Birthdays and Restaurants

So the friends that I hang out with, we have realized that all of our birthdays are in a three (3) month period. For our birthdays, we have decided to go to different restaurants and to just celebrate with friends. The two restaurants that we have already attended were pretty amazing. One being a Japanese BBQ place and the other features a 5-star menu.


The Japanese restaurant was down in Waikiki just off of Kapiolani Blvd. If you have never been to a Japanese BBQ dining experience, I highly recommend it. The slices of meat that you get to cook yourself is pretty exotic. They did offer cow tongue, but most of us didn't want to have any. So as I stated before, you get to cook your own food at your table. It's a pretty neat experience. Most of the choices of meat are premium. It was also interesting that one of the dessert options were "s'mores". Yes, you read that right. I guess it is unique thing you can do at a restaurant. We definitely had some s'mores for dessert. 

The second restaurant we have been to so far was Uncle Bo's. Now from the outside, Uncle Bo's looks like a pretty crappy restaurant from the outside because it is in an older building that looks a bit run down. On the inside though, it is nice and pretty modern. Their food is amazing too. At first glance at the menu, you might think why is this so expensive? The prices are actually decent for the quality of food and the amount that you pay. It is very filling. They also have different "mood" lighting after 9pm. The only thing that really sucked was that, we had to wait for about an hour after we got there. We had called earlier to for a reservation, but they were closed at the time. We left a message. They said when we got there, that they called us back.....yeah they were just covering themselves. We didn't get a phone call saying that the time we made our reservation wasn't good. While waiting for that hour, we went down to a sushi and sports bar. Had some drinks there, some appetizers, and then walked back to Uncle Bo's. If you are looking for a great PuPu platter, you should try the Thai-Style Steamer Clams. The sauce that they serve the  clams with is amazing.

why the weird title?

So I was having problems being creative with a title, since I wasn't taught to be creative in school, well in the sense of literary creativity or anything art related. Colorado School of Mines definitely gets you to think in a technical way. But enough with the degress. I came up with the title from the book that I got from friends before I left. It was started and put together by Teresa Manriquez and Jeffrey Randle. So that is where I got the title for this. Now for the reason of this blog, Ashley Young (Begley) recently challenged me to put together something to keep at least her informed of what I was doing or what I experienced while I am here in Hawaii. She stated if I kept her informed, she would do better on keeping all of her supporters and friends informed of what she was up to with her time as an intern with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (and hopefully after that as well). Not only to do better, but try to beat me in the flow of information. I was also told before I left Colorado back in September by Keith Stevens (and possibly others) to start a blog. (I am finally getting around to it Keith.) We shall see how this develops and all. I will try to fill in the gap from the last four months.

Chinese Name!

So my sister the yesterday gave me my Chinese name while we were skyping. For you that don't know, she is currently studying in Shanghai, China and her blog is located here. It's weird, in China, it always seems like they are on holiday and never actually in school.

劉冠華 (Liu guan hua) which roughly translated is "magnificent king"

At the beginning of this year Podium Speedway opened. Now you probably ask what Podium Speedway is and I would say it is indoor electric Go-Kart racing area. The place is actually pretty sweet. My friends and I went there for a friends birthday....well it so happened to be on her birthday weekend. The real reason we went was because a two particular wanted to really try it out. It was pretty fun, I do have to admit that. They could use some streamlining and optimization to make the experience better. First off, their check-in process is absolutely horrible. Standing in line for an hour just to initially register and pay, that is pretty ridiculous.  I expect it at like Disneyland and other places where there are hundreds of people moving through the place every day, but really, for about 30 ft max in a line to take an hour, that is just insane. Then again, it is Hawaii and everything here is done slowly and for the most part inefficient. 

The race itself can have up to 10 people at a time I believe. It is better if there is less in my opinion because the race track is a bit on the small side. Podium has structured the races in a way that you aren't actually racing against each other in a traditional manner, but more in a timed manner. Each car is individually timed. I think this is easily possible because there is a RF chip, or some other way of following the car. The safety officers on the course also have great control of the cars, since at a touch of a button, they can limit the karts top speed. In a way, it's a good feature over gas engine karts. The real question is to see how long the batteries in the Karts are going to last since they are charged after every ~5 min race. That can't be too good for the batteries in the long run. The fastest I saw someone finish a lap was just over 20 seconds. The slowest is about 40 sec. Unfortunately, one of those drivers was in our group and slowed us all down. 

President's Vacation

So President Obama flew in last night and is here for about 10 days. Thankfully this is about the same time frame in which I am going to be in Colorado. I say this because since he is the President, lots of security detail follows him around and therefore make is more difficult for people to get around. By being off in Colorado, I get the chance to miss all the headache of being delayed, or detoured because of the President traveling. I also went to find Air Force One on the island. It wasn't that hard and was actually relatively easy compared to what I thought it would be. Since the news covered where he landed, it was only a matter of driving around Joint Base Pearl Hickam to find the famous plane. I only found one of the planes though (its twin should have been somewhere on the island or nearby, but I didn't go looking for it). For those that live in a closet, below is a picture of Air Force One (from a public website of course).

http://blogs.reuters.com/photo/2009/03/06/welcome-aboard-air-force-one/

Surprise on the North Shore

So I went up to the North Shore today hoping to catch some of the Billabong Pipe Master surf competition, the third of three in the Triple Crown Series. Unfortunately, it was canceled the day I went because the surf was not "big" enough for the competition. I still saw some pretty good local surfers practicing and probably some pros as well, but I'm not versed in the surfing world to know who is who yet. Give me some time and I might get better at it. Anyways, the surprise was a guy that was dressed up as Santa Claus. I guess Hawaii got an early visit from Santa. It's also interesting to note, in the surfing world, Hawaii is considered its own country. Then again Hawaii seems to be the neglected state in the Union (along with Alaska). Another side note, shipping costs more here in Hawaii and also to Alaska, for some reason it isn't really fair if you think about it.

Town Beach

The above beach is one of my favorite places to visit when I am in the Waikiki/Town area of the island. Ala Moana beach is from what I have heard the "locals" beach to hang out at instead of the "visitor" beach of Waikiki. Anyways, the beaches in general on Saturdays are crowed with families doing barbecues or parties or combinations of both. It is not uncommon to find a bouncy castle in the park or more than one in the park. Therefore, I try to stay away from most of the "family/tourist" beaches on Saturday. I normally go during the week or on Sunday. Both of these times do not see the crowded level that is seen on Saturday.

This beach also sees a lot of stand up paddle boarding (SUP) and people swimming laps along the length of the beach. There aren't that many waves that are seen at this beach which is also pretty nice. It's a nice relaxing place to come to. There is also a park that is right next to the beach where people play volleyball, have parties, play tennis, basketball, Ultimate Frisbee (which I have yet to see, I have just heard rumors), and lot of people biking and running. It is a good park to go running in since there are some nice trails, and not a lot of vehicle traffic.

Now you might ask what SUP is. I will refer you to this site that gives a short introduction/history of it (click here). At Ala Moana, you don't normally see people surfing of these boards, since there is not many waves. You normally see people just paddling parallel to the beach (seen below). I have not learned how to do this. It is on my list of things to learn.

http://everpaddle.com/gallery.html