I left the office at 2:30 pm for a dental appointment. Though I don't have many teeth left, it's still important to have them cleaned once a while. Several reasons drove me to have natural teeth replaced by dentures 8 years ago: my parents don't have very healthy teeth, which might genetically impact me in the first place; I didn't protect my teeth very well as a kid because I remember I ate candies periodically before going to sleep at night then; some injuries were caused by playing sports. However, modern implant technology can have everyone's teeth recovered near perfectly. When I have free money after 60 years old, I will have it done, then I can chase beautiful young women again. Just kidding. Well, I never used money but smile to chase girls when I was young. It's my philosophy I will never change even I am 80 years old.
Walking out of Gentle Dental Lynnwood Office, I glanced a store sign of auto parts, so walked over to look for the light bolt. The sales lady tried to find the same model on racks but they seemed not carrying it. I decided to buy it at NAPA tomorrow.
Trump's negative news was all over CNN, I believe only Trump to be competitive with Democratic nominee in November, so GOP should appreciate what he had done, though I don't think he is a true republican.
Tomorrow, I would go to Everett to take a mandatory training, which would be due by tomorrow too. Due to some technical issues, a group of people including me missed the notification on time. Even worse, I took vacation last week while other folks scrambled to catch the classes, so would have to do it in the last minute. However, it's month end as well, so I plan to work from home early in the morning to complete necessary stuff.
Let me see if I can find some clips for Gopro on Youtube today.
Coming back home, I verified my concern that light bolt on front left my van was dead. Tomorrow, I would need to go to NAPA again to buy it.
Watching Trump on TV for a while, I switched to HBO to watch Pitch Perfect II. I watched the first one before and liked girls' performances. Though it talked about college girls, the music was for everyone.
I hadn't had chance to film the clips with my Gopro after coming back from vacation, but there were so many wonderful ones on Youtube.
I really can't defend the temptation of Eurovision 2016 but mostly like will stay at home. However, I would go to CenturyLink to watch Copa America and follow Eurocup 16 on TV this summer. Oh, US Men's Soccer Team beat Guatemala tonight, it's great.
It's the first working day after coming back from vacation, I didn't feel anything abnormally. It's just another day. A deadline happened to arrive by close of business today, so I had worked on it predominantly before leaving the office.
A swimming star, Missy Franklin, joined Gopro family, which signified more stars from different fields will promote this great brand to make it a truly social media success eventually. However, its stock price dropped by more than 7%, which also indicated hedge funds fooling the investors. I will accumulate its shares and options in the next six months.
Presidential Campaigns are heating up. Trump has perpetually surprised the public, Sanders has continuously challenged Clinton's domination.
It's big news not only for Huskies but for Seattleites that UW Women's Basketball team breaks into Final Four. Didn't I say something about it, I would be blamed for sure. Though I am not very interested in basketball after Sonics left Seattle, it's still a pleasant for the city.
I forgot to mention that I learned online Cruyff passing away several days ago due to cancer. I did learn a lot of skills from watching Zico's Bicycle kicks and Free kicks on TV in 80s but Cruyff was the first super star imprinted into my brain after watching a documentary about his performance in 1974 World Cup.
It's still early at 10:38pm by my standard but I plan to go to work before traffic builds up tomorrow morning. Ok, I call off my day now.
I hadn't gone to gym for quite a while but definitely would do it on Sunday morning. Not planning to have Big Breakfast at McDonald's, I ate all lemon cakes left from yesterday, then drove on my way to gym. It was raining relatively hard and there weren't many cars on road.
I broke 30 minutes workout on treadmill into two phases and was on bike continuously for 20 minutes, in addition to 150 times weightlifting and stretching. Leaving gym, I felt pretty fulfilled.
The light for brake of my van had been on when I started it in the morning in the last several weeks, it didn't go away after we came back from our vacation. It should be an easy fix anyway, so I stopped at NAPA Auto Parts buying Brake Fluid. Whenever the engine cooled down, I would add it into the tube.
It's Easter Sunday, a big service was being held at Northlake Christian Church. I don't go to church every Sunday but definitely respect Christianity. This was derived from my profound interests in European cultures when I was a teenager. If I must affiliate with a denomination, it is Church of Sweden. I do have a plan to live in Uppsala for a couple of months after I retire to understand it more thoroughly. Another Cathedral having influenced me in my life is Notre Dame De Paris, which is driven by Victor Hugo's novel.
My son decided to go back to his dorm in late afternoon and my dad was bored at home. We left home for UW campus around 3pm. Approaching to Northgate, I noticed a collision warned on the message board hung over the freeway, so took the exit to get onto 15th Ave. Driving into Huskies' nation, I listened to my son discussing Chinese politics with my dad. I don't really care about it unless it can help me get the compensation of my property back.
