Tuesday, November 19, 2024

Pokematic's Hawaiian Wedding Vacation

Aloha, it's Pokematic and I just got back from Hawaii. About 3 months ago my cousin Edwards who lives in Japan invited mskate and I to his wedding ceremony in Hawaii. Why Hawaii? He's from the US and all of his family lives in the continental 48 (specifically eastern time zone), his wife is from Japan and all her family lives in Japan, Hawaii is halfway between the 2 (pretty much evenly, it's a 6 hour time difference for us and a 6 hour time difference in the other way for him). This did end up mean I wasn't going to be at my grandma's 90th birthday party (where everyone on her side of the family was going to be there), but I never see this side of the family (like ever) and I saw everyone at the other party 6 years ago in Tennessee. Plus, my cousin has a 2 year old daughter that we were going to have a lot of fun with with opportunities to take video for my grandpa whose only bright thing in life is pictures and videos of his great grandkids, so I made sure to take a lot of video of my niece for him and my aunt. Even though I wasn't able to be at my grandma's birthday party, I was still there in spirit after spending 2 months working on a birthday video for her (the reason I've been a bit distant from my normal posting) that cataloged her entire life (with all the photos that we had), with a special at the end where I sang many of her favorite sing-along songs with all the left over pictures. My aunt told my one cousin's boyfriend "it's too bad you won't get to meet Pokematic, because he's quite a character that needs to be experienced in person." When they got to the sing along part of the video, she told the boyfriend "OK you now have some idea of what Pokematic is like." We also face timed everyone at the party, so we did get to say aloha to everyone. Before I get to the vacation adventure, one last "getting ready" detail. Given the time difference I considered changing the time on my watch to local time (because I have a dumb analog watch that I continue to wear even with cell phones), but I decided to leave it at "home time" because I wanted to make it easy to know what time it was back home and if it was too late to call or text people (because they wanted to see all that we were doing and see the baby).

Time for the "first day" and prepping. Hawaii is expensive, so we planned on eating in at least 1 meal a day. For me this meant coffee maker ramen and for mskate this meant coffee maker gluten free easy mac. Also with the 11 hours of flying there and 8 hours flying back (we had a lay over on the way there, and had a direct on the way back), we wanted to make sure we had food to eat since it was going to get expensive if we had to buy in-flight food or airport food. This meant pop-tarts, peanuts, almonds, pistachios, cookies, and some other things. We went to Ollie's and the grocery, and I gathered some plastic wear and chopsticks for the meals. We also pulled out our refillable water bottles and got them prepped for the trip. For my birthday my father-in-law bought me a Tommy Bahama outfit (hat, belt, shirt, shorts, and flip-flops) for the wedding, and mskate had a Tommy Bahama dress that she wore to the wedding. We packed basically every other island shirt I had and 4 pairs of sunglasses (because if something happened to my 1 pair I didn't want to have to buy an expensive tourist pair). We were also going to do a Disney experience and I wasn't sure if they would have pin trading, so I brought all the trader pins I have. I also tossed our amazon fire stick in the bag since it's nice having our streaming services readily available and doesn't take up much space. We managed to fit everything in 2 carry-on suit cases and 2 backpacks, it was tight but it worked out. Oh yeah, there's also a small saga with my video camera. On Monday I checked my camera and found that the battery wasn't working (wouldn't hold a charge), so I had to find another one in the next 3 days because we were leaving on Friday. I checked the battery stores (because I have some dedicated battery stores by me), but they didn't have the battery for my video camera. Thankfully Amazon prime 2 day shipping was able to save me with an aftermarket battery that got me through the trip, because that would have been REALLY bad if my video camera didn't work; my brother has a DSLR he would have let me borrow if needed, but I would have felt better with my 8 year old compact digital camcorder that I know very well. I also got 2 new games for my switch, South Park Snow Day and Pikmin 4. I played a lot of Pikmin 4 because I love the other 3 Pikmin games.

Travel day wasn't that big a thing, but there was kind of a crazy thing. We packed up all our stuff and got ready to go. This is when we notice a paper taped to our door, it's the condo association saying "we're going to redo the asphalt pavement, you need to disengage your garage door or else we'll be forced to get a locksmith to go in your unit and open the garage door." It kind of sucked having to leave the garage unlocked for basically a week, but the door from the garage to the condo locks like the normal door to the outside and there isn't much of value in the garage, so not preferable but not exactly different from leaving the car locked on the driveway. I'm glad we got the notice when we did because that could have been very frustrating and expensive. Oh well, hopefully it'll be done by the time we got back (spoiler, it wasn't). Our plane left at like 11AM so it wasn't like "we had to get up super early." Security wasn't a big deal, though I did keep messing up with taking my shoes off and such. We found our gate and just kind of waited for the plane. On the way there I watched Friday, Migration and Loud House season 6 episode 1-5. I heard Friday is one of the funniest movies some people had said, and while it was good it wasn't amazing. Migration was "an Illumination movie;" very safe, very paint by numbers, nothing spectacular but nothing terrible. Loud House episodes were Loud House episodes. We sat in the emergency exit row, which was kind of neat (a little extra space and responsibility). I also took some video of the take off and landing, uploading with creative commons attribution (like always).

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We're now somewhere in Washington state and have a 1 hour layover, about the perfect amount of time (enough to go from 1 gate to the other stress free, not too much to get bored waiting for the next plane, like when we went to Arizona). I got a cheese burger from the Greedy Cow, and mskate got cheese fries. Burger was pretty good, not exactly worth the $20 I paid for airport food, but something different from standard fast food. This was now time for the crossing the Pacific flight. Since we're delta members mskate gets free inflight wifi and uses it every time. However, because this was crossing an ocean with no cell towers she wasn't able to get it. Didn't matter to me, I always get watch the movies or tv shows. This had a pretty good set-up, where you could add movies and tv shows to a watch list, and it had more movies than what was on the other flight. I watched Veggie Tales Abe and the Amazing Promise, The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything movie, The Dark Side of Chocolate, Her (the movie about a man who falls in love with his operating system), and part of Napoleon Dynamite. I was REALLY curious how they were going to handle the story of Abraham since that story is "you struggled to get a child, when you did get a son God commanded you to sacrifice the boy to Him, and right before you were about to kill the boy an angel said 'don't kill him, I see you're a faithful servant' and then sacrificed a wild ram instead," a pretty brutal story for children. Well this was just an episode about patience and how Abraham was so old when he had his son, and only after being very patient did he get his son. Pirates Who Don't Do Anything was pretty fun, not much biblical that I'm aware of, but a fun story about how the trio were low level employees at a dinner theater who are pulled into a rescue mission, actually entertaining story. The Dark Side of Chocolate was an interesting documentary, basically "look how the sausage is made," and I guess it's pretty damning but it wasn't "I will never eat chocolate again." Her was a pretty wild movie to watch now; 10 years ago it was "a quirky romance movie that shows you the perspective of the weirdo that falls in love with his computer, what a crazy concept," today with AI being the big thing every tech company is chasing and how popular AI companions are it's pretty scary. I need to do a podcast review of it. Then Napoleon Dynamite was "I have 45 minutes left in the flight, I'll watch something I'm familiar." We also had to fill out a customs declaration form type thing, which was kind of weird but I guess makes sense since they are an island separated by thousands of miles of water so it's kind of like going to a foreign country. We had to use one of our sharpee markers because they aren't allowed to distribute pens, and when we asked the flight attendant if we could use a marker she said "since we can't hand out pens they'll have to accept the marker." Flying over the open ocean was pretty cool. Here's some more video I took.

