So in spite of my trying (and succeeding, thankyouVERYmuch) to diet, I am still quite the foodie at heart. So much so that I've finally given up one of my last resolves and created a Twitter account to follow San Jose's growing food truck scene.
I am so totally not one to embrace social media... if there were such a thing as antisocial media, then I'd be all over it. I'd create a "(bleep)YouTube" account in no time, spend hours updating my InYourFacebook page, be posting daily on GetOutOfMySpace, and be an editor on Jerkipedia. But sadly, there isn't (wait -- is there? If there's an antisocial media subculture out there, let me know about it. Don't be so standoffish about sharing it.) My sole contribution to social media is this blog, and as I've said on more than one occasion this is more for me than anyone else; I'm fairly certain that I'm the most regular reader to be sure.
Anyway, I have since backed off slightly from my technoloner ways and created a Twitter account, so we can follow and try out the food truck scene. There are a lot of trucks that have Twitter accounts, letting followers know where they'll be (a necessary thing if you want regular customers and have a nomadic eatery), but the one we were most interested in is Moveable Feast, organizers of multi-truck gatherings on weekends and other special events. They used to organize gatherings in San Pedro Square downtown, but they were having problems with the crowds and traffic, and long lines gathering in an area that wasn't designed for large crowds milling around.
And when I see on their Twitter feed they they were organizing some trucks at Garden City for lunch, well, we just have to give it a try. There were six trucks involved -- one of which we'd already tried earlier in the week -- so we figure we'll have a multiethnic fast food bonanza for our midday meal.
We find a decent parking spot (which is in and of itself remarkable, since it's in the Garden City / Harry's Hofbrau parking lot, which is always crowded; and there's a mini flea market going on at the same location as Moveable Feast) and make our way to where the trucks are parked in a semicircle around a plethora of folding chairs and a couple of awnings. Lucie and I split our forces to try and maximize our foraging -- the lines are a bit long and the crowd is densely packed -- so I head to the Wow Truck while Lucie heads to An the Go. I'm still in line waiting to order when Lucie comes back with her ticket in hand, so I jump out of line and head over to MoGo BBQ instead, since there's no line there. Within a few minutes, our orders are both ready and we find a place to sit and eat.
An the Go is a truck created by the An family... they have a couple of restaurants in San Francisco, and decided to take their crowd-favorite garlic noodles out into the mobile food scene. Lucie gets their garlic noodles and pork skewer; the noodles are indeed delicious -- I promise myself I'm going to experiment to see if I can make them at home -- and the teriyaki pork skewer is good, but it sort of fades into the background when compared to the noodles. They're a little too carby for me and my diet, however, so I don't have as much as I'd like to.
MoGo BBQ is Korean BBQ, with more than a little bit of fusion. I order a spicy pork taco, a chicken taco, and some Hawaiian influenced short rib sliders... the spicy pork taco is Lucie's favorite dish of the day, and the short rib sliders are messy but very tasty. The sliders come with shredded cheese and I'm unable to pick most of it off so Lucie is only able to have one of the 3 that come in the order; I enjoy the other two -- the cubed short rib meat has a lot of sweet charred flavor and is mixed with Spam pieces (and we all know how good Spam is!) and slaw, all stuffed into Hawaiian sweet bread. It's a great combination of flavors, with just a hint of spicy goodness from the sauce they provide.
We enjoy the dishes, then we take turns getting more food while the other one remains and protects our seating arrangement. Lucie hits Soulnese -- we'd had their food earlier in the week when we hunted down their truck after work -- and I decide to try out Sanguchon.
Soulnese bills themselves as Chinese soul food; we limit ourselves today to their Soul Stix and Mac & Rolls since we'd already tried out their other food previously. The Soul Stix -- our favorite item on their menu -- are grilled prawns wrapped around slices of hot link sausage, with a garlicky aioli sauce drizzled on top; the mac & rolls are macaroni & cheese egg rolls, with all of the deliciously cheesy greasy fatty goodness that that implies, accompanied by a ginger ranch dipping sauce. Their other items are also worth a try... garlic fries topped with fried pork strips, lemongrass aromatic fried chicken, and Mongolian tri tip are all fantastic, and while I haven't had it yet just the name of their "Jive Porky" plate (pork chop, ham, and bacon with fried rice) guarantees I'll be hitting this place at least one more time to give it a taste test.
