I had a fabulous time in Hawaii. It was so nice to relax for a week in good weather, good scenery, and good company.
Getting to and from Hawaii was a long process, but not particularly painful although I did have to wake up at 3 a.m. on the 27th to do it. I went from Madison to Dallas/Fort Worth where I met up with Nathan, and then we traveled on from there to Honolulu and then to Lihue, on Kauai.
Despite everyone warning me about DFW airport, it was delightful compared to the Honolulu airport. The difference was mainly in the signage and transportation between terminals. Where DFW has clear and frequent signs and a Skylink tram that gets you quickly from place to place in a big circle, so it's hard to get lost, Honolulu's airport might as well have been a maze. They tell you when you deplane in Honolulu to go find the Wiki Wiki Shuttle to whichever terminal you need to go. Strangely, they also have signs that indicate you should use the Wiki Wiki Shuttle to get to, say, gates 6-11 and gates 40-60. Woe betide you if you were told to go to some other gate that isn't mentioned and are now confused. Furthermore, there's a whiteboard with written instructions on other gates covered by the shuttle that aren't noted on the official signs. Anyway, we made our flight out of Honolulu and over to Kauai, where we stayed for a week.
Kauai is simply lovely. We did some sightseeing but we didn't get too intense about it because we all needed some time to just relax. We went swimming nearly every day, most days twice. The swimming routine was: swim in the ocean, come back to land, rinse the salt and sand off, hop in the pool, swim around for a while, hop in the hot tub for 15 minutes, get back in the pool, chatting all the while. I have no idea how long each of these outings were because I wasn't checking the time. It was glorious. The only reason I know about the 15-minute interval for the hot tub is because that's how long the bubbles run before they shut off. Mmmmm. At right you can see the view from our room, with the pool and ocean visible through the palm trees.
We drove up and saw Waimea Canyon one day, which I can't remember if I did before when I was on Kauai with my parents in the 90s. Waimea Canyon is more impressive than comes through in pictures, I think. You can't get a sense of the sheer depth of it from photographs. I spent most of the trip thinking I was on a tiny little island--Kauai feels tiny because you can drive all around it in one day, and it doesn't seem like it could contain such a huge thing--but after I was up there and saw the canyon, the island felt much larger to me. The drive up and back was great too, because I got to see a lot of gorgeous flowering plants that you don't see at sea level, and there was even a spot where you could see all the way to Kauai's neighboring island, Niihau, and its little neighbor Lehua.
Other places we dallied during the week were:
- Lydgate Beach Park, where there's a man-made snorkeling area so that newbie snorkelers don't get carried out to sea,
- Spouting Horn, where the waves crash into this underground lava tube and spew up to the surface, making a sound like some very large creature is breathing heavily just below you,
- Various spots in Hanalei, Kapa'a, Poipu, up and down Kuhio highway, which runs along the coast.
One tasty surprise about Kauai is that it gets fresh ahi tuna off its shores. I mean really fresh. If you order ahi, you cannot go wrong because it will be fresh. The grocery store ahi tuna is of the high quality, and it only gets better from there. So, let's just say we ate a decent amount of sushi during this trip and leave it at that, shall we? It wouldn't be fair to go into too much detail. ;) A few other food highlights in Kauai:
- The macadamia nut pancakes at Kountry Kitchen in Kapa'a (their other food was delicious as well, but I'm fixated on the pancakes). They have coconut syrup to go with them, and the pancakes are loaded with nuts.
- Hamura's Saimin Stand. Delicious saimin, and also lilikoi chiffon pie. The place itself is a hole in the wall, but the food is no-nonsense and yummy.
- Kalapaki Beach Hut, a simple little place right next to the hotel that totally beats the overpriced breakfast buffet inside the hotel. I heard they also had marionberry milkshakes, but I only went there for breakfast.
- Olympic Cafe in Kapa'a: I had fish tacos with papaya salsa. The cafe is basically a big balcony that overlooks the ocean on one side and the main drag of Kapa'a on the other. Excellent for people watching.
- "Local" food. Lots of the restaurants we visited had some item on the menu that would be called "the local" or something that implied it was what non-tourists eat. Usually it would have Kalua pig (not Kahlua, thank goodness) or Portuguese sausage, kimchee or cabbage, and those ingredients would be served with rice or mixed into whatever the restaurant's specialty was. I didn't try anything with kimchee, but I did have the other items at various points and would recommend them.
- Piña coladas. No seriously. You're in a place where they're using both fresh pineapple AND fresh coconut. Think about it. Screw this mai tai crap. (Sorry, Dad!)
Alas, the week eventually came to a close and we all had to return to Real Life, where we can't lie around and read books we've been meaning to read but were too busy, and spontaneously decide to go for a swim for the second time that day, and then maybe see if anyone wants to go find something to eat. When I got back to Madison it was 51 degrees and raining!
I put up a bunch of my Hawaii pictures here, if you're interested.
