You all are probably getting pretty sick of us talking about our car, the weather, frogs, etc... We don't blame you!
The fact is, after close to six months of living in a new environment, things
just don't seem as interesting and unusual. We go by on a daily basis, doing the same thing, and we like it that way.
We enjoy riding the bus around because of all the 'strange' people on board, we enjoy playing video games in the middle of
the day, and we enjoy the peaceful solitude of Manoa Valley. But just because we enjoy this daily regimen, does not necessarily
mean that you all like reading the same thing everyday. So we will make it our goal to write about at least one new thing a
week.



Today was a little anomolous for us. We started out by cleaning up our place for the couple who may rent it after we leave. This
included hiding our beloved frogs. We are keeping 11 of them, not including 2 very tiny froglets and the stacks of tadpoles that
have not quite developed. Luckily, we did this last week, so our methods of hiding were already known. Later, we went to see a matinee
at the Ward Center. We saw Doom with the people's champion, aka The Rock
. It was a very funny show with some classic lines by the champ
himself. Next, we went to the pet store to buy some pinhead crickets (crickets that have just hatched so they are the size of a pinhead) to
supplement our frogs diet (they like a treat every now and then). Finally, we went out to dinner at Assagio, a place that Ben describes as,
"good and kinda cool looking inside, but in a mall." It's a neat place in the Ala Moana Shopping Center and we're never sure how to dress when
we go. There are people in Casual wear, people in Aloha Shirts and shorts, and all ranges in between. When you go inside, it looks like you should
be dressed at least semi-casual but then you realize that you are in a mall and that most of the people here stopped by while shopping so it's just
confusing! Anyway, after dinner we headed for our bus stop (which happens to be in the mall) and no more than five minutes out the door we realize that
Ashley had left the crickets on the side of the table. We quickly ran back to the restaurant and they had completely cleared off the table and set it
for another couple! Ben asked the waiter and he said that everything was thrown away already! Our question is: Do they throw away all the bags away
that are left on the table within five minutes or just ones filled with insects? What if it had been a piece of jewelry? That would have been bad...Do they
look inside the bags to determine if they should throw it away first? Do they look inside to see if it is something to steal? I guess we'll never know...
Ashley has been pretty irritated about the whole thing ever since it happened but as we've been saying the whole trip, "Oh well!"




Please note: We don't typically bring bags of bugs into restaurants that appear at least to have a semi-casual dress code (or any restaurants for that matter) but
we had no where else to put them because we had to ride the bus there...




Anyway, after dinner it was off to the bus stop where we were sitting by an interesting lady. She was one of the true gems you get to meet while taking
transportation and we shall call her the "newspaper smelling lady." As we sat on one of the many benches at the bus stop, we glanced over at the lady sitting
next to us and saw that she had a couple plastic sacks full of newspapers. She was taking them out, smelling them, then putting them back into the bags. Not
sure why she was doing this, but hey--it's not really any of our business. We have also seen some pretty interesting shirts while we have been out
here. The first one that we saw said, "Malasadas" and that is all. Ben thinks that this is hilarious because he has never seen
a shirt that just says a type of food. For example, there are no shirts that just say, "Burgers," no shirts that just say, "burritos." It is a little
odd. Well, tonight (on the bus) we saw another classic shirt. It was a lovely brown with the words, "I'm lovin' it" and the McDonald's logo on the back. Who wears an 'I'm lovin' it'
shirt??? Even if we wanted to wear one of these shirts, where would we get them??? You can't just walk into McDonalds and say, "I want a number 2 with an 'I'm lovin' it'
or a 'burgers' shirt. Anyway, we just figured that we'd share our lovely experience of the newspaper lady, Micky D's shirt, and the public transportation system here :)





I'm lovin' it....



Ben & Ashley