Baker’s Hours

It’s been a particularly busy couple of weeks for me. After coming back from Blog World, I went straight into getting ready for the [re]Think Hawaii and Tedx Honolulu Conferences. Although I enjoyed the sessions and networking, I approached the end of the week slightly brain fried. Thankfully, I had just the thing lined up for the weekend.

Prior to [re]Think I was fortunate enough to be invited to an “Unplugged” weekend at the newly renovated Hotel Molokai by Aqua Hotel’s Director of Internet Strategy, Amber Watt (@Tiabla on twitter). Apparently Aqua had just arranged a Sales and Marketing agreement with Hotel Moloka’i, and part of their strategy to publicize the hotel on the internet was to invite a group of bloggers and then tell them that they are not allowed to connect to the internet. As an incentive to obeying the no internet rule (Even though broadband internet is available in every room. Talk about cruel and unusual punishment!), is that anyone caught breaking the rule must donate $100 to a local charity of their choice. Sounds like a counter productive idea, but it makes a lot of sense in a warped thinking kind of way.

While hanging out with my Travel blogger friend, Pam Mandel (@Nerdseyeview on twitter) last week, she posed an interesting question. “When did it become standard practice to carry around 10 lbs. of electronic equipment with us whenever we travel?” I had never thought of it before, but it’s true. When I went to Las Vegas for Blog World, I packed into my carry-on my MacBook, SLR camera, point-and-shoot camera, external flash, four lenses, a cradlepoint router, two battery packs, along with an extension cord, and miscellaneous laptop accessories. We bloggers and social media types are constantly jacked into the web. Whether it be through a desktop computer, laptop, or smart phone; everywhere we go, we are surrounded by wifi connections, broadband internet, and cellular signals. We are constantly sending and receiving cellular calls, text messages, e-mails, and tweets; all of which are multiplied exponentially when we attend any sort of tech or social media conference. For this reason, and this reason alone, an opportunity to unplug on the island of Moloka’i was immensely appealing after a week of conference sessions and networking both in person and on the net.

[re]Think and Tedx ended Thursday night with a rocking karaoke party hosted by Grilled Cornbread LLP at Karaoke Hut on Kapahulu avenue. Thankfully, I had booked an afternoon flight for the next day, so I had the luxury of sleeping in.

Now, I usually don’t like to bog down my blog post with negativity, but the hassle that I had with Island Air was ridiculous. As I walked into the terminal to check in for my flight, I send what should have been my last tweet of the weekend. However, when I got to the check-in desk, they told me that the flight was closed, which prompted me to tweet,

“Checked in 3 minutes, I repeat, 3 FRIGGIN MINUTES late, and Island Air gave away our seats. Island Air, YOU SUCK!!!!!”

I later found out that the airline had given away our seats (@Neenz, @Noe808 and mine) to employees who were commuting home after they finished work. Whether we were 3 minutes late, or arriving just before the plane was about to take off, we as paying customers should not have been bumped for commuting employees. After a good amount of complaining, and the threat of posting an unfavorable review on the internet, I was allowed to board the plane. Unfortunately, Neenz and Noe had to wait for the next flight. So already, my weekend was off to a crappy start. Thankfully, the flight was uneventful, and I thirty minutes later, I was in Molokai. Stepping off of the plane, I was instantly transported back to the summer before my 6th grade year.

This was not my first trip to Moloka’i. From age 12-14, I spent every summer camping out on the east side of Moloka’i, so I was very well acquainted with the island and local culture. It had been 17 years since I had step foot on Moloka’i, and I was happy to see that not much had changed. Amber picked me up from the airport, and I recounted some of my adolescent Moloka’i adventures during the car ride to the hotel (She is encouraging me to write about my time on the Friendly Isle). I made note of the few changes around town as we drove through Kaunakakai. The old video store had since closed and the building it was in replaced by small shops. From the looks of it, the old drive-in where I first discovered mixing Ketchup and Mustard for french fries, had been closed for a while. Less than a block away was the somewhat new looking Moloka’i Burger, and a small strip mall with a pizza parlor.

The thing that most surprised me was that the site of the old Midnight Inn was still vacant. The family who pretty much adopted me during the summer had taken me there several times as a youth. Their son Lani was married to one of the waitresses (whose name unfortunately escapes me, but I do remember them having a daughter named Precious). I think I was 13 (my second summer on Molokai) when the fire that closed the Midnight Inn occurred. I distinctly recall large billowing flames and a thick column of black smoke coming from the restaurant as I looked on from down the street. Amber said that she and others from the unplugged retreat group had toured downtown (which consists of only two blocks) earlier that day and noticed the burnt out building.

Amber and I arrived at the hotel, and fellow unplugged retreat attendees, Kaeo, Jill, and Ray (@KaeoKepani, @Eiko, and @Zenxacred) were there to greet me. It was then that they explained their brilliant activity, which they dubbed Twitter Rehab, that they devised to satisfy our tweeting urges (More on this later). I checked into my room and was pleasantly surprised to decor equal if not better to what you would find in any other three star hotel. Awaiting me in my room was a gift bag with assorted local goodies and information on the different activities available on the island.

