they may be in the most convenient part of town.
Contrast this with a midrange business hotel like a Homewood Suites or Hilton Garden Inn, where the seating will consist of a hard sofa or chair covered in stain-resistant fabric and a basic desk of relatively cheap quality. The furnishings and décor, while perfectly adequate, will have been primarily chosen to wear well. Bathrooms are functional and small. That's not to say that such business hotels are necessarily dumps. I chose the Homewood Suites because it was new, and the Hilton Garden Inn because it was recently redone from top to bottom. Both hotels were very clean, up-to-date and pleasantly decorated in a mass-market fashion. However, in no way could the surroundings be described as luxurious, and naturally you can't expect nice views at an ordinary hotel, particularly one near an airport: our Homewood Suites view was of the next building and a basketball court, while our Hilton Garden Inn room overlooked an expressway.
So yes, there are obvious differences, but what struck me is this: if you just need to have basic needs met, most well-managed American chain hotels, especially those that cater to business people, will provide you with a pretty decent level of accommodation. In fact, depending on your specific needs, you may find them a better option than a very expensive top-end hotel.
Now our trip is speeding up. Or my mind is slowing down, which gives us the same effect -- or we're approaching the event horizon of a black hole. Philosophical? Naw, too shallow for that I am.
So far we have completed the San Diego - Hawaii - San Diego leg of the trip. Once ensconced in San Diego for a short overnight leg we celebrated by hitting the treadmill in the motel gym (me) and doing laundry (Mary). Now, I know what you're thinking - I get to exercise to work the kinks out while Mary does my laundry. I wish. I did mine the last day in Hawaii while she lounged around at the pool. I offered to do hers, but she has an issue with my laundry skills. She feels I lack any. I might, strictly for efficiency's sake, throw different fabrics together in the washer, but I always pick the middle wash cycle. And I haven't actually mixed whites and colors together unless I needed to get enough stuff for a full load. Very few laundry accidents have occurred under my watch. Well, unless you include the two or three hundred times I've absent mindedly forgotten to check my pockets before loading the clothes into the washer. But none of those incidents are really critical: I'm pretty sure we can get another marriage certificate, and the signed copy of Whitman's Leaves of Grass - well those are a dime a dozen, aren't they?
Anyway, we got in late and just decided to chill at the Homewood Suites near the San Diego airport. We didn't even bother getting anything to eat (well, we did have dinner of sorts on the plane from Hawaii). We had a bite in the morning at the sumptuous buffet breakfast served in the hotel. If sumptuous means a coffee, and an English muffin. They seemed to be all out of Eggs Benedict and I desired to make my dismay known to the staff, but Mary deterred me.
Back to the airport and a mid-morning flight on United to San Francisco. Mary had rechecked the flight times (the airlines aren't going to fake us out again) and found out that our flight had been moved up considerably, but this time we were ready for them. For a change, since it was a short flight, we went cattle class. As is usually the case I went to sleep shortly after we boarded and woke up when we landed in San Francisco. I often do this, even if I'm not especially tired, because I enjoy bugging Mary, who has a hard time sleeping on planes. And it makes the time spent with my knees pushed up into my chest go faster.
We arrived at San Francisco on time, a virtual miracle in this day and age. A quick and expensive taxi to the Four Seasons downtown and we were soon checked in and relaxing in the rather sumptuous room. Since the Four Seasons was booked through the American Express FHR (Fine Hotels and Resorts) program, we were to receive a complimentary breakfast as well as a $100 credit for lunch. This isn't as big a sum as one would assume: it is a Four Seasons, after all. We wandered down and got some lunch (Crab Louis salad and Anchor Steam for me - whee!) and then Mary went up to the room to do some work on her laptop while I went out and picked up a few things. As is usually the case, after starting out on the trip, there were a couple of items that needed replacement or that we discovered we needed. We decided it was good that we spent the first ten days or so still in the US, so we could shake down and see what needed replacement before going overseas.
For instance, we bought some luggage locks before leaving home. By the time we arrived back in San Diego, the printing on the tumbler wheels had worn off, which made figuring out the combination a bit of a crapshoot. And since I was carrying the new laptop around in a small duffle bag, I needed to get something to cushion it. Turns out there was a CompUSA right across the street from the hotel and they were going out of business - score!
Also, something like a year ago I had bought a recharger tip for the iGo that was supposed to fit my iPod and allow me to recharge it. However, apparently I had never actually tried to recharge the iPod on the road. It turns out that I have a Paleolithic iPod with an interface that does not accommodate the newer charger tip. And to top it off, there were iPod docks in the room at both of the hotels in Hawaii, but my iPod didn't fit in them. So I took a rather quixotic trip to the nearby Apple store.
