Well here we are, sitting in our hotel, or resort as they like to call it, in our room. My feet are sore and Cookie is ..... cold. Sigh. But more about that later.
I left Kamloops around 11 am after driving Wrangler up to the kennel. I also stuck a very formal and direct letter into the neighbours mail box, promising that I would be suing her ass if she doesn't shut her dog up. And I have to admit that every time I think of 'home', which used to invoke warm and fuzzy thoughts, I get kind of a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach and clearly that effing dog is ruining the enjoyment of my home.
The trip down was uneventful and very beautiful. It was lovely to see sunshine. I moved to Kamloops for the sunshine and much to my chagrin, there is a lot of no sunshine skies. And as I got closer to Vancouver the air became warmer and warmer. So I left 16 below temp and arrived in 4 above.
I arrived to a very warm and familiar welcome at Cookie and Brian's. Cook and I headed off to Walmart right away. I forgot my tweezers...can't have that! And Brian made us a wonderful dinner of hash browns, baked beans, eggs and toast. Mmmmmm.....And he did the dishes!!!!!
We were up at five the next morning and off to the airport. The trip was smooth sailing until about one hour before our scheduled landing. The turbulence kicked up enough that the flight attendant announced that the captain asked them to prepare the cabin for landing, early, and the seat belt sign would be staying on for the rest of the trip. Then the plane definitely slowed down and slowly dropped a bit and then a bit more and then a bit more. Around then the Captain came on and made an announcement, which I couldn't hear because the announcement was too quiet and people kept talking.
Well, with an hour to go...why were we slowing right down and dropping? I started to panic, of course. Who wouldn't? Well Cookie for one. I think she got a little ticked with me for being so freaked out. But clearly something was not right.
After a few minutes of freaking out I finally asked the lady across the aisle if she had heard what the captain had said. He said we were landing forty minutes early and and we were actually in landing mode and ten minutes later we landed. Well jeez if I had heard what he said I would not have been panicking!
We were met by the tour people with a lovely lai and taken to a bus which took us to our hotel. It is lovely and in the perfect location. We checked in and immediately took off exploring. We went into Foodland and bought booze. Oh and juice and came back to the hotel room and drank.
After we drank we went into what was the International Marketplace...a wonderful huge area full of little kiosks and locals hawking their stuff. But they booted all those folks out and built a massive very very high end expensive mall. Such a shame. We found a place to grab something to eat then headed back to the hotel and we were in bed sound asleep by eight o'clock Hawaii time...real swingers us!!!!
We got up early (four oclockish am. Hawaii is two hours behind) and Cook made coffee. We didn't rush and just relaxed and skipped the free breakfast and orientation session. We figured it was probably a waste of time and full of pressure to go on unnecessary adventures. Adventures like helicopter riding into live volcanoes, deep sea diving, hula dancing lessons, outrigger canoeing to the next island....you get the idea. Not doing any of that crap...and not 2 to 3 hundred bucks a pop. We can get into our own trouble by ourselves thank you very much.
We finally left and headed down to have a look at the beach. It was pretty empty at that time of day. We toodled around in and out of stores and looked for the pink line trolley...which is free to us with the right hotel cards. Eventually, after standing for over half an hour at the wrong trolley stop, we moved to another one and hopped on. So we bounced around all over Waikiki and back and then we found an awesome area where a bunch of the displaced merchants from the market place had set up.
So, as I was proceeding with this travelogue and reading it to Cook, she mentioned I had forgotten to tell about her going, by herself, into Lush where she met Denton. The wonderful helpful good looking fellow that worked there. She made instant friends with this man who then gave her awesome tips on where to find some shopping areas. She can't remember the girl salesperson's name. But...she has mentioned a couple of times that we can always go back and ask Denton for more information. (and apparently he is very much like Gail's friend Kevin at the quilt shop...hmmm these Sidhu girls...)
Upon Denton's advice, Cookie and I did find the "Denton's advice"shopping area. We found a rack, in the middle of kiosks and tiny aisles, of dresses we liked. The tiny lady that owned it was extremely helpful. She whipped our t-shirts up and over our heads and off..right there in the public eye! At one point she was whipping Cookie's t-shirt right up and off her when a tall white guy spied her and stopped dead in his tracks and watched, mouth hanging open. And the sad thing is that once you have noticed someone you have a knack of running into the suckers over and over.
So there we were, half naked, old asian lady mauling us and tweaking the buttons over our boobs, and exclaiming how awesome we looked! Long story short, Cook and I now own matching outfits.
This afternoon we spent a couple hours in the hotel coffee shop playing cards and drinking beer and gin. Then off again for dinner and now here we are back at the room. And Cookie is on her bed under a duvet, and two fuzzy blankets. That girl is always cold!!! And we don't even have the ac on!!! TTYL
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