judyonthenet

We just got back on Monday from four nights in Waikiki. In terms of stuff to do, I thought the amount of time wasn’t too bad. However, I’ve got a major vacation hangover for some reason. Generally, I’m not that big into travelling, and usually I’m excited to be home after a trip, regardless of how awesome it was. So maybe I needed more time to get sick of the place. At least I’ll have another opportunity later this year when my sis-in-law gets married there!

Our trip was Thursday through Monday, and our timing was most opportune…

This wasn’t my first time to Hawaii, but it was my first time on Oahu. Kelvin wanted to have the touristy experience he never got to have with his family, so he planned the accommodations and whatnot for the trip. Usually I plan these things, but this was Kelvin’s birthday gift to me. Oh, did I mention I turned 30 while I was there? Sigh.

Here are some highlights from the trip:

1. Room with an awesome view

Kelvin got an oceanfront room in the Rainbow Tower in Hilton Hawaiian Village. He did his research, and it was definitely a good choice. (Though I must note, I have no idea how much this cost him, so can’t comment on value.) Postcard-worthy view of the beach, Waikiki, and Diamond Head!

The only bad thing was that there were only double bed rooms available, but that made no difference to me in the end. The beds were super comfy, and the location of the resort ended up being very convenient. It’s not the closest hotel to the busy shopping districts of Waikiki because it’s at the end of Waikiki Beach, but the location made it easy to drive out and see the non-Waikiki portions.

View at night

Kelvin shows me where we’re going the next day

Oh, and we got free internet! Apparently if you’re an AT&T internet subscriber, you get free wireless! What a random and awesome perk. I was able to check my emails and chat with friends while staring at Diamond Head from the comfort of my room. <3

2. Snorkeling at Hanauma Bay

The beach hugged by leftover volcano is beautiful, and the snorkeling is incredibly easy. There’s limited parking so you have to get there early before it fills up, and they make you pay $7.50 a person and watch a 9-minute conservation video, but it’s worth the effort.

It’s no Captain Cook’s Monument/Kealakekua Bay, but Hanauma Bay is great in a different way. While Kealakekua Bay is more untouched and has an insane amount of fish, the fish at Hanauma Bay are fearless of people because of the huge quantity of visitors, so you can get very close to a lot of different fish. The bay is protected and the waters are pretty calm, so the swimming is very safe and not scary.

I swear this one fish with a scar was stalking me.

Unfortunately, we were only here for about an hour. I’m hoping next time we’ll stay a little longer and get more use of our entrance fee and snorkel rental.

3. The top of Diamond Head

It wasn’t the easiest hike for an out-of-shape person like me, but it wasn’t too long either. About 35 minutes each way at my pace, the hike was varied enough to be interesting. The view at the top was definitely worth it.

Brutal stairs on the way up

Slightly less brutal stairs on the way down

4. Watching resort fireworks from our balcony

An unexpected perk of having a Rainbow Tower oceanfront room is a sweet view of the fireworks that are part of the Hilton Hawaiian Village’s Rockin’ Hawaiian Rainbow Revue show. Anyone can view the fireworks, which are set off in front of the hotel’s lagoon. People gather on the adjacent beach waiting for the show.

The lagoon is right next to the Rainbow Tower. Most of the fireworks were visible, practically eye level, from our balcony. It was REALLY cool.

If you can score/afford an oceanfront corner room, man, that view for the fireworks must be nuts….

5. Seeing sea turtles at Turtle Beach

This one was a close call. We got to the beach kind of early, waited a while, but nothing was happening and there was nothing to do (wavy waters + rocky shore + no snorkel gear = no swimming for me). I was getting impatient and wanted to leave. We started heading out, but then people started gathering and pointing at the water. Two turtles finally showed up and were swimming close to shore.

Something’s in the water!

We watched the two turtles (teenagers according to the volunteers) swim around for a while, occasionally sticking their heads and flippers out of the water and a couple times getting washed up on the shore before crawling back. Kelvin tried to get six feet away (the minimum distance you can legally be within sea turtles) from one of them, but then the second one ended up sneaking up on him.

