Hi everyone!
This has been a pretty laid-back week, although I have, as always, had freak-out-so-much-work moments.
First of all, Tom got an A- on his State & Local Government midterm!! He was expecting a D, or even a fail, so this was amazing news.
On the down side, however, there was no new House episode this week, and there isn't one next week either =(
I accidentally told my teacher I could probably read a book in French so she's given me one. Gulp. I'm doing an essay on the Loudun nuns, who in 1633ish claimed that they had been demonically possessed en masse, probably in order to get rid of the good-looking new parish priest who had previously been arrested for immorality. He was eventually burnt at the stake, so I suppose it worked. I'm also doing an essay on the media during the Iranian revolution - my Revolutions teacher told me today that I am a brilliant student. He was at Oxford, and I mentioned that I was thinking of doing an MA there, and he was VERY encouraging - although he said "don't do an MA! Do a PhD! There is nothing about you that does not SCREAM 'PhD'!" Haha, apparently I just LOOK clever.
Also, yesterday, my teacher gave me and a couple of other people in class a personalized letter asking us, as exceptional students, to be writing tutors next semester. We would have to take a particular class, but then we would tutor younger students for both credit and money (yay, money!). I'm kind of wishing that we could stay here for another term, but I know it's completely impossible. Oh well, there are definitely some things I am looking forward to about coming back to Europe!
We went over to Eliza & Will's again on Tuesday - they had a new game which Tom wanted to play. The three of them keep hassling me to join in, and so far Tom has only beat me once. It's so funny, he gets really competitive then won't talk to me when I win =P He's off at Exploring Film now. Another lonely Thursday evening =) I suppose I'll survive! So far we don't really have any weekend plans, although we might go back to the Byoudo-in Temple. Uploading photos is such a pain at the moment, with Tom's laptop cutting out every ten minutes, so once things are sorted out with mine (however that happens) you should all be bombarded with an avalance of pictures.
Pork and pars-chips tonight. Oh, I have some VERY funny stories about oblivious Americans.
1. Last week Eliza spent the evening here, and hung around while I was making dinner. One of the things I chopped up was parsnips. In class on Monday, she confessed that she had no idea what they are.
2. In class we were watching 'Good Bye Lenin.' There was an image of the invalid mother in bed under a duvet, and all the Americans were laughing and pointing and going "what is WITH that puffy blanket?"
Oh, and I have yet ANOTHER case of mistaken Australian identity under my belt now - as in "oh, you're Austhtralian! Me too! Where are you from?" Sigh.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
Prepare for spelling mistakes...
Hi all,
So, a few things have actually happened over the last few days worth talking about. Firstly, I'd just like to tell everyone how insanely easy the American system is currently being for me. I've had 4 midterms and one short essay. I've had three of the midterms back and have got A, A, A- though I'm getting the last back today and am not expecting such a good mark. I just don't get it, I haven't received any A's since GCSE's! Not that I'm complaining mind you, how people fail these same courses baffles me. In Logic, I think I may be one of the smartest people in the class, other people actually ask me questions rather then the teacher. It makes no sence.
Anyway! On to actually interesting stuff. We were swimming on Friday down at Waikiki beach and we saw some people near us looking down into the sea and pointing. When we looked there, we saw a huge turtle! He was swimming around, and appeared to be surfing a few waves then swam off. It was AMAZING! I've never seen a large turtle in the wild before with my own eyes, never mind one swimming only 10 feet away from me. It's made me really want to go up to Turtle Bay where the turtles come up onto the beach. It also proves that I wasn't mad when I thought that a week or two ago I saw a dark green/brown thing come out of the water and go back under. At the time I thought that it looked like the nose of a crocodile or something but now I realise that it was obviously a turtle. If only I had realised at the time and gone to see it rather then running away!
Saturday night we went over to Elyza's and Will's again. We had a really nice night, Elyza gave Francesca all her old clothes that don't fit her any more, because Francesca clearly doesn't have enough clothes of her own... Will, like me, is a bit of a nerd, which is great. We ended up playing video games for most of the night, and Francesca and Elyza joined in and thoroughly destroyed me at the games we played. I think that Francesca is actually secretly a gamer...
