First update since becoming 26...

I'm still not quite sure how I feel about turning 26, but I guess it doesn't really matter, yeah? Can't change the inevitable so might as well think positively. And as my girl Mariah Carey a.k.a. "I Can't Believe She Married That Fool" would say... I'm eternally 12 so this year is def gonna be so O.O.C.!

The birthday festivities started out with Mitch, Sarita & I at Smorgy's (where every birthday should begin) and even though Mitch & I vowed to come to Smorgy's at least once a month... we never wake up in time for the breakfast buffet, but what better way to start your birthday out than eating yourself into a coma? Exactly. Mitch gets SO mad at me everytime we go there because I always want to feed the birds, but they're not the harmless kind of birds that will take what you give them, bow and bother someone else... they're the kind of birds with fire in their eyes and a hunger to kill. So I innocently toss one piece of food to them and instantly dozens of birds flock towards you and give you the stink eye for more! As if that's not bad enough, Mitch shoots me a stink eye AND swats me on the nose with a rolled up newspaper!

So by the time we left Smorgy's, we're looking like some starved, bloated children from a poverty stricken country (Ironic, yeah?) and what do we do? Hit the beach! And according to the newest America's Next Top Model winner, Whitney, being plus sized is in and throwing up is out. I almost feel like the title "plus size model" is an oxymoron... but I'm getting sidetracked now... where was I? Oh yeah, we took our over indulged selves to the beach and tanned like Brazilians and not like... well, we tanned like Brazilians and I'll leave it at that...

After the beach, Sarita went to take her final and Mitch & I went to Changs for apps and drinks! I don't know if it was from eating so much earlier or from being in the sun so long, but the apps this time around were horrible! We tried the Edamame and the Poke because I haven't tried either yet and have been dying to... and then we also ordered the Crispy Green Beans! The Edamame had an unnecessary amount of garlic on it and the Poke was still frozen in the middle! And the Crispy Green Beans were good for a minute, but we decided to stick with what we knew with the drinks! I didn't realize it when I was ordering my drinks, but my first drinks being 26 was a Bloody Mary and a Dirty Martini! How grandpa am I?! After I realized how dusty I was being, I quickly ordered a Mai Tai (which used to be the drink I started out with when I was 25, but those days are ghost....) and got tore up from the floor up! It's funny because nobody that I work with has really met Mitch, but have heard so much about him so they finally got to meet him and, of course, they all love him and true to Mitch form, he knows within the first minute if he likes them or not! But that's another story for another time...

After Changs we headed home and as soon as I got home I fell asleep (Grandpas have to have their afternoon nap, you know) and woke up hours later with a hangover! So this is what old feels like?

Next day we woke up bright and early and headed down to Waikiki to grab something to eat and I really wanted to try the Well Bento because I am an avid reader on Yelp.com and everyone always left such good reviews about how healthy it is and how it's so scrumptious! I read about it when we first moved here in February so I have really been anticipating it! I ordered the grilled salmon w/ a side of Tempeh (fermented soy beans similar to tofu) and Mitch ordered the grilled chicken.
I really liked the concept because everything is served with macaroni salad (made w/o mayo), tahini gravy over brown rice and an assortment of vegetables including gobo, which I loved, but maybe only because I used to have it as a kid because Mitch didn't like it. Overall, the food was good, but it wasn't anything worth anticipating over and I don't think I'll be going back... not because the food wasn't good enough because it definitely was good, but just because there's so many good places to eat... but I would give the Well Bento 5 out of 10 stars, which, just like the place itself, isn't bad, but isn't that good.

After lunch we walked around Waikiki for a bit and ended up at The Big Kahuna! It has these huge fishbowls that you can get for $20 and they are so good! Of course I don't ever drink it because I will be instantly comafied so Mitch had it all to himself because he, fittingly, drinks like a fish!



My new drink is a Lava Flow! They are so amazing! Bubba Gumps & Mai Tais have THE best lava flows and everytime I get them somewhere else I am disappointed.... I think they put crack in theirs... say crack again! Crack!

