Maui Wowee!

I love Maui and I would have totally moved there instead of the Big Island. (Chris actually likes it there too and we've talked about getting married there). Maui to me is quintessential Hawaii. Chris and I have been debating if we wanted to go to Maui or Kauai for vacation. I thought we had settled on Kauai since I've never been. Go! airlines was having a Facebook contest of the 12 Days of Flights where they'd post a question about their routes and the first person to answer correctly would win a round trip ticket to that given location.

Just a few days ago I had JUST missed out on a free flight from Honolulu to Kauai (There are no direct flights out of Hilo through Go! except to Honolulu). There was a picture of a local building and I had guessed the correct town/island, but not the actual building. By the time I had the building name there was ONE lady who had beat me out!

Well I was determined so even though I had to go to work to put together my office (they painted over break and took everything out of my room), I took my laptop and when the contest time came close I took a break from unpacking the boxes, headed out to the parking lot and got ready. Since you can't access Facebook from the wireless connection, I used my cell phone wireless tether and hooked up my laptop. I signed into to Facebook and within minutes the question was posted. I was already ready with the Go! website open on another page and I answered as quickly as a could after double checking my answer. First, Go! "liked" my post which I though boded well and then this was the post that came next on their page within minutes:

They asked for my email and then they said they'd be sending me the travel voucher in the next few days :) They didn't mind switching the flight so that it was Kona to Kahului so that I'd be doing a roundtrip back to my island. Looks like I'm going to Maui after all! Go Go!

A Hawaiian Christmas

This Christmas was the first Christmas away from family. At first I moped and felt bad for myself, but then someone at work told me you have to really make an effort to make it Christmas. So, with less than a week until Christmas I kicked it into high gear.

One of the benefits of waiting so long was that everything went on sale! I snagged an artificial tree for 50% off at Target and the twinkling lights were 30% off. It was so funny, there were two boxes of this 7ft Norfolk pine left and three of us staring at the two boxes. So I let my East coast nature take over and I just reached over and grabbed a boxes, leaving my much politer Hawaiian shoppers to duke it out over the last box (I later saw one of the ladies wistfully looking at my cart in another section of the store...).

I came home and put together a tree. First of all - this is my first artificial tree and I didn't realize that in order to get it all full you had to fluff each branch. So when I pulled it out of the box and it was looking all spare, my initial reaction was..."This doesn't look ANYTHING like the picture!" After a lot of fluffing, my canvas was ready:

THIS IS ACTUALLY ONLY HALF FLUFFED :) CAN YOU SEE THE HALFWAY MARK???

Next, the decor...once I realized that this was my chance to make the Christmas tree like I've always wanted, I got pretty excited to take on the project. Growing up in my family we had a tradition of getting ornaments that marked the year and then we'd put our names and the year on them. So the Wong Christmas tree has always been a hodgepodge of Disney ornaments, Hawaii ornaments, etc (which makes unpacking the ornaments really fun because it brings back all the memories).

But for my own first tree I wanted it to be PRETTY :) I went to the local craft store and got two themes - traditional dark red/green items and an untraditional pink/silver motif. I was totally surprised when Chris voted for the pink.

HERE'S THE TREE!

Of course I didn't just do a tree, but I did make an effort to decorate the living room. One of the hard things about being in Hawaii is that I am not about to go and spend a ridiculous amount of money on ornaments and decor items that will not be used again if we move (which is hopefully soon). So the challenge was to keep it cheap and keep it disposable.

I have to do a close up of the chains, but I made the chains out of this really pretty Sizzix die and then also made coordinating paper lanterns with a Quickutz die. The lantern die was not something I'd normally use, but when it went on sale for 50% I used it as an arts & crafts project with my kids...it turned out so well that I ended up making some for the house! I also decided I wanted to do a haku lei...not that I've ever made one before. A haku lei is a braided/plaited lei...all the really gorgeous flower lei that is traditionally seen on women's heads are haku lei.