Yesterday, Sunday, we jumped on a bus to take us to Makupu'u Lighthouse Trail a short walk on the east shore that goes around a hill to a small lighthouse at the other side. When we got on the bus I checked with the driver that the bus went there and he told me it did. You can see the car park for the walk from a distance away so when I did I requested the next stop. The bus driver pulled up a little way passed the beginning to the walk at an observation area. He said that there wasn't actually a bus stop where he'd stopped and that to get the bus back we'd have to walk down a hill to the sea life centre and get the bus back from there. This wasn't great news but we figured we'd deal with the problem after we'd done the walk. From this observation area we had a great view of the east shore and Waimanalo beach and could see for miles and miles and miles. We then set on to the walk and it began with a fairly steep incline, and continued with a fairly steep incline but it's not that surprising when you consider we were climbing a hill. However, there was no shade on the walk and the sun was beating down on us. Francesca turned instantly red and remained that colour for a long long time. After about half an hour we made it to the top and the view was stunning. We could even see the outline of Maui across the sea. We stayed there for about five minutes and headed back. We started thinking about what we'd do about getting the bus back and thought that we'd actually head back to the bus stop we'd last passed before the bus stopped at the observation area rather then continue to the sea life centre as I thought that we could cut across through a load of land that appeared from the hill to have paths going through it. However, when we finally got to the bottom of the hill and walked a little way along one of the paths, it turned out that the other paths I'd thought I'd seen were actually just different kinds of bushes and we couldn't walk across it. So, the only other option seemed to be to go back up to the observation area and continue to the sealife centre. All this time we're getting knackered. We'd been out in the sun for about probably an hour and a half and although we had water we were pretty much through it and once we'd climbed back up to the observation area we looked at the road we'd have to walk down to get the the sea life centre and realised that we really didn't want to as there was no space for pedestrians. The road had on one side a cliff face and on the other a small wall and then a cliff straight down to lots of rocks. We resolved that the only way we could get down to the sealife centre was to get a lift from someone at the observation post. We sat down for the first time since we'd gotten off the bus and scanned for prospective lift givers. Unfortunately we could tell that most of the groups would will up their cars. We saw two guys walking over to a 4 seat car so ran over and explained our situation but their car was full in the back, our next prey hopefully proved more bountiful. We saw two more guys and once again explained our situation and took pity on us, THANK GOD! The ride took all of 2 minutes but we were very grateful. We were slightly scared that we'd never get to the bus stop but thank god for friendly Americans. I've never hitchhicked before and intend to avoid it for the rest of my life but doing so saved our necks. Ultimately I think that the bus driver should have warned us when we got on that there wasn't a bus stop there rather then dropping us off there, which at the time seemed like a nice thing for him to do.
So, that's it for this blog entry. Sorry the story took so long! Hope no one fell asleep while reading it and I hope you like the pictures.
Tom
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Another week gone by...
And it's been fairly eventful too, by our recent standards at least!
We sent out some postcards on, I think, the 14th, and at least one of them has arrived - so hopefully the others will too, or have already =)
At the weekend we were planning on going to Waimanalo Bay again, because there was a county fair there. After a morning spent at Walmart and Don Quijote - two supermarkets, how luxurious! - Tom decided he would have been too hot at the fair and it probably wouldn't have been great fun, if only for the fact of the smelly boy I'd be hanging around with. He had his hair cut at the weekend as well, AND the trimmer arrived from Germany on Monday, so it looks like he's been on Castaway or something and has finally left the jungle! Anyway, after the supermarkets we went to Waikiki Beach here, and although it was lovely it ended up raining, so maybe the fair wouldn't have been such a bad idea after all. Oh well.