Sanguchon is the mobile version of a triad of restaurants, all serving Peruvian food. I get an order of fried plantains for Lucie, and some sweet potato fries and a sandwich to share. The sandwich bread is made specially for Sanguchon, and is delicious -- dense, crispy and able to withstand a dental onslaught while keeping structural integrity, which is important: I pretty much mow through most of the sandwich before I remember I'm supposed to save some for Lucie to try out. The item I picked is pan con chicharron (pork loin with sweet potato fries, red onion, and a garlic aioli), but everything on the menu sounds fantastic. This is by far my favorite new food of the day, and I immediately add them to my Twitter account's Food Truck list for future meals.
While I'm waiting for the Sanguchon order to come up, I swing by the adjacent MoGo BBQ truck again and pick up some more tacos (one each of the chicken, spicy pork, and short rib -- I pass on the tofu this time around) for later.
Unfortunately, the Wow truck isn't sampled today, as the lines were too long every time we went out foraging; but the Filipino dishes all sound really good so we remember it for next time. I was looking forward to the silog experience (grilled meat over garlic rice, with fried egg on top) and to their Shanghai lumpia, too.
Likewise, the Project Cupcake truck isn't sampled either -- they're out of stock by the time we're ready for dessert. They offer fully customized cupcakes to order (you choose cupcake, frosting[s], topping[s], and dusting) but apparently didn't make enough for the day. This was apparently their first time at Moveable Feast -- I believe that normally the dessert portion is covered by Treatbot, the ice cream karaoke truck that we also tried earlier in the week when they paired with Soulnese (well, *I* tried them since it's ice cream; the Mexican chocolate ice cream in the waffle cup was great, and the pineapple-coconut ice cream reminded me of Hawaii, only with the danger being brain freeze instead of head trauma from falling coconuts) so it's entirely possible they weren't prepared for the crowds. Maybe we'll get to try them again next time we come to Moveable Feast, or if I see they're going to be nearby the next time I go on Twitter.
As with most street food, everything was a bit greasy; but as with *good* street food, the flavors more than made up for that and everything else. An excess of deep fryer grease, long waits, challenging seating conditions, relatively expensive food for somewhat small portion sizes... doesn't matter a whit. Food good? Yep. Really darn good food? Yuppers.
Going to go again? You betcha.
(Still losing weight? Surprisingly, yes; even with culinary adventuring. Since mid-June, I've dropped over 55 pounds. w00t.)
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Hawa1'1, Day 11: "Aloha, a Hui Hou."
(Side note -- it's actually taken me almost three weeks to type this last entry from our vacation... Something to do with not wanting it to end a second time?)
Our last day in Hawai'i... This year, at least.
Okay, next year, too -- can't afford to go every year, as much as we'd like to.
It's a fairly standard morning otherwise, with high waves, bright sun, and no cruise ship in the bay. We wake up, finish packing, and divide our forces as I go get our Mustang Sally from the parking lot while Lucie escorts the bellboy to the outdoor lobby and settles our bill (somewhat larger than advertised due to our bar tab.). By the time I drive around to the front of the hotel and assist the bellboy trying to get everything crammed into the microtrunk and back seat, Lucie's done with the financials and ready to go.
We make our last drive up along the Queen Ka'ahumanu Highway to the airport, and I drop off Lucie and our luggage while I return our rental. The first two times we came to Hawai'i, we used Thrifty car rentals because of the price; but after I was given attitude by the desk clerk (in Hawai'i, attitude!) and a sorely underpowered vehicle on our last trip, I'm glad we made the change. Our Mustang was more powerful, comfortable, and just looks so much better than the Chrysler Sebring that Thrifty offers, so I think we're going to coming back to Budget from now on. Plus, hey -- no seat belt extender needed on the Mustang.
By the time I get back to the airport terminal, Lucie already has the luggage checked (thanks to our old friends the Hawaii Porter Service) and has our tickets in hand. Unfortunately, we got a bit of a late start this morning, so we don't have a chance to check out the first class lounge before we make our way to the gate. We tell ourselves that we'll check it out next time, and board our flight to Honolulu.
