Weekend adventure: Maui, Day 3

Today included a tour of the Andaz Hotel that my boyfriend's brother worked on. After a bout of coughing, choking, and heat exhaustion, we spent the evening in Lahaina where we had deep dish pizza!

This is called "The Works" with homemade meatballs, sausage, onions, mushrooms, bell peppers, anchovies, and pineapple. Instead of the usual pizza sauce, The Lahaina Pizza Company uses a slow cooked stewed tomato sauce. 

Since the wait was about 45 minutes we managed to get some Ululani's Shave Ice for the second time!

I got the "Sunset" which consisted of mango, passion orange, and guava. So much food! I'm going to be so sad when I have to go back to Oregon!

Weekend adventure: Maui, Day 2

For my second day here I got my hands on some guri guri and made a pretty cute gingerbread house! Keeping my updates short since I'm constantly out and about!

Weekend adventure: Maui, Day 1

I made my annual December visit today to Maui to visit my boyfriend's family. After traveling so frequently from Oregon to Hawaii, a 20-minute flight from Oahu to Maui is a cinch. For my first day here I was happy to see the sun shining - perfect weather for some Ululani's Shave Ice which is pretty much my favorite shave ice place. Ever. I got passion orange and guava for my own makeshift POG flavor, and topped it off with lihingmui seasoning. Extremely refreshing and delicious!

The biggest Christmas party I've ever attended.

Tonight marked my first big Christmas party. By big I mean a room filled with 70+ people - majority of whom I have never met. My relatives live in Vancouver (Washington state, not BC) and casually mentioned the party back in Thanksgiving. 

Guests with last names A-K were to bring appetizers and L-Z were to bring desserts. This afternoon I drove to Trader Joe's and purchased 2 boxes of Trader Joe's pastry puffs for the party, Cowboy Bark, salmon jerky, baked snap pea chips, dark chocolate almond toffee, chocolate covered s'mores, and a bunch of other delectable a that I won't eat but I know my family in Hawaii will.  I headed on over to TJ Maxx to get a serving dish and also some dog toys for my canine pals at home. 

I baked the puff pastries, sampled one, and felt pretty happy about how productive I was being. The puff pastries were to die for btw. Feta cheese and carmelized onions on fluffy puff pastries in bite size proportions? Yes.  The party was to start at 6 so I decided to leave at 4:45 because 1) it's Friday, and 2) traffic always sucks around this time. 

IT TOOK ME TWO HOURS TO GET FROM TUALATIN TO VANCOUVER. Normally that would take me 25-30 minutes tops.  Carrying my puff pastries in one hand and trying to throw on my jacket and grab my purse in the other, I hobbled on over to the front door. 

I make a beeline to the food, devour everything to my heart's content, and TRY to be somewhat sociable. It's pretty hard for me to be outgoing when thrust into a room with so many unfamiliar faces. The Asian:White ratio was about 1:25. 

I've never been to a Christmas party that had a schedule of bingo, raffles, guessing games, and a grand prize of 2 round trip tickets on Alaska Airlines. There was also an amazing prize table and thanks to staying late with a few other stragglers, I managed to go home with a bunch of free stuff!

I got a pair of long socks from Urban Outfitters, 2 pairs of Kate Spade socks (!!!), chocolate covered Oreo poker chips, giant bookmark paper clips, very cute Vera Bradley-esque page flags, a Culture Vulture notepad that I can use for blogging, 2 Jindo Fox phone charms straight from Seoul (!!!), 3 list pads, 2 types of Stash Tea perfect for Christmas, and 3 Christmas-themed reed diffusers from Pier 1. 

I'm going to do the whole Gift of the Magi thing and give majority of the things to family members as gifts, but of course keep a few things for myself. 

All in all my first big Christmas party turned out to be surprisingly enjoyable!

Books - the good and the not-so-good.

There are three things in life that I will pay full price for: skin care, footwear, and books.  Skin care and footwear will need to wait for their own individual entry however since I'd like to take the time to talk about books.

When I was a kid, my mom was constantly reading to me.  I don't think I've ever thanked her for doing that because by the time I was in the third grade I was reading at a sixth grade level (please forgive my small moment of shameless narcissism).  Anyhow when I started seventh grade at a brand new campus I soon learned that carrying around all of these books that weren't relevant to your classes (or any books for that matter) just wasn't acceptable for members of middle school strata.

A couple of years later in high school we were assigned to read 1984 by George Orwell.  This was the first time in a long time that I read a book that was surprisingly enjoyable.  This is not to say that the plot of 1984 is enjoyable - in fact it's rather depressing - but from that moment on I realized I appreciated the dystopian-esque, "what-if" sort of genre of book.

Fast forward to one month ago here in Tualatin.  To prevent myself from going stir crazy in my small apartment and to also just have some form of human interaction, I frequent the nearby Barnes & Noble on an almost daily basis.  Right before the holiday season started, B&N had two tables devoted to their "Buy 2, Get 1 Free" deal.  On one of these tables was 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami.  I had been dying to read this book because 1) people had been saying great things about it ever since it was published 2 years ago, 2) I had read Murakami's After the Quake and enjoyed his style, and 3) because it was a tribute to my beloved 1984 by Orwell.  I also purchased Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell on a whim, and Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling of The Office and The Mindy Project fame.

