I’ve never been a huge fan of sugary drinks. I’m of the camp that alcohol and sugar should be in two separate camps and never co-mingle. It’s not so much the taste as the raging hangover it usually leads to. Either way, I can be a huge hypocrite sometimes and this is one of those cases. The “Sunset Cruise” offered by, appropriately enough, the “Ma’I Tai Catamaran” company is a 2 hour excursion on a catamaran with a group of like minded people, mostly couples, that takes you around Diamond Head at 6:00-8:00 PM offering awesome views of the sunset and unlimited drinks including wine, beer, and of course, Mai Tais.
I was planning on taking Ashley on Valentine’s Day but Godhad different plans, choosing to make it rain on the February 14th and postponing our trip to 2/16, a romantic Monday in between Valentines Day and Ashley’s Birthday. I can’t hate her for having her birthday in the same week as Valentine’s Day, but it’s completely her fault and I hold it against her. I just hate not being able to spread out my love investments and dropping a bunch of money all at once every year. I guess it’s like ripping a band aid off, the pain comes and goes very quickly.
Look at all these future friends!
Anyway, we arrive at the Catamaran company on an unbelievably sunny day, ready to drink and full of caffeine from the Starbucks up the street. As we arrive we see a lot of couples that are around our age but nobody is really speaking yet. As the yelp review I read prior pointed out, once the drinks start flowing so do the conversations, and I was in no hurry. While boarding we took obligatory photos of each other, the boat, the captain, the drinks, and ourselves before we shoved off.
This took 20 minutes of convincing before I took the photo
I came to the realization that when they said unlimited drinks, they were not bullshitting. Within minutes after the captain delivered his practiced spiel (aside: best job on the island) I had a drink in my hand and it was rarely, if ever, empty for the duration of the trip. We started drinking, or more accurately, binge drinking. I should have clarified before that the main reason I have huge hangovers from sugar filled drinks is because I drink them like Kool Aid without realizing how much rum is in them. The captain, and at one point the bartender, pointed out that they “sneak up on you”. I view myself as a seasoned professional when it comes to alcohol so I disregarded their advice which in retrospect was a reckless idea.
The Beginning of the End
We started meeting some people but gravitated to a couple, Dave and Vivian (D&V), who were in a similar position as us but had more experience on the island. From Sacramento, they have been here for over a year and we wanted to pick their brains on what the best places were to drink, best excursions, and fun activities. They had plenty. We got progressively drunker as the sun quickly sunk into the horizon and became best friends in a short amount of time. Dave and I have similar tastes in music, which, to me is the strongest basis for any friendship. Taste in movies being a close second. Because 90% of what comes out of my mouth is related to at least one of those two things. We talked about concert venues, traded stories, and decided that we were similar enough to warrant spending some good ol’ fashioned bro time together. Ashley and Vivian were also having great conversations but since I wasn’t a part of them, who cares.
It looks like this every day
As the boat pulled back onto the beach and I lost count of my Mai Tais (stopped at 6) we sloppily stumbled off the boat and sprinted for the bathroom. Turns out Catamarans DO have bathrooms, but not the type you would want to use unless you were inches away from pooping your pants. We were disappointed to see that the entire boat had the same idea and had disembarked much faster than we had. Damn you alcohol. We waited. And waited. And waited for the bathrooms. My bladder felt like when I used to fill condoms with water as a teenager. It has a lot of capacity but wanted desperately to burst. We then proceeded to drunkenly look for a place to eat in Waikiki and deferred to D&V due to their superior knowledge of the island. They said Waikiki kind of sucks for food, not a good thing to hear when you live there, but what can you do?
They suggested we go to a Japanese style Tapas place that serves mostly alcohol and also some food. I forget the proper name of it right now and don’t have Wifi so I’m not looking it up. It was an Izayaka restaurant, a place where typically Japanese businessmen go after work to get hammered and eat Japanese style bar snacks. They also, presumably, defecate on women and engage in very weird behavior in the eyes of western society. That last part may or may not be true, I’m only going off of things I’ve read in popular culture.
We stopped by our apartment so we could drop some shit off and have another drink. I did have a thought on the way there that we had JUST met these people and they may rob us, murder us, rape us or maybe a combination of the three, but decided to just go with it because alcohol. Obviously none of those things happened and we got to the restaurant safely in Dave’s BMW, although I’m not sure how he drove so well. It took about an hour for our first round of food to come out. I think the waitress probably saw how drunk we were and figured that we wouldn’t notice. OH BUT WE DID. Eventually.
The rest of the night’s details are lazy. We had great food and conversation, too much food, I texted my friend Clew at one point with lyrics from Run the Jewels 2 (best rap album in the last 5 years. If you disagree you’re wrong). I remember drinking Crown Royal which was weird because I hate Crown Royal, being surrounded by Japanese people (which could be anywhere in Waikiki), and the host of the restaurant being wayyyy too overzealous and friendly. I don’t want to say he was on meth but he definitely was. I don’t think he blinked the entire time he spoke to us. Vivian took us back to our apartment and I failed to put on Netflix before passing the FUCK out. Ashley had a great time, which in the end is all that matters. She’s the reason we are out here and 100% deserved it.