We disembark our shuttle flight, hike our way across the miles and miles of Honolulu International Airport walkways and corridors and escalators and construction sites, stairwells and rock quarries, temporary plywood flooring, and assorted debris from the seemingly never-ending construction; and eventually find our way to our departure gate.
It's dark and deserted, which is to be expected; we have a two and a half hour layover, so the gate is unmanned for the time being. We take a short walk over to a Starbucks (and yes, I know there's probably some aphorism that only haole tourists visit a Starbucks in Hawai'i, but Mountain Thunder doesn't have a kiosk here yet so it was 'Bucky's or Gordon Biersch, and I've never been that much of a beer drinker) and grab some bottles of water for later and some caffeine for immediate use. My coconut mocha Frapuccino is almost too sweet, but still refreshing, and it gives us the energy to wander further along the concourse to an airport gift shop.
We peruse the area, buying last-minute gifts (fridge magnets), snacks (pineapple flavored gummy bears), and assorted items for the flight home (Hawaiian print neck pillows, and ear plugs since on 2 of the 3 flights so far we've ended up sitting in close proximity to a crying baby.) We drink one of the bottled waters (even in the airport terminal it's incredibly warm and humid -- we think the air conditioning is shut off due to the nearby renovations) and head back to our waiting area.
We spend the next hour or so reading books, playing Angry Birds and Plants Vs. Zombies and Words With Friends, drinking water, and taking pictures of the restroom signs that have Aloha wear on the silhouettes.
Soon enough, though, our plane is ready for boarding; so we gather our things, head to the front of the line (yay for first class tickets!), and board the plane for our flight home.
We spend the next several hours watching movies of questionable quality (The Expendables and Battlefield L.A.) and enjoying food of much better quality (I have a gourmet cheese selection; grilled salmon with miso cream sauce, asparagus, and mashed potatoes; and Sichuan-style eggplant with red peppers and brown rice. Lucie has Asian chicken salad; hoisin barbecue ribs, steamed rice, and mixed veggies; and the Sichuan eggplant. My dessert is a Kona coffee ice cream bombe glacée, with whipped cream and fresh raspberries.)
We land at Oakland airport late at night, and have only a short wait before we're picked up by Dean -- no stretch limo on the ride home, but the town car is just fine with us. We run into a huge amount of traffic on the way home, since apparently they're doing construction on I-880 about a mile or so before our exit. No worries -- I just direct Dean back to our place using city streets, and we arrive back home safe and sound (if more than a little sad we're no longer in Hawai'i.)
So our third trip to Hawai'i has come and gone; we've celebrated our tenth anniversary; had our luggage searched once again by the TSA; and I gained a little over ten pounds (mostly through alcohol and POG consumption.)
I'm also considering starting a new blog: "720 Days in San Jose", counting down the days until our next trip.
"Day 720: counted down the hours until Day 719..."
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Our last day in Hawai'i... This year, at least.
Okay, next year, too -- can't afford to go every year, as much as we'd like to.
It's a fairly standard morning otherwise, with high waves, bright sun, and no cruise ship in the bay. We wake up, finish packing, and divide our forces as I go get our Mustang Sally from the parking lot while Lucie escorts the bellboy to the outdoor lobby and settles our bill (somewhat larger than advertised due to our bar tab.). By the time I drive around to the front of the hotel and assist the bellboy trying to get everything crammed into the microtrunk and back seat, Lucie's done with the financials and ready to go.
We make our last drive up along the Queen Ka'ahumanu Highway to the airport, and I drop off Lucie and our luggage while I return our rental. The first two times we came to Hawai'i, we used Thrifty car rentals because of the price; but after I was given attitude by the desk clerk (in Hawai'i, attitude!) and a sorely underpowered vehicle on our last trip, I'm glad we made the change. Our Mustang was more powerful, comfortable, and just looks so much better than the Chrysler Sebring that Thrifty offers, so I think we're going to coming back to Budget from now on. Plus, hey -- no seat belt extender needed on the Mustang.
