Hawaii Trip- Day 6, Maui

Today was Saturday. Anna had talked with Mary, the concierge, and she recommended we spend the day on the road to Hana. I guess it's a "known" thing to do while visiting Maui. I had only heard about it from researching places to eat, but hadn't paid it much mind. But Anna thought it would be fun (there would be lava tubes), so we planned to go. Mary recommended an early start, so early we went...

This is a picture of the last working sugar cane factory on Maui. (At least you can see the smoke stacks.)


There's a little town right at the start of the road to Hana, called Paiea. It's the last town till Hana, in fact, so it's the place to eat breakfast, buy a snack or lunch for the drive, and to gas up. We stopped for breakfast at a place named "Charlie's". Oh man, it was good! I had a corned beef hash omelet with potatoes and toast, Anna had hawaiian bread french toast with macadamia nuts, pineapple, and mint whipped cream, with coconut syrup. We split our meals. They were both awesome.

Here's Anna afterward. She liked her choice so much, she wanted a picture. (Side note: Willie Nelson is part owner.)

When Anna was talking with Mary about Hana, Mary gave her a CD that acts as a tour guide. You turn it on when you leave Paiea, and it tells you about things you'll see on the way. It suggests places to stop for pictures, like water falls or bays, etc. I wasn't too keen on listening to it, but we put it in the player. Turns out, it was a bit cheesy in the beginning, but it was very helpful. It also had some great songs on it. We would have missed some great sites without it.

One of the places it recommended we stop, was a small hike to see a waterfall (don't remember the name). Along the hike, there are lots of cool native plants along the way. Here I am with a Taro plant. And just so you know, I didn't know Anna was framing the picture that way. I thought she was only getting from my shoulders and up with the big leaves.

There was this HUGE yucca looking plant right next to the path. We couldn't resist a picture.

The falls we walked/hiked to were a little disappointing, so I didn't include a picture of it. The plant pictures were much better.

One of the things the CD mentioned, were trees commonly called "rainbow" eucalyptus. They're also known as "painted" eucalyptus. We saw some on our drive, so we stopped to take a picture. The camera didn't do a very good job of capturing the colors on the trees. They were way better in person.

The road to Hana takes you along the coast quite a bit. Sometimes the road is right next to the water. Other times you're higher up. The views are breath taking. Here's a great example.

But Anna says these picturesque shots are just boring if there's no one's in them. So we took ones like that one for me, then...


We take one like this for Anna. Actually, I think it's good to have both. One with the view, so you can see it as if you're there, and one with us, so you can see us there.

This is a great looking picture. But it's not what you think. It fooled us too. We came around a bend, and saw this "steam" rising among the sun light as it pierces through the lush greenery! So we took this picture. This is actually right in front of the entrance to an arboretum, so there were other cars there too. We got out of our car, and were overwhelmed with the smell of either smoking breaks or a car over heating (we were trying not to smell it). So much for the "steam", but I guess it still makes for a nice picture.

As we're walking through this arboretum, there are a lot of amazing plants everywhere. But there were also some really big and beautiful rainbow eucalyptus there. Again, the colors just don't come out as brilliantly. But we tried to get some good shots.

You can see a lot of the different shades of green on this one, but the reds and purples don't come through as well. Another good thing about seeing these trees when we did, is that the colors show better when the trees are wet, and it had rained the whole day the previous day, and the shade was keeping the bark from drying out.

It was at this point, Anna realized something terrible... the camera was about to die! We hadn't charged the camera in a couple days, and the battery was running out quickly. We were only 25-30% of the way on the trip. We still had lava tubes and beaches and rocks to see. So we started rationing photos till we could figure something out.

Remember when I said there were no real towns after Paiea... it's true. Maybe, just maybe, there would be a roadside place we could buy a disposable camera. The pictures probably wouldn't be as good, but they would be better than nothing.