Our arrival in San Francisco came a day after this year's MacWorld came to a close. Apparently the San Francisco police hadn't quite completed sweeping the city to remove the last remaining vestiges of Steve's Kids. When I entered the Apple Store (which by the way doesn't use anything as common as a sign to announce its presence on the street - I guess if you're tuned into the Apple vibe you'll just know where the mother ship is), I was immediately surrounded by the ones Mary and I call the Kool Aid drinkers. They sounded like those three eyed aliens in Toy Story - "ooooohhhh!" I was a little creeped out and managed to snag my new iPod and leave before they were able to entice me to join the cult. Yes, I know, by buying an iPod I am a pledge in the Apple fraternity and I'm sure they have their plans for inducting me fully into their cult, but I'm pretty sure this will be as far as I will go. I will not be tempted by the new ultra thin laptop. Definitely not.
We had dinner at Zuni Cafe downtown with a friend who lives in San Francisco. It was our first time at this restaurant and it was quite good. One element that did somewhat detract from our enjoying the restaurant to the max was that we were seated next to a very large group of firefighters who were celebrating something that required large quantities of alcohol. By the end of our meal we were somewhat deaf from all the shouting and goings-on, and they did not show any indication that they were going anywhere. Management did apologize and offer to switch us to a different table, but by that time we were almost done with our entrees. We decided to skip dessert even though the management was going to comp us -- at least that's what we thought, since our hearing was pretty much gone and much of the communications had to be made with hand signals and signal flares. We decided instead to go back to the Four Seasons and have dessert there which turned out to be much quieter.
Along the way we got a real retro taxi driver, an unrepentant hippie, and the taxi had that faint yet strangely familiar tang of the weed. Which of course I only recognize the smell of from those movies they used to show us in Health about the dangers of smoking the evil weed. I don't think this particular species of humanity can be found outside of San Francisco, except possibly in Boulder, Colorado. He spent the 15 minutes or so of our drive to the hotel regaling us with his theories on what was wrong with the fuzz in San Francisco. It was cool to meet someone from the Summer of Love who hasn't started a major multi-national corporation and gotten filthy rich.
We did have time for a leisurely breakfast in the hotel before starting off for the airport for our flight to New York. This would mark the beginning leg of the actual Round-the-World (RTW) trip tickets. We decided to use curbside check in since the taxi dropped us right there and there was no one in line. This was a mistake. The skycap took the tickets (which are actually handwritten, by the way) and disappeared inside when he couldn't figure out how to process them. About the time we had just started suspecting that our skycap had taken the tickets and started off on the RTW trip on his own he reappeared, apologizing since no one in this generation has ever seen paper tickets. That will be the last time we'll try curbside with these tickets.
The flight to New York on American Airlines was uneventful. We were originally scheduled to fly on a three class aircraft configuration but sometime after we bought the tickets they changed it to a two class configuration. On the other hand they did have the newer "lie flat" First class seats which were slightly better than the old style. The food of course was as bland and indifferent as usual, but American's slogan is - "Hey, at least you're getting something to eat - look at the people in the back - they're scavenging in the seats for pretzel crumbs." Actually there was one improvement, in that they gave you a choice of two different salad dressings, but that was pretty much it.
We arrived at JFK without a clue where the Hilton Garden Inn was located, except than it was near the airport. We found out that the airport shuttle van didn't actually run to the terminal and that we'd have to take a train to some other location and then they'd send the van to get us. This seemed unduly complicated so we opted for a taxi to the hotel. This turned out to cause quite a bit of confusion on the driver's part as he apparently had never heard of the Hilton Garden Inn. We finally got there after a scenic drive through a substantial amount of Queens or perhaps Albany. Upon arrival the driver shocked us by declaring he'd made a wrong turn and that he'd cut the fare by one third in compensation. I immediately suspected some sort of trap. I threw the money at him and ran inside the hotel.
We settled in for the night and decided to take advantage of this last chance to have a genuine New York pizza, or perhaps more correctly a genuine Queens pizza. It pretty much lived up to advance billing. It was better than Japanese pizza, and that's as far as I'm going to go.
Duane's Ono Char-Burger (4-4350 Kuhio Hwy, on the ocean side of the road, in Anahola)
I had read so many raves about this tiny burger stand that I half expected lunch here to be a life-altering experience. Alas, no. Not that it was bad - it wasn't - but I've had better. Specifically, I've had better burgers and shakes at Burger Master in Seattle. It's hard to top the Burger Master.