By the time I get back to the airport terminal, Lucie already has the luggage checked (thanks to our old friends the Hawaii Porter Service) and has our tickets in hand. Unfortunately, we got a bit of a late start this morning, so we don't have a chance to check out the first class lounge before we make our way to the gate. We tell ourselves that we'll check it out next time, and board our flight to Honolulu.
We disembark our shuttle flight, hike our way across the miles and miles of Honolulu International Airport walkways and corridors and escalators and construction sites, stairwells and rock quarries, temporary plywood flooring, and assorted debris from the seemingly never-ending construction; and eventually find our way to our departure gate.
It's dark and deserted, which is to be expected; we have a two and a half hour layover, so the gate is unmanned for the time being. We take a short walk over to a Starbucks (and yes, I know there's probably some aphorism that only haole tourists visit a Starbucks in Hawai'i, but Mountain Thunder doesn't have a kiosk here yet so it was 'Bucky's or Gordon Biersch, and I've never been that much of a beer drinker) and grab some bottles of water for later and some caffeine for immediate use. My coconut mocha Frapuccino is almost too sweet, but still refreshing, and it gives us the energy to wander further along the concourse to an airport gift shop.
We peruse the area, buying last-minute gifts (fridge magnets), snacks (pineapple flavored gummy bears), and assorted items for the flight home (Hawaiian print neck pillows, and ear plugs since on 2 of the 3 flights so far we've ended up sitting in close proximity to a crying baby.) We drink one of the bottled waters (even in the airport terminal it's incredibly warm and humid -- we think the air conditioning is shut off due to the nearby renovations) and head back to our waiting area.
We spend the next hour or so reading books, playing Angry Birds and Plants Vs. Zombies and Words With Friends, drinking water, and taking pictures of the restroom signs that have Aloha wear on the silhouettes.
Soon enough, though, our plane is ready for boarding; so we gather our things, head to the front of the line (yay for first class tickets!), and board the plane for our flight home.
We spend the next several hours watching movies of questionable quality (The Expendables and Battlefield L.A.) and enjoying food of much better quality (I have a gourmet cheese selection; grilled salmon with miso cream sauce, asparagus, and mashed potatoes; and Sichuan-style eggplant with red peppers and brown rice. Lucie has Asian chicken salad; hoisin barbecue ribs, steamed rice, and mixed veggies; and the Sichuan eggplant. My dessert is a Kona coffee ice cream bombe glacée, with whipped cream and fresh raspberries.)
We land at Oakland airport late at night, and have only a short wait before we're picked up by Dean -- no stretch limo on the ride home, but the town car is just fine with us. We run into a huge amount of traffic on the way home, since apparently they're doing construction on I-880 about a mile or so before our exit. No worries -- I just direct Dean back to our place using city streets, and we arrive back home safe and sound (if more than a little sad we're no longer in Hawai'i.)
So our third trip to Hawai'i has come and gone; we've celebrated our tenth anniversary; had our luggage searched once again by the TSA; and I gained a little over ten pounds (mostly through alcohol and POG consumption.)
I'm also considering starting a new blog: "720 Days in San Jose", counting down the days until our next trip.
"Day 720: counted down the hours until Day 719..."
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Hawa1'1, Day 10: "Déjà Brew, Again (Or: a ThreePeet's)"
Dawn breaks on our last full day in Hawai'i, but we're still sleeping. Later that morning breaks, and we wake up, open the sliding doors, and see our first cruise ship on the Big Island. Maui has Kahului Harbor right near the airport, so you get off the airplane and there's a big honkin' cruise ship parked in your face; the Big Island, on the other hand, makes the passengers shuttle back and forth from where the ship is anchored in the bay to the small dock next to the wa'a launch. The Big Island's all supercool that way. You gotta work for the Kona, baby.
Speaking of which, we had three different plans for today: drive down to Volcanos National Park and say hello to Kilauea; drive up to Hawi in the northern tip of the island and say hello to the statue of King Kamehameha; or go wacky crazy and visit more coffee plantations. We did Volcanos on our previous two trips, and while it's incredibly cool going there and knowing you're watching an island actually growing, we're okay with skipping that this time around. We still haven't been to Hawi, but that's kind of an all-day thing and we have tickets to tonight's luau, and we don't want to have to rush if we don't want to (Big Island and all, you know.) So we decide to hit more coffee plantations -- we go through our old Coffee Tour map (which, yes, I have saved in my iBooks library on my iPad), pick a few new farms to try out as well as a couple of old ones we want to revisit, plan the best route (hint: it rhymes with "drive down the Obamalahoa Highway"), and head out.
