The View From Above

Yesterday morning was more laid-back in that we actually hung out around our resort for most of the day. The weather was gorgeous so we went for a run down the harbor next to our hotel. After that we went swimming and relaxed by the pool. It was very nice to just stay put and not have somewhere to go.

At 1pm, we did have an appointment to keep, however. With a helicopter. When discussing which activities we would be doing on the island and realizing that money would be a limiting factor, I asked my husband if he could only pick one major excursion, what it would be. Without hesitating, he replied, “A helicopter ride.” Truthfully, my husband doesn’t ask for much, so when I saw how much he wanted to do this, we made the decision.

We went with the company, Blue Hawaiian, and we weren’t disappointed at all. I was a little nervous about getting motion sick, but our pilot was great (and I’m sure it helped that the weather was pretty clear) and it was a smooth flight. We got to sit in the front and take in all of the fantastic views. (our hotel from the air)

Remember how I said that when we looked over Waimea Canyon, I wanted to be a bird? Well, this is about as close as I think I could get (besides hang-gliding, perhaps). It was amazing to descend down into the deep valleys, and see “hidden” waterfalls, accessible only by foot or air.We flew along the Na Pali coast (also only accessible by foot, air or water), which was breathtaking. Our pilot even got us into the crater of Mt. Wai’ale’ale, which used to be the volcano that created this island. The top of Wai’ale’ale is reputed to be the wettest place on earth, 428 inches of rain per year. The whole helicopter ride was just unforgettable. I wonder how difficult it is to learn how to drive one of those??

After we got our land legs back, we treated ourselves to some ice cream treats and did a little shopping. For dinner, we decided to try out a little saimin restaurant. Saimin is a local dish, basically a noodle soup which local Chinese say comes from Japan, and local Japanese say comes from China. Who knows? But since we like both Chinese & Japanese noodles, we figured we couldn’t go wrong. It was cheap, hot food, with a lot of local atmosphere. Unfortunately, we weren’t overly impressed. The broth was too salty and it didn’t have enough veggies (in my opinion). After dinner, we walked around Kmart, which was the only place we could find open to walk around. They had a decent Hawaiian souvenir section and some Hawaiian children’s books I enjoyed looking at.

And there passes another day in Kaua’i… the week is going by fast!

Waimea Canyon & A Lu'au

(disclaimer to any readers: lots of travel details. I wrote this more for my benefit of not forgetting than to communicate with you. Hope it's not too boring!)

Today we drove out to the western side of the island, where Waimea Canyon is located. We got a later start than we’d wanted and we knew we’d have to head back in time to make our lu’au at 5pm, so our time there was limited. This meant we wouldn’t get to do any real hiking in the canyon, which was too bad, but fortunately we could drive all along the ridge and still see some amazing views.

Waimea Canyon is on the side of Kaua’I that receives less rainfall (apparently the mountain in the middle of the island “takes” all the rain before it gets there) which we felt, with no clouds, bright sun, and dry & windy air. We took the road ten miles up and stopped at several lookout points. The main lookout point had great views of the canyon & Waipo’o Falls. As we gazed over the canyon that was carved out of layers of hardened lava by rivers, all I could think was that I wished I was a bird, so I could fly over and through such beauty. It is called the “Grand Canyon of the Pacific”, and I can see why. It does bear some resemblance, although it’s nowhere near as large as the one in Arizona.The red, clay-like dirt is so striking against all of the other colors in the canyon.

We followed the road all the way to the end (20 miles in & over 2,500’ high) to the Pu’u o Kila lookout. This vantage point allowed us to see down the other side of the ridge, to the north side of the island, which was the beautiful Kalalau Valley and the Na Pali coastline. It was gorgeous. We ate our picnic lunch up there, then had to turn around and head home.

Not without stopping at Jo-Jo’s shaved ice stand, though! This establishment was recommended in our guide book, and since we haven’t had authentic Hawaiian shaved ice yet, we were obligated to check it out. Mmmm. My husband had the banana split flavored shaved ice, and I had the tropical Shaved Ice. At home, shaved ice is simply ice with syrup over it. Here they put a scoop of ice cream on the bottom, and sometimes put extra things up on top too.

We had a quick turnaround at our hotel, to change clothes and we were off again to the Smith’s Tropical Paradise for our lu’au experience. Yes, it was completely tourist-y, but something we had to do. We spent the first 45 min. just walking around the grounds, which includes some amazing gardens, fruit trees, and even a Polynesian & a Filipino village (!) Then we watched the Imu ceremony, where they unearth the pig that’s been cooking in the ground all day. After that we sat down to eat our dinner, which was a huge buffet of classic island fare. Teriyaki beef, chicken adobo, lomi-lomi salmon w/poi, shredded kalua pig, macaroni salad, Hawaiian sweet potato (taro), and Chinese fried rice.