Dropping my son at his dorm, I laughed at him because he almost forgot where the entrance was only after one week vacation. He might be pretending or hadn't got his mind back to reality. Taking a left turn onto 45th Street, we were on our way to Safeway to pick up my mom's medication, which wasn't refilled before I took vacation last week.
After dinner, I started watching The Count of Monte Cristo. Though I read this famous Dumas' novel several times, I never watched this 2002 version. I did watch an old version more than 20 years ago. I believe this version had the story shortened and characters simplified. I bought and read these four volumes in Chinese translation in 1980 when I was in Middle School. It was translated from English. I may read it again in French after I retire: Le Comte De Monte-Cristo. See, I have so many plans post-retirement. Hopefully, some of them will be realized.
I kept watching another movie without remembering its name from time to time when I woke up until midnight, then came upstairs to my bedroom. Is vacation done for this year?
Waking up not too late but definitely falling back into sleep until almost 9:00 am on this Saturday morning, I went downstairs to ask my mom whom had sat there for a while if we needed to go buying groceries. My parents might be concerned my tiredness after coming back from Hawaii in early morning, so they decided to defer it to next week. Then, I came back upstairs to take a shower and put the dirty clothes into the washer.
My son had reminded me to go watching the newly released Batman v Superman even before we flew to Honolulu. Checking on both AMC and Regal Website, I decided to go to Regal at Everett Mall because it would have more showtimes for 3D in the afternoon to pick.
It's very sunny and we drove to the theater within 20 minutes. Watching on the board hung above the ticket office, I figured the one at 2:00pm being best timing for us. Fortunately, there weren't as many viewers as I had expected, we sat onto our most favorite seats we usually take in any auditorium.
The movie didn't disappoint us but I was a little bit sad to watch Superman dead at the end. I am not sure if he will resurrect in future or not. I can't believe his disappearance after more than three decades. I remember I watched the first movie of Superman back in 1987.
It might be because we ate tasty ice creams at Haagen Dazs in Waikiki the night before we flew back to Seattle, my son wanted to buy more to eat after watching the movie. Driving on Bothell-Everett Highway, I figured Fred Meyer at the intersection with Route 96 probably the best location to stop. Grabbing 3 premium Haagen Dazs ice creams, one for my son, one for me and one for my mom, oh, my dad didn't like it, in addition to a box of lemon cakes, we drove back home before the sky became dark. Before approaching the intersection of North Road and 164th Street, I sensed again Seattle being our home indeed.
No, one week vacation was definitely not enough, I hadn't mentally come back to the reality only after 6 nights. A movie named Vacation was present on one of HBO channels. I caught it from the middle but was still impressed by the road trip that family experienced, though it's not always pleasant. Yes, Applegate had grown into a mother from a daughter. I planned to watch the movies non-stop until Sunday morning, of course, I didn't make it...
It's Good Friday but didn't start very well for us. I went down to ABC Store to buy two bowls of instant noodle, a ham sandwich and a Hawaiian T-shirt. I didn't have appetite to eat rich breakfast at Shor, so was to have instant noodle. My son initially took my suggestion to plan to go eating by himself but changed his mind to stay in the room to eat the sandwich. After coming back home, I suddenly thought about to check my e-mail, which I hadn't done for a week and read the notice from Delta that our flight would delay to 3:10 in the afternoon. Because I had planned to leave the hotel for airport at 9:00 am, it was a 6 hours delay for me.
Pulling the phone number from Delta website, I planned to call them to verify because the arriving time at Seatac was scheduled at 10:00 am on Saturday morning, which seemed for a multi-stop flight instead of non-stop one we booked. Glancing a online chat icon, I clicked on it instead of calling. The instruction reminded me to key in my questions first, so I did it: "Flight 2210 delayed to 3:10pm? Why will this flight arrive in Seattle 10:00 am on Saturday? Will it stop somewhere else instead of directly flying back Seattle?" The Delta representative named Scott M (I didn't catch the full last name) responded:"Thanks for contacting Delta Airlines", then left Chat Room immediately without chatting with me. Subsequently, a text message was sent to my cell phone to update the flight to be delayed to 4:35 pm and arriving time at Seatac to be reasonable at 1:09 am. Anyway, we were going to be above the ocean while Good Friday was progressing to the end.
After eating the quick breakfast in the room, I took the last clip in the balcony before checking out. As I had shared the first night we checked in, the multi-story parking garage just faced to our balcony and I even could see the rental Volkswagen Jetta TSI parked on 8th floor across the air. It's so convenient to stay in Hyatt Regency Waikiki Beach Resorts & Spa in this Holy week.
Yes, it's too early to return the car at the airport, so I decided to drive back to PCC to view the coastline we didn't appreciate in the darkness while we were driving back to our hotel on Monday night. However, I missed several exits on Freeway H1, eventually, I decided to drive on H1 to its end.