The entire hotel is made up of a group of converted A-Frames. My room was in a section that connected two A-Frames, which was rather odd since it meant that one of my walls was slanted. With the exception of my one slanted wall, my room was very much to my liking. It had a king sized bed, walk in closet, a balcony overlooking the courtyard, and a kitchenette with small refrigerator, two burner electric stove, toaster, coffee maker and even stocked cupboards with plates, cups, wine glasses, knives, and utensils. I was very impressed. The only suggestion I would have for improving the room was getting rid of the armoire, and investing in flat panel TVs. The slanted wall forces the armoir toward the center of the room. Mounting the TVs to the wall would save on a lot of space.

I unpacked my bags (Yes, I am an un-packer. I can’t live out of a suitcase) which was relatively easy seeing as all I had was a duffel bag filled with beach clothes. One of the beautiful things about an unplugged weekend is that it’s easy to pack for. The only electronics I had with me was my camera, and my iPhone, which was on airplane mode essentially making it an iPod touch. Settled into my room, I headed the hotel’s restaurant, Hula Shores, for the welcome tweetup.

It may seem odd to have a tweetup on a island with almost no cellular coverage, but it was a fun time for all. In attendance were @melissa808, @travelsocial @pleasantholiday, @dreamybee, @Neenz, @Noe808, @GypsyRaven, @autkast, @zenxacred, @kaeokepani, @Eiko, and of course @Tiabla. We met Michael the General Manager of Hotel Moloka’i who was a gracious host. We all ordered tropical cocktails and enjoyed the excellent food prepared for us. I particularly enjoyed the Seared Ahi, and the Huli Huli Chicken was great. The chicken had a nice crispy skin with just enough char on it. Despite what you may think, carcinogens are good! As the evening progressed, a live band started playing. As the only bar on the island, Friday night at the Hula Shores is a hopping time. People were dancing and socializing, but not in a nightclub kind of way. These were just people having a good time.

The evening ended early (the bar closes at 10:30), so I went to check out Ray & Jill’s room which they told me had a loft. Sure enough it did, and I hit my head on one of the beams. Good times.

Surprisingly, I woke up early the next morning, so I decided that my first activity of the day would be seeking out one of the hammocks that I had heard about and do a little reading, something that I have neglected over the past few months. The stack of books on my desk was getting pretty dusty. However, once I lay in the hammock, I was out like a light. I was awakened an hour later by Kaeo, Ray and Jill on their way to breakfast, and a day at the pool. Apparently, Melissa also found me on the hammock earlier, but instead of waking me, she just took my picture, and posted it on her blog as soon as she got back to Honolulu.

While at breakfast, we all agreed that the best thing on the breakfast menu was Auntie’s Fried Rice. Filled with Bacon and Spam it’s filled with calories, and fat, and boy did it taste good!

As we finished breakfast, the others realized something that I have long known about. Time moves slower on Moloka’i. It sounds weird, but I promise you that if you visit this island, your perception of time slows to a crawl. One of the amazing side effects of being unplugged… Moloka’i Time. We were not concerned about making appointments or deadlines. Once we finished breakfast, the only place we had to be was the pool, which didn’t take long since the Hula Shores is right next to the pool. Neenz and Noe showed up to the pool at about noon, and the drinking began.

It didn’t take Neenz and Noe to discover “Moloka’i Time” just as the others did. After a while, I decided to put in more “Hammock Time” which only intensified the “Moloka’i Time” because I was only a sleep for an hour, but it felt like I was asleep for a day. I awoke to find that we had been occupying the same table for the entire day. If people left, others from our group would take it over. This worked out especially well because it meant that we had great seats for that night’s local entertainer Lono.

Just listening to him perform the sound check gave us all chicken skin. Our conversations stopped dead in its tracks, and we all turned to watch him. Kaeo had the quote of the night when he exclaimed, “That was only the sound check?” Lono captivated the crowd with his stories and mesmerizing slack key play.

Day three began with breakfast at the Hula Shores with Neenz, Noe and Cynthia (@Gypsyraven). It was then that serious conversation started about possibly staying another day. The topic had come up in passing the night before, but it was pretty must relegated to the, “wouldn’t it be cool” category. Neenz talked to Michael, and he offered us a VERY generous deal. As tempting as it was, we had to decline. We had lives to return to… Jobs, families, responsibilities. It just goes to go how good our stay was. On any vacation, there comes a point where you are ready to go home. To sleep in your own bed. This was obviously not the case. Everyone there had found what I was lucky enough to have discovered at age 12. Something which unfortunately, I had forgotten as an adult.

As Michael drove us to the airport, conversation circled around the topic of when would be our next “Unplugged Retreat.” As much as I enjoyed not following a schedule or making plans to go anywhere, a part of me regretted not going out and revisiting the places of my youth. I would have loved to once again seen Fegan’s Bay which was only accessible via boat or five mile hike and had Opihi the size of silver dollars. Or Morgan’s Point where a fish almost snapped my fishing rod when I was 14, or the unmarked graves I found while gathering apple-bananas in a valley on the east side of the island owned by the Naki family. Still, maybe it’s a good thing that I didn’t do all those things, because it gives me a reason to go back to the Friendly Isle, the place of my youth.

Song stuck in my head at the time of this post: Moloka’i Slide by Ehukai which is appropriate since I think of Moloka’i every time I hear this song.