Nevertheless, Duane's is fairly cheap in Kaua'i terms (our lunch cost about $21) and does make a very decent burger, with a nice charred flavor and some yummy toppings to choose from. I had the blue cheese burger, which had very tasty blue cheese dressing on it. Mike had the Nui-Nui (double burger) with cheddar, which he said was good, though he didn't give me a bite. (Hmmpf.)
The onion rings were very good, though Mike's French fries were cold. (Which is ridiculous, and if you read on, you'll understand why.) As far as shakes, Duane's offers three flavors. Vanilla and chocolate are predictable, but wouldn't you think the third flavor would be something exotic and tropical? Nope. It's marionberry. I found this puzzling but ordered it anyway. The marionberry shake was okay, but I don't think any real berries had been within a mile of it. I couldn't help comparing it with Burger Master's marionberry shake, which has actual chunks of berries in it - but then, marionberries are actually grown in the Seattle area, while they are not grown on the Hawaiian islands, as far as I know.
By the way, "ono" is the Hawaiian name of a certain type of fish, but literally it means "good" or "tasty." The name of Duane's Ono Char-Burger does not refer to the fish. Although a major guidebook claims this place makes "broiled fish" sandwiches, I only saw fried cod sandwiches on the menu.
If you arrive at Duane's around lunchtime on a Saturday, be prepared to wait. And wait. And wait. We waited in the order line for about ten minutes, but that turned out to be only the start of it. Over FORTY MINUTES later, our food was ready! Meanwhile no one ahead of us in line was getting served, either, but phone orders were apparently getting filled, because car after car arrived and carted off big cardboard boxes full of burgers. I don't know if this is the usual situation at Duane's, but we certainly weren't prepared for it. Fortunately the weather was pleasant, we weren't in a hurry and it was nice enough sitting there watching the chickens and cats wandering around the cement picnic tables.
It's difficult to find Duane's if you're coming down the highway from the north, because it is concealed by trees. It will be on your left, next to the Anahola Post Office. Coming from the south, it's easier to spot - look for a red sign. "Ono Char-Burger" is in larger letters - the "Duane's" part of the sign is hard to see.
Fish Market on Koloa Road in Koloa
One of our goals during the visit to Kaua'i was to try out a Hawaiian standard: the "plate lunch." Plate lunches are inexpensive combination meals enjoyed by locals, usually sold on a take-out basis in a divided styrofoam container. The typical plate lunch costs around $7 or $8 and comes with a main dish plus "two scoops rice" and "one scoop macaroni salad." Yep, we're talking carbohydrate paradise here.
The snack shop window outside of Sueoka's market in Koloa is known for its plate lunches, so we planned to pick some up there, on our way from our hotel in Poipu when we headed to Waimea Canyon. Unfortunately, in what seems to be fairly typical on Kaua'i, the snack shop was closed for no apparent reason on a Thursday at lunchtime. Drat.
We drove east down the block and spotted another place, just before the local supermarket, that was advertising plate lunches. I neglected to get the name, but the sign said Fish Market out front. Inside, a few regular plate lunches and a couple of specials were listed on menu boards. A crowd of locals were calling out their orders at the narrow deli counter and paying at the register. The place seemed popular, so we decided to give it a try.
Mike had one of the regular menu items, the kalua pork (very tender roasted and shredded pork), which came with rice noodles, two scoops of rice, a little dab of what seemed to be some sort of mushy tomato salad and a little container of the Hawaiian delicacy called poke (raw ahi with sesame oil and seaweed). He found the pork a little bland and greasy but liked the poke.
I had one of the specials, Korean Chicken, which I ordered without having the slightest idea what I would be getting. It turned out to be about six small to medium sized pieces of fried chicken, drenched in a sweet/spicy, translucent red sauce. Mine came with the typical sides (rice, macaroni salad) plus a little green salad under the macaroni. The chicken was quite tasty and the sauce was nice with the rice. We easily could have shared this between us - I ended up throwing about half of it away.
Considering our two meals plus two large bottled sodas cost under $19, this was probably the biggest bargain we found on Kaua'i, and if we had shared it, we'd have made out like bandits on the cost.
Hanalei Dolphin Restaurant & Fish Market (5144 Kuhio Hwy in Hanalei)
In terms of food quality and overall value for money, Hanalei Dolphin was our favorite find on Kaua'i. The fish served in the restaurant is impeccably fresh, as you would expect from a place that operates a fish market next door.
We had lunch here one day and ate outside under an umbrella'd picnic table where we could enjoy the river view, as well as the amazing multi-colored bird life that surrounded us in all the trees and bushes. The food was not super-cheap (about $10.50 for a fish sandwich and salad), but very reasonable considering its excellence and the overall high prices on the island.
