Trust me on this, we are far from ranking among the one %! But we just returned from a wonderful vacation in San Diego, Hawaii and Seattle…thanks to Expedia, Cheapo Air and time share bargains. I have learned to drive on the California seven lane super highways without difficulty, thanks to our Garmin, (I never leave home without it!) A dear childhood friend visited us in San Diego, we stayed up half the night talking; it was like we forgot we’re not kids anymore! Wonderful retired friends prepared a scrumptious lunch for us and we spent a lovely afternoon with them in their beautiful mountain view home in southern California. We also spent time with my husband’s cousin and family, of course, there was even more delicious food.
Then onto beautiful Hawaii, it was relaxing and fun. Though, I did have to master using my new laptop to keep up with my online class assignments. I still had time for sun and swimming, even two canoe rides from the beach to beyond where the surfers waited for the waves and then rode the waves in…such fun! We spent one day at the Polynesian Cultural Village on the northern part of Oahu…very impressive and memorable place, more than thirty million have visited since it opened fifty years ago. We highly recommend it if you visit Hawaii. We also walked through more high end designer stores than we’ve ever seen clustered together anywhere. Didn’t notice any western tourists with bags from those stores but lots of Japanesse did. Tourism is Hawaii’s number one industry and 70% of their tourists are Japanese. My husband was in shock mode looking at the price tags on some of the designer purses. We touched some that cost well over $15,000.00 each! American military is Hawaii’s number two industry. Oh, and there were so many good restauants…
We went to two movies, Taken 2 which was entertaining but in one of the scariest parts we both laughed because it was so ridiculous. A few nights later we went to Looper which had good reviews. It was one of the worst movies we’ve ever seen, we almost walked out but had gone to the trouble getting there, so we stayed hoping it would get better. It didn’t. Very disappointing.
Our last stop was magical Seattle, we loved seeing our friends who retired there to be close to their children and grandchildren. And we enjoyed the bonus of seeing their children and families too. (Also great to spend a few hours over lunch with my cousin and his wife who live there.) We were totally awed visiting the facebook office Saturday afternoon. I’ve never seen anything like it! There were no desks, drawers or cubicles, two big open space rooms with large screen computer screens and the most comfortable desk chairs ever. The ambience was to make the atmosphere as relaxed as possible to enhance employee creativity. Free food, and drink in employee cafteteria, wide walk areas to accomodate skateboards for employee relaxation when they need a computer break. Even a hot tub filled with blue and white balls to relax and stretch thier backs. It works… please checkout photos on my facebook page. The views of Seattle were fantastic, all the outside walls were glass. We were given our tour due to the kindenss of our firend’s son-in-law who works there. Great restaurant for dinner Saturday night with a spectaular view of Seattle city lights reflecting on Pugeot Sound and then a wonderful home cooked meal at their home… Big surprise: I need a diet after all the great vacation food!
Enough about vacation. I’ve been running as fast as I can to catch up with everything since I came home. I did read two good books while traveling. The Ginseng Hunter by Jeff Talarigo is a literary novel about the struggles of the people on the N/S Korean border during times of severe food shortages. A memorable moving story with beautifully written prose. Also The Towers by David Poyer, an exciting story about the effects of 9-11 on one family in particular and the world at large. Very gripping, well worth the read. For military buffs, lots of military references, especially in the later part of the book.
Till next time, keep reading my friends.
Later, Ann