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By the time we got there it was like 7PM Hawaii time but 1 AM our time, so needless to say we were pretty tired. The airport was really cool though, like everything was open to the outside, and birds were flying into the terminal (birds are going to be a running theme btw). They no longer lei you when you get off the plane (or at least Delta doesn't do that), but you could buy a lei from the store that was right outside our gate. We didn't spend much time in the airport and found our way to rideshare pick-up (because we were going to uber to the hotel). The ride was pretty uneventful, just looked out the window and saw the scenery. Unfortunately the video didn't turn out, but take my word it looked great. Getting to the hotel was a little challenging, because they were doing construction and didn't have a good drop-off location. So while I'm half asleep mskate has me calling the hotel trying to find where we should be dropped off, but it's not the hotel directly it's a help line because it's a local chain of like a dozen hotels on the islands so the woman I'm talking to someone who isn't even directly familiar with the hotel situation in question, and all the streets are Hawaiian names of which they're all spelled phonetically in English but I'm still not used to these sounds going together, and I don't even have access to the GPS map so I don't really know why I was the one who had to do all of this, but whatever. Eventually we figured out that we should get dropped off on the other side of the closed off sidewalk, so we walked along the street to get to the lobby. The hotel kind of reminded me of a hotel I stayed at in DC where there isn't much of a lobby, just a front desk and an elevator to the rooms since the ground floor space was rented out to retailers. Here the ground floor space was just to the parking structure, which I think also went underground. The cool thing was the pool was on the 3rd floor, which didn't have any rooms that I'm aware of, but it did have office space. Our room was on the 5th floor, and it had a nice view of the pool. The hotel was also undergoing renovations and we were in a room that wasn't yet renovated. Mskate thought the room was kind of sketchy, so the first night we put a chair in front of the door for extra security. Basically we just got to the room, showered, and went to bed before they had to shut the water off for the renovation maintenance.

Here's some pictures of the airport and 

Time for the first real day. Mskate and I woke up before 6AM because of the time difference. We tried sleeping in but it didn't exactly work (I was wide awake at 6AM). We did a little walking around to get acclimated to the city and where things are. We went to one of the many ABC stores; a local convenience and souvenir chain that is basically everywhere. And when I say "everywhere," I mean these stores are just as common as the Kelp Shake stores in that one Spongebob episode, there's like one on every block. Anyway, the thing we got was the surf board cutting boards we were going to get autographs on at our Disney breakfast, one for us and one for the cousin and niece. We walked around until the grocery store across from the hotel opened. We got sunscreen (because the stuff we bought on the mainland isn't reef safe and therefore is illegal in Hawaii), juice for mskate's diabetes, and Hawaiian hard cider (dragon fruit and raspberry). I'm not the biggest drinker but I wanted to get some local alcohol (maybe a pineapple drink). This was quite good, not exactly my preferred flavors but still good. I knew I wouldn't drink the whole 6-pack and would be sharing with my family, so I'm glad it was good to share. After the shopping we didn't do much except work on getting in contact with my relatives (because that was the primary reason we were there) and unpack. I set up our dirty clothes bag, organized all the food we brought, set-up the refrigerator stuff and charging cubes, and that kind of stuff. I also wore my night driving blue light filter glasses with my hat and mskate thought I looked like a famous person. You see for yourself, I think it looks like something out of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.


Here's the cider.

After getting in contact Edwards invited us to go to the zoo with him, wife, niece, and wife's mom (grandma), and we said yes. We met them at their hotel around 10:00 AM. Mskate said "this is the first time meeting them, don't pull out the video camera yet." It was a good introduction, and they liked the presents we got them (niece got an Elmo doll, gold fish crackers, and headband mskate knitted for her, cousins got the birth year penny rolls I give my newly wed family members). They also got us some presents, a deck of Pokemon cards for me and dry seaweed for mskate. The zoo was pretty fun, small and a little limited, but fun. Niece took some warming up to getting active, but once we went to the koi pond with a tunnel to crawl through and pop-up in the middle to see the fish up close she was happy. I went through the tunnel first, because I'm the quirky kind of guy to try it out, and when she saw that she was all "dad take me through the tunnel." She did it like 4 times before we went on. We made it to the farm area and niece really liked the goat petting zoo part. What was great for her is the zoo keeper was brushing the goats at the time and she was able to brush the goats too. She has a large stuffed pony toy that she will brush with her mom's hairbrush every so often, and now she was able to brush a real animal using an animal brush. Mskate and grandma watched us from the lookout tower while we were petting the goats. There were 2 main things the cousins wanted to see, a pig and a zebra since those are niece's favorite animals and zebras aren't in the Japanese zoos. Unfortunately the zebras weren't out so no zebras for niece. There was a park where she was able to play at, mskate, wife, and grandma watched niece while Edwards and I explored the zoo looking for the zebras. We didn't find the zebras but did watch a tortoise climb a hill to the little shelter. It was a fun outing, and I liked grandma because she also likes to take a lot of pictures. She didn't speak much English but she spoke the language of "take lots of pictures to save the moment." Also when I first pulled out my camera wife asked "how old is that camera?" It's like 8 years old. After the zoo we went to a breakfast place for lunch, like right before they closed for the day. We had to wait around for like 45 minutes but it gave us some time to play with the baby and just talk. Edwards got waffles and the presentation was on point (like there was a pineapple made of whipped cream on top of the waffles). After lunch we just hung out in the room for a little while, mskate watched some Olympic Trials and I played Pikmin. We also did some exploring and there was a sizable outdoor mall by us. One of the stores was all about virtual reality and had some Japanese capsule gachapon machines. I wanted to do this because those are cool, and there was a pokemon machine. I went to the vendor, got my tokens, put them in, and got a rowlet. Unfortunately there wasn't much to assemble unlike meowth and pikachu (just put his feet in the holes), but mskate likes owls so having an owl pokemon on display in the house is an easier sell than other pokemon.


Later in the evening we met up with my aunt and uncle to have dinner with them and watched a presentation of Pacific Island dances from different Pacific Island nations. It wasn't "hula" since it wasn't Hawaiian, but it had a lot of similar elements which was pretty cool. I'll post some video below. For dinner back at their hotel I got a dinner sausage with grilled onions and fancy spicy mustard, it was really good. It was really fun spending time with them. Timeline is a little fuzzy, but I think this is also the night where I met up Edwards's other cousins (on his mom's side) and their husbands, and his best man and niece's godfather. I really enjoyed his company since he enjoys the nerdier stuff. We had some fun conversations about star wars and videogames. This was also when mskate's sunburn started to set in (because she has very fair skin and we forgot to put on sunscreen), so we bought some aloe from the grocery store and applied it multiple times while we were there.

One more thing, Toonami on Adult Swim. I've been watching it since it came back when I was in college, but I can't really watch it now that I have a normal time job and can't stay up past midnight on Saturdays. Well, Hawaii doesn't have it's own feed and coincidentally uses the east coast feed. I was able to watch toonami at 8PM, watching One Piece and Naruto Shippuden as they air instead of on DVR. It was pretty weird having nick at night and adult swim play so early in the day, but whatever works for me.