On another day we had dinner inside the restaurant, which features a very appealing casual atmosphere but very high-end food. I had delicious fresh ceviche (raw fish marinated in lime juice with red onion and tomato). Our broiled fish dinners came with a big family-style tossed salad, bread and a choice of side dishes such as grilled veggie kebabs, rice, etc. Our dinner for two came to right around $100 and we were very happy with the value.
Kalypso (on Kuhio Hwy in Hanalei)
While Kalypso is primarily a sports bar, it also serves very decent food, if our meal here was any indication. We had considered having Sunday Brunch at the Princeville Hotel, but it just didn't seem worth $59 per person plus tax and tip. So we got in the car and headed to Kalypso, where we enjoyed a delightful breakfast served by a charming waitress.
I had yummy banana pancakes and Mike had macadamia nut French toast. We also each had a side of the local favorite, Portuguese sausage, which we thought was all right, but not a lot better than regular supermarket smoked sausage. With coffee and a mimosa apiece, we were still way ahead - our total bill was about $35.
JoJo's Shave Ice (mile marker 23, Kaumaualii Hwy (Hwy. 50) in Waimea) and Lappert's Ice Cream (multiple locations)
Shave (or shaved) ice is another uniquely Hawaiian delicacy that everyone told us we should try, and JoJo's Shave Ice has the reputation of offering the best product on the island, so we made a special point to stop and try it out. I had heard that the best combo is to get Lappert's macadamia nut ice cream on the bottom and tropical flavored shave ice on top.
JoJo's offers something like 50 flavors for its shave ice, so it was pretty hard to choose. I selected a "small" cup (which was huge) with mac ice cream on the bottom and coconut, papaya and mango shave ice on top. Cost: $3. The result was tasty, although extremely sweet. I think I would have enjoyed it more on a really hot day. Maybe next time I'll try a less sweet flavor, like lemon.
However, the Lappert's ice cream on the bottom was fantastic - as was the Lappert's ice cream we bought right in a Lappert's shop in Princeville. I would call Lappert's a do-not-miss in Hawaii. They have multiple locations on multiple islands, though they started in Hanapepe on Kaua'i.
Banana Joe's Fruitstand (Kuhio Hwy, on the inland side of the road, around Kolo Road turnoff near Kilauea)
Banana Joe's came highly recommended for its "frosty," a completely guilt-free concoction that consists entirely of frozen fruit passed through an industrial juicer. The result is sort of like soft-serve ice cream. They typically only have one flavor per day, which you buy from a window inside the fruit stand. The day we stopped there, the flavor was pure pineapple. It was very tasty, a tiny bit fibrous and slightly sour. Certainly it had to be the most healthy "soft serve" I've ever eaten, and it reminded me of the Dole Whip desserts sold at Disney theme parks (except that unlike a Dole Whip, the frosty was not made with several unpronounceable chemicals).
Banana Joe's is bright yellow and hard to miss if you are driving south, but easy to miss if you're going north. The fruit stand had decent looking fruits, including a few exotic items like rambutans. We didn't buy any fruit because we'd already purchased a bunch at a farmer's market. The window where you can buy a frosty keeps shorter hours than the rest of the stand - I think it closes at 5:00.
Living Room at the Princeville
While very expensive, the Living Room lounge at the Princeville Hotel, with its breathtaking views of the ocean and the mountains, is worth a visit, particularly at sunset. Drinks run about $7.50 for a beer and $11 or more for a cocktail, but the view is priceless, and you get a complimentary bowl of tasty snack mix with your drinks. The Living Room also offers outstanding, very fresh sushi ($25 for a mixed platter, including 5 pieces of nigiri and 4 pieces of California roll). On a few evenings we called the sushi our dinner, so it wasn't too bank-breaking.
Tidepools at the Grand Hyatt Kaua'i
Tidepools is expensive, but very romantic. The restaurant looks like a group of thatched Polynesian huts set in the middle of a lagoon at the back of the Grand Hyatt, with tiki torches lighting up koi ponds between the huts. In terms of atmosphere, it's probably the best place on Kaua'i to celebrate an anniversary or honeymoon.
The food is quite nice as well, particularly if you enjoy fresh fish. Preparations are sort of a French/Asian fusion that is very pleasant, if not super memorable. We really enjoyed our meal here, despite the high cost. The service was pleasant if a bit rushed. I think that would be my only real complaint - it would have been nice to linger longer over dinner.
Nothing to see here. Move along. Psst, there's a post on the best cheap Chinese lunch buffets in Hong Kong down below. Go check it out. Ah, naw, I'm just fooling. This post is just for establishing a Technorati link. And I really don't know of any cheap Chinese lunch buffets. At least not in Hong Kong. How about Colorado Springs?
