Day 15 - Thursday

So I tried pretty hard to get to work early. I woke up at 6:30am but unfortunately since the bus was just not coming I didn't get to work until about 8:20am, which isn't much earlier than normal. Oh well, I did the work I had to get done in the morning just fine.

Unfortunately waking up and getting to work so early meant that I was starving by the time lunchtime came around. I decided to try Dim Sum House for lunch. Yelp reviews said that they have pretty good dim sum for cheap, only $2.18 for 3 pieces. Dim Sum House is located on the basement level of a shopping area that has a lot of lunch places. The counter is split between cheap express Chinese food and pre-made dim sum in steamers waiting to be bought. Unfortunately there was no har gow when we got there and I didn't want to wait for it to cook, so I got shrimp with spinach steamed dumplings instead. SO GOOD! Unfortunately everything else was just so-so. If I go back, I'm only going to get the steamed dim sum and not the fried stuff or sticky rice. The fried stuff was overly greasy and not crispy while the sticky rice had a lot of fat in it which I'm not fond of.

Representation of the dim sum I ate, I was so hungry that I drove in without taking the picture so I had to use some of my fellow law clerk's food to represent what I had already inhaled. From top left - red bean sesame ball (too greasy), steamed shrimp/spinach dumpling (YUMMY), pan fried dumpling (gross), sui mai (pretty good), sticky rice (too fatty), char siu bao (tasty).

After lunch I was so stuffed but that was good because at 4:30pm I stopped working to join an associate at her pro bono gig which is as an intake attorney at Volunteer Legal Services. There's a clinic where people can sign up to see an attorney and that attorney decides the next steps. Usually the next steps are either finding an attorney to take the case pro bono or guiding the person through the steps of helping answering forms and not bringing in an attorney on the case itself. We went over to the office and met with five clients, one over the phone. The associate just does family law stuff for pro bono, so all these people have either a guardianship, custody or divorce issue. Man, it really made me want to help them. The clients were bring quite reasonable and they just needed some help. I was so impressed with how well some of them had their papers in order. They had records of all the past court orders or doctor's notes. Also there was a client who didn't speak much English so that was challenging too.

Pretty spacious intake office for Volunteer Legal Services. Some of the other volunteer attorneys were in significantly smaller rooms.

We finished up around 8pm and then I got a ride home. Was was pretty hungry by then and decided to walk over to Morio's Sushi for a tempura shrimp roll. Morio's is literally in the same space as Ruffage so there are only like space to seat 15 people. I asked to order take out and they said it would be 45 minutes! Ugh, forget that. I then went to Me's BBQ which was right behind Morio's but they too were packed with tourists. It was bad when there's a line for food that's supposed to be made quick. Ugh ugh. Defeated, I walked back home and got the steak and shrimp combo at Blazin Steaks. I said to cook the steak medium, but I forgot Hawaii's medium is like California's rare, so I had to re-cook the steak at home. Regardless it was all quite tasty. The meat was tender, the shrimps were juicy, and the rice was moist and fluffy.

The weekend is fast approaching and I have no plans. I wanted to go off island but the times for planes to Molokai don't work because all times are in the morning when I'm working, and the hotels in Lanai cost like $350/day (and no option to priceline!) Sigh, oh wells. I will likely not make it over to those islands this time around which is a shame but I'm pretty tired from not getting much sleep this weekend, so I'll be happy to catch up on sleep.

Waikiki Park Heights on Dwellable