OK, now it's wedding day. We woke up early and went to church at 6AM (because mass is at 6AM and 8AM). It was a church that was right on the beach. We took a "back route" to the church and saw some "inner city" bits of Waikiki. It was a little uncomfortable since we're used to "big city dangers" and it was 5:30AM when there were very few people on the street, but we made it to mass without any problem. It was pretty cool because I got to hear a wild rooster crow (which I recorded for my audio library), and got close to a bunch of birds. The wild thing is the wild birds aren't scared of humans, just aware that "I should get out of the way of the titan that's getting too close to me." Mass was pretty standard, but there were some Hawaiian twists. First off, the priest received leis before mass and gave mass wearing them, and one of the prayers he said in Hawaiian. After mass we went to a Starbucks where I got a local pastry (it was a pineapple cake with a pineapple jelly thing). We saw they had that at another Starbucks and I wanted to try it for breakfast. It was good, definitely recommend it if you go to Hawaii. We walked around the city before heading back to the hotel and wait for the wedding.

We met up at their hotel since they have a wedding chapel venue thing and were having the wedding there. The dress code was island shirts, so it was when I wore my Tommy Bahama outfit. There was a lot of uncertainty on if I should record the ceremony or not (cousin was into it but the venue said "no pictures," godfather said it would be OK but he was making assumptions like us). I turned off the sounds on my camera and stealthfully took video, hopefully it turned out well because I was filming off the hip and didn't have the view finder angled toward me. It was a short but good ceremony. Niece was the flower girl, and being 2 she didn't fully understand what she had to do; she kind of walked some, stopped, grabbed a handful of petals and threw them on the ground, and then got confused of what to do next. The venue was very pretty, as is everything in Hawaii. I swear, everything is a screen saver in Hawaii. After the ceremony we got pictures with the bride and groom. One thing they did was give everyone leis for some pictures. I survived 2 pictures before my allergies took over and said "you can't wear this anymore." We were about to take the third then I had to take it off and run off to get some air. The cousins were a little concerned since it was a bit of a scene, but I assured them "it's just how I get with flowers, 30 more seconds and the allergens will have left my system." Once it left my system I was all good. 2/3 group photos with the leis, and mskate doubled up. For family privacy I can't share them here, but let me just say that they look amazing because the entire island is a screen saver.

After all the photos we had lunch at the hotel restaurant. This is also when people gave speeches, and I was there to video them. As we were waiting for the food niece was getting bored and was running around the table while one of her aunts chased her. I started joining in by reaching my arm out, pulling her in and tickling her. She started slowing down when she got close to me because I was playing too. The meal was...something. It was a 5 course meal; tomato bisque, seared scallop, some kind of fish, beef tenderloin, and an assortment of deserts (a macaroon, a flawn, a moose tart thing, and some other stuff). It was very "Michelin star" in both presentation and portion size. I didn't like the seafood, but I did like the tomato soup, beef, and desert. Mskate had my seafood. I also got a picture of my aunt and Edwards with me and a "big cousin hand-me-down" tie (because her sons are an average 8 years older than us, she'd send hand-me-down clothes to us and it was such a fun thing to wear the hand-me-downs when we saw them to see if they'd remember, close to 20 years later they had forgotten but I didn't). There wasn't much else from that day. Mskate and I swam in our pool, bought her new crocks, walked the beach some, and had our coffee pot food. We put our leis on the Olympian surfer statue since she is a big Olympics fan and it's a tradition to put the lei on a statue when you're done with it. His statue was like the most decorated one by the way.

This is the statue we put our leis on.


Our drinks from the wedding.

Before getting to Monday morning, another TV thing. Ever since I was in college I've watched Animation Domination on FOX, and have been doing that for about 13 years now. As I said in the Toonami part, Hawaii doesn't really have a "local time zone" feed, so their 10 o'clock news airs at 4PM, and animation domination starts at 2PM. Also, the current season is over so it's either reruns or sports events, so it's not like I was going to miss much if anything if I couldn't see it. This week was one of those "sports Sundays" and the local FOX affiliate wasn't showing any cartoons. That's the end of it, no FOX cartoons for me this week, right? Well not quite, sling allows me to watch like 8 different FOX affiliates with my subscription, so I'm scrolling through the FOX affiliates until I found like FOX Albuquerque that had Grimsberg at "9:30PM affiliate local time, 3:30PM Hawaiian time." To most people this wouldn't be a big deal, but I'm kind of a fan of broadcast television so oddities like this fascinate me.

Now it's Monday, the day where we were going to go to the Disney Aulani resort for a character breakfast. Mskate REALLY wanted to do this because she loves Disney parks and resorts. We were going to do this regardless of who wanted to go because she wanted pictures with the characters in their island outfits, get autographs on the surf board cutting board we bought, and eat the gourmet food. Because Edwards has a 2 year old we figured we'd see if they wanted to come. They wanted to come and boy did they get their money's worth. But first, how to get there. For people that don't need car seats it's easy (get an uber), and for people that need a car seat that typically just means "put the car seat you're traveling with in the uber." Well when the child is from a major city where's it's all public transit and car seats are unnecessary, that complicates things a little. Edwards did some research and found that uber requires car seats because they're private vehicles but taxis don't because they're commercial, so the plan is "get a taxi." Mskate found a "car sharing daily rental of consumer cars" thing (basically uber but you're the driver) that seemed like a great deal ($35-55 for 8 hours with the option to get a car seat for an additional $10); it would give us the opportunity to drive to the resort and then anywhere else, so we made a plan to go to the Dole plantation and a Chuck E Cheese since we have a summer pass and would want to see what kind of games and prizes they had, and if there were any special Hawaii menu items (because that sometimes happens), and to avoid parking fees we were just going to stay out the entire time of the rental (3 hours at Disney, 2 hours at Dole, 1 hour at CEC, 2 hours or so driving, give or take to get home in time). Cousins would only go to the breakfast with us and then we would do the rest of the day ourselves Unfortunately that was "the base price" and didn't include the gas fee, insurance fee, convienence fee, and everything else that would make the rental like $300, so we went with "taxi there, uber back" (because mskate and I were going to spend more time at the resort). The ride there was a little eventful, because niece gets car sick and this was no exception. I also brought my trading pins in case they did pin trading (because everywhere in Disney World does pin trading). They didn't have it here but I did let my cousin get any pin he wanted since I was just going to trade them away anyway. I did take some video of the landscape as we were driving and my cousin asked if I video everything. I said yes because when I'm old and likely losing my memory I want to be able to remember. I didn't mention that it's also because I like taking creative commons stock footage though. By the way, did I mention that this entire island is a screen saver?

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When we got to the hotel I went to the front desk to see if I could get some celebration buttons (just married for the married couple, happy birthday for me, and first visit for niece). They were only supposed to give the to guests but I was charismatic enough that the front desk lady gave me them anyway. Mskate also got a first visit button since everyone else got a button. Things got really magical when we checked in. At Aulani for the character breakfast, you check in and get a ticket to meet Micky Mouse before the breakfast. Niece is a fan of classic Disney and likes Micky and Minnie, so she REALLY liked meeting Micky. She walked up to him not really sure what to make of it, and then realized it was Micky Mouse and gave him a kiss on the nose. We got some great photos and video of it, and then we got group photos and autographs on the surf boards, I did my Micky Mouse impression and got the "haha, love it" hand gestures, and the whole thing was like 10 minutes since we were the only people in line. Wife was so impressed with this because in Tokyo Disney parks the character lines are super long and all you can do is get a quick hug and photo (no autographs). After Micky we went to the waiting benches where the characters walk in and out and waited for our table. Pluto came through and niece went to give him a high five, but he bent down to give her a hug and that startled her and she ran to her mom. Pluto then sulked as he walked away.

