Thursday 30th October - Honolulu

Last night we met up with Kerry and Linda and they showed us even better shops. We went to Walmart and had a ball, though what exactly we bought has blurred in my memory. It's big! and you can buy everything and anything - I saw people walking out with push bikes. Halloween is about to happen here and there are lots of decorations for sale with ghosts, pumpkins, spiders in the tinsel. And fake black roses.

We had dinner at Ruby Tuesday, upstairs in Ala Moana mall. Deborah had a pomegranate martini - delicious - and the others drank water. We shared a strawberry puff pastry between four, on the waitress's advice, and it was plenty.

We were in bed asleep by 9:30 pm and slept for about ten hours, dead to the world.

After breakfast in the hotel we ran into Ange and Tony queuing up, but Ange wanted to sleep rather than shop this morning. We registered for Pan Pac and signed up for some seminars on Sunday. Then we went shopping at Ross's, which is a discount clothing store that sells last season's clothes from expensive stores. Jo has a great eye for clothes that fit superbly, look great, and are a big bargain so Deborah ended up spending $200 (sorry Pete) but that was 21 items including another suitcase to carry them in. Jo spent $10 on herself and more on her daughters.

On the way to shopping we were waylaid by a lovely lady selling Onagold, which is a seasalt/oil mixture for defoliating skin. It has24 carat gold flakes (not sure why, except to justify the price). We said no thank you eventually after a very pesuasive sales pitch. On the way back we got waylaid by someone else selling - you guessed it - a seasalt/oil mixture - ah, but this salt is from the Dead Sea. No thanks. Deborah is going to try her own blend in the blender when she gets home, for considerably less expense. Jo picked up another suitcase (this is her second one) and some gifts at Walmart while Deborah asked the
Walmart optician about the cost of prescription glasses. The frames are incredibly cheap compared with Australia, but the lenses are $200 up so she didn't bother with an appointment.

Lunch at the Food Court, and then on the way back we ran into Liz Perry. We went to Macy's so Jo could stock up on Shiseido skin care products - at half the cost of Australia, and the girls were very attentive and gave Jo lots of freebies.

Then we met up with Kerry and Linda, on their way to Ross's, and Liz went with them.

We're having a rest in our room after unpacking the shopping, and then we'll head out to the Pan Pac Reception at 6 pm. Tomorrow is the quartet comp and Saturday is the chorus comp, so we'll be busy cheering on Double Shot and Sydney Harmony. Right now we can hear a quartet practising in the distance.

We're getting better at tipping, and have learned to say "regular" when they ask what size we want. Clothing sizes are still a mystery so we just try everything on before buying.

In our next instalment: the quartet comp.

We're here!

Jo and Deborah have arrived in Honolulu after a 9 hour flight on Qantas from Sydney. We met up with Double Shot (Vicki, Vicki, Guy and Tony) at Qantas check-in, and then with Linda in the gate lounge. Double Shot entertained the waiting passengers with a song, and then our flight was called.


We were a little late taking off, but arrived in Hawaii on time. We don't know how people do 20 hour flights! Dinner was served around 9:30 pm, and finished with icecream - a Splice - around 10.30 pm. Then we sort of slept until 4 am Sydney time. The sun came up, the cabin lights came on, breakfast was served, and we all adjusted our watches 3 hours forward from 5.30 am to 8:30 am - but it is still Wednesday Hawaii time.

We'd dutifully filled in our Visa Waiver Application and Customs and Border Security declaration the night before. There was not much queuing at Immigration, and they recognised we were part of the singing convention. Customs waved us through without a baggage search even though we'd declared Deborah's herbal tea bags and Jo's long life milk ("what kind of milk?")

All the Americans we've met so far have been very friendly and helpful and interested. We're wrestling with the big question for Aussies abroad: when to tip? Our room at the hotel wasn't available until 3 pm so Jo and Deborah parked the luggage with the bell captain and went shopping at Ala Moana - "the world's largest open air shopping destination". It took us over three hours to walk the length of one level of shopping, but we had a great time. Deborah now has two pairs of Skechers and both of us have more clothes than we can fit in our luggage - need to buy another suitcase already.

Tomorrow is more shopping - Linda has promised to take us to Wal Mart (where she and Kerry bought a trolley-load of stuff today). The Men's Convention starts officially with the Welcome Reception on Thursday night.

We met a nice young quartet of Maori guys from Wellington on the plane - they're on second in the quartet comp on Friday - so we'll be cheering for them as well as Double Shot, who are no. 27.

Liz and Heino have been here since Monday - we met them in the lobby when we were checking in. Kerry has also been here since Monday and looks very relaxed.

The laptop is working fine, and the hotel provides complimentary high speed internet access. However, Deborah's mobile phone isn't charging, so don't expect any phone calls from here. She is contactable by email and will check in every day.

Aloha for now

We have a nice hotel room on the 13th of 36 floors at Ala Moana and are feeling very well, but starting to tire. We're staying awake until Hawaii bedtime so we can sleep well tonight.

Two sleeps to go

It's Monday night, and we fly out in 46 hours. I haven't packed yet, though I've put two empty suitcases on the spare bed and started making a pile of things to take. I did water the garden (which probably means it will rain soon).

Tonight I'm wrestling with technology. I bought an Asus Eee netbook to take with us so we can update this blog and check our emails. It's cute: weighs 0.89 kg and has a 7" screen. I've discovered that the mouse Pete donated works fine (I'm not good with using a touch screen to control the pointer); and I can plug the memory card from my camera into the memory card slot to download photos. Last weekend Pete and I had a birthday weekend at the Radisson in the city, so now I know that the Eee can connect to the internet via cable or wireless. Really, I'm getting quite fond of it.

Next step is to make sure I have learning tracks for all the convention songs (and the barbershop cruise songs) on my MP3 player. And then I'll check the websites for updates one last time.

Other things to do:
- let people know our blog address
- write out instructions on caring for the dogs and tadpoles and garden
- let the bank(s) know we're travelling overseas so they don't query a sudden surge of overseas transactions
- make a note of all the user names and passwords I'm likely to need overseas
- check what time I need to catch the train to the international terminal
- PACK!