Splash, dash and ponderings

I have a favourite musical. Actually technically I have two. The problem is I have trouble defining which one holds the ultimate trophy of ‘favourite’. Does the coveted award go to the one I saw on stage, or the other on TV. My earliest exposure to music as storytelling was the classic film Oliver. It was one of those movies that seemed to be on nearly every second Saturday afternoon and I could not get enough of it. Mum and Dad even bought me the book when I had my first hospital visit and I have still have it to this day. Oliver held a dear place in my heart until as a young teenage gal I discovered Sunset Boulevard. A tale of divas, desperation and disillusion, ah the sight of Joe in his crisp white suit belting out the dangers of doing what it takes to make it in Hollywood; it made my creative soul soar….

There you have a typical thought pattern in the life of Amnesty. I was contemplating the above predicament as I tried to remember the lyrics to Oliver’s opening song. Magical, marvellous wonderful or magical wonderful marvellous?

Aki had taken us to a seafood restaurant on Waikiki. I was torn between feeling blessed by his genorosity and astounded at the eagerness at which the management and staff hovered over our dining experience, motivated by the fact they knew Aki had money to spend. For every meal we ordered an extra dish would appear ‘on the house’ or ‘compliments of the manager’. The forced multiplication of dishes meant that waiters were rearranging tables to place on the end of ours to accommodate this seemingly forced gluttony. Still, it was an amazing experience and one that I know I would have little chance to have again. We fed on an absolute banquet of seafood and local Hawaiian cooking. The beer and shochu flowed freely and Taiki and Ryoko received the most amazingly decorated cocktails in hollowed out pineapples. I’ll post some photos of them this weekend. Ryokko loved the cups that they served our coffee in and after a few enquiries made by Aki the staff were wrapping up their own personal supply to sell to him.

And of course, we weren’t done yet! After thankfully waddling towards the door dreaming of a nice quiet walk back along Waikiki Beach I found myself being unwillingly pulled in the opposite direction. Apparently I was neglecting the extremely important and quite urgent issue of after-dinner drinks at the Westin Hotel, a tradition of the Ikemizu family each time they go to Aloha land. With my stomach howling for mercy at the forced over indulgence we fought our way past children busking with their stage-hungry parents and eclectic sideshow entertainers to the Westin Hotel which is right on the shore of Waikiki. Despite my reluctance to imbibe any more liquids, I must admit I absolutely love this hotel. It has a strong luxurious colonial style and I’m a sucker for a shiny chandelier. We took a few happy snaps in the foyer and recreation rooms. This was Taiki’s last night in Honolulu so we made the most of it. He had to be back in Tokyo for the new university year. He’s beginning his master’s in opera at Tokyo’s top music school. I’ll never complain about the complexities of learning an Asian language again. He’s concurrently studying French, German and Italian the clever little maestro!

On our way back to the hotel Taiki and I had the immense pleasure of becoming acquainted with sports very own superhero Basketball Man. Check him out at mysapce.com/iambasketballman. He was good at what he did but I wasn’t blown away. When collecting his tips at the end of the night he used a cute little phrase which I play over in my head lately. It’d be a nifty song lyric if it was blatantly plagiarised from a street performer!

“There’s no nation like donation, there’s no city like generosity”

Still, deep down I held a strange admiration for the quirky man who was pursuing his dream, knowing that in the depths of my bag I had a book asking me what that very dream in my own life is. I was somewhat envious of a dude who wore a foam helmet as a mark of his dream, bizarre the world is sometimes ain’t it!?!

Pondering this thought…..

Amnesty

Oh my poor little tootsies. Did they get a workout today! They had their ultimate revenge though only 10 minutes ago, my shoe broke! Never fear, it has been safely tucked away in the ever expanding suitcase for repair back in Oz, I love my blue sandals. The fight isn’t over yet!

Thanks to some jetlag that has been hanging on for dear life, I was up and about at 5:30am this morning, all ready for my eco-tour to Manoa Falls. Our guide’s full time job though was not only the informative greenie tour guide. Turns out he does grip work (lighting etc) on Lost. One of the key filming locations for Lost is at Manoa and it was kind of cool to see all the scene locations being pointed out and hearing on-set tidbits. One thing that I loved was that apparantely the nicest cast member is Terry O’Quinn (John Locke). I can’t STAND the character Locke which makes me all the more impressed that it’s actually a really nice guy who plays him. That’s some serious acting talent when you can pull that off I reckon. So I got a bit snap happy and took some pics of various locations. It’s such a beautiful area.

Tomorrow I’m up bright and early again for a tour of Pearl Harbour and the USS Missouri. I never got around to seeing it last time I was here and since I studied it in university I’ve kind of always felt a bit guilty! So Pearl Harbour, hold on, I’m coming! Tomorrow night we are heading over to Aki’s friend’s house for a BBQ. I’ll probably be a wee bit tired tomorrow night so may not post anything until Sunday (or errr…Monday Aussie time!).

Oh and I bought some more books at Barnes & Noble yesterday. They’re rockin’ my world. I’ll post more on them later.

Much love

xox Amnesty xoxo

Yesterday I was overcome by a bout of temporary insanity, deciding to join the navy and spend a life of indulgence in high tech machines and crisp white uniforms. I was on the Pearl Harbour tour and in geek heaven.

After awaking at the groggy time of 5:30am I was picked up by my tour bus as the sun crept over the mountains. The USS Arizona at Pearl Harbour is the second most visited US ‘attraction’ after the White House, hence the early morning queuing. The trip down to Pearl Harbour passed quickly thanks to our ever informative guide who was a fountain of information. It was very surreal to see the actual surroundings of places I’d studied throughout university. To get a kind of feel for how monumental this attack was, the emotions at the time somewhat compare to those of when 9/11 occurred, it was that unexpected. There are several ships lying on the floor of the sea, marked by pontoons floating on the surface. The memorial floats about the hull of the ship, which lies below and floats by on the surface from the depths. It’s known as the ‘tears of the Arizona’. I was hesitant that the whole adventure may be a declaration of American patriotism and war but overall it’s respectable and informative.

Following the Pearl Harbour memorial we headed over to the USS Missouri, which I was super excited about. The ship had been in 3 wars (World War II, Korea, Desert Storm) and was the location of the signing of the treaty that ended World War II when it was in Tokyo. It is MASSIVE. Once again, a great tour with tons of signage explaining all the intricacies of the ships’s history, equipment and day to day activities. I took a ton of photos for my dad because his geekness gene was most definitely passed onto me. My poor future children will one day endure family holidays where howling cries for ice-cream fall on the deaf ears of a mother engrossed in a display of decaying pottery, discovered in an ancient archaeological dig from the depths of the Amazon.

I met up with Aki and the fam at Ala Moana Beach Park in the afternoon. There I met up with Raymond and his extended family too. Raymond and Aki are old friends and last time I was in Hawaii I visited their house for a birthday bbq. Our bbq ran on ‘aloha time’ as Ryoko liked to call it. Started at 2pm and ate until 7pm. Whatta afternoon! I took some photos of our eating endeavours and will post them when I get back home in a couple of days.

A hu hou kakou (Until we meet again…)

Amnesty