Now it's time for our breakfast, our name was called and we get escorted in where we meet Goofy. He was dressed as a chef which was fun. He signed our surfboards, took pictures, and liked my Goofy impression. Our table was also in great view of Goofy so niece was able to watch him as people came in, and he did some other fun things when people weren't coming in. At one point he started drumming with a whisk and wooden spoon and encouraged niece to join in. When she did Edwards and wife had to say "now this is something you only do here." I had a Hawaiian Moco Loco, which is basically a thick burger patty on a bed of rice with an egg on it. It was REALLY good, and a malasada (a donut type thing) which was also really good. We had Pluto and Max Goof join us as they walked around. We got our pictures and autographs, and it was even more fun. There was also a ukulele player that was doing live performances walking around singing different songs. It was a great meal. After breakfast we walked around the resort some and saw Minnie Mouse with the resort guests. Since we weren't staying there we weren't able to get our picture with her, and niece was a little disappointed. She walked up to the ropes and were yelling "hi Minnie." The characters don't acknowledge people who aren't "their current customer," so she didn't get a wave or anything like that. Oh well it was still magical to see everyone. Once we got to the beach we split up to do our own things; them go back to the hotel and us still walking around. I did get a video of them saying hello to Grandpa and Aunt back home, which is going to warm their hearts.

Mskate and I walked down to the beach which was public where we looked for shells. Unfortunately for mskate, no shells, but it was pretty cool because they had big wave breakers to make it a lagoon and stop the surf from being big like at the other beach where we saw surfers. We also walked around some other parts of the public beach area and the grass was putting green grass. Like, it looked artificial but it was real. There were also some great palm trees. This place is a screen saver. We walked around the Disney pools and got shaved ice in the shape of Micky's head (cherry, blue raspberry, and pineapple). While we were eating our shaved ice we saw Goofy by the pool and he was signing some oar paddles. We weren't the only people that thought "let's have them sign something else." When we got too hot we went into the hotel and just sat at one of the chairs and ate our shaved ice. With our treat done we went to the gift shops to do some shopping. Mskate wanted a Olu stuffed animal (the mascot of the hotel), so we got a big one for her and a small one for my grandma and IRA (because they both like Disney stuffed animals). I got a 2024 Hawaii pin. I also found the medallions and got a full set. I wanted to get smashed pennies but unfortunately the hotel doesn't do them (despite employees saying "we've been suggesting that for years"). When we were done we ubered back to our hotel and our driver happened to be a Disney musician for the shows there. If I was more prepared I would have seen if he would be up for an interview, but I wasn't prepared so that didn't happen. Oh well, still cool.




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After the Disney hotel we were slowing down on things to do. The rest of the family did a Luau that evening but it was going to be really expensive and there wouldn't be much on the menu for us, and it was the last full day on the island so we had to start doing some packing. We did do 1 last big like thing, and that was getting dinner at the Tommy Bahama restaurant. Since my father-in-law spent so much on our different clothes he got vouchers for a free appetizer or desert at any of the restaurants. Since we were in a location where they had a restaurant we decided to have dinner there using a coupon. Earlier that morning before the breakfast we walked to the Tommy Bahama restaurant to see how far it was from the hotel, and explore another part of the city where we saw a unique McDonalds. It wasn't that far away so we decided to go there for dinner. Mskate was kind of tired and not fully up for it, but I said "it's now or never, we don't have any of these restaurants anywhere near us or anywhere we plan on traveling before they expire," and that convinced her. I had the ribs entre and she had the poke appetizer, which was enough for a meal. It basically made the meal 33% off, which was great. Because it's a tropical paradise the windows were wide open without screens, so we had some birds fly in. I tried to get some video of the bird on the ledge right next to our table, but it was camera shy.


Of course Pokematic had to get a picture with the Pokebar.

Tuesday is our final day on the island. We finished packing up all our stuff and got ready for when we had to check out. Before we did the checkout we went to our family's hotel and had breakfast with my aunt and uncle. It was a breakfast buffet and I filled up to be ready for the flight home. I had bacon, pickled vegetables and rice, breakfast potatoes, a small waffle, and an omelet with breakfast tea and a glass of pineapple juice. I filled up really well and only needed a side of onion rings later in the day. I had 2 ciders left and gave them to my aunt. I said "feel free to share them" and she said "oh no I love ciders, I'm keeping both of these," and since they were staying some more days we gave them the other Tommy Bahama coupon since we weren't going to be able to use it. Hopefully they enjoyed both of them. Also when I went to the bathroom there was a very pretty rainbow on the beach and everyone was taking pictures. Hawaii is so pretty.

After breakfast Edwards invited us up to their hotel room to say goodbye one last time and give us another present, a jar of macha milk jam. We'll have to try that soon, the pokemon cards and seaweed were specifically requested, this was a surprise. I tried to get niece to say "hi grandpa" to the camera, but she was being shy and done with people. We went back to our hotel and watched Disney channel until it was time to leave. We watched Bluey and Kiff (and I added Kiff to my disney plus watch list, another cartoon to watch before work). There was also a bible study thing that happened on the pool deck with some worship songs played on the ukulele. I sat on my balcony and joined in where I could. Since we were kind of full and didn't eat in the room as often as we expected, we left a lot of our food behind for the maids, along with the pineapple juice we bought for the diabetes lows that didn't happen and the rest of the aloe lotion that was more than 3 ounces. Hopefully the maids appreciated it. We ubered to the airport right after checkout. It was like 3 hours early but we weren't doing anything else and figured we might as well hang out in the terminal since it's not that different from hanging out in the hotel room. Here's the final bit of stock footage I took.

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Getting through security was interesting. Before we could go in we had to have our bags scanned for customs and natural materials. Like, I guess there are plants that can't be brought back to the mainland. One of our bags got the "inspected and safe" sticker tag, which I like and am planning to keep on there. TSA was kind of busy, we waited in line for maybe an hour so because the line was so long, and since the airport was under construction finding TSA wasn't exactly easy (like, we had to go around different temporary walls). We were happy we went so early because then there was no worry about getting stuck in TSA and missing our flight. The TSA agent in our line was "very stereotypical, grouchy, I hate my job" kind of guy, so thankfully we didn't have to interact with him much. Getting through wasn't a big deal though. Once we got through TSA I went to the duty free store to see if I could find Hawaiian alcohol to take home. I wanted to get a little bottle of Hawaiian vodka in a cute little ball bottle, but unfortunately the duty free store is only for international travelers. Lame. After that we went to the cultural garden. I'll just let the video speak for itself.

After the garden we went to our gate and got situated, with like an hour left before the plane started boarding. Mskate was content to just hang out at the gate, but I wanted to walk around the terminal. It was pretty cool, most airports have gates separated by a tunnel or something along that line, and this one had some gates separated by an open air walking bridge. Like, there was a ledge and outside was the airplanes. Here's some video.