We did reach the end of freeway but the road was heavily congested on the extended local route. Seeing a restroom, I turned into the parking lot on the left-hand side of the road. Using the restroom real quickly, we walked to the nearby beach to appreciate the tides for several minutes and had to run back to the car because it was raining harshly. The weather on Oahu had been amazing until this morning.
As you may notice, I am a sports fan, so visiting stadiums is one of my hobbies while traveling. Aloha Stadium is one of the most famous ones nationwide due to NFL Pro Bowl. My son was annoyed by my hobby and urged me to leave as quickly as possible. He had an excuse to do it because I parked on a forbidden spot. It's offseason, the stadium was not set for visiting.
Parking in a lot at nearby McDonalds', we replaced shorts with long sports pants and long sleeves sweatshirts. It's pretty close to airport, we returned our rental car at Enterprises several minutes later.
There were still 2 hours and a half to go, we planned to eat two meals at the airport to consume time. The first one was at PGA Tour Grill near Gate 23 where we were going to board Delta 2210. I ordered a beer on Tap and Pasta, my son ordered something else I can't remember. It took us almost an hour to finish. Jimmy called me during the late lunch. I was so grateful for his hospitality especially this was the first time we ever met. It's all because we went to the same college when we were young: China University of Mining & Technology. He was enrolled in 1980 and I was in 1984, so we never had a chance to know each other because he graduated in July, 1984 and I hadn't moved into the college in Xuzhou from my hometown Beijing until September in that year.
After lunch, we walked to the other parts of the airport and saw the airplanes operated by Hawaiian, United and Delta parked on the slots. The rain stopped and the airport was washed so freshly.
Finally, we walked back to Gate 23 to wait for our flight. Delta served free sandwiches and drinks at the waiting area. I grabbed a sandwich but not drink because I had bought a venti latte at Starbucks before coming to the area. My son went to the nearby station to charge his cellphone. I said in this clip the stores being duty-free, which was probably wrong because we were in the area of domestic flights.
Eventually, we boarded on the flight and it would carry us back home after delayed by 4 hours. Yes, the true delayed hours were 4 because the originally scheduled Departure time was 12:38pm. On board, I learned that the coming flight from Seattle was actually on time but a mechanical issue was discovered one hour later, so it returned to Seatac and original 757 was replaced by a 767-300 to resume flying to Honolulu 4 hours later. Safety is key, I didn't mind to come home a couple of hours later especially we were on vacation, supposedly very layback.
During the flight, I watched The Big Short but fell into sleep in the last 20 minutes and just woke up before it ended. I need to rewatch it sometime. Almost 6 hours flight wasn't that long because I consumed it very well.
Picking up my van at Masterpark Lot C, I was so happy that the van didn't fail us. Staff at Masterpark seemed not encountering any problem to start it because it was parked by the side of the office waiting for us to come back to Seattle. Driving on I-5 to head home, we had our hearts settled completely. Yes, we were home. The weather seemed very nice, though it's so dark at 2:00 in the morning on Saturday.
We drove the rental car out of the parking garage at 7:00 am on Thursday morning. Before Waikiki became crowded, we had been on the road to Hanauma Bay.
Following GPS instruction, we didn't have any problem of arriving at Hanauma Bay. We were told the gate could be closed if the parking lots were full. Fortunately, when we approached the gate of the park, it was opened. We definitely got there pretty early, though most of the parking lots had been occupied.
Without taking trolley, we walked downhill to the Bay. The view was so extraordinary, we couldn't wait to get into the beautiful ocean.
My son had never learned swimming but he still wanted to try snorkeling. Watching his body imbalanced in the water, I almost burst into laughing.
After he came back to the beach to watch our valuable stuff, I jumped into the water to test my Gopro. It worked very well and I would utilize it more often in future. Wearable action camera fits my hobby very well because I love filming the sceneries while driving. In addition, I can film my skills while practicing the soccer at Lynnwood High.
Before leaving the Bay, I filmed one more clip for great memory.
It's still pretty early for the day, I turned off GPS to drive along the ocean spontaneously. I hadn't driven on an island since 1988, the view of the ocean was quite different from the ones on the coasts in continents or even on peninsulas.
After stopping at a viewpoint, we kept driving on this scenic ocean drive until glancing another beautiful beach. There are so many fantastic beaches on Oahu you don't want to miss.
We ate banana cakes bought at ABC store earlier, so didn't want to go back to Waikiki so early to have lunch. Keeping driving on freeway, we actually saw the campus of University of Hawaii at Manoa. Though, we didn't stop but drove through the campus. Eventually, we followed GPS direction again to drive back to hotel through the local route.
Taking a break in the room at our hotel, we came back to Arancino Di Mare to have our lunch. Two days ago, we came here to attempt to have formal meal but it was too early, so we only had breakfast. It's small but very fine cooked. Today, we ordered cocktail and drink, appetizer, Lambs and Steak, Latte and Dessert. It's very authentic Italian cuisine and we loved it.
