10/12/08: simple and natural

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In Oahu now. We walked across the street from our hotel, the Queen Kapiolani, to the Honolulu Zoo. While we were looking for the entrance, we saw a guy open a side gate to let some people in and he waved us in too. Suddenly we were in the zoo. For free.

We looked at each other and shrugged: Slowly some kind of thoughtful volcano goddess was making up for our expensive cab ride.

We spent a couple of relaxing hours looking at endangered nene geese, tropical gardens, Sumatra tigers and elderly lions. We listened to a Galapagos tortoise roar like a dinosaur as it humped another tortoise…for quite a long time. Turtles don’t have a rep as the studs of the animal kingdom, but they should.

Then we ate vanilla/lime and strawberry/banana shave ice and watched kids on the playground, little zoo animals themselves.


Jamie and Lee-Roy’s wedding was beautiful: next to a pink house formerly owned by Dolly Parton, just feet from the water. It was very Jamie-and-Lee-Roy: elegant and simple and natural, with white roses for the bridesmaids and pink flowers over the archway thingy they got married under. I got a little misty when I saw Jamie walk down the aisle, but I managed to refrain from crying buckets (I guess I save that for funerals of people I’ve never met?). Mostly I felt plain old happy.

And the food was amazing: It turns out I even like potato macaroni salad, and I heard the roast pig—caught and killed just two days ago—was good too. We were happy he was an Oahu pig, not our dopey friend from the Big Island.

I knew more people than I usually do at weddings, which made it extra fun. I finally got to meet Jamie’s brother and adorable flower-girl nieces and her mom, who laughs just like her.


Comments

Jesi said…
i finished that, pink flowers over the archway thingy, for jamie, she was decorating it herself when i got there.
October 15, 2008 at 4:09 PM
Cheryl said…
Excellent bridesmaiding, lady!
October 15, 2008 at 5:04 PM
Peter Varvel said…
Loved this! I'm not a very cultured traveller (I may have mentioned, before) in that I immediately look for any zoos or aquariums when I'm a tourist.
October 16, 2008 at 10:21 AM
Cheryl said…
In my book, that doesn't make you uncultured, that makes you a proud supporter of animals around the world.
October 17, 2008 at 2:08 PM
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