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So after the little mishap (that's the official term now - mishap) with missing our initial flight, and the side trip to Disneyland, we jetted off to the exotic islands of Hawaii. Well, sort of exotic, the kind you might experience if you have always vacationed in Mud Flats, Mississippi and you won the raffle down at the VFW Hall. That kind of exotic. But still, it's cool. We liked it. Oh, sure Tahiti is more exciting because you know there you can probably still catch some reasonably rare and little known disease. Well, maybe not a disease but an exotic version of the common cold. A French version. And the food in Hawaii isn't all covered in cream sauce cooked in very dubious kitchens or outside in the garage over a hot plate. By the way, I'm not entirely sure, but there is a reasonable possibility that I'm not making the last bit up.
So anyhow, maybe Hawaii isn't as exotic and overrun with little known insects as some of the less visited tropical islands, but it was still a first for Mary. Pretty much for me also since the last time I visited there was during our trans-pacific trip back from Australia back in the day. I can't remember much since it was the Sixties and there were a lot of recreational drugs going around, but mainly because I was seven years old and the predominant memory I have of Waikiki was the hotel pool. Which was cool. Well, cool to a seven year old anyway. And of course this time we were traveling to Kauai and neither one of us had been there before.
As remarked in the entry on Hawaiian Airlines the trip to the islands was uneventful. We picked up our rental car from National, swung by Costco for reasons recounted here, and then proceeded to the far north of the island to our hotel in Princeville. The hotel is named, aptly, the Princeville Hotel and Resort. This hotel is a Starwood property under their Luxury Collection brand. Our decision to stay at the Princeville was motivated primarily by information we received last year that the number of points needed for redemption at most of the Starwood properties was going to be revised upwards. So we looked around online at all the Starwood hotels to find an interestingly place to go where we could make use of the points we had accumulated at that point. The Hawaii trip wasn't actually even a part of the whole Round The World thing until fairly late in the planning.
In any case, we had enough Starwood points saved up to get us a total of five nights free at Princeville. At a somewhat later point Mary decided to purchase a couple of additional nights at the Grand Hyatt on the south end of Kauai both to eke the trip out to a full week and because we heard that the weather in the south was usually better than in the north. As a matter of fact after a little more research we discovered that apparently it rains a lot on the north end, so we thought, just in case we get rained out, we'll get in a couple of days in the south where the weather is usually better. As things are wont to do, the weather at Princeville was excellent and we had no rain, mainly clear skies, and moderate temperatures for the entire five days we were there. Of course, when we went south for the remaining two days it rained, and it was cloudy the whole time.
So Princeville was cool, really nice scenery - this photo is from our room window. Although the weather itself in our area was good, the seas were pretty rough though the surfers were apparently happy - they were catching waves from just after dawn till sundown. The coast at this point is pretty rocky and it really isn't well suited for people who just want to paddle around in the water. Actually most of the beaches on Kauai seem to be similar - lots of big and small rocks along the tide line make it difficult to enjoy the water without smashing into something due to an inopportune wave.
We were both a little surprised with how green everything was. I don't know why, the vegetation was very similar to what we saw in Tahiti. Probably it was because coming from Colorado in the middle of the winter a ficus seems unbelievably green and lush. And the north of the island was supposed to be the greenest part though from our observations this is a manner of rather minimal degree as the south part of the island is pretty much indistinguishable at least to our snow blind eyes. Did I mention how green it all was?
So island - green, check, beaches - rocky, check, weather - balmy, also check. We liked it. We wandered from one end of the island to the other, checking out everything we could, including Waimea Canyon, which is called the Grand Canyon of the Pacific, and it was quite impressive if not quite as deep or wide as the original. We stopped at pretty much every town on the island and some were kind of cool in a ramshackle way. Actually delightfully ramshackle kind of defines pretty much everything outside the resorts on the island. As opposed say to Tahiti's not quite so delightful rundown and rather shabby look.
We sampled the island cuisine and pronounced it surprisingly good. Mary had her plate lunch (a Hawaiian specialty) which she'd been jonesing for since we started planning the trip. It was bountiful and chockfull of starches and fats. For the uninitiated, plate lunches, which are usually served in a Styrofoam box (go figure) are usually some sort of local delicacy like pulled pork or Korean chicken served with two scoops of rice, some sort of salad and usually but not always macaroni salad which is made with macaroni, mayonnaise, and pickle relish. It truly is as unhealthy as it sounds. It's a wonder with a diet like that, that the locals are not clutching their chests and keeling over every which way you turn.
Other than the plate lunches, however, we pretty much enjoyed everything we ate, which surprised us as Hawaii does not have what one might term a sterling reputation for its cuisine. Either we'd been misled or things are quite a bit better now than the recent past or we are rather easy on matters of food. Probably a combination of the three. Even the resort food was quite good.
