hawaii; filming; tv

Arrived home from Honolulu earlier this afternoon and immediately unpacked my bags and did my laundry. I haven't had time to process my photos or really go through the souvenirs I brought back, because I have to pack up and go to a shoot in Washington, DC. My train leaves tomorrow night and rolls in to DC at 7am. :\ rpc180 is picking me up at the station, I think.

Did manage to catch up on most of the TV I DVRed while away. White Collar continues to be an entertaining and surprising show. Bones is always fun, but I didn't like all the overt Avatar promotion. Stargate Universe was actually interesting this past week, though I'm still not liking it as part of the Stargate franchise.

Meeting smashedrecords tomorrow morning to get my house key and possibly make a trip to Sephora. I was thinking of stopping in Target for something, but I've now forgotten what I needed to get.

This travel turn around is going to be killer. I might have gotten sick from all the plane travel, too. Meh.

Daily Twitter Spew

( cut for easier skippage )

hawaii trip: nov 26 - dec 4, 2009

** backdated ** It's actually January 19, 2010 right now, but if I don't back date this entry, I'll never find it later.

Mom has always wanted to go to Hawaii and this year she decided to make it a family trip. I'll be honest and say that I wasn't all that keen to go -- sun & sand? Not really things I enjoy. But, overall, I did have a good time, mostly due to all the tours we went on (didn't have time to get bored) and the shopping (I do love shopping).

I wrote the below on my NIT810 during the trip, so tenses might be a bit weird. I'm not editing it too much except typos and correcting information.


Thursday, November 26

Actually haven't slept at all since getting up Wednesday morning (when I saw Boondock Saints and did some final packing things). I decided that since we had to leave for the airport at 3:30am, it didn't make sense to go to bed. After I finished packing late Wednesday, I caught up on DVRed TV (V, Castle, Ghost Hunters Academy [which gets worse every week]).

Showered, dressed and set to go by 3am. Crazy. Shao looked really sad as we were rushing to go. I'm sure she knew we were all leaving her. She followed us closely as we put stuff in the car. Poor puppy!

Decided to use the Park, Ride & Fly, so I left my car there. I'm a little scared to read the disclaimer on the back of the ticket that reads, "not responsible for stress damage to windshield." Uh... what are you doing, stacking cars on top of each other?!

I've never had a more confusing check-in in my life. My mom had checked in online, but for whatever reason my brother got flagged so he had to check-in in person. So we waited in line, spoke to a very confused ticket agent, and then had to go through one of those computerized kiosks again anyway. I am not at all sure how online check-in saves time.

( adventures in air travel )

Friday, November 27

Up at 6am and showered and dressed. Had a blueberry muffin for breakfast. Took a walk in front of the pier while waiting for our tour bus to arrive. Mom and I were going on the Oahu Spirit Tour.

( tour & evening luau )

Saturday, November 28

Got up later than the previous days and was planning on going to Diamond Head with my brother and his friend, but we didn't since she had to battle fleas in a place she was house sitting. Instead, we took a walk down to Waikiki Beach and then the various shopping centers in the area, like the Royal Hawaiian Center and the Waikiki Shopping Plaza. Got a few trinkets and a solid perfume set from the L'Occitane shop in the Duty Free Galleria because that's the only place I've been able to find it.

( thing much happened today )

Sunday, November 29

Woke up at 6:00am. Dressed and ready to catch the 7:30am shuttle to the flea market at Aloha Stadium. So much stuff to see! Bought lots of trinkets. Found a few stands with Tokidoki knockoffs - they were either weird styles, too expensive, or both. Finally found one stand with good styles and good prices, so I bought two! Walked around for hours; everything started to look the same. Got the shuttle back to the hotel at 3:30pm.

( shopping day )

Monday, November 30

Up at 4:30am. Got a bagel and yogurt from the cafe in the hotel lobby. The mini bus for the tour arrived at 7:00am. Once we picked up the other passengers, we headed to Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona memorial.

( Pearl Harbor & Circle Island tours )

Tuesday, December 1

Woken up at 4am by texts concerning the dog from smashedrecords. Called her to address some questions and went back to sleep. Mom had gotten up to walk to Ala Moana beach. Finally got up about 9am and got a sandwich from the cafe in the lobby. Also asked about taking the bus to Toys N Joys.

( shopping day )

Wednesday, December 2

Didn't get up in time to go to the beach with mom. Ended up sleeping until 9:30am. Was sort of crank about the day and just wanted to be alone for the day.

( more shopping and beach walks )

Thursday December 3

Another 4:00am morning involving getting ready to go and breakfast from the cafe in the lobby. The shuttle bus was a bit early, but we made it. Got to the airport with an hour before the flight after several stops to pick up others in our group.

Our flight to Hilo on the Big Island was delayed, and that pretty much set the tone for the whole trip. My mom was.. mom and my brother was crankypants. We ended up leaving an hour late. The flight to Hilo is only 45 minutes.

( volcano tour )

Friday, December 4

Got up and dressed. Mom and I went out for one more walk around Ala Moana Beach park. Lots of surfers out in the morning. Found some shells and coral to keep. Got a heat rash. Awesome. Apparently me plus sun really does equal a bad reaction.

( headed home! )

More Photos:
I took about 1000 photos. You can see most of them in my gallery.

Twitter Posts:
I forgot to switch my location in Twitter, so all of my tweets are marked 5 hours ahead (NY time) of what it really was in Hawaii. Oops. Includes twitpics.

days: nov 26 | nov 27 | nov 28 | nov 29 | nov 30 | dec 1 | dec 2 | dec 3 | dec 4