Carl’s Journey

The Diversity of Love

The last two weeks of May was fast, fun, amazing and exhausting for me. My party, The Diversity of Love, was special and fun. The 90 guests at Hollywood Bistro were entertained by belly dance troupe, Tribal Lillies, and drag divas, China Doll and Yna Nova. China Doll’s emotional speech was touching and meaningful.

The delicious food (those crunchy Vietnamese egg rolls) came from Hollywood Chinese/Vietnamese Restaurant. Thank you Danny (owner) for letting me take over your bistro. I also want to thank the staff of Hollywood Bistro for their hard work.

The videos of all performances are on www.youtube.com
Please go to youtube and search for cahan diversity of love. This will bring up all my videos.

Last word on Christina Lee. I found out that Christina decided to give LA a shot and was not able to go back to Houston for the party (she had a job interview the following Monday).

Dream Vacation

Two years ago, my brother, James, gave me and Gary a vacation trip to Hawaii on one condition that we would lose some weight by the end of 2005. Well, as all my friends can see, Gary and I did not lose weight. However, my brother still gave us the vacation and on May 24, 2007 Gary and I left Houston and arrived on the big Island of Hawaii that Thursday evening.

My brother, his wife, three childrens and my mother were to arrive on Friday but missed their connection in San Francisco and did not arrive until that Sunday.

THE VIDEO

Houston, We Have a Problem

I did not want to write about this, but since it is a part of my journey and this journey will be revealed.

The Thursday before my party on May 19, Gary went to his doctor for general check up and we decided to tell the doctor to check on his psoriasis skin problem he had for the last three years.

What was a short trip to the doctor turned out to be a removal of a non-myeloma skin tumor. The two procedures (one more after the first biopsy) forced us to use our Hawaii money toward medical expenses. I became nurse Rached overnight. We are still waiting for the second biopsy result to see if everything is ok. The three inch wide and 1/4 inch deep wound on Gary’s back is healing and I now have become an expert in dressing wound.

This means NO SWIMMING IN HAWAII for Gary!!!!

The Hilton Waikoloa Village

We landed at the Kona Airport and took a $42 shuttle to the Hilton Waikoloa Village Resort. On the way to the hotel, I noticed that there were all kinds of white stone placed along the high way spelling out words or forming pictures. I asked my driver about this Hawaii grafitti. He told me that in honor of the ancient Hawaiian Petroglyphs (carvings on lava rocks), people takes these white coral washed up along the beach shores and place them everywhere to make a statement.

My brother booked us a nice beautiful room at the most beautiful hotel I have ever stay, The Hilton Waikoloa Village. This 63 acres resort sits on an ancient volcanic lava flow and surrounded by a beautiful lagoon along its rocky shore line . Every evening was a picture perfect sunset evening. The theme was Asian and there were statues of Buddha every where. The hotel is so big that you can walk or take a boat taxi or ride a monorail to your room. There are three main towers at this resort, the Lagoon Tower, The Palace Tower and The Ocean Tower. We were at the Palace Tower which to me was the nicest one.

Trapped in Paradise

The Hilton Waikoloa Resort is about 40 minutes from the nearest town, Kailua-kona. This means that a one way taxi cab is $65. This also means that none of the free local buses stop here.

Gary and I were trapped!!!! With only $300 in our pocket, our activities were limitted. $100 was used for round trip shuttle to and from the airport. Another $40 was for the city parking at Houston Bush Airport. That left us with only $150 to spend on our dream trip. The following activities that we planned but could not afford were:

Taking my family to a nice restaurant
Go to town to buy Kona coffee at the Wal-mart
Sample local cuisine at mom & pop joints in town
Renting a car to explore the Big Island
Go to a Luau
See the spectacular lava flow
Do day trips to the other islands

We checked the menus at all the restaurants at the Hilton and suffered sticker price shocks. It did not matter if it was an Italian eatery or a Japanese Sushi joint, every thing ranges from $20 and up for lunch and $35 and up for dinner. The hotel had a small food court which serves turkey sandwiches for $10. But who would want to eat a lame turkey sandwich for $10? The breakfast buffet was no better than the one you get at a Golden Coral, but the Hilton’s was a whopping $28 per person. The dinner buffet was $38 and it did not even have seafood. The HORROR!

