Ain't Worth A Dime!

Because Australian money doesn't include 1c and 2c pieces anymore, it's strange to see them amongst other currency's denominations and it's weird to try and use them.

You end up with so many of them in the coin section of your purse that it feels like you are carrying a small child around in your handbag!

We've been trying to pay for things with them..... I think this total was about $9.40 - all in 1c pieces.

(just kidding, but it was a lot!)

The Cheesecake Factory

The Cheesecake Factory is a restaurant and bakery which specialises in..... cheesecake!  It's located right next to our hotel and has had a line out the door and around the corner every meal time since we've been here.  People are willing to wait for 29-90 minutes for a table - it's crazy!

The Cheesecake Factory has been made famous by the TV show, The Big Bang Theory.  However, in real life, they don't wear this uniform and it's waaaay busier.

So one day we were walking past at about 5.30pm and thought maybe we'll just have a "Duplex" dinner - aptly named as when Marie (her surname is Duplex) was younger her family would always have dinner really early..... sometimes at 4.30pm.  I'd sometimes be at her house playing after school and Mrs Duplex would tell it was time to go home as Marie's dinner was ready.  Hence the early dinner became the "Duplex" dinner.  

There was no line out the door, so we raced in and the wait for a table was only 10 minutes.  We can do 10 minutes.  Finally our name was called.... "Dobson, party of 3?"  We followed the lady who, when we got to the table for 2 looked at us in surprise..... "Oh, there's 3 of you."  She stated - not for our benefit I hope as we already knew how many were in our party.  

So a new table was found toot sweet and we were seated.  We were starving and we ordered way too much food, as you sometimes do when you're starving and especially when you haven't been to a place before and you want to try everything.

We ordered too much savoury and then couldn't even contemplate dessert, which was a real shame.  We'll just have to come back solely for cheesecake.

Mmmmmm...... cheesecake.

Arigato

I'm a bit of a fan of Teppanyaki style Japanese food, ever since I had fried egg and rice thrown at me years back in Sydney.  I like the watching the skilled and talented chefs as they chop and tap and flick and slice their way through cooking my meal.

When we were at the unfriendliest Chinese restaurant in the world, we noticed across the way that there was a Teppanyaki place and thought we'd try that on another night.

Well, another night arrived and up we went.

These were the beautiful gardens surrounding the centre where the restaurants were.  They don't really have anything to do with the restaurants themselves, but I liked them and wanted to share them with you.

We were seated at a bar around a hot plate and were immediately engaged in conversation with the couple sitting opposite.  We learned that they were originally from Fiji, but now lived in San Francisco.  He works for an aviation company and consistently talked over the top of her and finished her sentences.  In the end she was just agreeing with him and repeating what he said..... probably saves her time!

(This picture is not of the real couple, but it could be)

Her family lived in South Perth, Western Australia and visit there every couple of years - such a small world!

Anyway, we ordered way too much food and couldn't eat it all.  We had a very humourous chef who thought his own little jokes were hilarious.  Pretending to give Marie the charcoaled scraps from the hotplate, pretending to throw food at us or when we asked for some Japanese words, he gave us Spanish translations.... a real card!

Arigato!

Glamour Puss

I have always been fascinated with glamour photography and I'll even admit I've had one done myself.... 

(don't judge, I got a free voucher somewhere and thought why not?)

Anyway, Marie and I found a salon to have a pedicure in today and one of it's many services was glamour photography.  There were two Japanese ladies there having their hair and make up done and were being tizzed up with jewels and sequinned fabric and tulle wrapped around their shoulders.  Apparently the photos are only taken from the bust up, so you don't need a whole outfit.  Even their hair dos weren't complete as they headed towards the 'studio' (which was just behind a curtain) with large coloured butterfly clips holding their hair back in place.

This is a sample from the salon's website.  I love the before and after shots, the before shots all look so miserable.

As did the woman being tizzed.  They didn't smile or laugh once.  Marie and I were saying to each other that if we were getting it done we'd be in fits of laughter, but these ladies were very matte of fact.  Almost as if it was a weekly event that they just had to live through.