On Sunday I had a ginormous essay to finish up, so I went and spent about four hours in the computer lab while Tom had a friend over so they could work on their essays. This friend has ADD and, apparently, periodically paced around the room like a madman while Tom taught him how to write an essay! The guy even phoned up last night for advice. I am extremely amused at the idea of someone asking Tom for essay help - everything he knows he learnt from me, muahahaha! Seriously, though, it's fantastic, and I am very proud of him. The guy (who is German, incidentally) took him out for a burger, and paid, which is slightly irritating as Tom just seems to get freebies from his friends (including a drive home from someone who had had two beers - I was not pleased).
On Monday we went to my friend Eliza's after our evening classes to watch House and have a drink for the first time in seven weeks! I managed to temporarily lose Tom again as we were all meeting up, which made it the third time in a week - on Thursday he was late home, and on Sunday he wasn't in the flat when I got back from the computer lab. This is beginning to look like carelessness.
Anyway, we had a really nice time - I, of course, got pretty drunk and made a complete fool out of myself, but that's a story we've all heard before, so no point relating it again ;) Eliza's boyfriend Will, who is in one of the same classes as Tom, had proposed to her the day before on their seventh anniversary, which was sweet.
On Tuesday one of my classes was cancelled, so I handed in my sixteen-page paper (and learnt that it had to be in a bigger font size than I'd written it in, so probably didn't need to be stressing over the last two pages...), and then came home. Tom had done laundry. Only it seemed like he'd done HIS laundry. Most of my clothes were on the floor. He protested that, as I sometimes re-wear my clothes, he couldn't tell what was clean and what was dirty - so decided not to do ANY of it. Argh! Especially as I go HUNTING for Tom's clothes whenever I do laundry, and have to put my nose in the most god-awful of places to make sure that I've done pretty much everything he needs. Sigh. Also Tom overloaded the new, more expensive tumble dryers (not sure how, as he has barely any clothes!), and they basically didn't work - they made our laundry hot, but still sopping wet. We've had to hang everything up around our room, which has been extremely difficult without any clothes-horses, and still this morning (two days later!) some of the stuff is damp. It amused me, though, how Tom was extremely concerned about sleeping in a room with so much damp stuff - I know it's not the most ideal situation, health-wise, but still, it's not like we were going down a mine or jumping into a lion pit! It just didn't strike me as the kind of event that would scare a 20 year old man =)
Yesterday we went to one of the free Botanical Gardens, and although it was very pretty, people had obviously stopped taking very good care of it quite a while ago. We played pooh sticks (I won!) and sat by a pretty waterfall for a bit, and then came home. Haha, how useless we sound! There are some pictures - in fact, quite a few, dating all the way back to the start of October - that I shall stick up here soon. Tom's laptop overheated and crashed on me halfway through writing this, so I will wait until my new laptop charger comes (hopefully today - I got very excited yesterday but it was a false alarm), and if that works I'll be able to do all that.
Another of the things we have been up to recently is cookie-baking! Tom made oatmeal cookies on Saturday, I made chocolate chip cookies on Monday, and on Tuesday I made chocolate-dough-chocolate-chip cookies. They are really good, but we are still struggling with quantities of flour and baking soda - they are becoming more and more like biscuits, but still are very similar to cakes in texture. I can't believe that I am like this at nineteen years old - I might as well just get out the knitting needles as well =) I found out yesterday that we only have eight weeks of term left! Poor Tom keeps having nightmares about the temperature once we get back. I'm getting excited about starting to buy Christmas presents soon (I've already ordered Tom's, and did a few weeks ago, which was a bit silly but oh well), and tonight, actually, I may be going shopping with Eliza in Waikiki. It's really pretty at night, which is unfortunate, because my camera doesn't have a night setting.
We sent out some postcards on, I think, the 14th, and at least one of them has arrived - so hopefully the others will too, or have already =)
At the weekend we were planning on going to Waimanalo Bay again, because there was a county fair there. After a morning spent at Walmart and Don Quijote - two supermarkets, how luxurious! - Tom decided he would have been too hot at the fair and it probably wouldn't have been great fun, if only for the fact of the smelly boy I'd be hanging around with. He had his hair cut at the weekend as well, AND the trimmer arrived from Germany on Monday, so it looks like he's been on Castaway or something and has finally left the jungle! Anyway, after the supermarkets we went to Waikiki Beach here, and although it was lovely it ended up raining, so maybe the fair wouldn't have been such a bad idea after all. Oh well.
