7/25/2009Saturday morning, we got up bright and early, made some pancakes and leftover sausages and hit the road for the North Shore. Quinn is in the middle of swimming the North Shore Swim Series, a four-race competition on alternating Saturdays throughout July. Today he swam Chun's Reef to Waimea Bay, a grueling 1.6 mile trek through rocky water, opposing current and with 300+ other competitors. We got up to Waimea pretty early, passing sugar cane fields, pineapple fields, and coffee fields along the way. We parked at a church and made a small walk down to the bay. The sand here was loose enough to be a challenge to walk through to the beachhead, and finally at the top we found Cecilia and her two daughters getting ready for a swim. Waimea is a very pretty beach, and from what Quinn said, about 5-6 weeks out of the year in the winter, has some seriously awesome waves. Thankfully today, it was pretty glassy for the swim.
Quinn estimated would take him 38-43 minutes to complete the race, and we had time to kill before the start, so the kids got greased up and went down into the water. I did some scenery watching while this was going on. There are many many pretty girls, black-sock wearing tourists, and even a beach goat that was chasing around a big dog. Another cool thing in Waimea Bay is Jumping Rock, where people jump about 30' off a rock face into the water. It's apparently not super shallow, but after careful consideration of my fear of heights, gravitational constants, and terminal velocity, I decided it would be a bad idea.Soon, we could finally see swimmers coming around the bend toward the rocks, and finally into the bay toward the finish line. Ultimately 15-year old Kacy Johnson won the race in just under 30 minutes. But what's that on the horizon? SOMEONE'S SWIMMING BUTTERFLY! ITS QUINN! Come on boy, make it up that hill and finish it up!
Despite my best attempts to keep him out of shape with drinking all week, Quinn managed to come in 8th place, and 1st in his age division with a time of 34:28. I'm very proud of him and finally getting to see a part of his life that he works very hard at is very thrilling to me. I can't imagine getting up at 4:20am for anything else, much less for an activity like this! Though he seemed slightly disappointed, I was excited. I mean there were people who took close to 90 minutes to do this swim, and here's Quinn just relaxing as they come swimming in. Perhaps the Twizzlers and Floaties were the trick to speed? Either way, he is awesome and this should be his car.
After the race and awards ceremony, we drove to Hale'iwa to hit up Macky's Shrimp Truck. In an unassuming dirt lot with some tables and a port-o-potty, is an amazingly colored shrimp truck with Macky Chen standing by ready to take your order. For $10-$12 you can get a plate of shrimp that will blow you out of your fucking shoes. Excuse the language, but it's that damn good. EASILY the best shrimp I've ever had in my life. I had Coconut shrimp, and a taste of the garlic shrimp and lemon shrimp that Quinn and Sue had ordered. I was jealous I hadn't bought the garlic kind, so I think I'm going to have to go back for more. This place has become quite the tourist spot, as several busses full of Japanese Tourists showed up, and who knew that popped-collar douchebaggery had transcended the Pacific, I had hoped it lived and died in Charlottesville and the guido bars in New Jersey.
We drove back to Ala Moana to drop Sue off to work, and shortly thereafter, Quinn passed out in the van and I drove us home. After a nice nap for everyone, Quinn and I scored some food. I went to Ninja Sushi and got some sushi, and Spam Musubi. The spam was mostly a novelty to me, but it wasn't half bad. I expected it to taste very spammy, but, it was just like some meat and rice. Not bad.
In the evening Quinn disappeared to pick up Sue from work and they went on a date! I had told them I'd be happy to babysit while here so they could have some free time to do whatever! They took me up on it, and came home in a pool of Gin at 3am! I was happy to do that for them. If anyone deserves a night out on the town, its these guys!
7/26/2009
You know the saying "I need a vacation after being on vacation?" That's what Sunday was for me. Sunday morning at about 8:30 I heard Naomi screaming at the top of her lungs. I decided it was time to get out of bed and see what was going on. Nomes was being hassled by her two big brothers and there was nary a parent in sight. At this point, I didn't know Quinn and Sue went out on a date, as I had been asleep the night before at about 10:15pm. (Lots of exposure to the sun puts me to sleep.) I went downstairs and got the kids into gear so they'd be quiet for their parents. Ben was very helpful in rounding up Nate and Naomi. By 10, I knew I wouldn't be seeing the parents anytime soon, so I fixed up some Cheesy Grits for the kids. The 5 pound bag I brought with me came in handy! Who'd have thunk they don't have grits here?!
By 11ish, the parents finally came downstairs, and started working off their hangovers. We had lunch, and mostly laid around the house lazily. I let them take an extra nap in the afternoon while I watched kids again, assuming they needed it. My reward was some of Sue's world famous baked mac and cheese. It is a true delight if you ever get the chance.
In the afternoon, Quinn rigged up an old sailboard to serve as a longboard for me to try surfing. I didn't think it was going to work, but I figured I'd give it a shot. I mean, how many times am I going to get to go to Hawai'i and surf? We found a mostly abandoned beach East of Shark Country. As we hauled the board through a public right of way alley between some houses, I spotted some locals enjoying an afternoon right in front of where I'd try my luck at surfing. Great. That's all I need is a crowd to laugh at me. Then I was thinking, you know what? Who gives a shit? These guys probably never would be willing to try shit on my turf. When was the last time they were drinking moonshine straight up, and building betty bombs on the railroad tracks?! At least I'm giving it a whirl and trying.
