10-1-2010

Sunburn has me shedding like a snake.

Shark sandwiches for lunch. My shark was a vegetarian and my sandwich was pretty much made out of tofu...but the one in the background was made out of real mako shark.

P.s. since this is a new month, I'm trying something new. All of my main pictures this month are going to be black and white and shot with just my 35 1.8 with as little post processing as possible (hopefully none). Part of me feels like I'm making an already difficult project even harder, but I think that considering just light and contrast instead of random colorful things will make me focus on taking better and more techincal images. Also, just having one lens will further simplify my picture making process and make me concentrate on more important things things like subject and composition. We'll see if any of this works at all or if this is just a terrible idea. I appologize in advance though if my blog suddenly turns obnoxiously arty and dramatic. I'm sure I'll post plenty of silly extra pictures in color to make up for it like my blue plastic shark.

9-30-2010

The Chinese buffet that we go to for lunch has very photogenic cake. It also has cheaply made plastic/rubber toys that my cats like to chew on for 25¢ in a giant gumball-esque machine.

9-29-2010

The full, in-real-life sunset tonight was a little bit of a "double rainbow all the way" experience.

9-28-2010

1,097 digital, 334 waterproof, and 209 35mm film pictures later...I'm drowning in vacation photos trying to update this blog. Luckly I'm user testing a real computer with the Adobe CS5 suite for my dad.

9-27-2010

We gave the cats their souvenir plush pineapple from the Dole plantation (which we stuffed with catnip). They got drunk.

9-26-2010

Above is Atlanta, a city I've been wanting to visit for a very long while now. Sleeping in airport chairs trying not to touch feet with strangers doesn't count.

Finally back home from long flights and awesome adventuring, I happily watched Adventure Time while Nicole confirmed the unknown powers of the bear hat/scarf/gloves she got on Hollywood Boulevard. On the flight back home and as soon as she put it on on the sofa, she immediately fell asleep. We have now named it "bedtime bear" and respect its mystical narcolepic powers.

P.s. I have a weird subconscious habit of "collecting" photos. The Adventure Time photo is in the same collection as 7-19-2010. I hope to make more.

9-25-2010

I probably blog way too much about what I eat. Especially on a trip like this where we ate more than pretty much anything else. In anycase, I'm obessed with tacos and was thrilled to eat at Tito's, another LA landmark...and they gave me a half dollar for change!

After tacos, we went back to Kim's apartment and met her cats Tigger and Menny Penny. I have high hopes that with enough cat exposure, one day Baby Lily will beg her allergic parents for a kitten enough for them to have one for when we come visit.

After dropping Kim off, We drove to Hollywood and Highland. Eric driving a rental minivan was pretty much the mental image of the whole trip. Between Hawaii and LA he drove close to 900 miles...like a boss. The theaters on Hollywood Boulevard are conveniently seperated by race. I knew I was supposed to be here from all the way down the street. I snuck in here anyway. I think that this is among the "places to see before you die" just like Time Square and Las Vegas. Especially if you ever want to feel like you have huge feet or want to feel a connection with old cowboys. Then, Nicole got to accept her Internationl Film Award...here's a picture of her on the red carpet for proof.

At this point, I'm pretty sure I was shooting Fuji. Death Cab For Cutie songs. Urban legends about LA graffiti culture are true. I don't want what this store was selling.

Speaking of selling, we went speed shopping at my one of my favorite blog's clothing store, then to various boutiques to find something for Nicole. She has a tradition of buying a small piece of momento jewelery whenever she goes on a trip. I have a tradition of eating my face off whenever I'm around good food that I can only get when I'm on a trip. I'll have be having dreams about you for the next month, Hakata Ramen from Shinsengumi.

After dinner, but before the airport, we went to a In-N-Out Burger parking lot so Baby Lily could have a baby battle with my friends Joe and Jenny's baby Ryan. Considering that Ryan is a month older than Lily and she was the winner, I'm pretty sure that Tiffany birthed a giant. Finally, after much deliberation before getting on the plane for a long flight home, Phil voted down the "everyone take a bite burger" on accounts of ramen overdose. It was a good decision.

9-24-2010

We took an overnight flight to LA due to two delays. Eric looked very artistic and slightly religous in the airport.

This is waking up for the first morning in Los Angeles. The first thing we decided to do was go to Pink's in Hollywood. Now understand, my travels, and pretty much my whole life are goverened by the Food Network. I watch it when I'm at home and obsess about trying all the different places whenever I'm out of town. The roots of this horrible obession stem back over ten years to when I was a kiddo living in my parent's house. They didn't have cable so I would often watch shows on PBS since local TV just sucks. During this time there was a show exclusivly about various hot dog places across the country. Pink's was heavily featured in this program and I think I've wanted to go there every since. So all these years later, I stood in this line, watched her assemble my hot dog, and nomed this all up (with Nicole's help). After eating, it was very sunny and Derf took it upon himself to shield Nicole's sunburn from the harsh rays.