On Sunday I had a ginormous essay to finish up, so I went and spent about four hours in the computer lab while Tom had a friend over so they could work on their essays. This friend has ADD and, apparently, periodically paced around the room like a madman while Tom taught him how to write an essay! The guy even phoned up last night for advice. I am extremely amused at the idea of someone asking Tom for essay help - everything he knows he learnt from me, muahahaha! Seriously, though, it's fantastic, and I am very proud of him. The guy (who is German, incidentally) took him out for a burger, and paid, which is slightly irritating as Tom just seems to get freebies from his friends (including a drive home from someone who had had two beers - I was not pleased).
On Monday we went to my friend Eliza's after our evening classes to watch House and have a drink for the first time in seven weeks! I managed to temporarily lose Tom again as we were all meeting up, which made it the third time in a week - on Thursday he was late home, and on Sunday he wasn't in the flat when I got back from the computer lab. This is beginning to look like carelessness.
Anyway, we had a really nice time - I, of course, got pretty drunk and made a complete fool out of myself, but that's a story we've all heard before, so no point relating it again ;) Eliza's boyfriend Will, who is in one of the same classes as Tom, had proposed to her the day before on their seventh anniversary, which was sweet.
On Tuesday one of my classes was cancelled, so I handed in my sixteen-page paper (and learnt that it had to be in a bigger font size than I'd written it in, so probably didn't need to be stressing over the last two pages...), and then came home. Tom had done laundry. Only it seemed like he'd done HIS laundry. Most of my clothes were on the floor. He protested that, as I sometimes re-wear my clothes, he couldn't tell what was clean and what was dirty - so decided not to do ANY of it. Argh! Especially as I go HUNTING for Tom's clothes whenever I do laundry, and have to put my nose in the most god-awful of places to make sure that I've done pretty much everything he needs. Sigh. Also Tom overloaded the new, more expensive tumble dryers (not sure how, as he has barely any clothes!), and they basically didn't work - they made our laundry hot, but still sopping wet. We've had to hang everything up around our room, which has been extremely difficult without any clothes-horses, and still this morning (two days later!) some of the stuff is damp. It amused me, though, how Tom was extremely concerned about sleeping in a room with so much damp stuff - I know it's not the most ideal situation, health-wise, but still, it's not like we were going down a mine or jumping into a lion pit! It just didn't strike me as the kind of event that would scare a 20 year old man =)
Yesterday we went to one of the free Botanical Gardens, and although it was very pretty, people had obviously stopped taking very good care of it quite a while ago. We played pooh sticks (I won!) and sat by a pretty waterfall for a bit, and then came home. Haha, how useless we sound! There are some pictures - in fact, quite a few, dating all the way back to the start of October - that I shall stick up here soon. Tom's laptop overheated and crashed on me halfway through writing this, so I will wait until my new laptop charger comes (hopefully today - I got very excited yesterday but it was a false alarm), and if that works I'll be able to do all that.
Another of the things we have been up to recently is cookie-baking! Tom made oatmeal cookies on Saturday, I made chocolate chip cookies on Monday, and on Tuesday I made chocolate-dough-chocolate-chip cookies. They are really good, but we are still struggling with quantities of flour and baking soda - they are becoming more and more like biscuits, but still are very similar to cakes in texture. I can't believe that I am like this at nineteen years old - I might as well just get out the knitting needles as well =) I found out yesterday that we only have eight weeks of term left! Poor Tom keeps having nightmares about the temperature once we get back. I'm getting excited about starting to buy Christmas presents soon (I've already ordered Tom's, and did a few weeks ago, which was a bit silly but oh well), and tonight, actually, I may be going shopping with Eliza in Waikiki. It's really pretty at night, which is unfortunate, because my camera doesn't have a night setting.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Sorry!