ABC Stores were so convenient in Hawaii, I bought Hawaiian shirts for all of our family members in one of the stores across Waikiki Beach before coming back to our hotel.
I recommended my son to have a causal dinner at Swim in our hotel but he wanted to eat on the street. We had noticed a seemingly very popular local restaurant branded Egg something but it was still pretty crowded at late night. I wanted to try a very popular burger house but my son didn't want to do it. At one moment, I caught a roadside stand having boxed Shrimp and Rice sold. We finally decided to try it. Next to this stand was a Haagen Dazs store at which I ordered Banana Split for myself and Chocolate & Cookies for my son. Though only their customers were allowed to use the tables, we ate the boxed meals on one of the tables because we were also their customers after buying the ice creams and fountain drinks. The ice creams were tasty and the garlic shrimps were delicious.
We were going to leave tomorrow, it's the last night we could enjoy our vacation on Oahu.
We were told that the free tickets for the tour to Arizona in Pearl Harbor could be distributed very quickly, so I drove our rental car out of the parking garage at 6:30 am to shoot for arriving at Pearl Harbor Visitor Center as soon as it opened.
The first 45 minutes drive was very smooth, but GPS directed us to get onto a local route, which eventually brought our car to a blocked street. Asking an Asian senior lady at a residential area, I drove back to Freeway H1 to head to the right direction. At that point of time, I realized that the destination I entered initially was too vague: Pearl Harbor.
The second input wasn't good enough either, I input "Pearl Harbor Visitor Center", then GPS directed us to Honolulu International Airport. We would come back on Friday to return the rental car and I did see the sign to Rental Car Return. I had to stop at a merchant to input the third time: "World War II Valor in the Pacific Monument". Third time's the charm, we arrived at Pearl Harbor eventually. Wait, not exactly, I drove into a military base and was directed by the guard to the right entrance of the museum.
Since we arrived at the destination one hour and a half later than planned, our tour to USS Arizona Memorial was arranged at 12:45 pm. Buying Passport tour, we boarded the shuttle to visit Battleship Missouri first. The tour guide on board explained the every piece of detail of what happened on this ship. We also walked on multiple decks to appreciate the beauty of the antique.
Leaving Missouri, we were waiting for the shuttle to carry us to Pacific Aviation Museum.
Several warplanes during the World War II were presented at this Museum. My son and I took the photos in front of them. I also used selfie screen installed by the Museum Management to tweet my image out. Later on, I found it was favored by the Museum on Twitter. It's my honor.
We were a little bit hungry, so ate sandwiches and rice at the cafe inside the Museum. The foods were plenty enough and we were full before boarding on the shuttle to have us sent back to the visitor's center.
After coming back to the center, we boarded on Bowfin first to learn Navy's lifestyle back in those years.
Hanging around the center for an hour, we joined the tour to approach USS Arizona Memorial after watching the documentary in the theater. So many lives were lost during that morning when they were still in dream.
I actually used Gopro Hero 4 Session filmed 6 very interesting clips today but lost all of them due to the deletion after downloading onto my laptop. I still don't understand why the downloaded clips supposedly stored in my laptop were also deleted. I may not understand the functionality of GOPRO Desktop Application correctly.
We were recommended by Jimmy and Bing Bing to appreciate the crystal green ocean at Kailua Beach, so drove there to find out what they said was totally true. The introduction on a board said it a local favorite, but I did witness many tourists around here as well.
Two local girls threw the balls into the ocean and their dogs chased them so excitingly. It's a wonderful scene in a pleasant weekday afternoon on Oahu.
We drove back to hotel around 4 o'clock and bought some snacks at ABC store to eat in the room. Falling into sleep for several hours, we headed to Japango Restaurant inside the hotel to taste local cuisine. My son ordered a 6 courses dinner and I ordered a seafood entree in addition to a tomato appetizer. The formal dinner in such an upscale restaurant was pricey but super delicious.
Walking back to the room, we planned to fall into sleep quickly. We wanted to drive to Hanauma Bay as early as we could because we were told the entrance to be closed if the parking lots were full.
It's 3:25 in the morning on Thursday morning, and I haven't written my diary for Tuesday. As I shared in our CUMT US Alumni group on WeChat that I feel money being so valuable while on vacation. It made me feel happy that I just checked my online bank account to see my bi-week paycheck debited, then I immediately paid my credit card balance for last cycle though it wouldn't be due until April 11th. It would make me more cautious visually. However, I will enjoy my vacation without thinking too much. Life is short and everyone needs to be happy.
We got up not too late but left room to walk to Honolulu Zoo at almost 9:30 am. It's very close to our hotel. Most of the visitors were families with small kids but my son loves going to Zoo wherever he visits, it's a hobby he carries over from childhood. In African Savanna, I caught a harmonious scene of Zebra and Giraffe leaning each other.