Mitch had made plans for us to go to a friend of a friend's graduation party @ Chikos and that didn't start till around 9pm so we wanted to stay in the area so what do we do for the next couple of hours? Drink, Shop and Karaoke! 88 Tees is my new favorite store and will go there religiously from now on! There are only 3 existing locations and I can easily spend hours rummaging through their designs!

I had been wanting to try GS STUDIOS karaoke for a while since it looks really nice so we headed over there and got a room and it's exactly like the karaoke rooms in Japan! Even the remote control was in Japanese so it took a minute to figure it out, but they have so many Japanese songs and recent ones too! They didn't have too many English songs, which I thought was a bit odd, but I loved it!

For dinner we decided to go to Tiki's, which I've also never been to, and my girl Michelle met us up there and we had a really good time! They had a live band there and out of nowhere this haole girl gets in the front and starts hula dancing! She was actually pretty good... funny part was that she's from Texas! I guess that's how they get down over there...

So we left Tiki's and before heading over to Chikos we picked up a bottle of Malibu so that just in case it was lame we would be too drunk to know. So we get there and met up w/ friends and overall it wasn't bad, but just like Well Bento, it wasn't good. (ok... last reference to that place... promise! I was just really disappointed!) At one point I even said really loudly "I AM SOOO BORED!" and I didn't even mean to! And I'm not even sure if the ppl we were with heard, but there was definitely an awkward pause for half a second. So we dipped out of Chikos pretty early, but after drinking all day I was ready to go.

Saturday rolled around and Mitch had to work half a day so I had some time to recuperate... we debated whether we should go out at all, but finally decided to leave around 10pm and dragged NR with us (Your eyes do not deceive you! I did just refer to NR w/o the usual slits wrists comments that usually accompany his name, but that's another story for another time... back to my birthday betch) and we headed to Hula's w/ a bottle of Jaeger in tow! We met up w/ Sy there and after finishing the Jaeger we met up w/ my girl Liz who came out to celebrate! She's a super cool chick so I was glad she came! Between Liz feeding me birthday shots and the Jaeger and NR giving me a chocolate cake shot and several other drinks... I was pretty tore up and loving it! After a while we met up with some of Mitch's ppls and ended up walking to Fusion... Walking+Drunk=HotMess. Despite the trannies that we were we made it to the club and everything there was a bit fuzzy, but left there after a while and headed home only after I got me my new love interest... SPAM MUSUBI!!! I can eat those all day...

So that pretty much sums up my 26th birthday... started out eating and ended it eating and I would have it no other way! I definitely was apprehensive to celebrate being that I don't have the usual crew to get into things with, but I had a really great time thanks to Mitch and future crew! Cheers Betches!

When is Cinco de Mayo?

Today was a milestone in my experience in living in Hawaii!

I was at work last night and one of the girls I work with was telling me that she goes to the Paul Mitchell school and that I should go see her friend at Blanc Salon to get my hair cut because he does such a good job and if not there, then I should check out CHOPS and since Mitch & I were going to get our hair cuts I thought I would talk to him about those two places. Not 30 minutes later, I was serving this couple who were uber cool and really nice, but after they had cashed out with me the asian girl w/ blonde hair (a combination I absolutely love as long as it's done right, in this case, perfection) pulled me aside and told me to come talk to her once I got a second. She had a stern tone in her voice and I thought that I was about to get a lashing, but apparently she worked @ CHOPS and wanted to cut my hair! Immediately I told her about what a coincidence it was that Mitch & I were going to get our hair cut the next day and that one of my coworkers had just told me about CHOPS! And the blonde beauty, Jennie, told me to bring Mitch in with me whenever we were available! So this morning when I woke up Mitch & I made appointments for our haircuts! When I say Mitch & I made the appointments I really mean that I begged Mitch to call in because for whatever reason I hate talking on the phone for any reason because I always think that Mitch will make such a better first impression.