  

I started out with 1Q84 thinking it would take me the rest of the semester to read.  It's a pretty hefty book (1000+ pages) and the last time I read something this gigantic it was when the final Harry Potter book was published.  I was so, so, so, so wrong however.  I finished 1Q84 in 2 days.  It was a book I couldn't put down but in a very bizarre way.  If you're interested in reading this book and don't want to read spoilers, please skip ahead to my blurb about Cloud Atlas or Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

1Q84

This book could've been AMAZING.  It sucked me in to this world of fantasy and sci-fi with weird sex and gory murders and just an overall bizarre and somewhat creepy book that I couldn't put down.  It's actually made up of 3 books which can be purchased individually if you desire.  It was getting so good towards the end when I realized that I only had about 50 pages left to read and I had WAY too many questions that this book just wasn't answering.  It's a happy ending, but it left me with a sense of "But wait!  What about this!?  You didn't explain this yet!" and "Is it really over?  Am I missing something?  Did I just spend two days reading this to come to a totally unsatisfactory ending?"  Don't get me wrong, it's written beautifully and I'm pretty impressed about the translation to English.  Other translated books that I've read are choppy or have glaring grammatical issues but this one didn't.  It read well and that's what got me hooked.  Would I recommend it?  Maybe.  But go in with no expectations because I feel mine were a bit too high.

Cloud Atlas

I think David Mitchell just might be my new favorite author.  Cloud Atlas is made up of six short stories, each referring to the previous work and previewing the next.  I can't really explain much more without giving away the main component that makes this book absolutely wonderful so I'm sorry if I'm being incredibly vague.  Cloud Atlas was a bit confusing to read at first because each story has different characters, a brand new plot, and is written in six entirely different styles; the first story is written like pages from a diary, the second is written in the form of letters to a lover, the third is set up like an action-packed mystery novel, etc.  To think that one man wrote this entire book makes it that much more enjoyable.  I haven't seen the movie however and heard it had bad reviews, but I would still highly, highly, highly recommend this to anyone.

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

One of the reviews of this book is that Mindy Kaling is like Tina Fey's younger sister.  I would agree.  She's brutally honest and incredibly funny and if you want to read something that you can finish quickly, literally laugh out loud to, and feel like you're getting a small peek into someone's world without being too weirded out or too intrusive, Mindy's book is the one for you.  Unlike the other 2 books I purchased, I did not question the existence of life, nor did I muse around the idea of reincarnation while reading Mindy's book.  It's witty, quick to the point, and fun - which is what it's meant for.

I wonder if anyone else has read these books and felt similarly (or differently) about them than I did.  To those of you reading this - which I know is a very small amount - feel free to comment your thoughts below!

Poutine - those Canadians know what's up.

If I had to pick one thing to eat for the rest of my life it just might be poutine.  Honestly though if I ate poutine every single day then 'the rest of my life' would be shortened to a few years.  This artery-clogging goodness has its roots in Quebec, Canada.  Although arguments on what is considered the "original" poutine abound, poutine is basically a glorious mess of fries, cheese curds, and gravy.

My first encounter with this divine snack was on July 6, 2013 when my boyfriend and I drove up to Canada for the day to visit Playland.  Playland is part amusement park, part country fair, and due to poor planning skills my boyfriend and I failed to exchange our USD to CAD.  Thankfully there was ONE eatery in the park that accepted Visa.  We ordered some pizza, poutine, and sprite, not expecting anything amazing.  We were wrong.  Poutine was a mixture of crunchy, melty, salty, heavenly deliciousness.

The second time I met up with poutine was in September.  Again my boyfriend and I drove up to Canada for an overnight stay in downtown Vancouver - this time prepared with Canadian money.  I had gone on Yelp to find some poutine places and the #1 review was for Mean Poutine on 718 Nelson Street.  This place definitely had some mean poutine.  In fact, the poutine that my boyfriend and I ended up getting was called "The Mean Supreme Poutine" which had beef, bacon, peppers, mushrooms, and onions.  This poutine was one of 7 specialty poutines but you also can make your own!  They also serve the most amazing hotdogs ever!  You can view their menu here.

Finding cheese curds at a grocery store proved to be a bit difficult - even after hitting up Whole Foods and local markets.  Unfortunately I live 2 hours away from the Tilamook cheese plant - where I know they have cheese curds - so you can understand my excitement when discovering the Fred Meyer that was 2 minutes away from my apartment had some in stock.  I bought some gravy packets - those 58-cent powder ones - and some frozen fries.  I also added some caramelized onions to the mess.  The result wasn't as good as Mean Poutine's, but it satisfied my craving for it.

Nom, nom, nom!

Poutine is the perfect snack when you feel like being particularly gluttonous.  This weekend my boyfriend discovered that Trader Joe's carries poutine packs in their freezer section!  We also added kalua pig shipped up from Hawaii made by my father.  

Look for poutine in the freezer section at your local Trader Joe's!

Verdict?  We definitely should've added salt or something to the Trader Joe's fries.  They were a lot thicker than the generic Ore Ida fries I was used to, but also tasted like very bland potatoes.  The cheese curds were also a bit on the rubbery side since they were frozen in little packets and needed to be defrosted, but luckily we had some fresh cheese curds from Fred Meyer on hand.  The kalua pig definitely saved it.  Nevertheless, long live poutine.

First impressions.

I am a twenty-something graduate student living in Tualatin, Oregon where I attend George Fox University, working towards an MA in Marriage, Couples and Family Counseling.  I was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii where I earned a BA in Psychology and a Minor in Dance.  Within three months of graduating I was on a plane from HNL to PDX.  Majority of my blog experience stems from my middle-school days of Xanga, to the height of Myspace in highschool, and reblogging pictures of cats on Tumblr in college.  But cheers to a potentially new venue of sharing parts of my life with the world!