Travel Diary

Day 2

The next day got started a little more slowly.

Now I had performed my drinking properly--had an equal amount of water with every drink. And I believe that that helped, but over the course of the evening I must have had about nine drinks and there was a price to pay for that. It wasn’t even close to my worst hangovers in my past, but it was a burden for a while. In bed, I felt fine, but moving around made my head pound like the big drums of a luau. No bueno. I took four Tylenol. Okay, now my stomach was queasy. Again, it’s certainly been far worse. I remember even having a worse hangover after having four pints of Guinness in the city years ago. (Odd that a beer I adore would do that to me, but sometimes, it’s the ones you love most that cause the most pain.) Anyway, I doubt it was the Tylenol. I think my stomach was going to gripe for a while no matter what I did. The only remedy would have been more rest and sleep, but I didn’t travel 5,000 miles to sleep. I could beat this --in time.

I was hungry despite the nausea, yet I knew if I ate it would be risky. Still, if I didn’t eat, I would have no energy to continue for long, and I hadn’t eaten that much the day before. We stopped at a crepe place, and I was tempted, but I knew I couldn’t stomach it (pardon the pun). After walking a while, I decided to try my luck with a Whopper Jr. It felt okay for a spell, but then my stomach was upset again. I don’t know. I think that yeah, one needs energy, but the next time I’m nauseous, I’m going to pass on eating until things calm time. It is just such a horrible feeling.

We finally reached the car and then picked up a few of Lauren’s friends who would be joining us for the day. We were heading north and stopped at the Dole Plantation. It was a fun little place that reminded me of the Nut Tree Farm (the way it used to be). The exhibits were interesting, though pineapple and sugar plantations on Hawaii are largely a thing of the past now. However, they did have their famous ice cream treat, Dole Whip, and the others were dying to partake. I partook very little as I still couldn’t really eat.

Once on the road again, we journeyed north. Little by little I was regaining my strength and feeling a lot better. I think it was about 2pm at that point. We found a cool beach and I was told it was where LOST was partially filmed. That was a fun fact. As I love that series, it was fun to be on a location spot. That said, I had no idea which scenes were filmed there, but I could imagine some that would fit perfectly.

We enjoyed the sun for a while and got some moments of sunlight. The others had bought some fake tattoos as an inside joke and we all donned a tattoo or more. I believe the theme was “dolphins,” to make a statement about a friend of theirs who had just gotten a real tattoo of a dolphin on his arm(?!). As they say (er, said) in Latin, “Suum cuique.”

We left the beach after some time and drove to a diner in a small town. At that point, I could eat regular food, though I wasn’t ready to drink again. Well, I drank water. I could drink that.

I had pork sliders, which were great. As usual, I could only eat half of it, so I doggie-bagged the second half for later. Doggie-bags are so undervalued in today’s society since most places serve a person far more than he or she should be eating in one meal.

Before heading out, we walked around town for a spell and visited some interesting shops. The prices were “tourist prices,” and they were a little shocking even with that in mind. It didn’t matter to me since I would not be buying anything like that (many of the items were even imported). But I was surprised that people do pay such crazy prices for non-essential things.

Driving back, we headed south. In my mind, we had been heading east and south, but it turns out we headed west and south. So I as completely confused when we passed by the airport which was on the opposite side of where I had imagined we were. The irony is that I normally have a great sense of bearing--it’s just those darn green trees all looking the same to me.

Our next destination was La Mariana, an old restaurant near the docks. This place had a nautical theme and included a lot of character. I recommend it to future travelers.

I finally got a drink--a zombie. (Odd that I had spent the better part of the day returning back to life, and I go and order a drink named after the undead.)

A nice addition to the atmosphere was a blind piano player who came in. he asked for requests and seemed to be able to play about anything. I asked for ABC by the Jackson five as a joke to Lauren.

(ABC is the frequent 7-11 type store located everywhere in Honolulu. It had reminded me of said song, so every time we passed one,  I would sing the song. Since it’s on just about every street corner, the song was sung a large number of times. A very large number.)

And now it was being played live.

After that, I had him play the Cheers Theme, Your Song, and Piano Man. He knew them all. It was an enjoyable time since many of us knew the lyrics and could sing along to the songs as well. If you’re in the area, check out that place. If the blind piano player is there, it all can make for a great time.

When we exited there, it was time for hot-tubbing at Eric and Kara’s condo.

But for that, we needed food, so it was off the ABC store. (I hummed it. Tired of singing it at that point.)

The condo was pretty nice, although small. It was in a great location. A large nacho dip was prepared and baked, and then devoured. It was good stuff--and even had chili. And I even had a decent amount of it.

Since it was now 9pm, we went down to the spa. The weather was perfect for it. Actually, any weather can work for a spa since it doesn’t matter what takes place outside the water.

I tried some laps in the large pool and found it to be a great workout. I also discovered that my triceps were burning. While I had been lifting weights for the full month prior, it’s such a different type of exercise when swimming. Stamina over strength I guess.

Finally, it was 10pm and security came by to evict the spa stragglers. We headed back up to the room and then played a drinking game whilst watching Arrested Development. Not wanting Monday to be a repeat of Sunday morning, my choice of drink was water.

Soon I was conking out and nodding off every five minutes. We then left. Lauren dropped me off at the hotel and I crashed fast and hard.

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