Our first stop is UCC again... not to buy more coffee or to roast more ourselves -- though we wouldn't be adverse to that -- but because we tried a couple of those coffee flavored Pretz biscuit sticks and need more. Pocky Pocky Pocky. The guy behind the counter remembers us; I'm guessing because Lucie's clothes are so recognizable. We chat for a bit, buy a couple boxes of Pretz, and continue on our way.
Our next stop is in Holualoa, at Blue Sky. Unfortunately, they don't have any more of that nifty liliko'i and chili jelly I got last time, but they still have some good coffee, CDs of Kona-related Hawaiian music produced by the Kona Coffee Cultural Festival with all proceeds benefiting the Coffee Festival's "Aloha Makahiki Concert", and some other yummy foodstuffs. We fill a bag or two with purchases and chat for a few minutes with the proprietors, then continue on our way.
We make a left onto Old Poi Factory Road and drive up a steep, sort of paved, unstriped, one and a half lane road until we get to Buddha's Cup. We had a fun visit on our first trip but weren't able to make it last time, and wanted to see how Pancho, the cute dog we met, is doing. We don't actually see Pancho, but instead we meet Manny, one of the cohabitants of the residence-turned-coffee farm, and he is flat-out, full-on, 100% entirely totally and completely AWESOME. All caps and boldface. He greets us with an exuberant full-body hug and huge smile; talks nonstop about his love of growing coffee, drinking coffee, living in Hawai'i, and enjoyment of participating in the coffee competitions (for which Buddha's Cup won 1st place in 2010, at the Gevalia Cupping Contest); he gives us a free pound of his own "Manny's Brew" coffee, as well as a Buddha's Cup burlap tote bag; he's so stoked that people like us love coffee so much we're willing to drive all the way up the mountain to visit the farm that he even offers to house us on our next trip to the island. We mention meeting Pancho last trip and he gives a deep laugh. "Oh, Pancho... that guy is great! He loves hanging out with me when I'm working outside, and was teasing me through the window just a while ago!"
He's by far one of the most warm and welcoming people we've met in Hawai'i, which really is saying something. However, it's getting on in the day and we've got another couple of coffee farms to visit, so we regretfully say our farewells (or our "aloha a hui hou"s), and leave with our Buddha's Cup and Manny's Brew coffees stowed snugly in our Buddha's Cup tote bag.
About halfway down Old Poi Factory Road back toward the Mamalahoa Highway, we make our next stop at Heavenly Hawaiian Farms. We're a little distressed when they tell us that they brought in some coffee breeds from Costa Rica a while back to mix with the Kona, and which have since cross pollinated and done who knows what to the coffee purity on adjacent farms ("They taste exactly the same now!" the wife says happily) and we're also a bit distressed when they come across as a little bigoted ("we got checked by ICE a couple of years ago, and lost all of the Mexicans working for us, since they were all illegals except for the foreman. We have Filipinos now."). However, they are polite and nice to us during our visit, and their coffee is pretty darn tasty, so we buy some of the arabica Kona coffee they sell and head back down the coffee belt road.
We head through Captain Cook, past Onouli Road, past Keopuka Mauka Road, past Hale Ke Eke E Place, past Pele Lane, past Kalamalani Place, through Kealakekua, past Telephone Exchange Road, past Lau Wiliwili Nukunuku Oi'oi Drive, past Napo'opo'o Road, past Filipino Clubhouse Road, all the way to Lion's Gate Farms. And yes, one of those street names is made up. No, I'm not telling.