As I mentioned earlier, I got a side of onion rings from burger king for lunch, I just wanted a little something and I had a gift card. I also found a store that was selling pokemon toys, so I got one. It was a mystery toy in a pokeball, so I bought it and stuck it in my cargo shorts pocket. Now's about as good of a time as any to talk about the Hawaiian bathroom signs at the airport and I think in some other places; the man and woman icons have Hawaiian print shirts and dresses. So cool.

The gate was interesting, because it was in a climate controlled room that required going through sliding doors. When we got on the plane we got all situated ready for the next 8 hours. This was a jumbo jet, like the kind with 7 people per row with 2 aisles that does the cross atlantic flights. We had the 2 seats on the end of the row. The safety video was interesting, because instead of showing plane seats for the demonstrations people were sitting on wooden chairs in like an island environment, pretty weird but creative for "tropical island flight." Because it was an 8 hour flight we were fed by the airplane. Mskate got the gluten free option and I got the child option (because the kid's meal would have been something I liked). Since we were special orders, we got ours first. It was surprisingly good, not super high quality but passable. My meal was mostaccioli and also came with a small sleeve of oreo cookies (like 5 or 6), a roll, and a side of vegitables (carrots and celery). I saved the veggies to add to soup stock when I got home. Mskate got meatballs and a salad, and she liked it too. I watched Game Changers, a documentary about game show hosts, and Butterfly in the Sky, a documentary about Reading Rainbow. Those were the only movies I watched because we were going to try to sleep on the plane. I brought one of my sleep masks and it worked pretty well. I did have to kind of crawl into my chair because sleeping sitting up was hurting my butt, but mskate and I put up our arm rest and kind of snuggled. About 6 hours later we got breakfast. I had some kind of ham on toast sandwich and mskate had an egg sandwich. Mine was OK but not that great, I ate about 2/3 of it, but mskate's was not good and she didn't eat much of any of it. I'm glad we had snacks because we ate a number of those to supplement the breakfast. There was about 40 minutes left in the flight so I just looked out the window and enjoyed the sunrise. Enjoy the different video that I took.

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When we got back home it was like 6AM. The drive back was pretty uneventful, but we were very tired and the parking garage gate wasn't exactly working, so that was a frustration. We got home and we basically went right to bed. I slept for about 4 more hours, and then spent the rest of the day getting back to normal schedule. I spent time writing this blog, unpacking, and relaxing. Mskate and I went to chuck e cheese since we have the summer pass. Thursday was another day at home. We organized our souveniers and did some more unpacking. We also went to see Inside Out 2, which will get a review soon if it's not uploaded by the time I post the blog, and we went to chuck e cheese again after the movie.

Before I finish the blog, I just want to talk about some miscilaneous stuff that didn't exactly fit into specific events. First off, the birds are like REALLY friendly. I guess there aren't a lot of predators on the islands which cause them to be very afraid of people. Pigeons, sparrows, doves, and wild chickens, they would move out of the way if you got within 2 feet of them because you're like 100+ times their size, but it wasn't like with mainland birds where they fly away if you get within 10 feet of them, or get really aggressive like geese or turkeys if you get too close. It was pretty cool and I got some bird sounds for my audio library. Second, the surf culture is real. Like, I kind of assumed "everyone surfs in Hawaii, it's all about surfing" as a stereotype, but like 5% of the pedestrians were carrying a surfboard, the public beaches and hotels had places where you could lock up your surfboard and they were all filled, and if you look out into the ocean there were always a bunch of people out catching waves. If I had the time I would have liked to take a surf lesson because it seems cool and I remember always trying to surf on my friend's boogie board in lakes without much success (because those waves weren't very big), but we didn't have the time so I didn't do it. Hopefully in the future but not this time. Third, there is a sizable homeless population. I guess that just happens in all major American cities, but it is interesting. Thankfully they weren't aggressive panhandlers like in New York or San Diego, some had signs but most just kept to themselves. There was one guy with a sign that said "need money 4 weed," which got a chuckle. Fourth, the cross walks in some areas are really weird. Like the way I learned traffic safety as a kid is to cross the street parallel to traffic, if the light is green then you cross the street. In some parts of Waikiki it's "1 flow of vehicles goes, the other flow of vehicles goes, all pedestrians go in any direction." It was weird and I wish I took some video of it, but whenever we at that kind of intersection we had to cross. Fifth, everything is like dual language English and Japanese. I guess since Hawaii is halfway between Japan and the continental 48 it's a very popular place for Japanese tourists to go or Japanese immigrants to settle. This came in handy for the Japanese people in the wedding because there were times where they would talk to the employees of different places in Japanese without any "second language" barriers.

An example of "both English and Japanese"

Now for 2 things that I don't remember where they happened in the trip, but know they happened because of the souvenirs. First, at some point we got some custom ornaments. We got a 2024 Hawaii ornament with our names on pineapples, and we got Delilah a dog ornament. There was also a day where I got SPAM sushi. It was a piece of SPAM on a ball of rice with a sushi seaweed wrap. They were selling them at the ABC stores and there was also a Micky Mouse version at the Disney hotel. Also, the jet lag wasn't that bad. I'm sure part of that was because we only shifted our schedules by like 3 hours instead of 6, but it wasn't that bad to get back on track. Overall great trip. REALLY glad we went. Well this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.


Now just some random pictures.
The pool view from our hotel room. It says "come be here," and I thought it said "come better."

Here's a pictures of a friendly bird

Here are some scenery photos
     
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
 

Monday, September 9, 2024

Pokematic's Frankenmuth Labor Day Weekend Getaway

Hey everyone. It's Labor Day in the US and mskate and I decided to have a little get away to Frankenmuth Michigan. I used to go there all the time with my grandparents (both of them) and we went there for a little honeymoon the days after we got married. It's a fun little German community that has the largest Christmas store in the world (or something like that, Bronner's is huge) and 2 indoor water park resort things, and of course, the 2 chicken dinner restaurants Bavarian Inn and Zender's. When I was a kid the big thing was going to the Bavarian Inn Lodge (one of the resorts) and swimming in the pools, playing mini-golf, and enjoying the arcade, and for dinner going to the Bavarian Inn restaurant in the Grimm Brother's dining room for the chicken dinner (or grilled cheese for me) and watching the glockenspiel tell the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamlin. We'd also go to the castle shops in the basement of the Bavarian Inn and go to Bronner's at night to see the light show. Sometimes we would replace the Bavarian Inn Lodge with the Bavarian Inn Haus, which was a cheaper hotel that just had a normal pool and some arcade games, but the fun place was the Lodge. That did change when Zender's bought the hotel and put in an indoor water pack and called it "Zender's Splash Villiage," and we went there 2 or 3 times and it was really fun. We also occasionally replaced the Bavarian Inn with Zender's, which would also have chicken dinners (and kids menus for me) and gift shops in the basement, but it didn't have the glockenspiel show. That was mostly with my maternal grandparents, with my paternal grandparents it was primarily a day trip where we would go to the river place and play at the Bee Bee Arcade, and then have dinner at the Bavarian Inn in the Piper Alcove private room, and when they had wedding anniversary parties it would be at the big party room in the basement of Zender's. Despite being such a "large" small tourist city with lots of attractions, that was basically all we ever did though. When mskate and I went there for our wedding getaway we would have done a lot of other things, but it was still covid so we weren't able to do a whole lot and stayed in an airBNB that was just outside the city.