Other than eating we spent the majority of our time that wasn't devoted to driving around the island to sitting around the pool and soaking up some rays - well, whatever managed to penetrate through a half inch of sun block - and reading and watching the waves and in my case soaking up a few brews.
Overall, our week in Paradise was not quite what we expected. From all of our previous impressions we kind of thought that Hawaii would be a little bit ticky tacky and kitschy. Perhaps better than Vegas but not by much. As it turned out, we really liked the people, which we did expect, but we also liked the island in and of itself. The resorts, especially the Grand Hyatt, were very nice. The weather was so pleasant (as opposed to our experience in Tahiti where day or night, month in and month out, it's always hot and always humid) that we spent much of our time with the air conditioning turned off and the windows open to catch the sea breezes and to allow us to fall asleep with the sounds of the waves caressing our cauliflower shaped ears. I think we'll probably want to go back in a year or less and check out some of the other islands.
During the Round the World trip we're going to try a few airlines with which we have no previous experience, so we thought that since you're already surfing this blog when you're supposed to be compiling the first quarter results for your supervisor, you wouldn't mind wading through our thoughts about them. Remember - it's this or having to spend 15 minutes listening to Dave from Accounting recount how his daughter totally rocked at her soccer game Saturday.
Anyway, our first new airline was Hawaiian Airlines. (Actually, our first new airline on the trip was supposed to be ExpressJet but, well, you know how that turned out.) Anyway, since we had never been to Hawaii, we'd never had the opportunity to sample Hawaiian's wares, since that is the only place they fly, strangely enough. They do have flights from a fairly wide range of starting points though. We took our flight from San Diego and normal flight time was five hours from this airport. We arrived at the airport with lots of time to spare since we knew we were in the bad West Terminal where security lines have been known to extend almost off airport property, and no, in this case, I'm really not exaggerating. In any case, as luck would have it, there were no lines at security this morning.
We did miss the Hawaiian Airlines ticket counter because there really isn't one. We finally stumbled on a set of check-in kiosks that were on the opposite side of the Departures Hall from all the other ticket counters. We liked the fresh approach they were taking with issues like baggage weight. They asked us if our bags were overweight and we said no and they took our word for it. Refreshing. We lied of course. At this point we did discover that there was a First Class ticket counter for Hawaiian, sandwiched in between the counters for some of the grown up airlines, but we were already checked in and that counter actually had a scale where our lies would have done us no good. So we gathered up our tickets and made our way down to the gate where we now had to wait for an hour and a half since the airport had tricked us and had no security lines. I hate when they do that.
The flight itself was pleasant and uneventful. First class passengers get a personal DVD player thing which is preloaded with a bunch of movies, TV shows, music videos and other assorted digital dross. I managed to get caught up on a couple of movies that I've wanted to watch for some time, including the Simpsons Movie that was pretty excellent and the second Fantastic Four movie which benefited from not being the first Fantastic Four movie, and let's leave it at that. The only drawback to the player is that you have to leave it on your tray table and so you can't watch it while you're eating. Other than that I liked it quite a bit. The offerings might be less than those available on the more high end AVOD (Airborne Video On Demand) systems but still for a five hour flight quite enough was available to divert me and prevent me from doing any writing or anything useful like that.
The meal on our flight was interesting and somewhat unusual. I applaud Hawaii for thinking outside the box a bit. First class passengers were given a menu of five small plates from which they were to choose three for lunch. All of the ones we had were fair to good and I had no complaints about them. Not haute cuisine, but something a little different and not bad at all. I think cattle class also got something - possibly some partially burnt flesh torn from the carcass of an unidentifiable mammal or maybe a reptile.
The seats on the flight were equivalent to Domestic First on other legacy carriers and less than equivalent to International Business on the better carriers. My footrest was broken and could not be used but they warned me about this before the flight loaded and offered to switch us to a couple of bulkhead seats. I refused since A) I don't like bulkhead seats in First because you can't put your stuff under the seat; and B) I don't care about footrests as I usually don't use them - they always seem to be at the wrong angle for me. Other than that the seats were fine for a relatively quick jaunt from the West Coast, I certainly wouldn't want to try and sleep for an extended period in them. Or more importantly I wouldn't want to have Mary sleep in them since she wouldn't get any sleep and she'd be cranky and someone would inevitably end up with their throat ripped out and there'd be blood and forms to fill out and stuff and it's all pretty unpleasant.
Arrivals was quick and angst free and we had sufficient time to check out the offerings at Honolulu International Airport which weren't much, at least inside the commuter terminal where we waited for our connecting flight to Kauai. The second flight took less then 30 minutes and well, that's pretty much all I can say about it.