Anyway, I take a quick picture or two at Lion's Gate of the coffee trees -- not only because they've got a lot of ripe red coffee cherries everywhere whereas most places are just starting to ripen, but because they also have a big prickly pear cactus growing in the midst of the trees, and it's kind of a cool pairing of red hues -- and we're welcomed into the foyer of the main house by the nice lady there. Her daughter's the business person, she tells us, and she's just filling in while she's away, but she's polite and informative and friendly (like just about everyone we've met.). She talks about their macadamia nut trees and how the nuts are harvested and aged to detach from the shell, and how nobody sells them raw because the oils go rancid too quickly to have a viable shelf life... and then she gives the opportunity to crack open a macadamia nut and try one raw.
The nut needs a specialized machine to open, since mac nuts have the hardest shells of any nut on earth -- you could use a hammer, but that usually results in macadamia nut paste instead of a whole nut. Mac nuts also have the highest amount of monounsaturated fat of any nut, so the raw nut meat is incredibly creamy in texture. Roasted mac nuts are tasty and all -- salted, honey roasted, chocolate coated, flavored, with cayenne, whatever -- but eating the nuts raw is an entirely new experience. They'll even sell them raw by special request, which Lucie and I agree we may need to do once we're back in California. And kudos to you if you didn't giggle at all during that last paragraph; way to go.
We buy a few bags of chocolate covered coffee beans, powdered sugar coated toffee mac nuts, coffee, and some macadamia nut oil for cooking, then head on back toward Kailua. It's just after lunchtime, so we stop off in Kealakekua at a place we've driven past several times now, Rebel Kitchen, for a bite to eat.
The owners are Bay Area transplants who moved out here earlier this year to pursue their dreams of opening a restaurant, against people's advice (hence the name)... And if that dream includes making some really groovy food, their dream is coming true. Their jerk chicken sandwich is a little messy because of the jerk sauce runoff, but the flavor is outstanding -- sweet, tangy, and with just a tiny bite of heat, all the while keeping the chicken moist and tender. The bun is soft and freshly baked, as are their desserts (we split a banana oatmeal dark chocolate loaf, a chocolate lover's cupcake, and a slice of outstanding liliko'i cheesecake with what tastes like a macadamia nut crust.) As with most meals, we stick with cold bottled water and I supplement with a can of POG. I'm mildly entertained by the fact that while most of the water we've had so far has been Hawaiian brands, our entrepreneurs from San Francisco are offering Crystal Geyser water, bottled in California and shipped to Hawai'i... maybe not the most ecologically friendly choice but it makes me chuckle a little.
After lunch, we return to our hotel and relax for an hour or two before getting gussied up in our finest casual wear to head downstairs to the Royal Kona's luau. I have linen pants and the new Hawaiian shirt we bought in Hilo, and I also bought a new pair of sunglasses in the hotel's gift shop a few days ago that matches my shirt almost perfectly (which is pure happy coincidence, since I hadn't bought the shirt at the time.). In the elevator on the way down, a fellow passenger comments on the brightness of my shirt ("I probably wouldn't wear that, and I'm from here!") before pausing briefly and asking, "Is that a Mamo?" I glance down at my shirt and its handwritten "Mamo" appearing here and there, and say, "It sure is.". He nods, more impressed than before, and exits the elevator ahead of us.
As soon as he's out of eyesight, both Lucie and I whip out our iPhones and Google "Mamo Hawaiian shirt" -- oh, hey; looks like I managed to buy designer wear created by Hawaii's most famous clothing designer. I had no idea -- I was just buying something that actually fit for once. Groovy.
Feeling more stylish than usual, we head into the luau, have our picture taken for later purchase, grab some watered down mai tais, and find some seats that aren't located beneath any palm trees. We end up sitting next to a couple from England on their honeymoon; we chat a bit as the evening progresses, but the new bride seems somehow impervious to my attempts to sell her on drinking coffee instead of tea.
The food is very much the same as when we attended the luau on our first visit; the teriyaki and short ribs are nicely saucy; the kahlua pig is always tasty, and the poi still tastes like Elmer's paste. However, we're here for our now-traditional experience as much as the food... the dances and commentary are somewhat familiar (not that if you've seen one luau you've seen them all; it's just that we've actually seen this luau once already), and I give Lucie a laugh at the start of dinner when everyone at the tables jumps up and rushes the imu to see the unearthing of the kahlua pig, and I calmly demur with "this isn't my first luau.". Trust me, when said in that context and meant to be synonymous with "this ain't my first rodeo", it is HYSTERICAL.