During dinner we were entertained by some traditional Hawaiian music, and there was even a hula dancer teaching kids to do the hukilau hula dance. After dinner we went to the outdoor theater for the “real show.” The program included an hour & 15 min. of cultural dancing representing the people of Hawaii. There was even a “volcano” that erupted and the fire goddess, Pe’le, threw a big fireball out of it! It was definitely an entertaining show, but my husband and I are a little skeptical about how authentic many of the dances were.

We fell into bed as soon as we got home. All in all, this was a very fun-filled day!

Visiting the South Shore

Here we are, coming to the end of Day 2 in Kaua'i. We are beat. Strange to feel tired when we slept in and are supposed to be on vacation, "relaxing." It's only 6:30pm Hawaii time, and I think we'll be staying in our room for the rest of the night.

After breakfast in our room & a morning workout in the fitness room, we headed out for the South Shore, which is supposed to be the sunniest place on Kaua'i. I guess it was a good thing we went there, because it was raining everywhere else today. Our main goal for the day was: snorkeling!

Before arriving at the snorkel destination (Po'ipu Beach), we took a detour by the Spouting Horn. This is a blowhole, where the waves go under a lava shelf, and water spouts out of this hole, making kind of a hollow moaning sound. For those of you who have been to La Bufadora near Ensenada, Mexico, this is a similar phenomena (although La Bufadora is about 10 times a big as what we saw today).

After that excitement, we rented some snorkel gear for the week and hit the beach. Unfortunately, it was pretty cloudy and windy at the beach, and the last thing I wanted to do was to get into the water! My husband bravely went in first (I wanted to make sure there were enough fish to make it worth my effort), and I eventually followed. There were lots of tropical fish, and it's always so cool to get in there with them and swim around. They came right up to us (hoping for fish food, I'm sure). After 30 mins, we decided to get out--we were cold! All those notions of warm, tropical Hawaiian waters were not realized today! Brrrrr! We huddled up on our mats & towels to get warm. Then we watched a Hawaiian Monk Seal literally hop (waddle?) up out of the water and lay down on the sand about 200 feet from where we were laying. I guess they like to sunbathe on Po'ipu Beach too!

When we finally couldn't take the goosebumps anymore, we changed clothes and went for my second goal of the day: eating a Puka Dog. Our friend Julie was the first to mention this place to us, and since then we've heard it reviewed by others (Anthony Bourdain, of the Travel channel, even visited this place!). Imagine a polish sausage wrapped in a hawaiian sweet bread roll, then injected with garlic lemon sauce, your choice of fruit relish and your choice of mustard. (We chose the mango relish and the lilikoi mustard.) It sounds kind of stomach-turning but it really was good!

Needing to walk the Puka Dog off, we drove up to Old Koloa Town, the major port of entry to Kaua'i in the 1800's and the birthplace of the sugar industry in Hawai'i. The town has carefully preserved many of the historical buildings, and they are used today (mostly as tourist shops). It had a lot of charm, and we enjoyed walking around. There was also a nice monument built to honor all of the ethnic groups who contributed to the sugar industry, many of them Asian immigrants.

'Nuff said! I'm going to go lay down and relax!!!

Aloha From Kaua'i

So we've been here a little over 24 hours, and just so I don't forget things, I thought I'd start my blogging now. We spent most of today sleeping, taking care of necessities (like buying groceries and snorkel gear) and driving around the towns of Lihu'e & Kapa'a & getting acquainted with the lay of the land (and our cool blue rental car).

We also squeezed in a stop to a couple of "drive up" waterfalls: Wailua and 'Opaeka'a Falls. They were beautiful waterfalls, but the views would've been even more amazing if we could've gotten closer to them. Supposedly there is a trail that locals take to the bottom of Wailua Falls, but since the government has a huge fence with lots of signs saying "Danger, Do Not Pass," we chickened out and just shot photos from the roadside view.


Our hotel is on Kalapaki Beach and the view from our room is of a small bay. Here it is:
We like it here. It's very comfortable and centrally located. It's kind of a long walk from our room to the parking lot, but the way that we're eating, we can use the exercise...