As we were driving, there was a small fruit and snack stand/shack on the roadside. Anna hopped out to see if they sold cameras... and they did! It was about $18?! ... Better than nothing I guess.


We were enjoying our drive very much. Then we saw the signs for the lava tube! We followed them to a guys house. He bought the land that a section of the lava tube goes through, and fixed it up to allow people to go down into it and explore it. It was $12 each to go in, but Anna wasn't going to pass up this opportunity to go into a lava tube on Maui!

Here's Anna at the opening to the lava tube. Luckily there was enough battery power for this shot. (One of my personal favorites from the whole trip.)

After that picture, the camera shut off. Time for the disposable. Luckily (?), it had a flash....


At the entrance, you walk down a flight of stairs to the tube floor. Chuck, the owner, put in hand rails along the way, as well as plaques with explanations of what you see in the tube. Anna didn't really find any big errors in his facts, so that was good. They were very helpful to a guy like me.

Here we are in the depths of the tube. As you can see, the disposable doesn't hold a candle to the digital. Crazy to think, that not long ago, this would have been totally acceptable. Anyway, Chuck provides the flashlights, and they're quite bright, but only where you point them. Otherwise, it's pitch black.

The geology of the tube was really cool. There was a spot where the lava left what looks like chocolate frosting on the roof and walls of the tube.

You can see them a little better in this picture. Water was dripping down through the tube from the rain the day before, like rain. You would think it would be dry in there, but far from it. It's all wet.

There were probably 3 groups of people that were in the tube when we got down in it, which was nice. Better than being crowded.

We took a bunch more pictures from inside the tube, but most of them didn't turn out. Those I just showed you are the best ones. Oh darn, guess we'll just have to go back...


There was a black sand beach along the way.

We went down to the beach, plus there was suppose to be a lava tube down there too. We found it, but it was tiny compared to the other one. Just for the heck of it, we tried the digital camera... and it worked...

Then is was back to the disposable. This is at the mouth of the tiny lava tube.

We hadn't eaten any lunch. Our breakfast was so good and filling, we didn't really need lunch. But as the dinner hour approached, we were getting hungry. Mary mentioned there being a couple of good places to eat in Hana, but we couldn't find them. We ate at a small restaurant up the hill in Hana. Actually, we ordered at the take out window and ate outside (it was cheaper, and the view was better). We had a burger and a shoyu chicken plate lunch. They were really good.

The sun was starting to make it's way down on the other side of the island, so it was getting dark quick. We continued on after Hana, to see the "seven sacred pools". It's a small hike from the parking, but it was very cool. It was late in the day, so there weren't many people there.

Man, wish we would have had the digital. But, better than nothing.

The seven sacred pools enters the ocean right there. So cool.

By the time we got back to our car from the pools, it was pretty much dark. We had taken all day to drive the road to Hana, and we had a blast. The drive back was interesting. The roads are narrow and the bridge crossings are single lane, so you have to really pay attention. But the cool thing was... we were in no hurry. Plus there weren't many others on the road, so it was all good. It took us a little over 2 and a half hours to drive back out to Paiea. From there it was about 30 minutes back to our hotel. We were tired, but it was a good tired.

We were also pretty excited about the next day, and being over 10,000 feet above sea level, and in the mouth of a volcano!

Hawaii Trip- Day 5, Maui

This was Friday, Dec. 10th. The day we were leaving the familiar and entering the unknown, but we were pretty excited.

I don't remember what we had for breakfast (if anything). It had begun raining the afternoon before, and it was still raining. A big storm was blowing through the islands. But our flight was still scheduled to leave on time, so away we went.

We checked out of our hotel in the morning, and made our way to return the rental car return. That all went quite smoothly. We had a short wait for our inter-island flight. The total time between islands, including take-off and landing was less than an hour.

It was raining on Maui when we landed. The sky was very gray. No pockets of blue sky anywhere. We picked up our rental car, and started to make our way to Kihei (pronounced key-hay), where our hotel was. It was lunch time, but we thought we'd see if they would let us check in early.