Sorry for not writing in here as much - we've both had a lot of work recently (Tom had one midterm yesterday and another one today), and the laptop issues aren't exactly conducive. We're planning on going to the Aloha Tower & Marketplace tomorrow, after I've spent an hour and a half in the computer lab! I'm really not in the mood anymore, and couldn't do much work today, but I suppose it's about halfway through term. It should all calm down again soon.
Funny, we're halfway through the semester and if we'd stayed at Essex we'd only just have started!
We are currently watching 'Aladdin,' which was Tom's choice =)
I went shopping yesterday while he was revising and bought nearly $80 worth of supplies, mostly vegetables - and tofu! Tom was not pleased after experiencing several Tofu Tuesdays in Germany over the summer, but tough, it is cheap and I fancy experimenting. I was in a Planning mood during class earlier so decided that I am going to use the tofu tomorrow. I'll be marinating (I've never marinated!) it in peanut sauce and using it in a stir-fry. Tonight I roasted vegetables, made a spicy tomato sauce, and mixed it all in with pasta - thank you mum for the recipe idea. I feel like a culinary wizard at the moment, especially as this time two years ago I didn't eat for a week because I was too scared to cook! Thankfully I got enough calories from alcohol to survive, haha. AND I only ate fresh pasta, microwaved soup and microwaved baked potatoes for the rest of the year. It is amazing. Not to blow my own horn or anything.
My Planning mood also resulted in beginning to research an MA in English Literature (concentrated on the nineteenth century) because I am really enjoying lit this year. I suppose an MA from Kings or an MSt from Oxford would make my CV stand out, because I don't think it really will otherwise. We are both getting quite scared about what to do next year, and are just collecting ideas at the moment. Once we get back we will be sending out applications to anything and everything that occurs to us! (Although I may have to get started earlier than that, the Oxford deadline is around January 23rd.)
Also, I have now been mistaken for an Australian four times now, once by an Australian. My friend Eliza thinks it's because I'm blonde and - believe it or not - tanned! I know, me! I can barely believe it myself =) Tom of course looks almost like a native, his shoulders especially are very dark. As the year goes on and it becomes more and more freakish to be wandering around in shorts, we're beginning to dread the temperature when we return. 'Cold' here means that the aircon is on 64F (18C)!
Dear me, Jafar is a very nasty man.
Funny, we're halfway through the semester and if we'd stayed at Essex we'd only just have started!
We are currently watching 'Aladdin,' which was Tom's choice =)
I went shopping yesterday while he was revising and bought nearly $80 worth of supplies, mostly vegetables - and tofu! Tom was not pleased after experiencing several Tofu Tuesdays in Germany over the summer, but tough, it is cheap and I fancy experimenting. I was in a Planning mood during class earlier so decided that I am going to use the tofu tomorrow. I'll be marinating (I've never marinated!) it in peanut sauce and using it in a stir-fry. Tonight I roasted vegetables, made a spicy tomato sauce, and mixed it all in with pasta - thank you mum for the recipe idea. I feel like a culinary wizard at the moment, especially as this time two years ago I didn't eat for a week because I was too scared to cook! Thankfully I got enough calories from alcohol to survive, haha. AND I only ate fresh pasta, microwaved soup and microwaved baked potatoes for the rest of the year. It is amazing. Not to blow my own horn or anything.
My Planning mood also resulted in beginning to research an MA in English Literature (concentrated on the nineteenth century) because I am really enjoying lit this year. I suppose an MA from Kings or an MSt from Oxford would make my CV stand out, because I don't think it really will otherwise. We are both getting quite scared about what to do next year, and are just collecting ideas at the moment. Once we get back we will be sending out applications to anything and everything that occurs to us! (Although I may have to get started earlier than that, the Oxford deadline is around January 23rd.)
Also, I have now been mistaken for an Australian four times now, once by an Australian. My friend Eliza thinks it's because I'm blonde and - believe it or not - tanned! I know, me! I can barely believe it myself =) Tom of course looks almost like a native, his shoulders especially are very dark. As the year goes on and it becomes more and more freakish to be wandering around in shorts, we're beginning to dread the temperature when we return. 'Cold' here means that the aircon is on 64F (18C)!