Before leaving, I caught a Tiger sleeping at a corner in his yard. Just like my son's comment, Tiger looks really similar to our cat at home, at least, when he is sleeping. A big bird was wandering around, I wasn't sure if the tiger would chase the bird when he woke up. Everyone on Oahu seemed very relaxed as far as we had observed, even birds didn't fly away when my car was driven to approach them, so I had to stop to ensure not to hit them in several occasions in the last 3 days.
I ate a bowl of instant noodle very early in the morning but my son didn't eat anything. On our way back, we stopped at an Italian Restaurant named Mancino. Unfortunately, it only served breakfast then. The Ham and Cheese was really fine-cooked and drink bar was very convenient.
My son got into the water the first time in this trip and I hadn't done it. However, we came back to the room to take rest because I had contacted my alumnus at CUMT in honolulu and Jimmy invited us to a Korean BBQ restaurant for the dinner on Tuesday night.
After taking a nap for an hour and a half, I got up to catch up my diary for Monday, there were a lot of memories to write about Polynesian Cultural Center, it is a must-see on Oahu.
Jimmy sent me a message through WeChat that he would like to push the dinner an hour later and another alumna would join as well. Since I had never seen both of them because we were at the university at all different periods of time, I wasn't sure if I bothered them too much because everyone was supposed to be busy at work during the weekday and exhausted after work. However, Jimmy mentioned that he had made the reservation. He actually was in a business of tourism, so knew everything about Hawaii. He recommended us to drive through Round Top Drive before the dinner and I took his advice. It's a wonderful drive and reminded me the route to Hollywood Sign in Los Angeles.
At one point of time, we stopped at a vista point where I thought it the best place to view.
After driving up for a couple of minutes more, we found a state park where the view of city skyline was actually the best.
Downhill route was full of turns but the driving experience was memorable. We arrived at the Korean BBQ house 20 minutes earlier eventually. Walking to the entrance of the restaurant, I saw a lady standing in a parking lot to look at us curiously. I saw her face familiar and guessed her that alumna who was going to join us for the dinner. Yes, she was Bing Bing whom I saw the face on Linkedin before. She was enrolled at CUMT in 2003, a much younger sister than our generation back in early 80s. While waiting for Jimmy to come, we exchanged a little bit of ourselves, Bing Bing was a lecturer in Marketing at University of Hawaii at Manoa. She got her PhD at University of Alabama and was waiting for her H1-B visa applied through her employer.
Jimmy came over a bit late because of work. As I shared, he is in travel business, so has a lot of knowledge in this subject, though he majored in Geographical Survey, a key subject in our university related to mining. Many people changed their careers far away from their majors at college, just like me, I majored in Civil Engineering but had never worked as an engineer. As Alumni,we naturally talked a lot about our university in old years as well, The foods at this Korean Restaurant were very authentic and we all loved our gathering.
Driving back to our hotel, we tried to fall into sleep as early as possible. We planned to go to Pearl Harbor at 7:00am and then Kailua Beach as recommended by Jimmy and Bing Bing. They told us the color of the ocean there being green.
It's the first morning for us in Oahu, we went to Shor, restaurant for buffet breakfast at Hyatt Regency Waikiki Beach Resort & Spa. The waitress attempted to arrange a table right at the edge of the open floor to view the ocean directly, but two other guests who were in front of us got it. This frustrated my son for several seconds.
The buffet was tasty and the bird apparently loved the foods here too.
Yes, I got this Volkswagen Jetta TSI from Enterprises and enjoyed driving it. I couldn't recall how to open the cover of the gas cap of my VW Santana more than 20 years ago, and didn't know how it worked for this new model either. I couldn't find any control on the dashboard or below it and wasn't able to open the cover directly by myself. I actually would figure it out later by pushing it to open.
Following the GPS instruction, I drove through some of the local routes and got onto Freeway. At one point of time, I switched to the wrong route, which was probably H2, but got back to the right one pretty quickly. After more than 45 minutes, we were approaching North Shore. Then I had taken Gopro off my head, so I used my right hand to take a clip. Anyway, the ocean couldn't be seen in it, though I could view it in my eyes remotely while driving.
My son searched online to locate a beach where turtles were told to be seen occasionally. When we actually had arrived there, I passed it due to the crowded parking lots on the other side of the road where I couldn't find a parking spot. Taking a U-turn a mile ahead, we came back to the beach to park on the ocean side out of the fence of a lucky resident's house.
The tides were high and water was blue. Though we didn't see any turtle or this wasn't even the right beach my son was looking for, the view was breathtaking.
Hanging around for 15 minutes, we drove back on road to turn into the direction to a historic town we had planned to come back to visit when we were seeing it earlier. The town itself was very small but the beach was wider and tides were rougher. I even wished to put my swimpants on to test the tides while taking some clips with my Gopro.