Anyway, this time we were going to do things a little differently, see a different side of Frankenmuth. Unlike all previous trips, we were going to stay at the Marv Herzog hotel in down town Frankenmuth (the big hotels are kind of outside the main city just due to how big they are), and we were going to explore a lot of the downtown shopping available. One of the main things we wanted to do was buy things for a raffle basket for our church's Octoberfest, doing a Frankenmuth themed basket with things from Bavarian Inn, Zender's, and other places like Cheese Haus and Kerns. Another thing we had to do was take the coocoo clock we "inherited" from my grandma (she's still alive but in memory care and we're cleaning out her house) to the clock repair shop since I know the hands didn't work properly and probably had some other problems (it's the same place they would take it to get repaired). We left mid-morning on Sunday, a little later than we would have wanted (because I stayed up late playing Lego Pirates of the Caribbean due to it being the last day to play on Luna with Prime Gaming), but still made it up in good time. We got up around noon and wanted to eat at the Bavarian Inn, and tried to find parking but since it was Labor Day weekend the place was packed, so we instead went to our hotel. It was before our room was ready but they let us park in the underground parking. I'll get to the details of the Marv Herzog hotel and why it's so interesting when we get our room, for now I'll just say that it's a 38 room hotel and the underground parking structure is like 1 level with multiple but not many parking spots under the hotel, that wasn't very good for our large vehicle.

Now the time is "a little after 12 noon," meaning the 12PM Bavarian Inn Glockenspiel Show has already started. The Marv Herzog hotel is in downtown Frankenmuth, but kind of on the opposite side of where the Bavarian Inn is. I knew it was a long shot, but I wanted to at least try to make part of the 12PM show. Unfortunately for me mskate and I just missed it and they started the German telling of the tale, which is just saying the tale in German, no figures coming out. It wasn't that bad though, there were still 3 other shows that day (3PM, 6PM, and 9PM) and I just need to see it once as part of my tradition (for which I'll give more details later). Seeing that we missed the show we just went to lunch at the restaurant. Even for it being a crowded holiday weekend we were seated really quickly, like I don't think we had to wait at all. We ended up sitting under the Cinderella mural. Mskate had a gluten free chicken lunch with mashed potatoes and ice cream as a substituted side, and I had a bratwurst and sauerkraut lunch with French fries. While we waited we had the special restaurant bread, mskate had gluten free white bread and I had the white bread and fruit bread called stolen bread. I had 3 pieces of each type of bread, and then got some more that we saved for later. I ended up taking the bread and some of my fries home, and mskate took some of her chicken home.

After lunch it was time for shopping. First things first, we're at the Bavarian Inn so we went to the castle shops in the basement. When I was a kid they had a console TV with couches and chairs around it for people to wait (probably men waiting for their wives to finish shopping in my guess, it was always a sports game after all, lol). Times change but they still have the couches and chairs just it's around a flat screen TV (that was showing a sports thing). We didn't watch it, I just wanted to say they still do that. We went to the candy store since it is like the first place, I got a DBZ candy tin and mskate got harry potter fruit snacks, nothing for our church basket though. We passed by the toy store since while we like toys and games and going to toy stores we didn't need to shop there right now. We went to the "everything gift store" looking for Frankenmuth branded things, and while we found some cool stuff it wasn't "quite right, maybe later but not now." We went to the bakery and found some good things; egg noodles like what they serve in the restaurant, chicken seasoning like what they have in the restaurant, pretzel mix, and spicy German mustard that's packaged in a beer mug style jar, all Bavarian Inn branded. We then started on our way back to the hotel with plans to do some shopping as we wait for the hotel to be ready. We went to a gift shop called "Frank's Muth" (obvious name is obvious) to see if there were any good things to put in the basket, but there wasn't (we almost bought "Franks mix" popcorn but that was too expensive, and probably wouldn't have kept that well). We also went to the Frankenmuth Historical museum gift shop but still nothing. Oh well.

Before we went to the hotel we went to the Cheese Haus, a large cheese store. This is a very iconic store, one with a large mouse inside a wedge of cheese as a statue. It sells like every kind of cheese, including their own special flavor of cheddar (which they had out for samples, and it was good), and chocolate cheese. It supposedly is good, but I'm not brave enough to try it. By the location to buy the cheese they also have a cheese fridge with glass windows where we could see the cheddar they were aging (they had some that was over 10 and 15 years old) and cheese sculptures. They also have "cheese accessories" like crackers and wine for sale, and candy and accessories. We got a wedge of Frankenmuth cheddar for ourselves and a Cheese Haus magnet/coaster for the basket. As we were leaving the store we saw the Cheese Haus figurinespiel, a show where they have carved characters come out of the tower of the store and talk about the cheeses from around the world. It was pretty cool, and I'm surprised I never knew about it until now given how much I liked the Bavarian Inn glockenspiel (I vaguely remember seeing it when driving past the store, but never actually watching it). There are 3 very plausible theories about why I first saw it when I was 31 instead of any of the other 26 years between now and when I first went to Frankenmuth; first is that it's a new show and wasn't around when I was 5-12 when the Bavarian Inn glockenspiel was "the biggest thing" to me (a sign suggests it was installed in 2018, and I couldn't find any information online of when it was installed), second is that we never really went to the cheese haus when I was a kid and therefore didn't know about it (we basically went to Bavarian Inn or Zender's, the big resort hotels we were staying at, and Broner's, and never really made it up that way), or my grandparents were so busy and burnt out with satisfying my desire to see go to the Bavarian Inn show and scheduling everything around seeing it that they didn't want to throw in another show to obsess over (Bavarian Inn is 9AM, 12PM, 3PM, 6PM, and 9PM, Cheese Haus is 9AM, 11AM, 2PM, 5PM, and 8PM). When I sent pictures and videos to my parents my mom said "this is the first I'm hearing about this show, I need to see it next time I go there."

It's now 2PM and our room was supposed to be ready at 3, but we figured we'd try anyway (we needed to drop off our purchases and it could be in the room or in the car). We got lucky and our room was ready early, so we checked in, got our room, and unloaded our purchases. This was good because we needed to keep the cheese and left overs cold and the hotel room had a refrigerator. Now that the food was in the fridge we went to Bronner's. Mskate REALLY likes Christmas and Christmas decorating, so this is like her favorite store. For those who don't know, it's basically all that Christmas has to offer, if they don't have it it probably doesn't exist. The place is sectioned into different areas for every category (artificial trees, tree lights, flags, ornaments by color, ornaments by country, ornaments by profession, ornaments by hobby, ornaments by pet, ornaments by occasion such as anniversary and baby and birthday, religious ornaments, ornaments meant for personalization, Christmas stockings some for personalization, Christmas tree skirts, sports team themed decorations, nativities, Christmas village pieces, precious moments figures, santa costumes, and so much more), so big that there are 3 different entrances. We had some things we needed to get; a little tree for my grandma in her new memory care apartment, an Octoberfest ornament for our church basket, and then see what other things would be good for people. We found a great 2 foot pre-lit tree for her, perfect for the few super special ornaments she'll have at her small apartment. We also found a good Octoberfest ornament in the Germany section of the ornaments. We wanted to find some Bavarian people in the personalization section so we could say "[church name] Octoberfest 2024" but we couldn't find it so we just got a beer stein that said "Octoberfest." We also found some ornaments for friends and family. When we made it to the back we explored the Hummel figure and Precious Moments figure collection. It was pretty cool, and the employee there was able to tell us some more about the figures and show us how they had some molds for the precious moments. It was pretty cool having someone who was into it. After that we checked out and then went onto the next thing.


