No One Expects The Merrie Exposition

12/8/16 – No One Expects The Merrie Exposition

Punchbowl. That’s the road to turn on to get to the City Holiday Lights of Honolulu and the King Kamehameha statue outside City Hall.

And unlike the night time viewing and the mad crash of folks post sunset, at 5 am I had my own private tour of the place. A security guard, clearly bored, offered to snap some photos for me; I regret not taking a selfie with him as I bet it would have made him both him and me equally happy. Still, a few good shots of the empty city lights display that will prove a good contrast to an eventual evening’s visit with Mom.

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The free shuttle to the Honolulu Marathon Expo was supposed to start at 9 am. We were early per usual so I don’t cry foul on that time. But the first shuttle arrived at 9:45 am and we didn’t get to the expo until 10:30. It was a long ride for 0.8 miles.

On the plus side, Mom’s first official race bib shots came out pretty well … at least for the most part.

For there was a series of ill-chosen events that plagued us at the expo… including constantly picking the wrong line to access promos or sales and, most distressingly, a runner photo redo of the great cronut fiasco from a few years back. Having stood in line for a photo with two giant foam Japanese sour puss anime characters, just as we got to the front and were about to pose… they both took a break.

In broken English, the Japanese credit card sponsor of the booth said they’d be gone for an hour… that’s a nice break. Anyway, here’s a shot of us alone on the podium…

And a “WTF?!” shot with the Frowny Mc-Frownersons about twenty minutes later. Is that a reference to us or the characters in the background? You decide…