Oceanic Time Warner Cable hosts iHeartRadio VIP Party

On Thursday, September 1st, Oceanic Time Warner Cable, in partnership with Clear Channel Radio Hawaii, hosted a VIP party for 30 lucky qualifiers, to give away a once in a lifetime trip to attend one of the biggest music events in radio history: the iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas.

Held at the Road Runner Music Hall, these 30 hopefuls (and their guests) waited with bated breath to find out if they would be 1 of the 3 lucky winners to attend the sold out concert event featuring some of the biggest names in music: Lady Gaga, Jay-Z, the Black Eyed Peas, Coldplay, Alicia Keys, Jennifer Lopez, Carrie Underwood, and even local, Hawaii boy Bruno Mars, amongst many others.

Here are some scenes from that night.

Emcee Kutmaster Spaz shows off our IntelliGo hotspot before getting things started

KSSK personality Sweetie Pacarro doing giveaways with our guests

Star 101.9 personalities Hudson & Scotty B doing giveaways

The Kevin Jones Effect entertaining the crowd

And then it was time to announce the winners!

Our first winner cheers her head off

Our second winner is in shock

Our third winner can’t contain his excitement

Kutmaster Spaz with our three happy winners

These three winners and their guests will fly away for an all-expenses paid trip to Las Vegas, including airfare, hotel accommodations, and VIP access to the concert event happening on September 23rd & 24th. Congratulations!

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Eating Your Way Through Japan – Part II

Part I |  Part II 

And… we’re… back. I know, I know, it’s been a while since part one, but no get all habuts. Takes long time fo put this together you know. 🙂

We last left off sipping tea at Ito-Ya, waiting for the pops-recommended, kushikatsu joint to open up (opens at 5PM). When the clock hit 5, it was time to head over to Isomura’s in Ginza.

Isomura’s in Ginza

The general concept of kushikatsu is that you get a variety of food items, battered up, deep fried, and served to you on a stick (kushi). The secret, according to pops, is to go right when they open, as they have a happy hour special: 12 courses (items), beer, soup, rice, tea and dessert all for X Yen. Hehe, sorry, I don’t remember how much it was, but I believe it was around $20 U.S.

The jubilee of choices came in the following sequence:

1. Beef
2. Shi-wrapped Shrimp
3. Shiitake Mushroom
4. Scallop
5. Snow Peas
6. Corn
7. Asparagus
8. Shrimp/Prawn
9. Pork
10. Bacon-wrapped Potato
11. Tofu
12. Fish Eggs

Here’s a lil’ preview:

Snow peas and corn kushikatsu

Biggest, deep fried asparagus you’ve ever seen!

Prawn kushikatsu

Tofu and fish eggs kushikatsu

You put your stick in the fishy’s mouth after your done. We did some work son!

The next morning, we tried the other breakfast buffet option in our hotel, Taronga.

Inside Taronga Grill and Wine

My plate full o’ goodies

The atmosphere and food choices seemed a little higher scaled, but the options weren’t as plentiful. If I were to choose one, I’d stick with Ocean Dining.

With our fill of the Tokyo/Odaiba areas, it was off to adventure the rest of this beautiful country. We headed to Nagano, whose specialty is soba.

Since we were in the mood for rahmen yet again, we combined our hunger with Nagano’s finest and found a little shop that served soba, rahmen style.

I wish I could read kanji better so I could tell you the name of this place. 😛

Char siu rahmen soba

Some city browsing/touring followed and, on the way back to our hotel, we came across this neat little restaurant called Mountain Q Hawaiian Diner. Yep, that’s right, “Hawaiian” food in the middle of Japan.

Mountain Q Hawaiian Diner

Inside Mountain Q was real kitchie (sp?), with your typical hula girl and grass skirt-type decorations, but the most interesting thing was eating “SPAM nigiri” (instead of SPAM musubi) while listening to KSSK on the radio.

SPAM Onigiri

The next morning, we woke up early to go check out what Nagano is also famous for: Oyaki, a baked, almost mochi type shell, stuffed with veggies. On the way to Zenkoji temple, you will find this town’s popular oyaki shop on the right hand side.

Popular Oyaki Shop in Nagano

Inside, there is an omiyage area, where you can buy your oyaki to go. In the back however, is where the magic happens… the area where they actually make the oyaki over an open fire. This is where we had to be.

Where the oyaki are made

Flames for two cooking spots, one to cook the flat sides, and one to cook the edges

The family seemed to take a liking to us, as they fed us a complete meal (soup and tea) with our oyaki, and they also offered to teach us how to make them ourselves (a class usually reserved for special days).

Our oyaki meal

Us gettin’ our oyaki on

Then it was off to another town in Yudanaka for more adventures. We stayed at Ryokan Biyunoyado (Yudanaka View Hotel), an excellent Western style Ryokan (onsen hotel) in the middle of a town known for onsens (hot springs).

Yudanaka View Hotel

That evening, we were treated to the hotel’s inclusive dinner, which included soup, sashimi, soba, saba, buttered beef, mushroom (straight from the bark!), fresh fruits (Nagano is also known for their apples), sake, and the local beer Shiga Kogen Pale Ale.

Our Spread

Mushrooms, as fresh as you can get. Nuts yeah?