I'm not exactly sure if this was "the exact next thing," but at some point mskate and I drove up past where our hotel was and went to the Rite Aid that was closing down (because the entire chain of pharmacies are bankrupt and closing down, and everything is on major clearance). We've found that mskate really likes the knock off pedialite electrolyte drink, and when it's so discounted it works so well to stock up on. It's also a good opportunity to pick up on stuff to donate; at some other rite aids I picked up a bunch of baby and toddler things for baby drives, and mskate found some things that she really likes and wanted to give to a parent in need, and I found a can of chili and beans that is great to give to people on the side of the road. Then we found some "purse antacids" (little rolls of them), which we needed since they're good to have in case you need them. We saved like $100 on the discounts on things that we'll use in the coming months or give away to different supply drives. Yay. After the Rite Aid we drove up even farther to see the Bavarian McDonalds that's up in the north part of town. I don't think there's anything super special about it, they just have some Bavarian architecture and a clock tower.

With everything unpacked we relaxed in the room for a little while, and then at 5PM we went down to the evening happy hour. This is when I was able to really explore the hotel. The Marv Herzog hotel is one of the original hotels in Frankenmuth, and that kind of shows with how there are only 38 rooms in the building, and even though it's definitely been renovated since then, it still feels old, particularly with all the rooms having small balconies. The hotel is also kind of themed after the founder, Marv Herzog. He's a famous accordion player and has one of his accordions on display with some other music accessories along with him celebrating Octoberfest and some other cool stuff, and in the convenience shop they had his music on CDs and cassette tape (yeah, cassette tape, some polka loving hipster is going to be super happy when he goes to the Marv Herzog hotel), and in our room there was a little history thing. For those who know the Drurry Inn, Marv was friends with the founder and they implemented a lot of similar things, most notably the happy hour snack times with 2 free alcoholic drinks and food. Drurry Inn typically gives you "real food" like baked potatoes and chicken, but Marv Herzog only offered cheese and crackers with summer sausage and pretzels. I ended up having enough cheese and summer sausage to have something close to a meal with my glass of wine. Mskate and I enjoyed our psudo-meal on the back patio as we overlooked the river. We saw 3 boats as we sat out there, one of which was the paddle boat tour along the river, and the other 2 were smaller things. It was a good little thing.

With dinner done mskate and I went out to do more shopping. We went to a fudge store that had gluten free fudge for mskate. We were going to get 2 things of fudge, but then saw it was buy 3 get 1 free, so we got a piece for each of our parents. I got Michigan pothole flavor, mskate got birthday cake flavor, my parents got chocolate and peanut butter, and her parents got mint chocolate chip. It was a pretty cool store, lots of different flavors. I also got some paper hat souvenirs, one for me, one for mskate, one for the basket. We also went to a country store that looked pretty cool, and even though they had lots of neat stuff the only things we got were a compact mirror for my grandma and a big pickle that can only be found in places like this. For the sake of "event consistency" I'll talk about the other stores we went to, the covered bridge shop and the Zender's basement shops. At the covered bridge shop we found a pocket knife with vikingpolak's name on it (not that, his real name), and we got that for his Christmas present. We went to the Zender's shops and found some seasonings, a vinegarette, and apple cherry butter, all Zender's brand. While in the basement I showed mskate where we had my grandparents anniversary parties, and when we went back up to the main dining room level I showed mskate how they have an old console TV cabinet with a flat pannel TV put in it for guests to watch while waiting. It's a pretty creative way to use the old technology as it has an "old time home feel" but is compatible with modern technology. Here's some video.

OK, now it's time for "what Frankenmuth was to me as a kid," the Bavarian Inn Glockenspiel where they tell the story of the Pied Piper of Hamlin. When I was really little this was easily my favorite thing. It's a show where there are statues that act along with the story as it's being recited, and it's simple enough for a 4-5 year old to follow but not fully understand. I absolutely loved it and wanted to see it as often as I could, with my grandparents building their schedule around seeing the 9AM, 12 PM, 3PM, and 6PM show. One thing that I didn't understand as a small child is that the 2 that were left behind escaped the wrath of the piper, and was sad that they didn't get to be part of the fun, always saying "and 2 were left behind." The funny thing is that the recording is the same it's been for 25+ years, and there's an audio glitch on "disappeared from the city forever." It's just tradition at this point that I watch at least 1 performance. We got there right as the announcer was saying where the figures came from and the bells came from, and how it all works and what the story is. We didn't miss anything. The show was still the same, the piper showed up when Hamlin had the rat infestation and asked for a penny for each rat removed, he charmed the rats and lead them into a river where they drowned, the town was afraid that it was an act of witchcraft and refused to pay, the piper then took revenge by leading the children of the town into a mountain where they disappeared from the city forever, and 2 were left behind. When the 2 that were left behind came out I took a picture and sent it to my family group text as an in joke. If you go you have to see it.

Someone else's video of the full show.


It's now 6:45PM and we're now done with all the shopping for the day and were ready for a calm night. Since we made it back before the end of the happy hour mskate and I each had our second free glass of wine and a couple more snacks and just enjoyed in the room. We just hung out in the room watching some Paralympic coverage and Harry Potter Tournament of Houses episodes on demand. Since the happy hour wasn't "super filling" we had our left overs from lunch (mskate had her chicken, I had my fries and bread, cold since we didn't have any microwave safe dishes, but still good). At about 9PM we went to Bronner's to drive through the light displays. This was something my grandparents would take me to when we stayed over, it's a cool display of snow men, santas, elves, polar bears, nut crackers, and similar Christmas icons, some of which have limited animations like the snowman waving and a flag waving. A lot of the lights are the same things I saw as a kid, which is pretty cool. One of the funny things is if you drive close to the store and roll your window down you can hear the music they're playing. I didn't know they did that, probably because we generally didn't go when it was warm enough to open the windows. After that little outing we went back to the room and turned in for the night.

It's now Monday morning. Mskate and I go down to the lobby and have the continental breakfast. I have one and a half waffles and some breakfast potatoes. There wasn't really much for mskate, so we went across the street to a cafe that has gluten free breakfast sandwiches. It was pretty cool. I want to say the name was like "Coffee Haus," and it had some really cool theming. With sandwich in hand we went down to the shopping district to maybe get some popcorn for the basket, but unfortunately everything opens at 10 or 11AM. That was annoying because it's like 9AM, meaning we had an hour before things started opening up. Oh well, we watched the Cheese Haus Figurinespiel, which was fun. Afterwards we walked up past our hotel and looked at what else was there. We saw some little stores that had apartments above them, so the owners probably lived above the stores. We also walked past the record store, which is only open for like 3 hours on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. It was in what looked to be an old courthouse or something with pillars, so I wonder how they can afford the rent by being open so little. We also walked by the Frankenmuth Brewery, a brewery that seems to have been converted into a restaurant. Might be a place to try out some time. We went back to the hotel and watched some more Tournament of Houses.