Albeit fashionably late, we headed to Ala Moana and got to CHOPS and it was an absolutely refreshing experience compared to the last experience we had at a salon. When we first got to Hawaii we researched salons here and came upon Paul Brown Salon and it had such a good reputation so we went there to get our hair cut and I came out w/ what I can only describe as a fancy bowl cut and Mitch came out w/ a decent haircut and with highlights that already included roots! That was nice of that lady to save him the trouble of waiting weeks to reveal the inevitable roots that signal the need of an immediate touch up. Long story short... Paul Brown Salon out - CHOPS in.

Jennie did such a good job on the both of us and restored my faith in Hawaiian salons! I will definitely be going back to her on a regular basis and anyone that reads this blog (needs to comment asap) should go visit Jennie D @ CHOPS from now on!

After CHOPS, we went to Ala Moana mall and ended up @ Bubba Gumps, but to my disappointment, a guy that I had served @ Changs wasn't there! I told him if I ever went Bubba's that I would ask for him and apparently he doesn't work there anymore. He looked just like Tailor Made from I Love New York 2! So we got a different server and she was cool. I got my long awaited LAVA FLOW and cajun shrimp bucket! and Mitch got his assortment of mojitos and margaritas! And not long after we got our food, Sarita a.k.a. BFF (who is my first friend that I made here in Hawaii!!!) joined us and I've been trying to get her to get a job at a restaurant w/ a good bar so that I can plague her on a daily basis and get drunk, but I don't think she thought Bubba's was her destiny OR my future daily watering hole.

We wanted to do shots, but apparently they don't really have signature shots there so unwilling to think of our own shots, we paid out there and went next door to Mai Tais, but weren't feeling the vibe too much so we left there and went to Island Burgers? Island Grill? Island Paradise? Wherever it was we got there and against everyone else's wishes I ordered Jaeger Bombs! Sarita being the punk princess didn't take hers and instead attempted to sip it as if it was a fine, aged wine so I, not having that foolishness, downed her Jaeger Bomb and had another Lava Flow, but this one wasn't nearly as good and tasted like a yogurt disaster. Don't get me wrong, I finished it, but it was indeed a disaster.

And not long after we took those shots, Melody joined us! Melody is a girl that was in my group during training at Changs and we bonded during the wine tasting that went severely wrong! Just imagine 300 buzzed employees running around an empty restaurant in Waikiki on the last night of training after a week full of repetitious, mind numbing brainwashing! It was madness and is probably some form of ironic foreshadowing of how I will get fired based on how I love to take my vodka filled "water bottle" to work to get me through the night!

After a couple of drinks and rounds of shots @ Island Whatever we went back to Mai Tais. Somehow the lame vibe we got earlier was overshadowed by the drunk vibe we had achieved in between locations and now Mai Tais was somewhat durable, despite the overabundance of fuglies everywhere. So being creatures of imagination, we all had Mai Tais @ Mai Tais and soon enough, Melody had to bounce to pick up her ol' ball and chains, the love of her life, from work.

And after we finished our drinks (and I finished Melody's drink) we walked Sarita to her moped and as I'm trying to hotwire it, I hear Sarita and Mitch talking about how he wants to get me a moped and if he does get me one, I must wear a helmet at all times. Helmet hair is not hot, ya feel me?

All in all, I had a great day and cannot wait till tomorrow which is the annual SPAM JAM in Waikiki! From what I understand, they have spam in every size, shape, form, style and prepared in every way imaginable! I hope that I don't overdose on spam... the temptation is beyond my will power!

This is the first time that Mitch & I went out with friends (that I just KNEW i would never make) and I had so much fun! I gotta open Sunday morning @ Changs and then next week is Cinco de Mayo!!! Speaking of CdM... is it common knowledge that CdM is on the 5th of May? I don't see how that's common knowledge... I mean, I do see because it translates to that, but I really believe that not everyone knows when CdM is. Somebody get my back on this one! Somebody? Anybody?! Hello? Is this thing on???