Run club...

Run club has a couple new members.





They joined earlier this week.

For my part as President of Run Club, I hold meetings 5 to 6 times a week. I run at least 3.1 miles a day. I try to go further if I can.

The meetings take place usually between 10am and 11:30am Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Sometimes there are impromptu meetings on Wednesdays, but there are never meetings on Saturdays.

The Vice-President of Run Club has only attended one meeting.

He will soon be impeached.

****update****

As I was completing this blog entry Brett enteredvthe gym and fulfilled his vice-pesisential duties.
-- Post From My iPhone

Lahaina...

This week we stopped off on the Western side of Maui in Lahaina.

Lahaina is an absolutely fantastic and gorgeous place.  Set at the base of a couple of huge mountains, it's a quaint little town that offers up all kinds of shopping and restaurants.  

Front street is reminiscent of the store lined shops that we found in Bermuda and Bar Harbor.  Lots of local shops and dining.

There were no WalMarts, Borders or McDonald's to be found.  (I'm sure they are there.  We just couldn't fine them.)

We have been to Lahaina before, but it was in the evening and weren't able to take in a lot of the historical places.

This time though, we immediately jumped in and took a tour of the Baldwin House Mission.

It was here that we saw the scariest doll that I have ever seen.  

This thing is over 100 years old.  Terrifying. 

Afterward we picked up a map for a self guided walking tour of the historic places of the town.  It was a hot, sunny day and looked like a good day to walk around.  We saw all sorts of cool things.

It's the idol from the Brady Bunch episode in Hawaii!

This is the old jail.

The walls were made of coral.

This is a list of the crimes that were committed back in 1904-1906.  89 people were arrested for Furious Riding.  I guess that means never drive drunk or angry.

In the corner of the jail yard they had some birds caged up.  (Get ready for a bad joke.)  I guess they were jail birds.  (Seriously, that would have killed here on the ship!)

Jeannie made friends with the birds and got them to talk.  If you want to see video of Jeannie talking to the birds you should go to Chris' blog.

We then walked around some more and saw some more cool things.

I like this picture.  It's Mark smoking next to a "no smoking" sign that is hidden behind a plant.  He never saw it.

We were a little scared to see this.

At the bottom you can see the Dharma Initiative has their own bible study here.  (You'll only get that if you watch Lost.)

The tour ended at the courthouse and we saw this our favorite Banayan Tree.  

This one was planted in 1873 and is 60 feet wide.  It has stretched out so far that it now has 16 trunks.

After our full day of touring we headed back to the ship.  As we waited to get back on we watched the sun set over the water.

After the sun had faded away the sky had a pinkish blue tint to it.

It was quite a fun day.

2 things...

After our shows in the Hollywood Theater we always meet up for dinner afterward in the Cadillac Diner.

This week we discovered that they make milkshakes there.  I ordered an oreo cookie shake.  It came in a huge glass and was delicious.

It was so thick that at the end of the drink I had to take a big swig to get the last remnants of the oreos at the bottom.

Unfortunately, due to the big swig, I ended up with a chocolate line on the bridge of my nose.

I didn't realize it until 2 hours later.

I spent all evening with chocolate on my nose and nobody told me.

***

Jeannie bought her first Hawaiian Lei.

She was so excited.

2 hours later it was dead.

She was pretty sad.

Waikiki...

It is not Jeannie's birthday, but she feels like it is.

We went to Waikiki today with Chris, Robyn and Mark. We swam in the ocean for a little while, but it was a little chilly. We stayed there for awhile before (much to Jeannie's delight) we moved over to the lagoon next to the Hilton.


Jeannie loved the lagoon because there are no fish or sharks in it.

It's a beautiful area.


It almost looks fake.

We watched these two boys trying to fly a kite.


However to our amazement, they kept getting it caught up in this tree.


It was so surprising because there really weren't any trees on the beach. As long as they just states away from that set of trees they would be fine.

However, everytime I turned around they had that kite wrapped around that skinny palm tree.

After the beach Jeannie and I walked back toward the ship. Along the way we ran into a bunch of Flamingos that were wandering around the hotel grounds.


We then stopped off at what we thought was a Farmers Market. We thought that because of the giant sign on the side of the building that said...


Turns out it wasn't a farmers market at all. It was a gigantic Japanese grocery store.

Jackpot!

Look what the had for sale there.


Flying fish eggs.


Cod roe.


Salmon fish heads.



Octopus tentacle sushi.