During our drive, the windshield wipers kept hitting each other as they were on. Luckily it wasn't raining too hard, so I only used them when I had to.

We got to our hotel (kind of dumpy), but couldn't check in early. We'd have to wait till after 3pm. So we got some recommendations for where to go for lunch. Once in the car, it was raining a little harder, so I had to put the wipers on. It looked like one wiper blade might be sliding out, so I hopped out to see if I could slide it back in. Nope, it wouldn't budge. So I got back in and turned the wipers back on, and they got all caught up on each other and bent all out of whack... oh, no! So, it was back to the rental yard we went. Of course, it's raining much harder now, so it's much harder to see. My stress is bringing my temperature up and now the windows are fogging up. Anna called Avis to tell them what happened and to have a car ready for us. We got back, and after a little confusion from the car return person, we had a new car rented to us.

Here we are switching from the mint green Ford Focus (Economy class) to the Pontiac G6 (mid size class). They upgraded us for free. We got pretty wet. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, our suitcase was soaked when we got it from the baggage claim. It was definitely on top as they loaded the baggage on the plane. Luckily it had a plastic lining, otherwise we would have been really ticked.


So, now we have are new car, and we've made our way back to Kihei to find a place to eat a late lunch. Mary was the concierge at our hotel, and one of the places she recommended was called, "Cafe O'lei". It was close by, so we went there. The food was pretty good. The price was a little high, but all in all, it was good. It's on the second floor.

After lunch, we could check into the hotel. The first item on business was laundry! We brought enough clothes for half the trip, so laundry was on the list of priorities this day. Luckily(?), there was a laundry room at the hotel. You can see it below.

It didn't look pretty, but at least the machines worked. It seemed like it took forever for them to wash and dry. It kept raining. Anna spent some time at the front desk to talk to Mary about ideas for the next couple days.

Once laundry was done and folded. We started making dinner plans. We drove out to a restaurant a little further south from Kihei, but they had a private party that night. Bummer. We went to plan B, they had plenty of tables available.

Here's the last bit of sunset right before we walked into the restaurant.

We chose this place because they had half price pupus (appetizers) during "happy hour". We sat at a table, and it was a really fancy place. Everything was pretty expensive. The half price cost was just about the same as regular price at home. Plus we had been seated in the restaurant area, which, as it turned out, was not where we should be for half price apps. We needed to be in the bar area. But they were full. Our waiter was a totally cool guy, he said he'd do the discount for us anyway. I felt bad that we were taking up a table where he could be earning a much bigger tip, but we stayed. We had fried prawns, crab cakes, BBQ ribs, and I splurged a little and ordered a fried prawn california sushi roll as well. They also had bread service, so we ate a few rolls each as well.

The ribs were by far the best thing we ordered. Pretty much perfect.



After dinner, we drove around a bit. There are only two main roads that travel north/south on the side of the island we were on, so it was really easy to navigate through. Plus we did have our Garmin to help us if we needed it (We used it quite a lot this whole trip). We found this little ice cream shop while driving around, and got some ice cream.

It had rained the whole day. People were saying it was more rain than they'd seen in years. The forecast said it should last the whole weekend. We weren't too thrilled to think our whole Maui stay would be a rainy one. But, in case it cleared up a little, we still made plans.

It was only half of a day, but we could already tell we were going to like Maui once we got out and saw more of it.

Hawaii Trip- Day 4 (Thursday, Dec. 9)

Thursday was tricky to plan for. We had a lot on our list. We were also waiting to hear about PCC tickets, and when we should be getting them.

We had planned/hoped to attend a session at the temple, so we got dressed in our Sunday clothes and headed out to breakfast while we waited to pick up our tickets to the PCC. We went to the Wailana Coffee House for all you can eat pancakes! Turns out, all we could eat were four each. But they were still good... especially with the coconut syrup!

