The Grand Asia & Australia Voyage - Holland America Amsterdam, September 19-November 23, 2008
Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert
Part Fifty-one
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November 17 (Monday, Day 63, Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii, Continued) -
After lunch Snookums showered and took the WalMart shuttle to get a watch battery while Filbert stayed in the cabin and worked on journal photos. The jewelry woman at WalMart showed Snookums that the battery was good and Filbert's watch was bad so Snookums bought a new $17 Casio watch and took the shuttle back to the ship. She had her laptop with her and immediately went to Aloha Tower Marketplace and sat in the open-air atrium and used the free wifi. She sent Filbert an email and he responded that he was in the coffee shop using wifi so she moved inside. Filbert had to stay online until he heard the end of the SDSU vs. Wisconsin women's basketball game and was very happy when SDSU beat Wisconsin by 20.
We went back to the ship and were soon greeted by a knock on the cabin door. The Neptune concierge was there and handed Filbert a bottle of wine and a notecard. The card said that the wine was for our inconvenience the other day. Filbert was puzzled until Snookums reminded him that our toilet had problems on November 14 and the plumber had to come 4 times, including twice when we were having our dinner party on the verandah. This plumbing problem didn't make much of an impact on us since it didn't even make it into the journal. But, if Holland America wants to apologize and give us a free bottle of wine, we'll take it!
Filbert went to the Holland America 'techspert' since his XD cable wasn't working and he couldn't get his photos from his camera to his PC. The techspert had the necessary devices and Filbert was able to get back to work again.
While Filbert was getting his photos on his PC, Snookums went to the local hula show at 7 PM. Snookums thought the hula show was the best one she had ever seen. It was a group of 6 to 13-year olds and they had to audition to get selected to the troupe. Once selected, they practice every summer day from 8 AM to noon. The woman that started the hula studio in 1975 in her backyard also has 1,000 students in Japan and she was actually in Japan since she goes there every 6 weeks to oversee that school. Her Honolulu school is considered the best on the island and wins many awards. The group had three boys in it and the emcee said that originally hula was only done by men in preparation for battle (Snookums didn't know that) but now females outnumber males about 50 to 1.
November 18 (Tuesday, Day 64, Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii) -
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| Lahaina |
More after the jump . . .