The return flight to San Diego was pretty much the same thing but going East this time. Our overall impressions of Hawaiian Airlines were favorable. We'd certainly be willing to take this carrier again next time we want to go to the Islands. We're not sure if cattle class is survivable for a five hour flight but we probably could tough it out. First class is equivalent to most other domestic first class products, with somewhat better service than average and somewhat better meals.
So for our two night stay in San Diego between the Disneyland excursion and the flight to Hawaii Mary got a nice deal at the Rancho Valencia resort in Rancho Santa Fe, just outside San Diego. Interestingly enough, this is an area that we never visited in some 15 years living in San Diego county. It's very exclusive, we're kind of surprised they let us in. Or at least a little perturbed they let me in.
The resort is set in a canyon near the beach town of Del Mar. It's a beautiful area that we didn't see much of as we arrived quite late - around 10:00pm. Unlike the rest of San Diego there are few street lights and it's quite a winding route one has to follow to find the resort.
We were upgraded on arrival as we had booked through FHR (Fine Hotels and Resorts) program of American Express. As a member one gets a variety of options like a free room upgrade if available on check in. In our case we had a choice. The upgraded room was actually somewhat smaller than the original room though newer and it had some other options like a huge flat screen display and a whirlpool spa on the patio. The older room had a separate bedroom with a door, something Mary usually insists on so she can sleep when I decide it's time for a big bowl of chips, an ice bucket of beer, and a Rambo movie. For once Mary decided she could live without the separate bedroom, mainly I think because she had us scheduled too tightly for me to stay up late anyhow, so we took the upgrade. And we're glad we did. It was excellent. The bathroom and attached walk-in closet was one of the largest I've ever seen with a steam shower thrown in for kicks. I'm not sure exactly what a steam shower is supposed to do but there's additional controls and those were fun to fiddle with.
We got a nice basket of fruit soon after we arrived, an amenity we do not believe is an FHR add-on, and just something they do for all guests. Or all guests who's first names start with 'M'. We played hide the grape and then hide the orange and then, we'll you can see where this is going and it disturbs even me a little.
When we awoke the next morning, birds were singing, completely free of duress insofar as we could tell. The sun was shining though a thick layer of fog down in the canyon where we were situated but it burned off quickly as it is wont to do in San Diego. We enjoyed fresh squeezed orange juice which is delivered with one's morning paper. We'd asked for the Times of London but we were in the Colonies and had to settle for one of the less reputable broadsheets like the Wall Street Journal. Since we were on a schedule, we had previously ordered room service and had a light repast. Fruit, toast, eggs, hash browns, three types of breakfast pork products, hot cakes, oatmeal, and 32 ounce steaks. Well, actually we just stopped at the eggs and toast but I'm sure the rest of the breakfast offerings were equally as good. Though I'm reasonably certain that 32 ounce steaks weren't on the menu for breakfast. But Rancho Valencia strikes me as the kind of place that would make sure you could have a two pound steak for breakfast if that's what you really wanted.
Anyhow, since our time was so limited we were unable to really torment the help and see how accommodating they were though our limited interactions were very satisfactory. We felt that if we ever want to come back to San Diego and spend a few days completely withdrawn from the hustle and bustle this is a wonderful resort hotel to spend some time at. We'd love to come back someday and enjoy it when we weren't so rushed.
At and around day four of the three month around the world trip and we've already had a couple of technology meltdowns.
Before leaving on the trip I invested in a new laptop, mainly because Mary said there was no way I was going to get to use hers. I did some due diligence and researched laptops and finally settled on a Dell XPS. It was even promoted very favorably in Wired. One thing I did ignore was the buyer's comments on CNET, mainly because the responses were either "Dude, this laptop totally rocks!" or "Dude, this laptop totally sucks" There didn't seem to be much in the way of a middle ground.
So I bought it around a week before we left, which is my bad, I admit. I started it up and loaded some software I needed. I was a little unhappy with the fact that it came with Windows Vista, because there were some Vista issues with Mary's laptop but thought - hey, it's been long enough since the release for them to have worked out most of the bugs. Apparently I was wrong. Or maybe not. We never did figure out what the actual problem with the laptop was. Possibly it just hated me. There's literature to support this, really!
For shortly after I started using the computer it would lock up for no apparent reason. So locked up that I couldn't soft boot, I had to shut it down manually and then restart. Around 50% of the time it wouldn't restart. The other 50% of the time it would start but then lock up again eventually. I finally decided that the problem was that I was trying to actually start the computer and use it - evidently the laptop considered this an unreasonable request. Yes, I'm anthropomorphizing my laptop, it's an engineer trait...trust me.