Once things opened up we checked out and went to Bronner's one last time, just because we needed to get a tree skirt for the mini tree and to see if there was any good garland that would be good to hang up in grandma's apartment. There wasn't any garland, but we did find a juice box ornament for mskate since she's all about her juice boxes. With that out of the way we went back to town and went to the river place for some end of trip shopping. Unfortunately they weren't open yet, but right across the street was Frankenmuth Clock and German Gift Co and they were open. I took the clock in and asked if they do repairs. I told them what I thought was wrong and the clock repair man had a look and said "your hour hand is just loose and 1 hour off, just a quick little tighten and it should be good to go." He set it 5 till and said "look around for 5 minutes and we'll see if it needs to stay for repair." This is when mskate and I looked around the store. Now I want you to think of "a clock store," a store that sells gravity powered coocoo clocks, battery powered modern clocks, and clock adjacent things like wind up music boxes. This place is that, wall to wall clocks of all varieties, standing cabinets of music boxes and old time German display pieces, and a couple free standing grandfather clocks. It was so cool. The times on the clocks were all incorrect and different so you don't have a giant blare of coocoos going off at the same time, but whatever. 5 minutes passed and our coocoo went off without a hitch. Since there wasn't any "real work" done we weren't charged, so we thanked them and said we'd definitely bring the clock back here when the time comes when it does need to be fixed. Such a cool store and really nice people, highly recommend checking them out.


It's 11PM and The River Place is now open. We checked the directory and these were the places we wanted to go:

  • Zak and Mac's Chocolate Haus
  • Tervis
  • The Stadium
  • River Place Game Room
  • Bead Haven
  • The Michigan Shoppe
  • Sugar High bakery
  • Hello Cats and Dogs
  • La Crepe du Jour 

We also stopped in Extra Virgin Olive Store, Pepper Place, and Popcorn Wagon Frankenmuth. Based on where we entered we went to Sugar High first. They have a wide variety of gluten free stuff which was good for mskate, and she got the last cake pop. It's a pretty cool store, looks really cool and has a wide variety of baked goods. Zak and Mac's Chocolate Haus was pretty close to Sugar High, and I wanted to go there since one time I got a half pound peanut butter cup from there. Unfortunately they didn't have those peanut butter cups anymore, but they had this automatic piano thing that was over 100 years old, and someone put in a quarter and I got to see it in use.


Next on our adventure was Bead Haven, Extra Virgin Olive Store, The Stadium, and River Place Game Room. Bead Haven was just a little thing to look for beads for friends for life friendship bracelets and a friend who's into crafting to see if it would be a good place for her. We didn't find any beads for next year's bracelets, but we do think it would be a good place for our friend who's crafty. Extra Virgin was an impulse, it was across from bead haven and I just wanted to look inside. I tried 2 of their vinegars and they were pretty good. If I knew what to use the flavored vinegars for I would get some, but I'm not sure what they're used for so I didn't get any. We also went to The Michigan Shoppe to see if they had any good Frankenmuth things for the basket, but alas no. Since we were close to the arcade we went there next. When I was a kid the place was huge, many arcade machines and this giant ball thing where you there are many different things to do with these nerf like balls. I don't really know how to describe it, but it was really fun. It's been downsized by a lot, now just some arcade machines, not that far off from what we find at chuck e cheese, and they don't have the Super Mario pinball machine anymore. If it was still a token system or used quarters and I could get like $1 of fun I would have played some games, but it needed a play card and it was kind of expensive so I'm like "I'll pass." When we went to The Stadium that's where things were successful. It's a "nerd game" store, a place that sells board games and trading card games, and some plushies and comic books. The staff was "what you'd expect" from modern nerds (I can say that because I'm just as much one if not more) and I feel like saying that because 2 video game stores by me are staffed by gym bro looking guys. We bought A Goofy Movie the Board Game, mostly just because we like the music and listen to the soundtrack regularly, and it'll make for a good present.

OK now for the fun lunch, a crepe at La Crepe du Jour. They had all sorts of different sweet and savory crepes available, some more hearty than others. I was going to get a pepperoni pizza crepe but then I saw the Bavarian crepe (bratwurst, sauerkraut, and spicy German mustard). I made my order and watched them make some crepes. It was kind of busy so it took 30 minutes for my crepe to be ready. While I waited mskate went to Cherry Republic and Hello Cats and Dogs by herself. It was really fun watching the crepes get made as there's some artistry to how to spread the batter, crack and spread the egg for the savory crepes, flipping, and folding the toppings in. There was an 8 year old boy watching with his dad, and I'm only now realizing that I was looking at me 22 years ago since I loved watching food get made at restaurants. Once mskate did her shopping we just sat down and played on our phones waiting for my name to get called. The crepe was well worth the wait, maybe it's just my German heritage that makes me really like bratwurst with sauerkraut and mustard, but boy oh boy did it taste good. The crepe base was pretty good and I could tell since the edges didn't have much filling, but when I got to the fillings oh man. Highly recommend.

We're now on the way back to the car. We stop in Popcorn Wagon Frankenmuth to see if there's any gourmet popcorn of interest, but there wasn't. I've had it before and it's kind of worth it, but we didn't see anything that looked good this time. We went to the Tervis mug store since we like their mugs and water bottles, making good gifts for my parents since they use their Tervis mugs all the time and end up breaking or losing it just with heavy use (and even if not it's good to have backups). We didn't find anything for my parents, but we did find a water bottle for mskate and a Frankenmuth mug for the basket. It was quite successful. Then before leaving I went to Pepper Place, a hot sauce store. I went in knowing I wouldn't buy any because I need to finish some of my bottles of hot sauce before I buy more, but it was still good to sample since I know I'll be back and ready to buy in the future. Afterwards my mouth was angry at me for eating the hot stuff, and the drive to our next place was a little uncomfortable.

Before heading home we stopped at Kerns, a grocery store on the way in that has a Bavarian guy holding a large sausage. It's like the first thing you see when getting to the main strip of the city (Broner's and Splash Village are kind of outside the city), so I figured it would be worth checking out. Unfortunately it was kind of "just a small grocery store;" boxes of cereal, cans of vegetables, fresh produce, a butcher counter, and the like. I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't that. There is a cool story behind it though, like it's THE original grocery store in the city, operated by the Kerns family for 4 generations, the cashier's great grandpa was the founder. It's a pretty neat story, and a cool quaint grocery, but it's not necessarily "a destination."

We've now done everything in Frankenmuth that we want to on this visit, so we left and looked at things on the way out. There's a funky looking diner and a cool looking mini golf course right outside the city. I have faint memories of going to a diner with my grandparents that might have been that diner, and though I've played a lot of mini-golf over the years I have a memory that is similar to what I can see from the road. No certainty, but on one of our future trips I can see us going there. We went to Birch Run outlet mall right outside Frankenmuth so mskate could go to Lulu Lemon since she loves those clothes and the outlet makes it cheap. The store was kind of crowded so I found a bench outside and just watched youtube on my phone using the store wifi. Since I wanted a little more after my crepe I went to Wendy's and used my reward points and promo tag to get a free small fry and jr frosty, I almost went to Halo Burger since it's right there but they are so slow and I had the Wendy's rewards so everything was free (and I like free). Since mskate hadn't had lunch yet and we needed gas we went to the Pita Pit that's connected to a speedway. Mskate got her pita and I got gas, and after that we just went home. Really fun trip, and it makes for a great little get away that isn't super expensive. Next time we'll try some other things, like maybe that mini golf or diner, possibly staying at one of the resorts. Well this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Oh, and here's ALL the videos since many had difficulty uploading to the blogger server.