LIVING ROOM DECOR

Of course since the artificial tree doesn't smell anything like a real tree I got some candles that smell like Christmas trees. Don't tell the landlord though...we technically aren't supposed to burn candles.

HAKU LEI #1 & MY CHRISTMAS TREE SCENTED CANDLE

Another benefit to staying in Hawaii for the holiday was that I wrapped all the packages in coordinating black and white wrapping paper. Most of the packages contained wrapped presents inside, so really we had to unwrap things twice...but it ended up being kind of nice because otherwise the gift wrapping would have been over way to quickly with just the two of us.

THE TREE AND MY COLOR THEMED PRESENTS

DID YOU NOTICE THE "K" & "C" ORNAMENTS?

The K & C ornaments are really the only ornaments on the tree :) Although technically there is one small glass, hand painted turtle ornament too. So when all is said and done, including the Christmas tree I actually stayed under my budget ($200) for my first Hawaiian Christmas!

Since it was just the two of us and I had stayed up late cleaning the living room, Chris and I didn't end up opening our presents until the afternoon.

SANTA BROUGHT CHRIS A STOCKING...

One of the funnier moments in opening our Christmas gift was opening the box from my family:

We didn't REALLY get a box of blood, but it was pretty funny to open up my wrapped package and find it.

Later in the day I Skyped with my family back in Massachusetts. My brother set up a really cute "family picture" of the Wong family for Christmas:

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE WONGS!

I also procrastinated mightily on a Christmas card. Chris and I didn't go anywhere exciting this year, so for our Christmas pictures we kept it local and just walked out into the backyard. I'm wearing my second haku lei made with poinsettias.

HAWAIIAN PARADISE PARK IN KEAAU, HAWAII

MELE KALIKIMAKA AND HAU'OLI MAKAHIKI HOU!

Slug Killer

Yesterday I was baking and I saw a medium sized slug/snail crawling up my kitchen window screen. The slugs/snails out here get to be pretty darn big out here. In the morning there are silvery trails all over the place - even up our glass doors!

Being that I was baking I figured that I'd use some of the salt and toss it at the slug. Well at first it didn't do anything, but the second pinch of salt definitely make that thing start motoring (for a snail). Since I didn't want silvery trails up my window I kept throwing salt at it. The salt didn't seem to be doing anything, but then all the sudden the snail started doing this insane death writing and promptly...MELTED IN HALF. The first half glopped off my kitchen window screen followed by it's lower half. EW.

You might be wondering why you are reading a blog entry on killing slugs...but really, if you've read my blogs at all then you realize the there isn't much to do out here. Slug killing is pretty exciting stuff for Big Island :)

Insulted by an Incompetent Idiot

Today I met a teacher for the first time (To keep the identity relatively anonymous I will be vague, but you GOTTA ask me who this person was). Of course he/she started signing to me right away and I had to explain that I don't know sign.

He/She immediately starts spouting off about making people wear earplugs so they can "gain empathy" for people who are deaf/hard of hearing. For some reason it immediately struck me as off. He/She promptly pops in some ear plugs and started talking (a lot). An interesting sidebar though: ear plugs apparently mimic a 30 decibel loss. After about 1 minute of talking with these ear plugs in, he/she says: "Ugh! Not being able to hear is annoying. I'm going to take these out now." I just stared at them. I made some comment to the effect of "Gee, I wish I could do that."

He/She then proceeds to talk to me like I have no idea what it's like to be hearing impaired. INCLUDING, "modeling" how when teachers wander around or turn their backs, students cannot understand them. Of course as this person is "modeling" this - I cannot understand them for the next 10 seconds of our conversation. They do this not once, but twice in our conversation. If you know better - why would you do this to a person who IS hard of hearing???