Next, we went to the Griffith Observatory. My now transplanted friend Mark observed at the observatory. I observed the cityscape and the Hollywood sign. I think my favorite thing though was the giant plastic planets, though my camera nerd side was excited to see this. I'm pretty sure Nicole's favorite thing was this local lizard that moved here to be an actress.

We dropped Mark back home, then went to sushi for dinner with my Aunt that Nicole had never met.

Stella Was a Diver and She Was Always Down.

9-23-2010

This is sadly our last day in Hawaii. Also sadly, we had to wake up at six something in the morning, and we hadn't finish the bottle of whiskey we bought on the first night in town. Luckly someone (who will remain nameless) though to combine those two negatives into an extremely questionable positive. I don't know how many times I said "don't judge me...I'm on vacation!" on this trip. I know this was one of them. Drinking before the sun comes up is perfectly acceptable in some cultures.

We then drove to the Diamond Head volcanic crater thing we had seen from the observation point (and pretty much everywhere else on the island because it's huge). We then proceeded to hike up this, through tunnels, and up these stairs. Mid way up my lungs reminded me that I had just finished three weeks of pneumonia and they called me words I don't care to put on my blog. Even worse, as we were going up, we found out someone had had a heart attack on the top of the mountain and needed to be Life Flighted back down (he was ok though). We had to wait in the tunnel while the helicopter came, and saw them getting him ready as we went up the next set of stairs. By the time we reached the top, they were flying him away suspended by a cable(?!). That would pretty much give me a heart attack by default. The views from the top were pretty scenic for pictures (if you managed to get a shot without 200 the tops of tourist's heads in your shot). The hike back down went super fast (thanks, gravity!), and we had more shave ice and hot dogs from a truck in the parking lot.

We then drove up to a more secluded part of the island which was super cool. It looked kind of dangerous and a lot less touristy. It's also where the beach bums build their tent and shack settlements so they can bum on the beach. I may very well move there some day and sit next to this bear on the beach. Except we would face the couch the other way Corona commerical-style.

On the way to the airport we stopped off for Hawaiian Barbecue and Liliha Bakery for Coco Puffs. Then it was on to the plane and off to our next stop.

Our time in Hawaii was great and both Nicole and Hawaii were so sad to see it come to an end.

9-22-2010

We woke up to Cleveland weather this morning, but then Hawaii remembered it's supposed to have perfect weather at all times and fixed itself before we got to Hanauma (I guess calling it "Hanauma bay" is redundant). Lots of tiny people come from all over the place (Japan) and wear bright colors to go snorkeling from the beach here. Less publicized, there are flocks of ravenous pigeons here that will eat all your belongings even if you throw sand at them. Needless to say, we followed the Japanese tourist into the bay for a day of snorkeling.

I took more pictures of fish:
Noming fish noming.
Girl fish
Giant freaking eel that swam less than a foot away from Nicole and I and scared us so bad that I might have peed...then chased Nicole around while I tried to take pictures of it.
Fish
Fish with buck teeth
Subtle color pallate fish
Asian fish with stripes
Black fish with Asian stripes
Another shot of buck tooth fish's buck teeth
Running away fish
Rainbow colored fish with another fish's head
I'm not good at naming this many fish
Spotty fish
Pointy tailded fish
Tiny baby fish
Girl fish from below
Inverted colorway fish
Parrot fish looks like it's going to nom the inverted colorway fish
Other spotty fish

All these fishes were just warmup for probably the coolest fish we saw all day (eels don't count as fish)...the porcupine puffer fish! On my last big trip, I almost got eaten by a rattlesnake. Though not as poisonous as the snake (because you have to eat the fish to get poisoned instead of the fish eating you), it was pretty exciting get this close to another animal that has the potential to kill me. Look at these spines.

To the two of you have have read my blog more than once, you might know that I've been collecting pictures of me jumping akwardly in exciting locations (the Indians' stadium, The Grand Canyon etc.). I think this one wins so far for most akward and creepy. I think the creepy can be attributed to the Marc Jacobs swim shorts which I only wore because they were such a topic of discussion amongst everyone on the trip. I think it was more out of punishment for everyone else than anything.

Then we drove up a mountain on the windyest road I've ever been on. We then observed at the observation point. The giant volcanic crater thing is Diamond Head (more on that later). More observing while getting eaten by mosquitos.

Then it was back down the mountain and off to Helena's Hawiian Food for real deal authentic food (which also happned to have been on Food Network). I continued my meat eating binge (the hanging meat, not the restaurant owner) and ate all of this. I think it was my favorite meal in Hawaii.

