At the Stroke of Midnight: Harry Potter

Hyun-joo, my sister, my brother, and my nephew went to the local Borders bookstore to grab a copy of "Half-blood Prince". Hyun-joo bought him a copy as a present. Even at 25% off it seemed a little expensive to me, but it was worth it when I saw my nephew. I didn't get to go, but would have liked to just to see the crowds. Not surprisingly there were a lot of folks there. One of the employees used a megaphone to count down to midnight then folks who didn't reserve a copy for themselves were able to grab one. The long wait didn't come until the check-out. Everyone had to take a number which a clerk would call out when it was your turn to pay for the book. Here in Maui, there were about 600 copies sold in the first hour.

Back from Kauai

Lee, his girlfriend, Hyun-joo, and I just returned from three days in Kauai. It was our first time to go there. Of the dozens of times we've been to Hawaii we've never made a trip out there. We didn't have a lot of time (or money) so we decided to go the fun and adventurous route and camp out. We also decided to focus our efforts on the NE area of the island. We spend one night car camping on the beach and the next night was a wilderness trek along the coast to a campsite next to a river that flowed openly into the ocean. It was fantastic! We were all a bit tired from the trip, but we've hit the ground running again.



Lee and his girlfriend are off to Hana. Hyun-joo and I are sticking around to go diving with my sister and my cousin tomorrow. My sister and her family leave on Sunday and then Lee and his girlfriend leave on Monday. We only have a few more days together. I'm happy for the time. It's been a fantastic vacation so far.



Hope yours is going well too.
Off to the beach!

Haleakela Bound

Time has been flying by. Everyone went to Paia for their O-Bon festival. Chase, Cole, Elise, and Lee joined the dancers for the festival. The food was wonderful as usual. We're looking forward to the Makawao O-Bon this upcoming Friday, especially since a lot of my cousins will be in town for a short spell.



Tomorrow we're doing a little hiking in the crater. Then we're off to Kauai for three days. Then we're spending time with our cousins. After that Lynn-folks have to leave and then Lee and Elise leave the following Monday. Finally Hyun-joo and I are off to the East Coast for the second part of the vacation. It's been fantastic so far. I think Hyun-joo has been having a good time. It's great to just hang out with everyone again.



It's so nice to understand what folks are saying around me. It's nice to take a break from Japan. Thank goodness for vacation!

Maxin' out in Maui

It feels like we've been on the move since early this morning. The gang packed up every thing we had into 16 check-in packages among the nine of us and cleaned up the house in Kailua by 10 am. With some wonderful help from Aunty Winnie we lugged everything over to Honolulu International Airport.



It's about 6:30 in the evening and we're slowly unpacking the gear. The little ones have discovered the Playstation2 and now they're fighting away with each other, virtually and in reality. We're going to have to keep an eye on them in the next couple of weeks.



I can't think very clearly right now, but I guess we'll begin making preprations to go diving soon. The vacation is turing out pretty well. I think with the nine of us here, we're going to be getting on each others' nerves sooner or later. Thankfully it's always nice enough out to go for a walk and get some space.



I'm actually roasting right now since the air conditioning isn't working in the house. We keep blowing out the fuses around here! Yikes.