Finally I get so annoyed with them that I manage to slip in that not only do I have my master's in special education, but that I went to Dartmouth. He/She may be used to talking to incompetent people - but I am not one of them. They ask me if I've taught and I say I had. He/She asks me where and I said "On Oahu." He/She asks me "Where?" again and I say "Ewa Beach." She then proceeds to say, "No...WHERE?" - with that overly loud and over-exaggerated articulation that makes me feel stupid. All I can think is - he/she must make the kids they work with feel like complete crap.

But that's not even the worse part of the conversation. THEN, at the mention of me saying that I worked in special education, we start talking about politically correct language when talking about people with disabilities. This person describes how back in the day there were three kinds of mentally retarded: the educatable, trainable and "hopeless." I'm already offended and this just takes it to another level.

But it gets better... This person then decides to start describe each of the types and when they get to "hopeless" they literally stands there and starts drooling and blowing bubbles for a horrifying 5 seconds. As I stare in shock, manage to utter "That's horrible" (which this person interprets as the categories of MR rather than their own behavior), they literally slurp up their spit back in their mouth, wipe off their chin while laughing and saying, "Not so politically correct!" all cheerful...and clearly not recognizing that I am stunned-horrified-disgusted.

Needless to say, when I talk about how miserable I am on the Big Island - this is not as uncommon an encounter as you might hope. Hours later, I am STILL angry about this conversation.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

While Chris and I were on the flight from Hilo to Honolulu for Thanksgiving we had the "good fortune" to be sitting next to a rather precocious young girl who looked to be about 7 years old. I promptly fell asleep as I had been up late making a cake for a friend. While the girl tried to talk to Chris across the aisle, he was able to point to me and tell her they needed to be quiet :)

I suppose it should be some fair indicator of the child's behavior when the mother is slamming back Heinekens on a 9am flight. According to Chris, the mother would periodically yell at the girl, but of course these were empty threats. At one point the mother started telling the child, "You don't tell nobody my personal business. No stories!" To which the girl promptly responded - "I have stories! Like how you have hickeys all over your body!" The little girl spent the majority of the flight incessantly calling the poor flight attendant. At one point she managed to get out her underwear and put it on over her pants. The mother didn't notice even as they left the plane!

The real reason I write this blog though is what transpired as we tried to disembark. About two seats in front of the girl there were two college aged girls. One was dressed sort of boho college-y and the other was dressed sportier - in gym shorts and a t-shirt. The little girl stopped and addressed Boho Girl and the entire back half of the plane heard the following exchange:

Little Girl: "Is that your girlfriend?"

Boho Girl: "Well she's my friend and she's a girl, so she's my girl friend."

LG: "No! Is that your girlfriend?"

BG: "No, she's not my girlfriend."

LG: "She's not like your girlfriend?"

LG's Mom: "Ey! She not like dat!"

LG: "Then why is she dressed like that?" (pointing to Sporty Girl)

BG: ???

LG to Sporty Girl: "Are you a butchy????"

Ay caramba! Kids say the darndest things...

Imagine how thrilled we were to somehow be flying on the SAME returning flight as this girl. We were able to sit far far away from her. Although mom apparently got some action since the little girl went into detail about mom kissing another woman in the terminal.

Molokai Bound!

I have to write several blog entries - mostly because I'm too lazy to sit down and type out one long blog but a few weeks ago my mother came out to visit. I've ALWAYS wanted to go to Molokai so we flew over for the day. I took a tiny hopper flight from Honolulu to Molokai (the plane also went on to Lanai).

TINY PLANE!

I thought it was so funny that you step off into this tiny airport and you walk into the baggage claim "area" which is essentially a single long row of benches. I didn't have any checked luggage, so I was on my merry way for my Molokai adventure!

BAGGAGE CLAIM - BENCH 1

I had some time to kill before my mother arrived and so I hopped into my rental car (which I stupidly just booked in the Honolulu airport that same morning) and decided to explore the western part of the island.