Fish & Chips

The King’s Shops is a 10 minutes (a tram or a shuttle was also available for $1 per person) walk from the Hilton. This was the only shopping complex in the area. This complex has high end stores from Tiffany’s to Louis Vuitton that cater the millionaires living along the beach. There is a food court which many employees of the Hilton and the Marriott go to eat. It has typical food court choices ranging from Subway, DQ Country, and a few others small eateries. Our favorite were Island Fish & Chips and King’s Court Pizza & Grill. The pizza place serves rice combo plates beside pizza. An order of rice with choices of entre (the pork adobo and Hawaiian beef stew were our favorite) cost $11 but it was enough to feed two fat boys like us. My favorite was the Island Fish & Chips. For $10 you can get a fish sandwich combo or the fish and chips basket. The fish is mahi-mahi and it was fresh and cook to order in a place that was smaller than my walk in closet at the Hilton. A young lady takes your order and another one cooks your food. The wait time was about 15 minutes. I admired the cashier at this place. We ate here at least four times and each time I like the way she handled tourists asking questions ranging from if the fish was fresh? What is mahi-mahi? What is tempura batter? How many pieces of shrimp to an order? I wanted to go up to these folks and tell them that the alternative was to eat at the Hilton for about $50 a person and then they can ask all they want. This lady should work in the PR department for a corporation.

Paradise Exploration

If you are going to be trapped in a place, the Hilton Waikoloa Village is the best place to be at. Just make sure you pack lots of ramen noodles and a small electric pot. We spend the first night just walking around the property and ate ramen noodles in our room and went to bed at 7:30 PM Hawaii time (12:30 AM Houston time).

Day 2

The birds started singing outside our room at 5:00 AM. Gary and I set out at 6:30 AM to look for breakfast at the Hilton. This is when we discovered that the buffet was a whopping $28 per person so we went back to our room for another round of ramen noodles. After our delicious Asian breakfast, we walked along the volcanic rocky beach at the Hilton. This beach is beautiful and unique, but you can not swim in it due to rip tide and sharp volcanic rocks. The white coral rocks give contrast to the black lava rocks. Countless pools of water left by the low tide reveals fish, sea urchin, sea cucumbers, crabs and all kind of other marine animals. It was like going snorkeling without getting wet. There were also protected ponds between shoreline and homes. These are small ponds with shrimps and fish unique to the Big Island.

We took the tram to the King’s Shops for lunch and continued our budget paradise with a delicious lunch of two foot long Subway sandwiches which we took back to our room to eat and relaxed. Gary was already bored by this time and this forced me to call the public transportation department only to be told that there is no bus that stops at the Waikoloa resort areas to bring us to the nearest town of Kailua-Kona.

We rode the Hilton’s shuttle to the nearby Marriott and walked along the only sandy beach near us. It was nice and pretty but being raised in South Florida, I have seen better. Gary’s sister lives near Clearwater, Florida and the beach and emerald green water there is more beautiful than or just as beautiful (trying to be political correct here)as any of the beach on the Big Island. By 2:00 PM, the sun was hot and we headed back to our hotel room and rest until dinner time.

We went back to King’s Shops again for dinner, but we were sick of Subway already and ate at Island Fish & Chips. The sandwich combo was a tad bland, but the fried (tempura style) fish & chips was delicious. I normally do not like mahi-mahi, but it tasted great inside a crispy tempura style batter. The basket was accompanied by a pineapple coleslaw and typical thin fries. Beside the usual cocktail/tartar sauce condiments, I noticed that there was a bin of guava jelly so I aksed the lady what it was for and was told that the locals like to dip the french fries into them. It tasted like guava dipped fries. I liked it. The Friday ended on a low note when my sister-in-law told me that the family missed their flight and will not see us until Sunday. This was when I finally told my family about Gary and told them please hurry and come rescue us.

Day 3

Boredom overcame us as we ran out of things to do at our resort. I walked along the “Museum Walk”and marveled at the art collection this place has. We walked along one of the most beautiful golf course in the world. We took the taxi boat and circled the property twice (one more time with my mother later on). We ate fish & chips again. We also tried a rice combo inside the King’s Shops food court and it was delicious. We will end the trip eating the rice combos three more times. We did take advantage of a tours briefing at the Hilton just to enjoy the free coffee and day old pastries.