Resetting the GPS, we were on our way to Polynesians Cultural Center. Gas tank was only a quarter filled, so I stopped at a local franchisee branded as Foodland to pump the gas. While buying the drinks in the store, the gal asked me the phone number to tell that I could get 10% at any store of this franchise by giving this registered number in their system. After driving back on road, I just realized that we had arrived at the destination when hearing GPS instruction.
It's still too early, the ticket office wasn't open. My son and I walked around for a while to wait. The saleman at ticketing counter recommended us Ambassador Tour, which sounded very comprehensive. We eventually joined it because we wanted to appreciate as much as we could and did plan to watch the night show from the best available seats at night.
We started our tour with four others who were immigrants from Brazil long ago. They are living in Port Collins, Colorado now. Since we bought the tickets for buffet lunch, tour guides took us to the restaurant first.
While waiting for the tour guides, I talked about the dream team led by Zico back in 80s with those Brazilian-Americans and told them I was influenced by watching their skills on TV when I was a teen. They took a picture for us at the entrance of the restaurant.
The tour guides were all students from local colleges, I didn't pay attention which college they enrolled but did see a BYU campus referred on a road sign right before approaching the center. Of course, University of Hawaii has multiple campus all over the island. The leading guide was an Engineering Major as this tall guy claimed later and his assistant was a girl from Texas majoring Hospitality. Oh, a foreign student from Korea greeted us at the beginning. My son was a little bit irritated by the question of where we came from repeatedly, given so many Chinese tourists from Mainland China visiting Hawaii, we might be considered as two of them. We do speak mandarin between ourselves, but visiting a place with all the names and terms in English, we did want to join a tour guided in English. In addition, our daily activities were typical Americans', so might have more common things to talk with Americans than Chinese. However, we don't deny Chinese being our native language, even for my son, who considers himself truly bilingual. By the way, he learned his grades of the 3 courses yesterday he took in Winter Quarter, averaged at 3.33, all above average in each class.
The tour guides were very knowledgeable and friendly, at one stop, they gave us the local crafted wooden necklace, I will keep it as a very valuable gift from this tour.
I skipped a group event by sitting out of it. Since we wanted to keep full energy for the night show, which would last until 9:30pm, I would like to take a rest. Though I did sleep a lot of hours last night, I still felt a bit sleepy. At a bathroom break, I used both hands to cover my face for several seconds to release the exhaustion, which triggered a gentleman whose family joined the tour with a larger group after our lunch to concern my health. I said to him that I was fine but just tried to kill the sleeping bug due to jet-lag. He mentioned that they came from Louisiana, stopped at Atlanta Airport, then flew here for almost 9 hours, so he could feel my pain.
Before the performance on the river kicked off, I chatted with this gentleman and found out his daughter being a senior at LSU and majoring Animal Science and he graduated from Auburn, which triggered us to talk about two Tigers. It's interesting that he met his wife at Northern Louisiana University before it was rebranded UL-Monroe. I knew UL-Monroe playing in NCAA Division I but had never known this history. I had pleasant conversations with this family through the end of the tour from time to time. The only thing I forgot to ask them was why they didn't carry strong Southern accent.
The performance on the river was authentic Hawaiian and very inspirational, which impressed the tourists sitting by both sides of the river to cheer excitingly.
The next show was more interactive in which tourists from Florida, Canada and Philippine contesting with the host. It brought a lot of fun.
Earlier, we watched the performers' show on the river, later on, we were in the canoe ourselves. I should say this tour being arranged very well.
Almost at the end, we watched performers climbing the tall tree while others played fire sticks on the stage skillfully.
We ended to go back the same big restaurant where we had had our lunch. The dinner became a feast. We were shown the huge BBQ pork, maybe even an entire pig on the stage.
My son ate too much different stuff today, so just had a full plate of foods for the dinner, then walked out to digest. I had more desserts, then got out of the banquet earlier than most of the tourists.
In order to enjoying the night show as much as we could, we headed back to our car to rest for another hour.
The night show was fantastic, especially by watching it from second row where was just several feet away from the performer. The show had the entire Polynesians' history depicted and I learned a lot about their heritages through the night. As far as I could tell, newborn baby was the hope for their future and Fire was a magic for their life. Unfortunately, filming wasn't allowed.
Heading out to the parking lots again, we could see so many tour buses parked there having the tourists picked up to return to their hotels. It's a magical night at the center too.
In the darkness, I still could sense the ocean by the left-hand side while driving back to Waikiki. The scene must be very beautiful under the sunshine. After parking the car in the garage, I went to ABC store to grab a beer, a small bag of Italian sausage and two bowls of instant noodles while my son was going to the room by himself first. I was hungry again.
I tested the starter of my van at 4:00 am, it worked perfectly. But when we were ready to leave, it failed me twice. As I had experienced in the last two weeks, I had to step on the pedal to pump the gas into the engine several times when this happened. I guess the gas pipeline might be congested.