As excited as I was to be in this Japanese grocery store, Jeannie was euphoric.

Jeannie's family lived in Japan for two years while she was in high school. She roamed around the store for an hour looking fir things she used to eat in Japan.

I knew she would find something because she would yell "they have it! They have it. I can't believe they have it!"


I could hear her from all the way on the other side of the store.


She was soooooo happy.

She found tons of things that she had been searching for ever since she left Japan.


After that we went across the street and ate at one of Jeannie's favorite restaurants, The Old Spaghetti Factory.

Jeannie was in heaven.


I was okay.


Boy, she was sure happy all day long.
-- Post From My iPhone

Kauai...

We have been seeing a lot of whales lately. They've been all over the place.

The other day we were rehearsing for our improv shows in a conference room and I could see all the people by the pool turned around staring at something. I was just in the middle of saying, "what the heck is everyone looking at?" when a gigantic whale jumped out the water 50 yards from the ship.

We all went outside and watched it play around for about 30 minutes.


We were right next to the view finder on the ship so we were able to zoom in and see it close up.

Jeannie was excited because she was able to actually see the whales eyes above the water.

It was cool.

In other news I got another Hawaiian shaved ice yesterday.


This one had a scoop of ice cream in the middle.
-- Post From My iPhone

This one's gross....

I'm not sure if Becca reads my blog anymore since she moved to Denver, but these videos are for her.

Make sure you watch the whole thing on this one.


They put the wrong caption underneath this guy.


This is the worst newcast I have ever seen.


Boom goes the dynamite.


If you are squeamish, don't watch this one. However, if you can stomach it, please watch. It's unbelievable.

Kona...

Last week we found this place that mails coconuts to the mainland.


They literally slap a stamp on the coconut and drop it in a mailbox.


Here's Robyn decorating one of the coconuts before we sent them out.


We really try to make them look cool before we send them out.

We sent them out to each of our families and to Matt, Beth and Monica at Second City.


-- Post From My iPhone

Maui...

Jeannie and I have a mailbox here in Maui.

The mail on the ship is too slow and undependable so we went ahead and got our own private mailbox.  The rest of the cast did the same thing.  We picked Maui because we're here twice a week and the post office is just 4 blocks away from where the ship docks.

Please feel free to mail us lots of stuff.  Our address is:

Jeff Griggs (or Jeannie Cahill)

P.O. Box 331179

Kahului, Hawaii,  96733

One of the other great things about having a post office box and living in Hawaii is that we are able to re-sign up with Netflix.  We were very happy to go to our box and find new NetFlix movies.  

After retrieving our mail we stopped off at Longs Drugs before going back to the ship.  Longs Drugs is the Hawaiian Walgreens.

Jeannie needed to shop around for some things so I wandered through the snack aisle taking pictures of all the crazy items they sell in Hawaiian drug stores.  There's a huge Japanese influence to most of them.

Here's what I found:

I have no idea what Red Li Hing Mui is.  All I know is it looks gross.
Again, I have no idea what this is.

The important thing to look for is that the above item is "Crispy Seaweed Chips".  The other important thing to see is that the little cartoon appears to be crying.  That's not a good sign.
Yep.  Fried Squid.

Hmmm.  Dried Shrimp.  
This is a gummi mix, but it's deceiving.  It looks like there are a bunch of gummi shapes in there, but it's not.  It's just gummi.  There's absolutely no shapes inside at all.  You open it up and a great big gelatinous glop of gummi pours out.  No bears.  No worms.  Just gummi.
Crackers that taste like fish.  That's definitely a flavor that is needed in cracker form.  If you don't like that, there's always...

...shrimp flavored crackers.  

Uh-oh, smoked squid.  I can't imagine the smell when you crack open the seal on that bag.

Honey Lemon Chunk of what?  I don't know what it is, but it looks scary.

Ginger chews.  Peanut butter flavored.  I just don't think Peanut Butter and Ginger go together.  I could be wrong on that.  I may have to try it.

Something I definitely won't be trying is...

...dried cuttlefish.  The great part about this product is that if you do like it, there are other flavors to enjoy.  Like...

Hot Cuttlefish and Peppered Cuttlefish.  Yum.

For some reason, I really think Jeannie would like this popcorn.  

The find of the day was also the catch of the day...

Fish Jerky!  I just...I can't...fathom.

These were just the snack aisles.  I haven't yet ventured down the regular aisles.  I can't wait to do so.