I got on the phone with Dell and tried for a short time to go through the issues with the support people who were pretty nice, even though I had to have them repeat everything two or three times because I couldn't understand their accents (Indian). Around the one hour mark I had a little epiphany - I was in the airport, on the phone spending my time trying to get my laptop working. What's wrong with this picture? I should have received a product that worked right out of the box. Period.
I told the customer techs thanks for their help but I wanted to return the laptop. This produced a little consternation but they finally agreed although they said that the money wouldn't be refunded for 30 days, an issue that didn't much matter to me. When we arrived in Kauai we ran to the Costco here and I got an HP Pavilion that so far has worked flawlessly.
In addition to the laptop, the performance of Mary's new phone has been less than sterling. She got a Moto Q9h Global something so that she could check e-mails and the internet while we were traveling. The old Blackberry didn't have 3G which means it was somewhat sluggish accessing the internet. The new phone has manifold issues with e-mails, either deleting them without asking or as of this date, over two weeks since we got the phone, Mary has not been able to send an actual e-mail - they just pile up in her outbox without going anywhere.
So we've already replaced one laptop and now Mary is waiting for her old Blackberry which our house sitter has Fedex'ed to meet up with us before we depart Hawaii.
I don't expect a whole lot from tech - I'm an engineer and I know that just when you need the tech the most it'll leave you in the lurch. That's one reason I don't have a cell phone - when I need it there never seems to be any service. But I do expect at a minimum that the products I purchase to work first time out of the box - especially for basic functions like receiving e-mail on an e-mail enabled phone. Or to not actually lock up anytime I start an application on a computer. And along with that I no longer have the patience to spend seemingly limitless amounts of time on a phone with computer techs from India, no matter how helpful, getting something to work that should have worked right in the first place. So that's my technology manifesto. If it doesn't work flawlessly first time, and every time, it goes back to the manufacturer. Period.
So we did the whole Disneyland thing and Mary cracked the whip and made me come up with a short article on impressions, feelings, thoughts, conceptualizations, and such about the whole Disneyland experience. As we agreed Disney stuff goes on Mary's site and she promised that I'd be able to have a second beer tonight at cocktail hour as a reward. With little further ado here's the link to the article. Enjoy.
http://www.mousesavers.com/triprepdlca0108.html
So the Big Trip has finally begun. We packed and weighed, repacked and reweighed, took care of a thousand and two details, felt our adrenaline ratchet upwards till we were giddy with excitement and finally the morning of our departure arrived. We raced to the airport to catch the first flight on our around the world trip. And promptly fell flat on our faces. Believe or not, we actually missed our first flight.
ExpressJet recently started service from Colorado Springs airport and we had decided to use them for the initial flight to San Diego, mainly because it's a direct flight, which is pretty unusual for any flights out of Colorado Springs. The majority of flights from our home city connect through hubs. So we arrive at the ticket counter and proudly announce that we, experienced world travelers on the trip of a lifetime, are here to permit your tiny little airline to take us on the first leg. To which the gate agents responded "Your flight left a half hour ago!" Hmm, I mused for a moment and then I pointed a finger at Mary and accused her in a loud and accusatory voice of ruining the whole trip.
It turned out to be a mistake anyone, even the famously well organized Mary, could make. We made the reservations for the trip to San Diego six months ago. From San Diego we would be taking Hawaiian Airlines to Kaua'i, where we would be using a bunch of Starwood points before a rate increase was implemented. We later decided to tack on the Round The World trip to this previously scheduled trip. Sometime during the interim the airline had contacted Mary and told her that our early afternoon flight had been rescheduled for late morning. Mary said fine. but forgot to change the ultra-organized spreadsheet she constructed detailing flights, hotels, meals, and I believe bathroom breaks during our trip. So we thought the flight departed at 1:30 pm but it actually departed at 11:00. Oops!
With hardly a second thought, Mary started trolling the other airline counters, attempting to get us another flight to San Diego so all of our (actually her) plans would not collapse like the proverbial house of cards. During the early part of the trip we are scheduled fairly tightly, so a change, intentional or otherwise, might have repercussions later down the road. Might miss a bathroom break or something.
With the liberal use of credit cards we were able to snag another flight on American. Of course now we had to go through Dallas, but with American all roads do indeed go through Dallas. This meant that we got to San Diego a lot later then we originally planned, but at least we were in place, ready for a day trip up to Disneyland in the morning.
The funny thing was a couple of nights previously we had been talking about the whole concept of just taking off with a credit card and seeing where the wanderlust takes us. Well, unless you have virtually unlimited money, what we found out was that it's a lot harder nowadays than it might have been once upon a time.