Dear me, Jafar is a very nasty man.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
First off, an apology
From Tom - he was tired when writing the last post and didn't check his own spelling =)
This has, so far, been a pretty stressful week. For me, that is. Tom is having fun sitting around, reading, playing on his iPod, watching CSI... I am increasingly overwhelmed by work, especially with my laptop charger finally dying on me on Sunday morning. My reaction, sadly, was to panic and buy a cheap netbook, which arrived today and is disappointing, to say the least. I'm planning on sending it back tomorrow and phoning Toshiba for help with fixing my old laptop. I can't believe my luck with charging laptops, in July my newer one suddenly refused to charge, and now this one! Argh!
My first essay is due in tomorrow, and I have spent quite a few hours over the past couple of days sitting in the computer lab at university trying to get it done. I also have two articles due in for the Kalamalama on Saturday, an essay for Monday, and a 15-page-minimum due in 10 days. Impressively, I have woken up significantly late for class twice this week (at 8.30 and 8.40, when I need to leave at 8.40!) and still managed to get into university on time. We were only watching Beauty and the Beast anyway - my mad teacher was humming along to all the songs. There's a bit at the end of the film when the spell is lifted and the huge gothic castle turns white, and all the gargoyles turn into cupids, etc, and apparently that reminds her of when her ex-husband moved out! I do really enjoy these classes.
I've been looking at the syllabus for one of my classes back at Essex next year - called 'Shakespeare and the History Play' - and it turns out that all the Shakespeare plays are done in the first term, so I wouldn't be doing any! I'm trying to switch now to another course, on fairy tale, which is what we're doing in class at the moment (which is why we watched Beauty and the Beast), and which I find extremely interesting.
I will upload some anniversary pictures soon but I'm not quite sure how to work Tom's laptop properly yet (which I am borrowing - thank you Tom!). Hopefully I won't have to figure out how to work it because my computer will be fixed soon! So as not to disappoint, I just saw this on the news, and it is very cute.
This has, so far, been a pretty stressful week. For me, that is. Tom is having fun sitting around, reading, playing on his iPod, watching CSI... I am increasingly overwhelmed by work, especially with my laptop charger finally dying on me on Sunday morning. My reaction, sadly, was to panic and buy a cheap netbook, which arrived today and is disappointing, to say the least. I'm planning on sending it back tomorrow and phoning Toshiba for help with fixing my old laptop. I can't believe my luck with charging laptops, in July my newer one suddenly refused to charge, and now this one! Argh!
My first essay is due in tomorrow, and I have spent quite a few hours over the past couple of days sitting in the computer lab at university trying to get it done. I also have two articles due in for the Kalamalama on Saturday, an essay for Monday, and a 15-page-minimum due in 10 days. Impressively, I have woken up significantly late for class twice this week (at 8.30 and 8.40, when I need to leave at 8.40!) and still managed to get into university on time. We were only watching Beauty and the Beast anyway - my mad teacher was humming along to all the songs. There's a bit at the end of the film when the spell is lifted and the huge gothic castle turns white, and all the gargoyles turn into cupids, etc, and apparently that reminds her of when her ex-husband moved out! I do really enjoy these classes.
I've been looking at the syllabus for one of my classes back at Essex next year - called 'Shakespeare and the History Play' - and it turns out that all the Shakespeare plays are done in the first term, so I wouldn't be doing any! I'm trying to switch now to another course, on fairy tale, which is what we're doing in class at the moment (which is why we watched Beauty and the Beast), and which I find extremely interesting.
