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Published: September 4th 2010
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Andy's View
Andy and myself Fattest Nation on Earth
Up bright and early, Reggie and I decided to go for a wander down to the supermarket to buy some essentials. We got five minutes down the road and came to a Huli Huli Chicken stand. Four Hawaiians were standing next to a huge barrel cut in half, flame grilling chicken on it and selling them for $8 a chook. What were we suckers? Of course we bought some car park chicken! Before we set off we asked them how far it was to the supermarket?
"Oh man, that's far. Like a mile, mile and a half!"
We walked away sniggering at the thought that if a mile and a half was far it pretty much explained their weight.
The better part of an hour later we finally arrived at the supermarket. Those Hawaiians had the far thing right, just not quite the actual distance.
The supermarket was such a great American experience - especially the cereal aisle. The amount of boxes full of sugar and passed off as cereal was mind boggling. I particularly liked the packaging on the Apple Jacks, proudly proclaiming "Now contains fibre!" We got a box of Reese's Puffs (aka peanut butter
chocolate) and Lucky Charms (aka sugar and marshmallows).
The cab on the way home was great until, just opposite the Huli Huli chicken stand, it broke down!
"This happens from time to time. The engine just needs five minutes," we were reassured. All the time huh? Man, too bad if your livelihood depended on your car
not breaking down.
Still, next to a huge stretch of Hawaiian beach isn't the worst place in the world to break down. We were home within 10.
Fire!
An afternoon of relaxing at the pool was made more interesting by what looked like clouds of smoke coming from over the road. Matty Ray and I decided to go down for a look. By the time we were walking down the steps to the road it was abundantly clear that a fire had broken out really close. The smoke was so thick you couldn't see the ocean only metres away. We went in for a closer look and saw a wall of flames in the brush between the ocean and the road. I couldn't believe it - a fire and I'd left my camera at the pool. I turned and bolted.
I got half
way to the pool, had a breathless introduction to Jamie's oldest sister Angie (I was wearing boardies, had a beer in one of my pockets and was running to get a camera because there was a fire - great first impression) and was back in record time!
I cruised around, snapping away and feeling quite the intrepid international journalist. A firey was running a huge length of hose over to the nearest hydrant. I started getting photos of him at work when another bystander ran over and helped him out. At that point I stopped feeling like an intrepid journalist and started instead to feel like a sleazy tourist.
I asked the police about it and they said it was probably just a brush fire.
First Night on the Town
A pre-dinner bowl of Lucky Charms left me shaking and a little upset. My body was not impressed with whatever it was I had just put in it. We then headed down to Jamie and Andy's for a slightly healthier meal of brats (bratwurst) and hamburgers. There we met TJ, Andy's best mate in America, and his girlfriend Jenny.
With a few drinks in us, we decided we should
get off-campus for the night, so we ordered some cabs and headed to a bar called Oceans. From there we went down the road a little further to another bar called "Life's A Beach" where they had karaoke. Though any karaoke is immediately hilarious and awesome, a couple of stand outs were the girl really going for it with Bjork's "It's Oh So Quiet" and the guy who got on stage, wrapped the microphone cord around his arm like a tourniquet two or three times and proceeded to belt out Slipknott's "Sulfur".
I recorded a guy singing Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" for the benefit of the Northern English waitress and then got up myself and gave a truly heart wrenching version of INXS's "Never Tear Us Apart" for Michael and his belt.
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