Dropping the car at Masterpark Lot C as I always do, I mentioned to the staff my van's problem in case it could happen to them when they would move the car after several days. Taking the shuttle to Seatac Airport, we went through the security pretty smoothly, though there were many travelers today. The airplane was delayed to be pulled to the Gate S12, so we had to wait for half an hour more than scheduled departing time. However, we eventually got on board to head to dreamful Hawaii!
It's a long domestic flight to take almost 6 hours. I fell into sleep from time to time while reading the novel in the rest. The fight attendants were very friendly and breakfast was well enough. This was my first time to board a Hawaiian Airlines' flight and it impressed me very well.
I hadn't known the passengers being required to declare for agricultural products before entering Hawaii and didn't bring a pen with me. The gal sitting beside me lent her to me to have me filling out the form. I wished her having a great trip when we all were about to get off the plane.
After picking up the baggage, we got onto a shuttle to Enterprises Rental Car operation. The girl was so nice to help me go through the process after I failed scanning my driver's license at Self-help kiosk. Another gal named Barbara pointed us to the waiting area with her sweet smile. Eventually, a young man named David brought us to a Angel Blue Volkswagen. Yep, I owned a Volkswagen Santana in 90s and drove it through 250,000 kilometers. However, I hadn't driven any Volkswagen for more than 20 years, and this would be a great experience. My son made several jokes to David as much goofy as he is always. I wasn't sure if David felt him odd or not. David said that he grew up in North Shore and recommended us to spend sometime there. Yes, I planned to go to Polynesian Culture Center tomorrow and would take sometimes to walk on the beaches in North Shore. In summary, the staff at Enterprises is very friendly and helpful.
Driving on the road to Hyatt Regency Waikiki Beach Resort & Spa, I filmed the scenes along the road for 20 minutes with Gopro Hero 4 Session wrapped around my head. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to download it onto my laptop. It might be too long. I will do short ones tomorrow.
Parking on the 8th floor in a detached multi-story parking garage, we checked into our room at the hotel. The room was very comfortable, though I didn't book an oceanview one. Since the breakfast on board HA 21, we hadn't eaten anything, so pretty hungry. Walking on the street, we saw Cheesecake Factory across but there are several franchisees in Seattle, then noticed a California Pizza Kitchen on the right, which was popular in Seattle as well. The restaurant next to it was named Atlantis Seafood & Steak, which sounded unique and also triggered me to recall Atlantis in Paradise Island. Eventually, we had a delicious late lunch sitting outside on 2nd floor while viewing the tourists wandering on the street back and forth. It's very diverse that my son used chopstick to eat the pasta. He was given a pair of chopstick for the appetizer earlier.
So many tourists enjoyed sunshine on Waikiki Beach, I wasn't sure if we would have a spot to lie on the sands in the next couple days. However, my son wanted to watch sunrise, we would come there at 4:00 am at least once. Let's shoot for Thursday.
Grabbing a Blue Ribbon beer and Genoa Salami at an ABC Store, we came back to the room to take a rest. After a long day, I was pretty tired, so fell into sleep until almost midnight.
My son didn't eat anything for dinner, so we probably would get up early to have a big breakfast. Before falling into sleep again, I used Gopro to film a clip for the nice room and the street view from the balcony on this 10th floor.
Waking up at 2:14 am, I decided to fall back to sleep for several other hours before watching Arsenal taking Everton. Anyway, I eventually missed the first half in which all of the two goals were made. Arsenal won an easy match at the end.
Because my son and I would fly to Honolulu tomorrow, I planned to complete several tasks for the family this morning. After watching Leicester leading Crystal Palace to be closer to its first BPL Championship, I drove out of the garage.
First, I stopped at Xfinity store by Alderwood Mall to return the replaced set boxes. I was lucky being the only customer during that short period of time. On Saturday, I had expected a big crowd there.
Secondly, I drove to Ranch 99 Chinese Supermarket to buy four types of vegetables for my parents. While I am not at home, they still need to cook meals for themselves. Before going through the register, I saw Tsingtao Beer placed on the floor, then grabbed a big pack.
Next destination was Safeway, I needed to have 7 medications refilled for my parents. One of my dear friends at pharmacy intentionally spoke to me super fast today. I guessed that they all knew I had been following fast speaking Presidential Election programs on CNN everyday. By the way, my endorsement to Trump as Republican Nominee is definitely not favorable in Washington State. However, I haven't decided whom to be endorsed in General Election.
Finally, I entered Best Buy to buy Gopro Hero 4 Session. A Linebacker type of 6'3" sales associate came over to assist me after I had hung around Gopro's stands for a couple of minutes. That I implied my son's body growing like an American footballer on my blog probably made many people in this area very uncomfortable. Chinese image is supposed to be thin and weak even a lot of kids aren't short nowadays. However, the big guy did satisfy all of my requests and I walked out of the store with all what I needed.