By the time we got back to the resort, our sunburns from a day of bobbing around like buoys at Hanauma had set in. Since everyone was sunburnt and lazy, we did a pickup run from Zippy's (which someone described as the McDonald's of Hawaii). It's very fast foodish but they have a multicultural assortment on the menu ranging from Japanese chicken katsu to tofu burgers to chilli fries and spam and rice.

9-21-2010

Some people do fat people yoga on the beach every morning while on vacation. I prefered to snorkel almost every morning I was in Hawaii. Here are more fish pictures:

Half a fish that reminds me of 90's swimwear
Wolverine fish
Eyebrow fish and friend
Polka dot puffer fish
Tiny covert ops camouflage fish
Really colorful fish
Less colorful but still fancy fish

After snorkeling, Nicole, Phil and I were left to babysit Baby Lily while everyone else when scuba diving. The three of us took turns getting massages at the spa which I didn't take pictures of...cause that would just be weird. After the massages, Nicole orchestrated a shower schedule in which she would be watching Baby Lily 95% of the time. Never underestimate just how badly two boys can watch a baby for even 5% of the time. Things started off fine. I took pictures of Baby Lily taking a nap while having lunch on the patio. Then I noticed she was moving around and making nightmare frowny faces. Our cat Mushroom does this too, and if you wake her up from her nightmare she realizes everything is ok and starts happily purring. I thought that a baby would work the same way. She didn't purr. I don't think she screamed this loud any other time on the entire trip except for when she bounced off a mattress and fell on the floor. Clearly unqualified to tend to a baby, I called Phil over, who promptly started mock crying back at her (though a solid concept, this did not work in practice but only encouraged her to be louder than him). After frantically dragging Nicole out of the bathroom where she was getting ready, she fixed the baby pretty much instantly. I should never have responsibilty for children. Ever.

After my Adventures In Babysitting afternoon, we went to Hank's Haute Dogs. I'll pretty much go anywhere that's been on the Food Network, and this place was on Diners Drive-ins and Dives. Since Hank's was in the super touristy area we went to before, I dressed to blend in. Ordering. Delicious fancy hot dogs. Makes you crazy. Then we walked off our lunch and saw this guy carving tiki statues, silver guy, and gold guy. As we were walking, we came upon this fancy old hotel. I guess princesses used to live here or something...I wasn't really listening to all the details, I just knew I wanted to invade it. So I grabbed Kim to look less suspicious, and help pretend like we belonged there. We rode the elevator to where the actual rooms are, explored the halls and took took pictures on the balconys. Then we found this sign which worked more as an attractor than a repellant. If they were to catch us though, I couldn't even lie and say I was blind since they had the good sense to write the sign in braille as well. Whatever, we went though their laundry room, into their service elevator and went up to the previously unreachable seventh floor where we found...the Being John Malkovich door. This was a rewarding discovery for our trespassing.

Our adventuring eventally led to Leonard's Bakery to get malasadas (Portuguese doughnut things my sister really likes). It was a glowing beacon of sugar and deep fried saturated fats. Today happened to be my cousin Phil's birthday, so naturally while in line, we decided that the only right thing to do was to buy him a cake. We had it decorated by this lady to celebrate the reoccuring anniversary of his 24th birthday (with two exclamation points). They even gave him a complimentary birthday gift to decorate his cake with. This lady packed these things up for us and acted as a visual warning to not eat too many of them (was that too mean? I'm a horrible human being). On the way out, we saw this incredibly local looking girl. Keep in mind I was still wearing my super tourist outfit...which probably accounts for her expression.

Back at the resort, the only way to wash down a box full of malasadas is to go to the hot tub and drink super classy wine in juice boxes with swirly straws from the Dole plantation. Thus began the plannings for Epic Ocean Run 2010. The first step was running though the resort sprinklers while wearing capes (I think screaming about gargoyles was also involved at this point)...followed by a mad dash down the beach and into the ocean (which was both too fast and far too epic to be fully documented). There is however, this picture of Kim holding me.

P.s. The beach the fat people did yoga on was the launch site of Epic Ocean Run.

9-20-2010

I tried to snorkel as much as possible, even though I wasn't very good at it. Here's a weird spotty thing and a crabby. We then picked up my cousin Derf to complete the collection of Asian cousins in Hawaii.

After the airport, the next stop was the Dole Pineapple Plantation. This was very educational for me since I had the prior misconception that pineapples grew on the tops of trees like coconuts. I learned that they actually grow like this after everyone made fun of me. The pineapple planation also has lots of fishes, Pineapple Dole Whip, and another photobooth which we fit everyone in.

We then had another Food Wars-esque comparison of shave ice between Aoki's from the day before and Matsumoto's which is down the street. I think sugar water and ice generally makes people happy no matter where it's from.

