Day 8 & 9 - It's a small World After All!!

Okay, so we got behind. What are vacations for anyway!

As you can see from this blogs theme, it's all about small.

On Saturday we did our move from our BIG one bedroom with kitchen/dining and living room to our efficiency. We were dreading it. But little did we know how little some things were. Here is the list and our perceptions:

1. Refrigerator - NOT - a small tiny under the counter unit that had no freezer compartment. So do you think they looked at us funny when they delivered our bin of refrigerated and frozen items and we just stared at our "load" and where it would be going. What do you do with 2 half gallons of ice cream (half fat mind you) with NO freezer compartment! We had a 4 pound bag of Edamame (or whatever you call those pods) frozen with nowhere to go. Let alone the 5 pound bag on Hawaiian Salt that I bought to go with it! LOL!! And yes, I bought the authentic Maui Raw Sugar from Costco, what a steal under $5 for 10 pounds. Now, what are the weight limits for checked baggage? Good thing we're flying back before they impose the new $25 charge for the 2nd bag! We crammed everything else in and that crisis was averted. Jeannie asked the hotel to store our ice cream for us.

2. The bed. Well, the good news is that as they replace the furniture every 4-5 years they will be changing the beds from Queen (I say it's a Full) to Kings in these little units. The bad news is that it is right before the 5 years so we still have the smaller bed!

3. The balcony or shall we call it the cubby hole? 3 x 8 at max! I'm sitting on it now as I type. If I crane my neck really hard to the left I can see the ocean, does that qualify as ocean view?

But, as we've settled in it hasn't been that bad. We are on the 11th floor overlooking one of the pools looking towards the JW Marriott. We are right by the elevator. However, it is 2 floors down to the ice machine and 1 floor down to the "community" washer/dryer. But hey, the trash room is right outside our door! What convenience!

The resort amenities are the same so you really can't complain. And heck, why complain if you are in Hawaii! I guess this is like buying the inside cabin at the bottom of the ship, the room is nothing to talk about but you still have the same experience as everyone else!

Okay, on to the rest of the theme. On Day 9 I got a page from Tim Hale, a friend from work who has been working on Oahu the past 18 months with Hawaiian Telecom. His family, wife and 3 kids are all living here and they taught me some word (that I can't recall now) for local. He was surprised that "my Island friend" had not taught me this word. Supposedly you get big discounts at places if you are a local. I had to explain to him that "my friend" would tell me that I'm a local wannabe (just like I'm a Potomac wannabe)!!

Well Tim and the family came over around 2 p.m. and stayed till sunset with us enjoying the lagoon and pool. It was good to see him and hear that he's taking the next 3 months off to enjoy Hawaii and let the kids finish school here before heading back to the states and another work assignment. Gee, that sounded like a great idea, maybe I should consider something like that......................

Okay, so we did something Hawaiian for dinner! Craig read about a Chinese restaurant on our side of the island that was written up in the Sunday Food section. They have included crab legs in their dinner buffet and for only $17.97 on weekends and $14.95 week nights that was a bargain. So after enjoying the sunset we headed to Ho Ho Chinese Buffet. It was a little hard to find and we stopped into Long's Drugstore for more suntan lotion. We asked them for directions and they immediately started saying, yummy we love that place. But they would NEVER go on the weekends because it cost extra. So we found it. The decor is nothing to write about but the food and crab legs were plentiful and we left happy.

So I guess I can end this story on a BIG NOTE and that would be the Alaskan Crab Legs!

Perhaps bigger things will be in store for us tomorrow...........

Until then, Aloha!

p.s. The weather is sunny and 81 for the foreseeable future!