I will upload some anniversary pictures soon but I'm not quite sure how to work Tom's laptop properly yet (which I am borrowing - thank you Tom!). Hopefully I won't have to figure out how to work it because my computer will be fixed soon! So as not to disappoint, I just saw this on the news, and it is very cute.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Aniversary Weekend
So as Francesca said, I had a late class on Friday so we couldn't really do anything. In that class, Logic, I had my first test and will be ashamed if I haven't got 100% it's that easy at the moment. Come Saturday we were still undecided as to where we wanted to go during the day and where to eat but as we had loads of washing to do before we could do anything we settled on not going far. Ala Moana beach park is only a 5 minute bus ride away so seemed the sensible option. In Hawaiian terms, it was a horrible day, there was loads of thick dark cloud and it rained a couple of times, in real terms it was still lovely. The beach is long but not as nice as Waikiki, quite a lot of small rocks though the sea was amazingly calm as the sea gets very shallow a few hundred yards out breaking the waves away from shore creating a perfect area for advanced bodyboarders. So although the beach wasn't the best, we had a nice time out of our room making the most of the weather and enjoying watching the bodyboarders show off.
When we got back we finally decided on P.F.Changs, an American chain of Chinese restuarants. It's only a few minute walk away so sufficed perfectly. We were seated immediately and served just as quickly. Although I cheekily tried to order a beer (it's been over a month sinse either of us touched a drop of alcohol) I was, unsurprisingly, IDed and my claim of having left my passport back at the room wasn't good enough. Though in fairness the waitress did all of this in as pleasent a way as you could imagine explaining that unfortunately they have to ID pretty much everyone as in America they're big on sending around spies who make sure that people are IDing and fine those that don't.
We ordered VIP Duck and Orange Peel Beef with white and brown rice. And WOW! It was soooo goooooood. Francesca prefered the VIP Duck and I the Orange Peel Beef. Tasted amazing and was surprised that brown rice is as nice as it is, it was also very filling and so we had them put the left overs in one of the American Chinese take-away boxes which was exciting in itself!
To then top the night off we went to the Cheese Cake Factory for cheesecake. Man that place is busy. There was a huge que of people waiting for tables, and then I've heard you're looking at an hour wait before they even call you back (they give you a buzzer). Thankfully, as we were just there for cheesecake we could push through these people and go to the shop. Francesca got white chocolate raspberry truffle and I got chocolate moose. I wasn't anywhere near ready to eat mine having forced so much of dinner down but Francesca fancied going down to the beech and trying hers. So we did, and wow, Francesca get me a bite and wow. Wow. She had a few mouthfulls and couldn't manage any more it was so filling, soooo rich.
On our way back we thought we'd stop in to the Kings Village, the small shopping centre in the Victorian style, as when we had walked past it on the way to the beach it had looked pretty by night. Every day they do a 'changing of the gard' and in the space where that is done there was now a gazebo with music coming from it and a large crowd around it. As we got closer we could see that there was a guy in the gazebo wearing a gas mask with spray cans in his hands. He was spray painting on a small table in front of him, sort of moving along to the music and behind him was a board that said 'art in motion'. I don't know who this guy was kidding, his supposed 'art' was just an A3 piece of paper covered in about an inch of paint from his cans that had all merged into making an iky brown mess. I wanted to quickly move on but Francesca thought that this guy was entertaining. My moaning finally prevailed and we moved on.
That was essentially our day, not a bad little anniversary day, if not on the exact day but was nice. I very much enjoyed my cheesecake yesterday, was once again unbelievably rich but delicious. Although the two slices of cheesecake combined cost nearly $17 they were completely worth it. I'm sure that just one slice could keep a small family going for a week.
Tom
When we got back we finally decided on P.F.Changs, an American chain of Chinese restuarants. It's only a few minute walk away so sufficed perfectly. We were seated immediately and served just as quickly. Although I cheekily tried to order a beer (it's been over a month sinse either of us touched a drop of alcohol) I was, unsurprisingly, IDed and my claim of having left my passport back at the room wasn't good enough. Though in fairness the waitress did all of this in as pleasent a way as you could imagine explaining that unfortunately they have to ID pretty much everyone as in America they're big on sending around spies who make sure that people are IDing and fine those that don't.
We ordered VIP Duck and Orange Peel Beef with white and brown rice. And WOW! It was soooo goooooood. Francesca prefered the VIP Duck and I the Orange Peel Beef. Tasted amazing and was surprised that brown rice is as nice as it is, it was also very filling and so we had them put the left overs in one of the American Chinese take-away boxes which was exciting in itself!