Then we went to a surf shop on our way to see a real live sea turtle sleeping on the beach. A large part of my pre-trip imagination centered around Finding Nemo, so seeing a sea turtle was really my only big objective of the trip and terribly exciting when it actually happened.

We then ended up back at the fruit stand we went to the day before. If I ever though vandalism was the most petty felony possible, this sign proved me wrong. We got more coconuts to drink and banana lumpia which is like a banana eggroll in the best way possible. I could eat one right now and I don't even like banana. I do like cats though, and was happy to see these indigenous Hawaiian fruit stand kitties.

I'm not sure if we only ate things this whole day or if I only took pictures of us eating things, but here are some pictures from Romy's shrimp hut. I guess this place is well known for cooking fresh shrimp and prawns from the farms(?) right behind their stand. Although I was eating my fair share of meat at this point, these were too hardcore for me, so I just watched other people eat them.

Ok, so I'm pretty sure we did nothing but eat this day. We even waited an hour in line to eat at Morio's Sushi. In that wait time, we found a nice little store that had something for everyone. We totally harassed this shop guy setting off his door sensor every time we walked in and out out of sheer boredom. When we finally got to sit down for sushi the wait was definitely worth it. Nom.

9-19-2010

We woke up very excited to go snorkeling. First, we went to the lagoon at the resort and quickly found Gill from Finding Nemo. He was our first fancy tropical fish and I was probably way too excited to see him. I was also pretty excited to see Baby Lily's fat baby legs in the water. She was happy to be held by my cousin Philip and bite people above the water even though she doesn't have any teeth.

Speaking of biting, we then went to Duke's Restaurant and Barefoot Bar for brunch...and so began my week long meat-eating-bender. Other than a handfull of unavoidable/traveling exceptions, I haven't eaten meat in well over nine months. Like, I could have had a baby in the amout of time since I ate meat. This has developed into an extreme guilt complex whenever I cheat. Today, I more than cheated...I Tiger Woods-ed on this whole "eating healthy thing." I can't say I'm proud, but it was delicious. So delicious. Here's me eating my first bite of bacon all year (I love you, King Curtis). The Portuguese sausage pictured above was also note worthy. This guy quietly judged me from the bushes the entire time. We then went to the super touristy shops across the street. Highlights included the tan? Hawaiian? Coffee stained? Miss Kitty doll and the photobooth which accidentally produced one of my favorite photos of the whole trip.

Next was a driving tour around the area. We saw this rock formation, went to this roadside fruit stand, and Nicole got a coconut drink. Then we drove around some more and made Baby Lily hold things and pretend to drink out of coconuts on our way to the Macadamia Nut Farm. There were real and fake Hawaiian people there. The area around was very picturesque though. Anywhere is a good place to take pictures of Baby Lily.

Then we went to snorkel at Sharks Cove to see more fish and step on sea urchins. This was followed by Aoki's Shave Ice for...shave ice. which is like a giant snow cone with flavored syrup, and ice cream, sweet beans, and/or condensed milk if you want it. They have lots of flavors. Binky is not one of them. Kim is apparently a flavor for dogs though. I don't know what the wild chickens eat, but as the spouse of a (most of the time) non-meat-eating person who doesn't like seafood, Nicole was delighted to have crab legs for dinner at Sam Choy's.

9-18-2010

Waking up way too early just to rush though secuity so you can sleep in the airport has become something I've gotten good at, but hate every time. I don't remember a lot of this morning since I tried to sleep though as much of it as possible, but I do remember wanting to fight an entire group of obnoxiously loud old men that all had their ill fitting shirts buttoned all the way up and tucked into their dad jeans. They ignored our personal space so much that I think Nicole wanted to fight them too. The plane finally arrived and it was so little that we had to go out on the tarmac to get on (this was actually pretty fun). We layed over in Minneapolis then got on our second flight after meeting up with a baby that I had met a few times before. On the flight, telling the flight attendant that I don't eat meat somehow turned into her giving me two people's meals and a ton of extra snacks. This circumstantial binge eating was just the warm up for the rest of the trip. This is the big plane that we came in on, and more importantly the "Gate gourmet" food truck that fed me all together too much food. Baby Lily was the most unhappy person ever to arrive in in a tropical paradise. She was however much more excited to meet my cousin Kim for the first time ever. She also enjoyed chewing on the fake flowers I got for her. On the way to the resort, Baby Lily sang us traditional Hawaiian folk songs. When we got there, we unloaded the spoils of flying that we stuffed in Nicole's purse and took mandatory "view from the balcony" pictures. Target stores in Hawaii sell weird stuff like surf boards and children's books about Barack Obama. They also sell liquor which Baby Lily quickly indulged in.