Speaking of eating, probably the highlight of the day for me was breakfast. We went to the Tip Top Cafe, which is a lesser-known to tourist spot. Mostly locals (it seemed) were eating there, which is always exciting to me. Many people were speaking Tagalog there, so my husband was feeling right at home. There is such ethnic diversity here, and we find ourselves trying to figure out what ethnicities people are, but giving up because we can't tell. The culture seems to be an interesting fusion of different Pacific Island, Asian, and European traditions. Here's an example: for breakfast, we ate oxtail soup and banana pancakes with homemade guava-pineapple jam. Really. It was all delicious.


For dinner, we experienced a little more consistency at a Japanese restaurant and ate sushi rolls and nabeyaki (seafood noodle soup) Mmmmmm!

So you can see what I'm most excited about on this trip: the food. Of course it didn't help that we watched Julie and Julia on the plane on the way over here. That got me all pumped on both food and blogging. Sorry. I'll try to write about other things tomorrow.

Fall in Napa

It's taken me awhile to get to this post, but I wanted to share some photos from my latest getaway, up to Napa with my two of my longest and dearest friends. Since we all live far away from each other, we make it a point to pick one weekend out of the year to get together, sans husband and children. It's great! I always look forward to this time of being with friends who I've shared so much history with (one goes all the way back to preschool with me, and the other to elementary school). They have been with me through thick and thin, and I appreciate them SO much.

Wine country was absolutely beautiful the weekend we were there. We stayed in Calistoga, and the vineyards were like a sea of gold. The trees were also brilliant shades of yellow and red. I actually went for an early morning run through the vineyards and felt like I was in a movie or something, so picturesque!


We enjoyed wine tasting at a couple of vineyards, the first being Chateau Montelena (of the famous "Judgement of Paris" wine competition depicted in the movie, Bottle Shock). Truthfully there are so many wineries in this area, it is overwhelming to try and pick which one to go to. And we aren't the biggest wine connoisseurs to begin with, so we just took a couple of recommendations. The grounds at Chateau Montelena were beautiful, so we ate our picnic lunch there, after we finished our wine tasting. The wine was good, but a little out of our price range (one of the wines we tasted was a $135 bottle!), so we didn't buy any there. We spent a couple of hours just eating, chatting and enjoying the scenery.

Later we went to Rombauer, which also had beautiful grounds. We ended up buying a bottle of Zinfandel there, and drank it later that evening in our hotel room with dark chocolate cake and ice cream! We also treated ourselves to a nice dinner at the Calistoga Inn, which I would highly recommend. hmmm... what else did we do? We all forgot our swimsuits so we didn't get to take advantage of the mineral water pool at our hotel. And we bypassed on the famous Calistoga mud baths as well. That was OK, because the good food, fall colors, and fellowship with good friends was enough to make it an unforgettable weekend.

Victory!

Thank you God, family and friends! I'm so grateful and thankful to have had a good race yesterday. My hubby, my dad & I all finished together, with a strong push over the finish line. We had so many people cheering us on and celebrating with us. To Him be the glory!

13.1 Dreams

7 months ago, I started running again. I was a little mad at all that my body had put me through this past year, and it felt good to "get back" at it through running. What started out as me running for 10 minutes at a time, gradually worked up to 2 & 3 miles. Then my neighbors got on board for training for a half marathon. We figured we had plenty of time to build up our mileage before the race, which is (yikes!) this Sunday.

So my neighbor SP(eedy) pictured above, and I woke up early every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings to run together. Barring illness and injury, we hit the road at 6:15am, which until just last week was in the complete darkness--with moon and stars still shining. She is also a SAHM, and like me, also has found this time of running in the morning to be an important time to do something for herself. It's a great time of fellowship and sharing for us too. My husband can't believe that we talk through our whole run. We've laughed, cried and prayed together while running. Having such a great running partner has definitely helped me stick to our training schedule, and made it a lot more fun.

Besides SP, I have another running buddy--my husband, who I only get to run with on the weekend. He doesn't love to run, but does it for exercise, and to support me. When we were dating, we ran both a half and a full marathon together. He never left my side.

In addition to them, my dad is also running in the race this weekend, which totally inspires me. In fact, there are several other friends we know who are all taking on the 13.1 miles. It's encouraging to be around others who seek to be active and have the discipline to challenge themselves this way. I'm also deeply thankful for all the support from so many people in my extended family, who have graciously watched our son bright and early on Saturday mornings. Thank you for putting up with this crazy dream. We're almost there.

If you think of us this weekend, please send up happy thoughts and prayers for no injuries and a great run this Sunday. GO TEAM!