Even though there were two sea turtles hanging around, they never came up to the shore to sun bathe. Kelvin suggested we leave, so we started heading out… but then AGAIN, there was more commotion on the beach. A sea turtle was finally crawling up the beach! This one was very large, a full grown adult. It was cool to watch her crawl up the shore and watch the volunteers roll up the red carpet for it. They clear the way for turtles to get ashore, and they rope off the area where they decide to sunbathe.

You know what sucked though? I thought I was taking video of the whole thing, but every time I thought it was on, the camera was actually off, and vice versa. The same thing happened to Kelvin when he was trying to film the sea turtle in the water, but he didn’t know the camera was in movie mode, wasn’t looking at camera screen, and the moment was sudden. (There’s a buncha one second clips of the sneaky sea turtle as a result.) I was looking right at the screen, and the sea turtle wasn’t exactly sprinting up the beach. I’m so mad at myself for not taking the movie… I have to go back again! Still, it was pretty neat to see it in person, and I’m relieved I didn’t miss out on it. Two close calls!

6. Roy’s Waikiki

My favorite meal on the Big Island was Roy’s. And now, my favorite meal in Waikiki is also Roy’s. My steamed mahi-mahi and the chocolate souffle were amazing.

All done!
I asked Kelvin what his favorite part about our trip was, and he told me it was his bacon-crusted steak.

7. Loco mocos everyday

Kahai Street Kitchen’s loco mocoWe tried a bunch of hole-in-the-wall places for meals, and these places usually serve local food. When I think of Hawaiian food, what I think of is loco mocos. And we had A LOT of loco mocos for the short time we were there. (Okay, we didn’t have any the Monday we left, but we only had a couple hours.)

Loco moco with saimen at Shige’sI didn’t try all of them, but my favorite loco moco was from Kahai Street Kitchen. HUGE and beefy patty.

Breakfast at Jack’sKelvin was partial to the one at Jack’s Restaurant. (Okay, technically, it was the “Homemade Hamburger Steak & Eggs” breakfast, but it’s all the same ingredients in a slightly different orientation.)

8. My guava birthday cake from Dee Lite Bakery

My favorite part about birthdaysA birthday isn’t a birthday without cake. I Yelped for a local bakery for cake and found Dee Lite Bakery. Aside from making cakes, they make other yummy baked goods, and they’re set up like an Asian bakery. There’s cute and delicious breads and pastries all over, and tongs and trays are available for you to pick your goodies.

I love the guava cake from Aki’s Bakery, and this place has similar cakes, so we picked up a small guava cake (along with palm leaf cookies… a brownie… a melon bread… and a donut with the hole filled with chocolate…). We had it after dinner in our hotel room. IT WAS SO GOOD. Light, fluffy, pink, and just the right amount of guava flavor. (The guava goo on top is so good.) It reminded me of how Aki’s used to be before they switched owners; in fact, I think it might have been even better. I ate most of the cake myself (Kelvin helped some, surprisingly) over two days. Probably not a good thing it was so light and easy to eat…

Overall, a pretty awesome trip, especially for only four nights. Kudos to Kelvin for planning the trip and driving me around all over the island. I kinda missed my friends and family for my big 3-0, but I think the beaches, turtles, and loco mocos helped fill that hole.

New thing I learned today: What a pineapple plant looks like.

We dropped by the Dole Plantation very quickly, and I think only one pineapple plant on display had a (tiny) pineapple on it. I’ve never seen a pineapple in its uncultivated form, and it’s not what I expected.

Games I beat in 2011

1. Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgesworth (DS)
2. Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (DS)
3. Bulletstorm (PC)
4. Portal (PC)
5. L.A. Noire (PS3)
6. Yakuza 3 (PS3)
7. Yakuza 4 (PS3)
8. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (360)

Very pathetic, especially taking into account that the three months I was unemployed I didn’t beat a game I started in the same period. I also played a lot less TF2 this year, so I’m not sure where all my gaming time went.

Game spending for 2011

Grand total = $1316.12

I spent $400 more than last year, but netted around the same amount of games (39, ignoring multiple copies of the same game). A big chunk of that was being a 3DS early adopter. The rest, I’m not sure of. I know I spent more throughout the year because I was employed for most of it, and the months I was unemployed there were a lot of games of interest coming out, so my unemployment didn’t affect my purchasing.

I bought games every month, and I only finished one game on months I did beat games. There were no months where I beat more games than acquired. My backlog grew by 31 games.

