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rue-madame's Diaryland Diary

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Aloha and Mahalo, part deux

I�m back from Lana�i (pronounced �Lana ee�.)

It was a pretty fun trip except that I�ve come to the conclusion that golf is most certainly land rape. The island of Lana�i is arid and underpopulated because it is not really a hospitable place for humans. However that did not deter the developers from creating not one but two luxury resorts--one at the beach, one inland--with two championship golf courses and a little 9-hole course.

We stayed at the lodge which was a cross between an English hunting retreat and a Hawaiian plantation house but done in a contemporary cheap-finishes American condo aesthetic. All of the guests but 4 were over the moon with the accommodations and grounds. Guess which 4 did not like the place? Why that would be the 4 designers attending the wedding: me, Terence, Tracy and T-y. We were hypercritical and unimpressed. This, in a way, is the designer�s curse. You are rarely satisfied with the hotel architecture, with interior design decisions, with landscaping choices, with service, with bathroom tiles, with crappy Kona coffee... Our room was $210 per night which was a special rate for the wedding. Normally, our room would have cost $325 to $495. What that extra $170 would pay for is beyond me.

Furthermore, since I�m complaining, I would just like to put it out there that when you pay that much, all leisure activities should be free. Ok, in all fairness, some of the things were free, like lawn bowling, the little 18-hole putting green, croquet and tennis. But if you wanted to go off the resort, you had to pay. Want to shoot clay pigeons? That�ll cost you $70. Want to take a yoga class? That�ll be $20. They get you coming and going. So of course I hoarded all of the little shampoos, conditioners, body wash and lotion, soaps, sewing kit, shower caps, mini loofah, and a butter knife from the wedding dinner cause it had a little pineapple on top. Terence said that for $210 a night, they�re lucky we didn�t just take the tv. God, it was so not worth it!

When I talked to Tracy today to see how her return home went, she admitted to having �borrowed� not only bath accountrements, but also the satiny padded hangers.

And I thought I was bad!

Hopefully, we didn�t bring back the little cockroach that was living in one of the gigantic terry robes. Ewww.

But the wedding itself--the entire event, since it lasted a few days--was really fun. Everyone was really happy for the couple, everybody cried, including me. The Chinese tea ceremony was beautiful, the whitey ceremony was nice too, and we ate well and drank a ton. I ate papaya and drank guava and pineapple juice every morning, I ate funky Hawaiian plate lunches (is it any wonder they are so overweight? Who orders teri chicken with two scoops of rice and two scoops of macaroni salad?) and I swam in the superwarm ocean. And I learned the hukilau after stuffing myself silly with Kahlua pig and lomi lomi and poi. I had way more fun than I thought I would, and boy, am I happy about that. I even got lei'd!

I�m tired and will continue this later. I need to drop off the photos. I saw a preview of some of them on Sunday (someone had already downloaded digital images to a laptop, and we all gathered �round to check them out) and the croquet photos are rad!

5:42 p.m. - 2002-08-13

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