The Chambers

This update is being written from Row 48 of QF4 heading from Honolulu International Airport to Sydney. I’m glad to be heading home and am looking forward to unpacking all this stuff we’ve accumulated and having a week off at Casa del Chambers in downtown Wakerley before getting back to work.

I eventually got around to posting this note just now…

Hawaii was a very different kind of part of our holiday. One of the great things about such a long holiday is the many different types of places we visit and many different things we get to do. We also enjoy very different types of holidays within our holiday, in some way we had six holidays in one! Some of the Americans we met on our holiday were amazed at all the stuff we were doing. There’s a great stat about how few Americans own a passport. It’s in the single digits of percentage of the total population which own a passport. There’s a line there about them thinking that they are the centre of the world and the world doesn’t actually exist beyond their boundaries, but I won’t use it. I saw an even more interesting stat which reflected on how few Americans actually leave their own home state. If we didn’t know before, we sure realise now how lucky we are to enjoy such an amazing holiday and see such wonderful things!

As I mentioned, Hawaii was very different to the other parts of our holiday. In a laid back and warm way, it was great. We were joined in Hawaii by Kylie’s mum and dad for the six nights we were going to be there. They had been in Hawaii for a few days before we arrived, including being there for Christmas. It was great to see them.

We didn’t have an awful lot planned for Hawaii, except to have a car for three of the days we were in town and go for a drive around the island and see the sights.

On our first day we did a loop around the island, which took us to the “dole” (pineapple) plantation (think the Big Pineapple, but bigger and more Japanese), we went up to the North Shore for a walk on the beach and lunch and drove back down the coast of the island through Sunset and Waimea (sp?) Beaches.

Our second day Kylie, Big Al (Kylie’s dad) and I went for some retail therapy at a couple of the island’s biggest shopping centres. Kylie’s mum and Jackson went to the Zoo and beach. The third day we went for another drive, visiting Wal Mart, Home Depot (a hardware store like Bunnings) and Best Buy.

The other days we just hung out in the apartment and relaxed and relaxed.

We went to a Teppanyaki restaurant one night. Jackson’s been to Teppanyaki a couple of times, but it was mum and dad’s first time. It was very funny, despite Jackson being a bit tired, he sparked up once the chef started flicking knives around and smacking the hot plate with the salt shakers. Mum and dad were entertained by “Barry”, who was our chef, though Mum was very warry of the things Barry was throwing around and looked like she half expected the night to end with her having a lump on her head from a stray pepper shaker. Barry told some very corny jokes, showed great flair at the grill and generally entertained us and cooked a mean meal too.

The other highlight would have to have been “Senor Frogs, which served Mexican fare. The food wasn’t the highlight, though the Fajitas were pretty good. Big Al taking a shot of some type of alcoholic concoction from a drum banging, whistle blowing congo line of restaurant staff was very funny. I had the camera at the ready and snapped a shot of Al mid-gulp and put it straight up on to facebook.

Kylie and Jackson went to the beach a couple of times, but I didn’t set foot on the Waikiki beach once… just wasn’t in the mood for it.

We’ve got lots of photos and I plan on spending at least a little bit of the eek off in getting them all uploaded and into some slideshows and then posted to the blog. I’ll send out an email with some of the pics uploaded.

It’s been fun writing about some of the things we’ve been up too and I plan on using the momentum built up to continue writing updates here throughout the year.

Thanks for reading and happy new year!