Judy’s Games of the Year 2011

#1 – Yakuza 4 (PS3)

Feet to the face, it’s the Yakuza way

The Yakuza series took up the most of my gaming time the last half of 2011, and I also got the most gaming enjoyment from the Yakuza games. Yakuza 3 is what introduced me to the series, and I also like it better since Kiryu is the only protagonist. However, Yakuza 4 had more, and better, minigame content, so in the end, I spent a lot more time with Yakuza 4. (And Akiyama is a welcome addition anyway.) I loved all the eccentricities of the game that might turn others off. Instead of playing games in my insane backlog, hours were spent raising hostesses, playing mahjong and poker, and trying to catch all the toys in UFO Catcher. I’m still trying to get 100% completion on it.

Stupid last 2%…

It’ll be a long while before Yakuza 5 is done and gets localized in the US, but until then, I’ve got the earlier Yakuza games and Dead Souls for my Kiryu Kazuma fix. Oh yeah, and I still need to beat all those mini-games to get the last 2% in Yakuza 4.

#2 – Skyrim (PC)

A very grumpy Ancient Nord

I love games with an open world that encourages exploration, so I knew I’d enjoy Skyrim. I don’t like it as much as the Fallout games, but it’s been fun enough to be a huge timesink that I’m still playing. And thank goodness for mods.

The side of a mountain is not a convenient place for a dragon to die

Still not done with it yet, but I’m going to finish it, unlike my GOTY from last year.

Other standout games for the year included Bulletstorm and Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective. I wish I could list more, but I didn’t play enough games this year. I hope 2012 is more productive, gaming-wise!

New thing I learned today: A flagon is a large metal or ceramic vessel for water or wine.

Video games and related purchases:
Club Nintendo pin set – $0 from Club Nintendo
Professor Layton and the Last Specter (DS) – $0 at Kmart ($19.99 – $19.99 Kmart gaming credit)
Kirby Mass Attack (DS) – $15.60 at Kmart ($19.99+tax – 1 cent Kmart gaming credit – ~$5 in Kmart reward points)
Babysitting Mama (Wii) x 2 – $10.36 from Toys’R'Us
Red Dead Redemption: Game of the Year Edition (360) – $1.69 from Best Buy ($19.99+tax – $20 Best Buy credit)
Total: $27.65

Yay for free Nintendo goodies! The pin set is nice. So nice, I can’t get myself to open it.

I had one last $20 Kmart coupon to use up, and Kmart had the newest Professor Layton game on sale, so it was an easy purchase. Unfortunately, I forgot the coupon is $20, which means I needed another cent in order to get the game with the coupon. I couldn’t find anything of interest in the clearance games, and there weren’t any PSN cards (I have way too many Xbox Live points), so I ended up getting the other DS game on sale, Kirby Mass Attack. I used whatever Shop Your Way Rewards points to soften the impulse buy.

With this purchase I completed my holiday video game shopping list, and I also ended my Kmart coupon train… forever, it seems like. Kudos to Kmartgamer for great video game sales that made me step foot into Kmarts many, many times when I did not really want to be there. I hope he ditches Kmart and goes to Target.

Babysitting Mama had a crazy deal. I know it’s probably terrible, but it’s Cooking Mama with a cute plushie baby doll! I listened to the folks on SD and bought two for multiplayer since, strangely enough, I want to use them for when I’m babysitting my nieces.

Red Dead Redemption hit my magic price point of $20, so I bit since it’s the Game of the Year edition and I had some Best Buy credit leftover. Overall, not a bad month for the amount of money out of pocket.

Games I beat:
…

I was distracted this month by personal projects and Tiny Tower. Stupid Tiny Tower. I did get some Skyrim and Professor Layton time in, so I did get some *real* gaming in.

New thing I learned today: Tiny Tower currently has a maximum number of 152 floors. The maximum increases with every update that adds new floors.

For some reason, I thought the original max was 100, but then Anna told me about one of her friends having 152 floors. NOOooOOoOooooo…..

Happy New Year!!!

To put succinctly: 2011 sucked balls for me. I’m glad it’s over. Aside from good friends getting married and going to Disneyland for my anniversary, I could have done without everything else in the year. So I think this is the first time January 1st has felt like a new beginning; I really want a reboot. As a result, I look forward to 2012 with great optimism.

