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Dole Park Shop in Lanai City Led Sacramento Realtor to Sweetheart Rock
Sweetheart Rock
Salaried employees who don’t like their jobs, along with spouses married to workaholics, probably cannot understand why a business owner would go on vacation and take a computer to Lanai, Hawaii. They sit on that shuttle bus and mumble under their breath, that’s not a vacation, when a) nobody asked them, b) nobody was talking to them, and c) if the internet goes kaput at Four Seasons when the poor woman in the seat behind me got up expressly at 4 AM to get a little business completed before hopping the shuttle to Four Seasons Lodge, whose concern is it, really?
I love getting up early in Lanai to respond to emails about Sacramento real estate while listening to birds and watching waves roll to shore. It’s peaceful and quiet. It gives me a slightly different perspective about business. Challenges don’t seem so severe. Even when a buyer’s agent called yesterday to say a buyer was canceling escrow because she thought the house needed too much work, that’s OK, we’ll find another buyer. She is not the right buyer for this house.
Home inspections can scare the bejesus out of most home buyers. It’s hard for buyers to decipher what is CYA in a home inspection report and what is serious. And if it is serious, exactly how serious is it? Is the home siding off its foundation? If it’s not sliding off its foundation, it’s not that serious. Every home has defects. Recently I heard about a first-time home buyer who did not want to buy a home because it had been treated for termites. It had a pest completion on file, and the buyer rejected the home.
My heart goes out to buyer’s agents who have to deal with these anxious people one-on-one. Smoothing out their fears and helping them understand a home inspection is part of the home inspector’s job, but it certainly doesn’t hurt to have the buyer’s agent involved. The problem that arises is a) most buyer’s agents do not understand how a home is constructed nor how to fix things and b) there is too much legal liability, brokers don’t like their agents explaining how to hang a piece of Sheetrock.
Dole Park
The Four Seasons shuttle dropped me yesterday in Lanai City. That’s about 20 minutes from Manele Bay. Hopping off, I turned on my cellphone and eureka, there were Ingress portals all over. One of the portals lured me to its location and I discovered the Lanai City Post Office. I bought stamps for postcards I later found by wandering around some of the shops. A guy on the shuttle said you couldn’t tell the little houses were shops, but they looked very much like shops to me.
I met Mike Carroll at the Mike Carroll Gallery over by the Blue Ginger Cafe. His wife founded the Lanai Animal Rescue Center, the #1 tourist attraction in Lanai on TripAdvisor, no joke. They rescue stray and feral cats and try to find them permanent homes. I don’t have a car, so I didn’t go there but, then, I also briefly worked at the Sacramento SPCA as its marketing director when I first landed in Sacramento, so I am familiar with that kind of work.
Lunch at the Blue Ginger Cafe
Mike says it becomes art when it is framed. Before then, it is not art. His work is incredible, and he features other artists as well. I was mesmerized by the large paintings in the back that were sent to Mike by an artist in Montana. I have no wall space back in Land Park to hang work of that dimension, not to mention, I’ve never spent $20K for art; although I probably should. I don’t recall the name of this artist, but his technique is unusual — the way the light reflected while simultaneously penetrating the waves was captivating.
I spotted a sign at another shop that said: what happens in Manele Bay stays in Manele Bay, what happens in Lanai City makes it way around the square. Dole Park is a huge square comprised of several city blocks, adorned by towering Cook Island pines. There are many memorials, hence a lot of portals, park benches and a cultural center. I sat in the park and wrote postcards and yes, captured a few portals that included creating mind control fields all the way back to Manele Bay and earned my bronze badge in Ingress.
Four Seasons Lodge Koi Pond
On the way back to Four Seasons at Manele Bay, I stopped at Four Seasons Lodge up the hill. This resort features an attached golf course. The reason I could not find the View Restaurant at Manalay Bay Golf Course is because the golf course is a not located directly on the grounds. Not that I play golf, but I find golf courses alluringly beautiful. I might have to go back because I did not realize there is an orchid garden there, which I discovered by perusing things to do in Lanai on the internet.