We ended this day watching the sunset and it was spectacular. Every picture I took resembled a post card momment. As the sun dissappeared from view, a young hunky athlete raced around the property and lighted the gas torch lamps along the Hilton’s shore.

Day 4 – Sunday
Rescued

My family arrived and my brother gave me $100 to spend on frivolous things. I went swimming for the first time since I arrived. My two nephews and niece put on their fins and goggles and swam inside the natural lagoon at the Hilton. This was 4:00 PM and the water was cold. We lasted no more than 1 hour. The wind picks up almost every day at 4:00 PM and the temperature was cool in the evening.

We ate at the food court at King’s Shops again because the children were tired and it was easier to go there and eat instead of dressing up and step in to one of those chic eatery at the Hilton.

Day 5
Free breakfast

I discovered that our rooms are on the Hilton Honors floors and that free continental breakfast was available to us every day in a reception room on our floor 50 feet away from my room!

Gary, my mother and I woke up early this day and visited the breakfast room. There were fresh guava juice, orange juice, milk, coffee, tea, four kinds of pastries and fresh fruits ranging from papaya to pineapple. However, being Houstonians, we were protein deprived.

Us three walked around the property and my mother posed for about 50 pictures.

All of us ate at the King’s Shops food court again and by this time, I was getting tired of it. Between me and Gary, we have eaten every rice combination, all the fish & chips we care to eat and we were sick of Subway sandwiches.

Fine Dining

At my brother’s request, I made reservation for the 8 of us to dine at the Hilton’s popular Kamuela Provision Company restaurant. The airy restaurant sits on a hill and provided the guests with a spectacular view of the sunset each evening. I am going to rate this restaurant not on price since I am very biased against restaurant that are overpriced. I will rate this place on food quality only. The children’s dish from the child menu were good. My youngest nephew ordered his petite sirloin medium rare and liked his steak. My brother and Gary had the rib eye steak and both were cooked to their liking. My sister-in-law, Mary, had the lobster dinner and she enjoyed it. My mother had the seafood pasta and ate about half of it before she was full. She told me that it was the best pasta she had in a long time. My miso glazed grilled salmon brule came out very late and the waiter comped my only alcoholic drink of the trip. The lava flow is a drink similar to a pina colada with a strawberry swirl in it. It was sweet, good and a little stingy on the rum.

When my plate arrived, it was the typical rice patty round shape thing in the middle and topped with a 4×4 squared shaped salmon patty. The restaurant named this dish as a salmon brule because of the glazed miso sauce on top of the salmon. The fish was a dissapointment! The sweet glazed miso sauce had no flavor and the fish tasted like it was poached not grilled. There were four spears of asparagus on the plate spread out beautifully like a fan. Since there was not much substance on my plate, I was still hungry after I ate it and proceeded to finish my mother’s “delicious” pasta. My oh my! I had better spaghetti at CiCi’s Pizza than the mess that was in the oversized bowl it came in. I wanted to ask the waiter to bring out the basil, the oregano, the parsley, the onion anything to make me forget that I was eating spaghetti made for a three year old.

The best part of my meal was the white cheddar cheese spread served along side with soft blueberry muffins. It was on the house.

My family enjoyed it though; especially when the sun came down and provided us with a view to remember.

Day 6
The Big Tour

This was my last full day on the island and my brother treated all of us to a 12 hours tour around the big island by Polynesian Adventure Tour. The cost of the tour was about $82 per person; not bad considering a one way cab fare to Kailua-Kona was $65. I was excited about this tour. The Big Island is very diverse. The area we stayed at rarely rain, but on the other side of the Island, the town of Hilo is considered to be the rainiest city in the US. We boarded a shuttle bus at 6:30 Am and transfered to a big bus one hour later at Kailua-Kona. The bus first stopped at a Kona coffee farm and we sampled the many variety of coffee and desert. Gary and I bought a small macadamian rum cake which was delicious. We boarded the bus half an hour later and headed to the southernmost bakery in the United state, the Punalu’u Bake Shop. The bake goods here were delicious and their sandwiches and burger were good too. I bought a bag of goodies which included several types of malasadas (similar to donuts) three sandwiches (tuna, seafood and turkey) and a package of sweet taro bread. Gary and I had camped out in the back four seats of the bus and our little area resembled a small catering service complete with a small ice chest and two memory cushion foams to provide support for our big a–.