Let’s get resolutions out of the way though. Looking at last year’s resolutions, I bombed most of them. I do that every year, so no big surprise. However, I did manage to accomplish two goals. First, I stuck to my restriction of not playing Team Fortress 2 Tuesdays and Thursdays, and overall, my TF2 time has *significantly* dropped (helps that my preferred server bit the dust). Second, I successfully completed the Klutz crochet book (still need to blog about the last project) by end of June and learned to crochet.

Okay, so new resolutions. I’m not going to bother with fun, hobby-related goals. My main goal for this year is improved health. I’m pretty sure being unhealthy contributed to my unhappiness last year. I know people think I “need to eat more cheeseburgers”, but my issue isn’t weight: it’s feeling like sh*t. All repeats from previous years, here are my 2012 resolutions:

1. Eat out less and cook more.
We ate out way too much last year. There were periods where I got sick of salty restaurant foods and just wanted to eat a bowl of rice with nothing. I’m unsure what to put for this goal. Kelvin threw out having at least one home-cooked meal a day, so let’s see if we can handle that?

2. Exercise at least once a week.
I don’t remember exercising at all last year. I’ve signed up for a class starting January, so we’ll see how that goes. I’d ideally like to do more than once a week, but baby steps, like maybe do more walking outside of my weekly exercise.

3. Drink more water.
Definitely need to hydrate more, my lips are still constantly chapped. Lately, more often than not, I’ve been sticking to water at restaurants instead of ordering sodas, so that’s good. However, I’m still not good about drinking water, or anything really, while eating. (I’m pretty sure this is due to not having beverages with my meals growing up.) I also need to be better about using water bottles.

4. Keep doing Farm Fresh to You and not let anything in the box rot.
Let’s try this a THIRD time.

Kelvin actually has some life maintenance goals himself this year: he’s going back on his diet that lost him 15lbs last year (no weight goal mentioned) and he’s going to start waking up earlier (he said 8AM, but I don’t know…). Hopefully, we can get our health in check. I also have some job pokes for January, a couple planned trips for the year… I’m excited for the new year!

New thing I learned today: Lexus has a jingle.

I’m so sick of all these Lexus Christmas commercials. Who are all these rich jerkholes that think luxury sedans are Christmas gifts?

I don’t generally play iPhone games, and I don’t generally play farming games. By that I mean games that are free to play, usually involve farming some sort of currency, which you get either through wasting your time or paying real money. Then Kelvin started playing Tiny Tower, a game I’d actually heard of since it’s made some rumblings in mainstream gaming news. I decided to give it shot, and now, for reasons I can’t figure out, I can’t stop playing it.

When I wake up in the morning, so many things to restock

Tiny Tower is a dumbed down version of SimTower, a PC game I enjoyed back in the day. Each floor is only one unit wide, fitting perfectly to the size of your smartphone. There’s only two basic unit types: residential, where your Bitizens live, and businesses, where your Bitizens work. There’s no hotel rooms or pedestrian traffic to manage, and the business model is the same for every unit: restock, wait until it’s sold out, rinse, repeat.

My first business with two dreams jobs was a BBQ joint.
And the third dude wished he worked in vegan food, ha.

There’s two currencies: coins and TowerBux. Coins is the most representative of money, and it buys the stock for your stores and pays for new floors. TowerBux is currency for time, basically. They can be used to speed up parts of the game you’d usually wait for. They can also only be earned by actively playing the game. And there’s only two things you can really do: play elevator man or play “Where’s Waldo” with a selected Bitizen.

So mundane

There isn’t much to this game, yet I keep obsessively checking my tower. Why can’t I stop?? Even worse, my friends are playing this game, too. There’s almost no social gameplay, but I can see around how tall other people’s towers are. Since my friends started right after me, their towers are only slightly shorter than mine. I want to keep it that way, so I’m motivated to work on my stupid tower. Instead of doing my personal projects (coding practice, blogging) or playing REAL games (still need to finish Skyrim and Super Mario Land 3D), my attention keeps going back to this stupid tower.

Floors take days to make now

ARGH, I NEED TO STOP.

(I started this post over a week ago, but every time I’d go to get another screenshot, I’d play the game some more and completely forget about this blog post.)

New thing I learned today: A tumbler is a flat-bottomed drinking glass.