1.1 Pick up Aiko and Satoko from the airport

I was supposed to drive us to the airport to pick up Risa’s
bridesmaids, Satoko and Aiko, but instead I spent the morning throwing
up, feeling amazingly sick, not being able to sleep, and trying to
stop the room from alternating from spinning to punching to my head.

Risa was a bit dubious about going out to drive on her own, but when
we visited California a half year back she did some driving and didn’t
have much trouble, so I figured she should be able to make it to the
airport and back. And she did! She did warn me on the way out that
she might crash and die, but in the state I was in that sounded safer
than me trying to get out of bed.

1.2 Move to Kahala

A few hours later I was feeling somewhat human again (with faint
zombie-undertones) and got up and showered. I had a bunch of IMs from
people, and managed to even get dressed by the time Risa returned. I
think we had a bit of time to recover, and maybe we went out an ate
something. I know that we eventually got back into the car, and I
took up the wheel. We headed to the Hyatt, where Risa’s friends were
staying, and picked them up, then went to the Kahala, checked in
there, and wandered around for a bit.

The Kahala Hotel is pretty crazy. It is a very nice place (they had
pictures of both Shawn Bradley and Kareem Abdul Jabber from when they
visited there!) and they have a kind of artificial lagoon in the
middle of the property. With dolphins. And Sea Turtles. And other
things. It is really crazy. There is also a nice beach and places to
eat, a pool, etc. We were only there for two nights but it looks like
we have to go back for a bit longer next time. I’ve been told.

We wandered around the grounds and someone there gave us free
Pineapple Popsicles. Score! Also, Risa and her friends hadn’t seen a
hammock before, and were pretty amazed at them. So we spent some time
playing with hammocks.

By 3:30pm our bus had come and picked us up for the Paradise Cove Luau. Lena decided to go there, then we ended up getting a bunch of
other people to go.

1.3 Paradise Cove Luau

The bus that came to pick us up was huge – a regular tour bus. There
were only the four of us on it. We then drove to the next pick up
point, met another bus, and filled this one up. Wow. Also, I called
my favorite brother Jon and found out that he was totally waiting at
some other hotel. I got him headed in the right direction and he and
Lily eventually made it on the bus.

The trip out to the Luau place was about 45 minutes. Most of my
friends made it, except for Carl and Cha-Eun, who went to the
competing (supposedly much better, but Mormon-run and alcohol-less)
Polynesian Cultural Center Luau. That’s cool with me: I wanted to go
to that one too, but on general principles think people should have
the choice of destroying brain cells with alcohol if that is what they
want (and what I often do, but didn’t this evening since I had to
drive.) I also am not sure what the Mormons are doing running that
thing; I guess they didn’t have enough of an imperial
native-dominating experience back in the Missionary era? I hear that
the pork is excellent though.

The Paradise Cove Luau is pretty cool. I was glad to see that cousin
Doug made it, despite having been to this very Luau multiple times (I
think.) He had some good advice on what do to. Generally I think the
place was pretty cool.

I really liked Dave’s Ice Cream. Surprisingly I have only had ice
cream three times in Hawaii. One of them was here, where I got a nice
Chocolate and Macadamia nut ice cream. It was good. Then Risa went
and made a nice flower bracelet and a really cool headband with her
bridesmaids. I tried really hard to translate and keep everyone
involved, but I get the feeling that I’m not really a very gregarious
guy. I need to work on that more.

We then headed over to the water and watched the tree climbing thing,
where a dude totally just climbed up this tree like it was nothing.
Then he threw flowers at people. Pretty rude if you ask me. 😉
After that we watched a traditional fishing thing with nets. It was
pretty cool.

Then I had the bright idea to get some drinks. I got in line. About
an hour later I got our drinks and brought them back to Risa and her
bridesmaids. The Luau had already started. It was a buffet, and it
was good. The pork was amazing. It was very tender (a whole pig,
probably more than one) and delicious. The other stuff was ok. The
fried chicken was pretty good. I can’t believe the pork though – it
was great. Lena made me say into her video camera that it was the
best pork I had ever had. I said that while eating chocolate cake
though, so I am not sure how convincing it was. It was really good
though.

Then we had the entertainment portion of the Luau. They had lots of
dancing – hula and otherwise. The fire dancer was really amazing. I
kept on saying “Sugoi” (Japanese for amazing.) I then noticed that I
was speaking Japanese and started to feel self-conscious about it. It
was just coming out naturally though. Have I turned into one of those
people that thinks they are Japanese? Having Eric sit next to me can
make me feel self-conscious.

Anyway, after the revue ended (did I mention that the fire dancer was
amazing?) we headed home. Risa fell asleep on the bus. After that I
had to drop off Eric, give Ron his pants and Best Man shirt, and pick
up my bag from the, uh, … club … where I accidentally left bag
back on Friday night. Then I came home and slept the sleep of the
exhausted. But not without first noticing that the showers at the kahala are amazing. Also the bed is amazing. And the TV was amazing.
Not that I got to watch it. Compare the TV in the Kahala to the one
in our Waikiki Banyan condo. Their TV: large, LCD, wall mounting with
an awesome swivel mount. Our Banyan TV: maybe a 24″ electron tube (I
can’t believe I forgot what these are called) non-flatscreen TV where
the colors are off (the Orlando Magic are green instead of blue) with
no remote control.