There was some confusion about the PCC tickets, so that took us out of being able to attend the temple. So we changed into our play clothes and headed out to do some other fun things... like hike Diamond Head crater! Wait, what?!

The trail is closed during the week! Bummer! They did let us walk around the parking lot and trail head though.

We are here.

Diamond Head didn't work out, so that just meant heading out to Matsumoto's a little earlier. It was a bit over cast, and drizzly by this point, but that didn't matter. Shave ice is good any time! It was even better than we remember.

Anna was curious about the sweetened condensed milk option for the shave ice, so after we each finished our own, we got another one to share. This time with the SCM. Looks a little gnarly... but it was SO SO GOOD!! Not as sweet as you would expect, and added some creaminess. So good!

From there we made our way over to the Polynesian Cultural Center (PCC). Through a friend of a friend, we were able to get tickets into the villages and to the show. We only needed to pay for a meal choice. Can't complain about that. We saved about 75% from paying at the door.

Oh yeah, by this time, it's raining. Every once in a while it would calm down, but for the most part, it was pretty steady.

Here's Anna trying to make fire in the Samoan village. Actually, all we can really do here is make smoke and embers. But we each gave it a try, and got it to smoke a little.

The canoe pageant they have in the middle of the day, was moved to the theatre, due to the rain. All the performers did a really great job.

Back at the Samoan village for some demonstrations. It's pretty much the some one they've had there for ever- But still so fun to watch. It's really fun to be around people experiencing it all for the first time.

At the Tongan village, Anna volunteered me to participate. That was pretty fun. I did my best to "ham" it up and make it fun for everyone watching. Even got a couple comments afterward from people.

We also visited the Tahitian and Maori villages before our time ran out. We missed Fiji.


Mmmm... then it was dinner time! We chose the buffet. Good pork and chicken. I liked the sushi rolls too. Great pineapple, good bread rolls, and good desserts. Happy tongues and stomachs!

After dinner we made our way to the theater again. The staff at PCC takes pictures and you can buy them at the end of the day. They're pretty expensive, so we just took pictures of our pictures. Here's a pretty funny one.

Anna couldn't pass up a kissy faced Moa...

Seating for the night show is assigned. We were directed to the left of the stage and looked for our row. We were front row?! These tickets were great!

The start of the show. No zoom lens needed.

The show is really well done.

That many guys doing a "haka"... goose bumps.

At times during the show, the rain was pouring and the wind was blowing it into the theatre a little, but all the performers worked through it. We thought for sure they were going to stop the show due to the amount of rain, but they never did.


After we were done at the PCC, we drove over to the temple to take some pictures. The grounds are beautiful (even in the dark) and the temple is very well lit.

As we were leaving the temple, Anna spotted this huge toad on the walkway. random.

The Polynesian Cultural Center was a great way to end our stay on Oahu. It would have been nice to have just one more day on the island, but I'm sure everyone who visits says that. We had had a really great time, but we were pretty excited for Maui too.

Hawaii- Day 3

Day 3 was a Wednesday. Lots of fun things to do.

Here's Anna in the center of the International Market Place early in the morning. There's a post office in there, and we had some post cards we wanted to send off to the kids. You don't realize it, the that Banyan tree is kind of the "roof" of the market area. Anyway, we thought it was pretty cool.

We were heading out to the Aloha Stadium, but stopped off at Champion Malasada for some malasadas. We also picked out a couple other items. We forgot to take a picture before we dug in, so here, all you can see are the remains of a guava cake (that wasn't very good- it was plain), and a couple of malasadas that we tried our best to save for later. After eating these malasadas, we determined that Leonard's were slightly better.

We shopped around the Stadium flee market all morning. We got a little snacky, so I had to pick up some fresh pineapple with Li Hing! My facial expression is not doing a very good job of communicating my joy, but it was really good.

After a bunch of time at the Stadium, today was our day to eat at the world renowned (at least to our family), Aiea Chop Suey! It still looks exactly the same. I had kind of wished I had a picture of grandma and grandpa, to see if anyone that still works there would recognize them. Maybe next time.

