Beach and Foods

Foods of Hawaii

Spam Musubi - nom nom!

Spam Musubi - most haoles would be grossed out by this dish consisting of seaweed, spam, and rice, but the locals LOVE spam musubi and you can use that link to learn how to make it! Instead of sugar and soy sauce, I just use teriyaki sauce and I don't add the furikaki or li hing mui powder. You can find one of those musubi makers in the Asian food store, but if you don't have one you can fly to Hawaii and get one or just shape the musubi with your hands - it's just as ono! Even my son Chad loves, and often makes, spam musubi and he's never even been to Hawaii! Check out this Google Search and see how many images there are of Spam Musubi - even Yoda is licking his chops for Spam Musubi! As the locals say, "Broke da mouth!" I have a great recipe for teriyaki sauce and yakisoba noodles that I will share in another post. Quality Service lesson: Give them what they crave!

Davy Jones Locker - Outrigger Hotel

Davy Jones Locker
I was thinking about what to include in my blog this week and remembered that the Outrigger Hotel (I think it's called The Reef now) has an underground bar called Davy Jones Locker which provides an excellent underwater view of the Outrigger pool and its swimmers - like when you go to the aquarium and stare at the fish. It's very entertaining for bar patrons when couples get "frisky" at that end of the pool and then decide to have a drink in the bar afterwards and realize that everyone in the bar was just watching them make out. The Outrigger Hotel figured out that instead of having patrons stare at a wall while they drink, they could provide a show put on by other people. Quality Service lesson:  Give them a show! It's free!

Wata and Cindy

Wata, the Beach Boy
My tandem surfing partner (Wata) was a beach boy at Waikiki Beach where he gave surfing lessons to the tourists. He understood the importance of a quality experience. He always guaranteed that the neophyte surfer would stand up on his or her first surf lesson and they always did or they would stay out there until they did. His canoe rides were always memorable because for every group of canoe riding tourists that he took out, he would always say, "Best crew we ever had!" And even if they were the most inept group of paddlers, they still got a laugh out of that. Wata would take them on three wave rides and then bring the canoe in safely - every time.  Quality Service lesson: Give them special memories! It doesn't take any more effort.

Tandem Surfing
Wata was also a great tandem surfing partner. When I was 13 years old, he approached me while I was sunbathing one day and asked if I wanted to try tandem surfing. We entered some contests over the years.  We were even on ABC's Wide World of Sports one Saturday - too bad we didn't have VCRs back then. We won 3rd place in the Makaha Surfing Championships one year. Bob and Patti (pictured below) got second place even though we had done stunts with a higher degree of difficulty and caught bigger waves. That was because Bob and Patti added a flare. They did the simplest stunt on the smallest wave they could catch, but while she was standing on his shoulders riding the wave in, she lit a flare and held it in one hand as they left a trail of colorful smoke behind them. The judges and spectators were entertained more by their flare than by our difficult stunts. Quality Service lesson:  Add a flare to the show!

Wata, Cindy, Bob Moore, Patti Young

Diamond Head behind us

Waikiki Beach

Barf Cruise

Neil and Cindy

When you visit Kauai, if you have a strong stomach, take the snorkel cruise that goes along the Na Pali Coast and over to Niihau (small island where only native Hawaiians live).  You may even want to take some Dramamine if you have a strong stomach. Everyone on the cruise except my husband and me hurled before the trip was over. The waves were kind of big and the captain was booking it back to shore across the channel from Niihau, but we were enjoying it while others were not. It was right after lunch too! And the lunch was delicious!  The crew congratulated us for being the only two who did not get sick on our seven hour tour. We enjoyed the snorkeling (we saw a huge monk seal swim right underneath us); the views were outstanding; and the cruise was amazing, except for the other passengers' seasickness. We saw two kinds of dolphins, flying fish, sea turtles, seagulls, and all kinds of fish. Take heed, if you barf when you see barf, don't take this cruise - take the shorter one. If you want to read more about Blue Dolphin Charters on Kauai, check out my review on Tripadvisor. Danny was the crew member that made the cruise memorable. Every time one of our fellow cruisers got sick, he got a damp paper towel and a cup of water to take to them and he tried to comfort them. He went around and chatted with everyone on the cruise and one time when he visited with us, I told him that my husband would look every time someone hurled and then he would describe the chunks to me. So, Danny told my husband to stop looking and would look at my husband every time he had to get a damp paper towel and would tell my husband to look away and would make the "I am watching you" hand gesture to the eyes.  It would crack us up every time. I still laugh about it whenever I think about it.

Photo borrowed from Universal Studios site

Quality Service lesson:  Make them laugh even under adverse conditions - that's what they will remember!



A bit of Trivia

Photo borrowed from Tripadvisor

In Hawaii, the roadkill is mostly Mongoose. They brought the mongoose to Hawaii in the 1900s to get rid of the rats in the cane fields but the mongoose are not nocturnal while the rats are, so it was not a very good plan. The mongoose are everywhere and have killed many of the bird populations. Check out the link for more information on this invasive species that was imported to the islands.  Kauai could use some mongooses on that island to get rid of all the wild chickens roaming the island since the hurricanes set them free. Or not!

My next posting will include the story of my favorite catamaran ride, my Mom's Hawaiian doll business, and Mother Nature's most excellent quality service contributions. Thanks for reading!

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Remember - every day is Aloha Friday! Take the Aloha Spirit with you wherever you go and make it a good one!