At another shop, I talked with the owner about Lanai and she asked if I had been to Sweetheart Rock. She showed me a picture of it on a postcard. It is on the other side of a hill at Hulopo’e Beach Park. The reason I didn’t find it is because it is not a portal. I will need to rectify that and submit it to Ingress, as it would make a dandy portal. I did take a video, and I shot many photographs, one of which is on this page.
The story goes a warrior fell in love with a princess and brought her to Sweetheart Rock. She was so beautiful, he didn’t want other men to snatch her away, so he stuck her in a cave. Nice guy. One day a storm flooded out the cave while the warrior was away doing warrior things. When he returned, he found his princess had drowned. Devastated, he buried her there and then threw himself into the ocean to his death.
Sweetheart Rock is a place where you can sit for hours. Doing nothing. Just soaking it in. There was nobody there. Perfect solitude.
A Massage at the Four Seasons Spa in Lanai
You would not believe how much the spa at Four Seasons in Lanai charges for a small bottle of make-up remover. I purposely did not pack make-up remover in my luggage because I am traveling very light for my month-long winter vacation. Besides, I don’t wear a lot of makeup while on vacation.
The thought of buying make-up remover at the spa popped into my brain because the staff at this resort are continually asking for my opinion on everything. If they would just assume everything is perfect in paradise, I wouldn’t have to point out such things as the mold in the bathtub grout or ask if I can buy a soft wash cloth because theirs has been washed so many times it scratches my face like sandpaper. My eyelids were rough and puffy from scrubbing off mascara with a wash cloth from the Clinton administration. I don’t want to be that person who consistently complains. Like that hotel guest my husband and I still chuckle about from the Big Island who snorted in her upper-crest accent to the server: a biiiiiiiirrrrd touched my foooooooooood.
I found a small bottle of make-up remover on the shelf in the reception area of the Four Seasons spa and handed it to the woman behind the counter, asking her to please hold it and ring it up when my massage was finished. Ah, a relaxing massage. I knew they would be asking me about it when it was over. Wanting to know what I thought.
I don’t know about you, but I am tired of being asked my opinion. My opinion doesn’t matter. Nary a day goes by when I don’t get an email from some institution or corporate enterprise wanting to know what they can do to improve service. Here, take this survey and we’ll enter you in a sweepstakes. I suppose it’s a proactive way to ward off bad 0nline reviews from disgruntled customers. It’s certainly not for my benefit. And I wish it would stop.
In fairness, the guy rated about 3.9 out of 5.0 but there was no reason to tell him that. He doesn’t need to know what I think. On the other hand, here are my thoughts about a massage in general. The way I see it, there are 3 types of masseuses.
1) The masseuse who uses the same technique time and time again for the same type of massage. They have a shtick, stuff they do on everybody. If they massage one foot with the thumb upstroke, you can pretty much count on them massaging your other foot in the same manner.
2) Then you’ve got the masseuse who is very intuitive and views each massage as a work in process. They instinctively know when they hit a knotted spot in your back or neck, and they massage it out and search for similar spots on the other side. They know just what to do to relieve a pain you didn’t know you had.
3) And then you’ve got the ones who wing it and do whatever they feel like doing at the moment. Maybe they are playing an instrument on your back and get caught up in the movement of the symphony. That’s what this guy was like. Unpredictable movements but yet relaxing and enjoyable.
From now on, everything is awesome. I’m not rating things or complaining or making suggestions about anything, not even my dislike of using stone bowls for sorbet at Nobu.
Afterward, at the counter, they presented me with the bill. The massage was reasonable but the bottom line seemed very high. No wonder, the line item entered for the make-up remover was $325! I choked on my ginger tea infused with honey. What? Miss, I’m afraid you made a mistake on the invoice.
No, ma’am, this bottle of make-up remover is $325. It’s our signature make-up remover line.
I had no idea. I told her I’d be willing to pay $32 but not ten times that amount. That’s ridiculous. Even $32 is a lot when you can buy make-up remover at the drugstore for $3.00.
When I sat down for lunch a few minutes later, I couldn’t help but ask the server if she knew how much the Four Seasons spa make-up remover costs. When I whispered $325 a bottle, her eyes bugged out. She asked: what’s in the make-up remover?
Heaven, I guess.
Then she asked if I bought it.
Do I like a stupid person to you?
No, ma’am, she chuckled.