After lunch, I slept for quite a while, then started testing my new Gopro. It worked very well and I filmed and uploaded my first clip. I planned to film more clips while driving in Oahu next week and diving in the ocean by Waikiki.
Sounders were murdered by the referee tonight, but who cares? MLS tried to irritate me for several possible reasons but I had lost interests of playing with them.
As I shared, I got to prepare something coming up in the last minute. Well, I left work for home almost at 5:00pm, so didn't go to return old set boxes to Xfinity store and buy GOPRO Hero 4 Session.
It's very exciting to fly to Oahu to relax for a week. I even thought about to start the vacation from Saturday: Check in a hotel close to Master Park Lot C; Go to Sounders' home game to face Cascade Rivalry - Vancouver Whitecaps at 7:00 pm; Have a late dinner in Chinatown; Drive back to the hotel to sleep until 6:00 am; Check in at the airport at 7:30 am. However, it's too good to do. I will watch Sounders' match at home on TV.
Trump encountered protests in Salt Lake City and it looked like a lot of supporters backing him up as well. Trump Mania has been so phenomenal in this nomination.
I definitely will buy a Session, then I will film the clips by myself and post them here.
I am catching up the diary I didn't write for yesterday.
People dressed green today. I do have a dark green suit I really like but didn't put on after hesitating for a minute before coming out of home. Anyway, the sunshine was warm and trees were green in this early spring St. Patrick's Day.
Since I am going to take the next week off, you can imagine that I tried to cover as much as I could at work. Unfortunately, I had had been in several long hours' but necessary meetings in the last couple of days, my schedule for today became even more intense. However, it's still a relative short day because I might have to work late on Friday to cover something possibly coming up in the last minute.
Nominations at both Parties are heating up. Anyway, Sanders conceded Missouri to Clinton, which would save taxpayers' money, though many Democrats are still blaming Gore not to fight with Bush for Florida more than a decade ago.
Commercials on CNN had been so beautiful these days. The one for Volvo had been repeatedly present. At one point of time when I watched the woman touching the man's hand, I was suddenly triggered to think about the poem I said to you at Arlanda (In reality, it was in Kastrup because I had never flown into Arlanda until last July): "一日不见，如隔三秋“. I remember you tried to calculate the total numbers of the years after understanding the formula embeded in the poem. After I tweeted, it might cause a misunderstanding I realized afterwards, but what I meant was back in that morning in 1992. Come on, I am 50 years old now and wouldn't have that taste any more. However, when I drove into the city of Stockholm last July, the sense built into my brain led me to Sergels Torg so naturally, I didn't miss any route and waste any time after 20 years since last time. No, when I am out of Scandinavia, I don't have any appetite of driving it but it's totally different when I go back there, I really want to drive a Volvo through the peninsula again.
The clip I posted above was snapped by my right hand while driving by my left hand, it's dangerous. But my son didn't like doing it for me. It's why I am going to buy a Gopro for our trip in Oahu this time.
It's another busy day but shorter. However, my son called me earlier when I was still at work to ask me to pick him up in the afternoon because he would take the last exam and didn't want to stay in his dorm while most of the students had left.
When I arrived at his dorm, it's still one hour away from 4:30pm when his exam for Statistics would end. Sitting in my van to wait for my son, I texted him to let him know I had been there because he didn't know I would come so early. Right after 4:30pm, he texted me back to tell that he would have to hang on with the classmates in Drama Class for a while. I told him that I wasn't in a hurry, so took his time.
On our way home, my son said to me that some of Chinese students thought he wasn't a Chinese. He actually moved with my parents to States to live with me at 12 years old, so Chinese is his native language, he can actually speak very fluent Beijing Dialect. However, he might not look like a typical Chinese because he probably is more genetically associated with my maternal grandfather's bloodline. Many people, including Koreans, guess me a Korean. However, most of Koreans' blood type is AB as I learned but mine is O Positive. I may inherit my maternal grandmother's blood more, in addition to my dad's majority Chinese blood. This photo was snapped two and a half years ago by the photographer on Carnival's cruise ship. Now, my son is almost 3 inches taller than me, though he is still a kid in my eyes. We should have several photos taken together in Oahu next week.
I asked him if he has a target of girlfriend or not, he said, at this age, most of the nice girls have already had boyfriends. Yes, he is really behind me, I made my first girlfriend at age of 15. She was a dancer and considered a beautiful girl. I only could find this photo taken on a boat in 1981. I don't think she would blame me to share this photo here because I haven't seen her for exactly 30 years and don't know what she looks like and where she is now. Oh, I do remember her birthday: April 3rd, not far away from today.
I plan to go to buy a Gopro Hero 4 Session before we are flying to Honolulu...