I have to add the picture in later (it's on my cell phone), but the most exciting part of the first leg of my trip is that I'm pretty sure I ran into Sheryl Crow at the interisland terminal in Honolulu. Check back to when I update this post with the picture and story

Imiloa and Pink Floyd

AT THE PLANETARIUM

Chris and I went to Imiloa yesterday for a Pink Floyd light show. The show wasn't very good, but I've been meaning to go to Imiloa since I moved here and it's really nice. We didn't go to the exhibit, but I got a dual membership which means if anyone should come and visit and want to go - it's be free (rather than $17.50/$12.00 kamaaina)!

Imiloa is connected to UH-Hilo and is a museum that honors both astronomy and Hawaiian culture. The planetarium is really nice and the daily shows are free with my membership too (rather than $5 extra). I'm definitely planning on heading back to check out some shows since it's been forever since I was in a planetarium (Pink Floyd doesn't count). In fact, I'm going back tomorrow for the Wayfarers and Navigation festival...would LOVE to win the standup paddle board even though I've never done stand up before haha :)

Here's some more information: http://www.imiloahawaii.org/

The Goodyear Curse

A few days ago I went to Goodyear because I REALLY needed to get new tires. I had gotten an oil change not long ago and the mechanic called me over to look at my nearly-treadless tires (Yikes!). I had done some research....uh perhaps I called every tire place on the island to compare...and decided to go with Goodyear since I could walk to do my errands while waiting. I didn't realize it would take over 3 hours, but I was able to kill most of the time by walking around Hilo.

I found this nice little park near the East Hawaii Cultural Center where I take lessons on Wednesday evenings. It's dedicated to the Korean War vets. You can't really see, but by the big tree it's built like a little amphitheater with tiny levels (not many). There were also pretty lilies in the water.

WATER LILIES

I returned to Goodyear since their lounge was air conditioned and Hilo has suddenly turned hot lately. After hanging out in the lounge and re-reading a pretty bad book, I decided to go across the street to Starbucks. I had grabbed a drink and a sandwich and was trying to wait for a break in the cars so I could jaywalk back to Goodyear when this guy comes up to me and proceeds to ask me if I was "Stacey Botichello." Here's a replay of the conversation:

Him: "Excuse me are you Stacey Botichello?"
Me: No {Thinking - I'm Asian, do I look like I would have a last name Botichello???}
Him: Are you related to a Botichello
Me: No {Thinking - Is this seriously his line?}

He proceeds to talk at me for another few seconds while I completely ignore him and crane my neck out into the street to wait for the cars to slow down (of COURSE it would happen to get busy then).

Him: So, what are you doing later today?
Me: I have a boyfriend {Thinking = Go away you creep!}
Him: Oh! I probably should've asked that first! How's that going?
Me: Uh, we've been together for 5 years. {Thinking - "How's that going?" You think I"m going to cheat on my amazing boyfriend for a clueless idiot like you????}
Him: So can I have your number?
Me: NO! {As I leap into traffic regardless of if there's a gap in cars - and do manage to get temporarily stranded in the middle of a 4 lane road}

So I safely arrive at Goodyear and promptly call Chris than my mother. After getting off the phone I turn around and DARNNIT - the loser has followed me and is standing behind me. I try to talk to him without actually talking to him as I wait for my car to be done. To my great misfortune, not only is it not done after three hours, I'm told it will be another half an hour. UGH!!!! I chat desperately with the elderly guy at the counter until my car is ready.

Finally the car is pulled up by the entrance and I see creepy loser on his cell phone outside. I dash out hoping to avoid him and as I'm closing the door he comes over and GRABS MY DOOR.

Him: Can I have your number?
Me: Sorry, NO! {Thinking - is this guy completely idiotic???}
Him: Can I have your email address?
Me: NO! I have to go! {Slam my door and charge out of the parking lot.}

Now, this is only extra bad because the last time I went to Goodyear on Oahu, some guy behind asked for my number and when I said no, the guy behind the counter gave it to him after I walked out!!!!

So needless to say, Goodyear is NOT good to me.