The bus then took us to Punalu’u Black Sand Beach. The beach sand here is black due to the volcanic rocks. Our driver said that there will be many turtle sighting there, but the only turtle anyone saw that day was the turtle art work on my t-shirt.

The next stop was the main event. The bus took us to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. The drive since we left has changed from dry volcanic rock to the lush hill of the Kona coffee farms to the rainy forest at the foot hill of the volcano to dry and desert landscape of the caldera.

The first part of this volcanic park exploration was the buffet at the entrance. Gary and I wisely skipped the boring buffet and used this hour to explore the area. We were high up in the mountain and down below was the Kilauea Caldera.

Then the bus took us to the famous lava tube walk. We all walked through a wide but short lava tube. The kids were having fun walking through it. It was like walking through a dark tunnel.

From here the tour goes down toward the caldera. This was the best part of the tour. The wind was cold yet the bright sun and the hot steam keep it warm. We already knew that this was as close as we can get to any volcano action. My mom opted to stay on the bus and sleep.

I spent too much time watching the Travel Channel and learned during this vacation that all those spectacular lava flow action or dramatic waterfalls and cliffs come with a very high price. To see the lava or those big falls, you have to fly in a helicopter ($330 per person), fly in a small plane ($200 per person), be on a cruise ship that happens to float by the flow or walk 5 hours each way to the area where the lava were flowing. I could barely walk to get lunch, therefore, any walk to a burning slope was out of my league.

After the volcano park, the trip was just tiring and boring for me. We drove through the rainiest city of Hilo and stopped at an orchid farm. It had a grand champion orchid in bloom that was worth $20,000. If you are a Houstonian and you collect orchids, then you should know the orchid farm that used to exist in the Richmond/Rosenberg area. Well, the Hawaiian orchid farm was just boring.

The next stop was the Rainbow Falls. For some reason, I had vision of a giant and tall waterfall that drop several thousand feet down from a beautiful mountain. What I saw was fall that was 80 feet high. I have to tell myself that not every fall is like a Nigagara Falls. As I walked backed to the bus, I overheard a fellow traveler telling his wife that “we’ve been robbed”.

The last stop was at the Parker Ranch. This is a huge cattle ranch on the northern part of the Island. The bus stopped at a local shopping strip here for 20 minutes. By this time I just wanted to get back to the hotel.

We got back at the Hilton around 6 PM; almost 12 hours since we left in the morning.

Gary and I walked one more time to the King’s Shops and ate our usual fish & chips dinner and the rice combo with pork adodbo one last time before flying out the next day. My family was to leave one day after us.

Day 7
Last day in paradise

Gary and I spend our last day here in paradise walking around the property with my mother and back to the volcanic beach of the Hilton. My brother took us out to lunch at a nice eatery in the King’s Shops area named Merryman. We boarded our shuttle at 4:00 PM this Wednesday evening and flew to Honolulu and caught a flight back to Houston.

The flight was terrible. The cramped Continental Airline seat and the hot cabin temparature along with 4 crying babies left me awake the whole entire flight. The memory cushions that Gary and I purchased to support our rears did not help much on the long flight. We arrived at Bush Airport at 10:30 AM Thursday morning and drove home only to pack to leave on Friday for New Orleans and Biloxi to meet up with Gary’s parents and sister.

After we left Hawaii, my two nephews and niece swam with the dolphins at the Hilton’s lagoon. I do not have pictures of them with the dolphins, but they told me that it was fun and exciting.

I am forever grateful to my brother and his family for giving me a chance to experience paradise. I had a nice time, but wish I could do all the things the Travel Chanel suggests to do. This would have required an unbelievable amount of money. I am not sure if I want to spend that kind of money to experience this type of paradise again.

Until next time Have Fun!