So I went out into the water... Got acclimated by hitting a few waves face first. I'm glad I brought my aquasocks this time because it was pretty corally just out of beach range. Soon I was in water that was too deep for me to touch my feet, and Quinn aimed the surf board toward land. I jumped up on the board, swung my foot over, and splash, I was back in the water on the other side of the board. Repeat three times. Finally I managed to get up on it and tried to gather some sense of balance, but it was not like anything I'd tried before, so I barrel rolled again. Finally i snuck up the backside of the board and climbed into position. I was on for about 45 seconds and hit a couple waves... as in they hit me. I still stayed on, until my foot strap got tangled around my foot, and I didn't even know I had it on, so it startled me and I fell off again. I decided this was probably a losing effort and let Quinn have a go at it. Even he had a little trouble staying up as it was much bigger than his normal board. I swam a bit and enjoyed myself while watching Quinn hit the waves.
We walked back in, and one of the guys approached Quinn and offered to loan us his 13' longboard. It's probably a good idea in retrospect we didn't take him up on it because it was an expensive board, and I don't think it would have worked anyhow. Still, that's a helluva thing to let two super-white haoles they'd never met borrow a board like that. I love that kind of culture. Quinn was right. It would have been cool to have a six pack on hand just in case to say thanks.
We came back, washed off, and ate some dinner. I drank the remaining five Heineken in the fridge from the Adams' visit, and had one of Quinn's heavy handed Mai Tais. I was pretty drunk when we started "Pineapple Express" and I was pretty drunk when it ended too. I went up to bed and crashed hard.
7/27/2009
I woke up this morning to a quiet morning. Quinn was off to work, Ben and Nate had their first day at school, and it was just me, Sue and Naomi enjoying the peace. The school year here is awesome for these kids. They go in Quarters and have 3 week breaks in between them, so basically they are in school year round. Today's adventure was a trip to the Valley of the Temples Memorial Park north of Kaneohe. Naomi was excited to go! The drive out there is spectacular. H-3 has probably the prettiest landscape of all the ones I've seen. Valley of the Temples from the outside looks like an ordinary cemetary and resting place, but it is truly very beautiful. There weren't very many headstones, as most of the people interred here had plates on the ground with flowers marking their location. Several had drinks and fruits/snacks placed on them. I thought that was strange, but after research, I read about how some Japanese people do this for their loved ones. The backdrop of the mountain ridge above the park is glorious. The pictures do not do it justice. The wall-faces are so steep, it's amazing that people have been up them. How do I know that they have? As you can see in this picture, there are high power lines traversing the mountain from the ground.
In the back of this park is the Byodo-In Temple. It is a replica of Byodoin Temple of Uji in Kyoto prefecture of Japan, established in 1052. It is absolutely gorgeous here. The weather ceases to exist near the temple. It was downright idyllic. There were plenty of birds, koi fish,, and black swans on the grounds. Supposedly there are also peacocks nearby, but I didn't see them. The Koi in the ponds here were ENORMOUS, some close to 2' long. They also came in different colors and varieties. I managed to take a shot of a very rare Koi Fish Orgy. For $1, Naomi was able to feed the Koi near a bridge on the north side of the temple. I snapped video of the fish feeding frenzy.
The temple features the largest wooden Buddha sculpted in over 900 years, and amazing detail all over. One interesting fact is that the temple was apparently built with no nails whatsoever. It features a beautiful stone garden overlooking the entrance and stunning flowers everywhere. My favorite picture of the flowers is the one below... a larger 15 megapixel version is now my desktop background.There is also a giant bell here with a log that you can pull on to ring the bell. It emanages a low-pitched tone that is supposed to remove bad energy and bring tranquility to those that hear it. As anyone could ring the bell, I heard it plenty and I'll be damned if I wasn't feeling very relaxed here. I really could have slowly walked these grounds for hours. As we were leaving, I noticed a pathway behind the gift shop and went for a peek. Behind there was a small bamboo forest that led to some sugar cane. Sue tried to grab some for a taste but quickly recoiled as the cane stalks have sharp points that resemble tiny microscopic broken glass. We decided to call it a day and headed back to Ewa.
We stopped at L&L in Ewa so I could grab some local-style lunch. I got a seafood platter, and some Saimin. Saimin is similar to Ramen or Udon, and contains bits of spam or meat. the Seafood platter was not great, but it was still decent after some of Quinn's Indonesian Shoyu. I also went into Jamba Juice for the first time ever. Damn, I wish we had these in Virginia.
I caught a long nap after lunch since it was a hot afternoon, and awoke to 6-year old Nate banging on my door. I threw on some clothes and answered the door, and Nate greeted me with a huge smile as he always does. Only this time he had a bottle of Patron Tequila in his hand and he said "HELLO UNCLE SCOTT, ITS THURSDAY!!!!" Which was hilarious because it's only monday. After analyzing it a bit, I think he was trying to ask if I was Thirsty. Thirsty I was. I went downstairs and had a few Mai Tais, some of Sue's famous Meatloaf, and we played some Nintendo before bed.
Tomorrow I'm hoping we can head down to Waikiki, hit Chinatown for lunch (I've never had Dim Sum before) and maybe do a little shopping at the mall. Wednesday I'm probably going to do some shopping for gifts to take home, and see about taking another trek up to the north shore to were the sets from LOST are. Hopefully I'll be able to check in on Thursday with reports!
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