Spring rolls, lemon chicken, sweet and sour pork, broccoli beef chow mein, and rice... SO GOOD!!! Almost got the egg drop soup too. The only thing that put a damper on this visit was knowing we probably wouldn't have time to go back and eat more.

Did I mention how good it was? Anna asked, while we were eating, "Why don't we eat Chinese food more often?". The answer was: because we probably wouldn't find anything this good, out by us. (Doesn't mean I wouldn't like to try to find something close to as good.)

I was in need of a large diet soda after that incredible meal. Luckily there's a McD's right on top of Aiea Chop Suey. Anna took this picture to share with her class. The other really good reason to stop at McD's?...

Haupia pie! These were SO good. We probably ate half a dozen each while on our trip.

After we ate, we headed out to see Blowhole! Anne thought that there's more than just "one way" to enjoy the area at Blowhole.

We were at blowhole for a while. The breeze was nice, it wasn't crowded at all. In fact there were probably only 4 cars there at any one time while we were there. We had seen a large spout shortly after we got there, and decided to try and catch another one in film. It didn't take too long.

As that one finished, the spray formed a rainbow. Bonus.

Anna had to have been standing on a high spot, or I standing on a low spot... right?

From there we made our way to Hanauma Bay. Once we got there, it looks totally different from how I remember. It's totally commercialized now. You have to pay to go down to the beach, there's a big parking lot you have to pay to park in, there's a gift shop, and "museum". Saw a few mongoose in the area.

It was almost closing time (wait, what?), so there was no one taking tickets, so we just walked in. We couldn't go down to the beach, there was a park ranger making sure no one was entering. But we did walk around the entry area. Here you will find a large statue of Hawaii's state fish- the Humuhumunukunukua'pua'a. Here's my picture with it. I think that at this point I decided my regular smile was too boring.

Here's Anna with Hanauma Bay (formed by a volcanic crater) behind her.

As we were driving along the coast, headed back to Waikiki, the sunset was showing off, to we found a beach side park to pull into and watch it. We were not the only ones. This is the first picture Anna took after we stopped. If you look closely at the bottom of the picture, you'll see a mattress floating in the water in front of us. Didn't notice it till after.

We also chose to head back up to Pali Lookout to see if it's windier at night. It wasn't windier at all. It was a bit creepy though. But we did walk out to the lookout, and took a couple of pictures of the night view. So yeah, no crazy windy Pali pictures for us this trip.

Another fun filled day!

I'd say it was pretty obvious that we were there during tourist "off" season. Nothing we went to see or do was busy or crowded, which was nice.

When we went to Aiea Chop Suey, the local Terminex office was having their Christmas party. They took up about 2/3 of the restaurant. They were having a great time. They were having such a great time (and quite loud at times), that I was hoping they would offer to pick up our tab. But, no.

When we were going through security at LAX, one of the TSA guys that was checking our IDs asked us if we knew the state flower. I said plumeria. He said, no- the plumeria is a fragrant decorative flower often used in celebration or ceremony and for making leis. (Or something very similar to that) By the way, he's a young, tall-ish, heavy set, white guy, and he said it without any hesitation at all. Anna said Hibiscus. He said, very good- what's the state bird? We both said, Nene. He said, Oh, very good, ok- what's the state fish? I said something like marlin or ono, Anna was saying dolphin fish, etc. We had many guesses, he was just shaking his head. Mind you, this is all happening as he's checking out boarding passes and IDs, and in the course of about a minute or two. Then he busts out, with no hesitation or correction- it's the humanaudldineifnlaseind (or so it sounded to us at the time). Our jaws hit the ground, we said, you're all set, have a good trip, and we were on our way. He might have said, look it up, as we were heading up the stairs. It all happened so fast. Later we saw or found the name and how to spell it, and practiced saying it. Many places we went had that fish in artwork or aquarium.


So yeah, good time.