It was difficult to concentrate on what was going on around my own feet as we were mesmerised by the goings on of the two ladies.  They were up and down and in and out from behind the curtain, hair tizzed then washed and blow dried in a different style, then sequins, then normal clothes..... it was a parade all of it's own!

The lady doing my feet was Vietnamese, but had been living in Hawaii since she was 5 years old, so her English was perfect and she kindly translated for the lady doing Marie's feet, who didn't have any English at all.  

Anyway, my lady was very talented and painted a pretty Hawaiian scene on my big toes. 

And in thongs, this is about as glamour as I get!

Martin Luther King Junior Day Parade

Part of the long weekend festivities was a parade in honour of MLK Jnr.  There were signs up all over Waikiki about the main road being closed off for the parade.  We thought that beach and the restaurant would probably be empty because everyone would be at the parade.  However, when we made it out to the street, this is what we were greeted with.

Hardly any people watching what was the strangest parade I've ever seen.

We only came in towards to the end of the parade but what we saw consisted of pimped up high low riding cars - you know the ones that bounce up and down?  Anyway, there was a couple of them with a couple of gangster looking blokes in them.  

Then this guy had his boot up with his hifi in there - not playing though, and he'd decided that his contribution to MLK Jnr Day would be to reverse down the main street (with the boot up!).  So we zig zagged his way down the empty street to the confused glances of passers by.  There really were probably only 5 or 6 people standing still to watch.....

..... This bloke being one of them.  We passed him the day before, he sits on that chair with a cardboard sign that reads:

"Why Lie?  Need money for beer and weed."

This was the another man enthralled by the parade.  I'm not sure I've got much to say about him..... you make your own mind up.

The last marchers bringing up the rear of the parade were the Hare Krishna's.  At first, we thought that there was only one Krishna - in the blue hat, but about 50 metres back there was a motley crew of dancers and praisers.....

After that there was a row of police cars and then the general public traffic who were just waiting for the whole debacle to be over and done with.

Embarrassing!

Lost In Translation

 It's a long weekend in the US of A this weekend for Martin Luther King Jnr Day so the Outrigger hotel, where we're staying, had a mini Sunday Session with a band.  They moved the tables and and moved the chairs in a stadium seating style arrangement so that people could dance should they so desire.

We watched from the balcony - the best view in the place and we were able to follow the antics of certain people, attaching our own stories to their lives for our entertainment.

Once we were dressed and ready for dinner we decided that we should be down there amongst the people rather than seven stories up looking down

so we popped down and ordered a beer.  I went to the bar and ordered 3 beers. The bar man said, "Where is your party?"

I replied, "Sorry?  My party?" before realising that he was referring to the people I was purchasing the alcohol for.  I loosely gestured to the two ladies behind me.  He took one look and didn't even hesitate before pouring the drinks..... "um, would you like to see our ID?", I wanted to ask, but I was too late, he was gone. 

So thinking that the 'sesh' would go for a bit, we found ourselves a spot where we could stare at people and all of a sudden the music stopped and people came in to clear away the chairs and dismantle the band's instruments.  So we downed our beers and headed for dinner.  

We'd decided on the Chinese restaurant we'd seen earlier in the day...

The Bejing.

 We got there and was greeted without eye contact nor a smile and seated.  Then served by a man who had no time for the customers.  

When we were ordering, we had a couple of questions which pissed him off no end!  When we finished, I said, "thank you, you made ordering so stress free then, that was lovely."  He replied, "thank you." and gave a very small smile.  Clearly the sarcasm was lost in translation!

Like this fried rice dish!!!

Kalua Pig

After the excitement of the big surf we headed where the locals go...

Kono's

Pulled pork, rice, coleslaw, avocado, special sauce and a bit of sour cream all wrapped up in a soft tortilla 

= lunch Haleiwa style

And it was delicious!

Apparently if you have the pig from this logo tattooed on your body somewhere you get 25% discount for life.......

It was considered.