Shiga Kogen Pale Ale

The next morning, we had breakfast at the hotel as well, which included miso soup, salad, ham, eggs, salmon, udon, and fresh apple juice.

Our morning spread

To leave enough for part 3, I think we’ll end it here… But before we go, here’s a parting shot from Yudanaka’s famous monkey park. Yep, sending you off with a little monkey bidness. 🙂

Monkeys from Yudanaka Monkey Park

Have a fun day Monday y’all!

Part I |  Part II 

How Geeks Do Blackouts

Yeah, I know, I’m shmall kine late with the blackout report, but I figgah since errbody else already blogged about it up in here, I’d try to present a different angle for all y’all, 3 days aftah da fact. *grin*

Now I don’t consider myself a geek by any stretch of the imagination, but I do have geeky tendencies. LOL! Below, you’ll find what one pseudo-geek did to pass the time of what literally turned out to be “Black” Friday.

Unless you make your home far far away, I don’t have to tell you what happened to most of us during Friday’s fiasco. What I do want to tell you (and what I also want to hear from you) is how we (you) spent our (your) day battling the dark “night”. Get it? Pretty good play on words eh? *patting self on back* Anyway…

The night started with some false alarms. The flickering of the lights. Some subtle hints warning of the impending doom, er gloom, ah, blackout. Wifey and I rushed to get our dinner a-cookin’, but the electric gods were not with us.

*POOF*

Power be gone!

Ain’t no thang. We were kinda mentally prepared for it actually. But it did suck, as, I’m sure it did for the rest of us. (One story I heard was of those stuck in the “Bodies” exhibition when the power went out. That must’ve been nuts yeah!? Talk about real life haunted house! LOL!).

Thanks to all of the candy and treats our friends, family and neighbors gave to us for the holidays, we pretty much had a jubilee of options for a replacement meal. And although Chex snack mix is not the ideal meal, we at least had 30 days worth in case the power didn’t come back for another month. 😛

With no electricity, there was no form of entertainment to speak of. Like errone else, TV, Internet and Phone were all down, so we were reduced to working on our Thank You cards under candlelight (My eyes are still burning). 8)

When the vision started to go and the fumes from the marker became too much, I took periodic “Virus Buster” breaks on the trusty DS. Staring at a bright screen in pitch black darkness however, is not so guaranz balbaranz, so I had to take a break from taking a break, naw-mean? So it was off to find the next thang to do. Hmm, let’s check the Internet on my phone…

Awww yeeeeeaaaaah!

Da buggah works!

So what do I do? I check my email, read my feeds on Google Reader, do a lil’ bit of Facebook, and then pop on to Twitter.

WOAH!

Note to self (and others): Twitter, during island-wide blackouts, is the place to be son!

Thanks to the (Hawaii) Twitter community sending constant updates about their situations and the news they’ve gathered from others, I was not in the dark, while in the dark, if you know what I mean. I was able to piece together what was happening all ova the island without electricity and witout moving a muscle (except the ones in my thumb). Apparently, the Hawaii blackout related messages (marked with “#hipower”) was the number one tracked term on Twitter search at the time. Pretty amazing.

I gotsta give mad props to @johngarcia (John Garcia from the Advertiser), @hawaii (Ryan Ozawa), @KGMB9 (Jared Kuroiwa is that you?), and a few others for holding it down and keeping many of us afloat when we were looking for something, anything.

The next morning, the power was still not back for us “Milsville” peeps, so it was time for more geekiness. We busted out the ol’ crank radio to listen to Perry (on the left) and Price (on the right) on KSSK to find out what the dealio was, and mixed in a few more rounds of DS and Twitter for good measure…

Funniest quote of the day (from wifey): *pouts* “I’m washing dishes for food we didn’t even eat!”

Talk to me!
* Is that geeky enough for you? Were you even geekier than me?
* How did you end up spending your night/day?
* What area do you live and what time did your power end up coming back on at?
* Any other thoughts or feedback on the blackout or weather in general?

Holla!

Fave Five Friday – Hawaii Radio Stations

I thought this might be a fun lil’ addition to this here blog. Let’s do a mini poll of sorts, and see what you peeps’ fave five of just about anything is. I’ll start. Today’s five: Hawaii Radio Stations. (which usually equates to the 5 or 6 buttons on your car stereo eh?) Well, at least it is fo’ me. Hurr we go!

• 104.3 FM – Power 104.3 (also on Oceanic Digital Channel 0858)
• 102.7 FM– 102.7 Da Bomb (also also on Oceanic Digital Channel 0854)
• 93.9 FM– Hot 93-9 (also also on Oceanic Digital Channel 0868)
• 100.3 FM– KCCN FM100 (also also on Oceanic Digital Channel 0852)
• 98.5 FM – Island 98.5 (also also on Oceanic Digital Channel 0851)
• 93.1 FM – 93.1 The Zone (also also on Oceanic Digital Channel 0851)

These aren’t necessarily in the 1-5 order for me. Just gots it that way (grouped and numeric) so it’s easier to channel surf. Situational faves are: Hot 93-9 in the morning, 92.3 (KSSK) for traffic updates, 96.3 (Krater 96) during the 2 Million Dollar Money Mix periods 😉 , and AM1420 (ESPN1420) during sporting events (esp after UH basketball games).

Shoots! Have a good weekend y’all!