To then top the night off we went to the Cheese Cake Factory for cheesecake. Man that place is busy. There was a huge que of people waiting for tables, and then I've heard you're looking at an hour wait before they even call you back (they give you a buzzer). Thankfully, as we were just there for cheesecake we could push through these people and go to the shop. Francesca got white chocolate raspberry truffle and I got chocolate moose. I wasn't anywhere near ready to eat mine having forced so much of dinner down but Francesca fancied going down to the beech and trying hers. So we did, and wow, Francesca get me a bite and wow. Wow. She had a few mouthfulls and couldn't manage any more it was so filling, soooo rich.
On our way back we thought we'd stop in to the Kings Village, the small shopping centre in the Victorian style, as when we had walked past it on the way to the beach it had looked pretty by night. Every day they do a 'changing of the gard' and in the space where that is done there was now a gazebo with music coming from it and a large crowd around it. As we got closer we could see that there was a guy in the gazebo wearing a gas mask with spray cans in his hands. He was spray painting on a small table in front of him, sort of moving along to the music and behind him was a board that said 'art in motion'. I don't know who this guy was kidding, his supposed 'art' was just an A3 piece of paper covered in about an inch of paint from his cans that had all merged into making an iky brown mess. I wanted to quickly move on but Francesca thought that this guy was entertaining. My moaning finally prevailed and we moved on.
That was essentially our day, not a bad little anniversary day, if not on the exact day but was nice. I very much enjoyed my cheesecake yesterday, was once again unbelievably rich but delicious. Although the two slices of cheesecake combined cost nearly $17 they were completely worth it. I'm sure that just one slice could keep a small family going for a week.
Tom
Thursday, October 1, 2009
More photos
Hello everyone - here are some photos of the Aloha Festival Parade last week. I have heard that people want more photos, but I'm stuck. Please comment to let me know what you want pictures of! And remember that every time I take out my camera, Tom bullies me until I put it away and 'stop embarrassing him' =)
Things should hopefully be sorted out with Lloyds quite soon - at least all our rent has been paid. We made enchiladas last night, from a recipe Tom got from a study abroad student who lived with us in our first year, and it was delicious. I made salsa from scratch to pour over it! Was very impressed with myself. We shall be having dinner out on Saturday, which is exciting - Tom still hasn't decided on a place, but I am having cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory no matter what, so I don't mind. Not tomorrow, our actual anniversary, as Tom has an evening class. I'm getting a free flu shot tomorrow, too. We're thinking of spending Saturday at a beach somewhere on the leeward side of the island, which will be lovely.
Right, pictures!
Conch shell blower.
People waiting.
Unbelievably, it was raining - despite the intense heat, and lack of clouds.
Lots of horses.
Guys walking along behind the horses, who had to clear up the poo.
The Mayor!!
Float.
I think that's pretty much all the vaguely interesting pictures - imagine about a hundred more on a similar theme (marching bands, horses, beauty queens waving from open-top cars, etc etc etc). Again, I shall operate a request-system for photos from now on!
Things should hopefully be sorted out with Lloyds quite soon - at least all our rent has been paid. We made enchiladas last night, from a recipe Tom got from a study abroad student who lived with us in our first year, and it was delicious. I made salsa from scratch to pour over it! Was very impressed with myself. We shall be having dinner out on Saturday, which is exciting - Tom still hasn't decided on a place, but I am having cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory no matter what, so I don't mind. Not tomorrow, our actual anniversary, as Tom has an evening class. I'm getting a free flu shot tomorrow, too. We're thinking of spending Saturday at a beach somewhere on the leeward side of the island, which will be lovely.
Right, pictures!
Conch shell blower.
People waiting.
Unbelievably, it was raining - despite the intense heat, and lack of clouds.
Lots of horses.
Guys walking along behind the horses, who had to clear up the poo.
The Mayor!!
Float.
I think that's pretty much all the vaguely interesting pictures - imagine about a hundred more on a similar theme (marching bands, horses, beauty queens waving from open-top cars, etc etc etc). Again, I shall operate a request-system for photos from now on!
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