At the end of the night, we buy the luau picture to add to our collection, head back to our hotel room, and sadly begin packing our coffee, souvenirs, and clothes for the flight home tomorrow.
Leaving Hawai'i sucks.
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Speaking of which, we had three different plans for today: drive down to Volcanos National Park and say hello to Kilauea; drive up to Hawi in the northern tip of the island and say hello to the statue of King Kamehameha; or go wacky crazy and visit more coffee plantations. We did Volcanos on our previous two trips, and while it's incredibly cool going there and knowing you're watching an island actually growing, we're okay with skipping that this time around. We still haven't been to Hawi, but that's kind of an all-day thing and we have tickets to tonight's luau, and we don't want to have to rush if we don't want to (Big Island and all, you know.) So we decide to hit more coffee plantations -- we go through our old Coffee Tour map (which, yes, I have saved in my iBooks library on my iPad), pick a few new farms to try out as well as a couple of old ones we want to revisit, plan the best route (hint: it rhymes with "drive down the Obamalahoa Highway"), and head out.
Our first stop is UCC again... not to buy more coffee or to roast more ourselves -- though we wouldn't be adverse to that -- but because we tried a couple of those coffee flavored Pretz biscuit sticks and need more. Pocky Pocky Pocky. The guy behind the counter remembers us; I'm guessing because Lucie's clothes are so recognizable. We chat for a bit, buy a couple boxes of Pretz, and continue on our way.
Our next stop is in Holualoa, at Blue Sky. Unfortunately, they don't have any more of that nifty liliko'i and chili jelly I got last time, but they still have some good coffee, CDs of Kona-related Hawaiian music produced by the Kona Coffee Cultural Festival with all proceeds benefiting the Coffee Festival's "Aloha Makahiki Concert", and some other yummy foodstuffs. We fill a bag or two with purchases and chat for a few minutes with the proprietors, then continue on our way.
We make a left onto Old Poi Factory Road and drive up a steep, sort of paved, unstriped, one and a half lane road until we get to Buddha's Cup. We had a fun visit on our first trip but weren't able to make it last time, and wanted to see how Pancho, the cute dog we met, is doing. We don't actually see Pancho, but instead we meet Manny, one of the cohabitants of the residence-turned-coffee farm, and he is flat-out, full-on, 100% entirely totally and completely AWESOME. All caps and boldface. He greets us with an exuberant full-body hug and huge smile; talks nonstop about his love of growing coffee, drinking coffee, living in Hawai'i, and enjoyment of participating in the coffee competitions (for which Buddha's Cup won 1st place in 2010, at the Gevalia Cupping Contest); he gives us a free pound of his own "Manny's Brew" coffee, as well as a Buddha's Cup burlap tote bag; he's so stoked that people like us love coffee so much we're willing to drive all the way up the mountain to visit the farm that he even offers to house us on our next trip to the island. We mention meeting Pancho last trip and he gives a deep laugh. "Oh, Pancho... that guy is great! He loves hanging out with me when I'm working outside, and was teasing me through the window just a while ago!"
He's by far one of the most warm and welcoming people we've met in Hawai'i, which really is saying something. However, it's getting on in the day and we've got another couple of coffee farms to visit, so we regretfully say our farewells (or our "aloha a hui hou"s), and leave with our Buddha's Cup and Manny's Brew coffees stowed snugly in our Buddha's Cup tote bag.
About halfway down Old Poi Factory Road back toward the Mamalahoa Highway, we make our next stop at Heavenly Hawaiian Farms. We're a little distressed when they tell us that they brought in some coffee breeds from Costa Rica a while back to mix with the Kona, and which have since cross pollinated and done who knows what to the coffee purity on adjacent farms ("They taste exactly the same now!" the wife says happily) and we're also a bit distressed when they come across as a little bigoted ("we got checked by ICE a couple of years ago, and lost all of the Mexicans working for us, since they were all illegals except for the foreman. We have Filipinos now."). However, they are polite and nice to us during our visit, and their coffee is pretty darn tasty, so we buy some of the arabica Kona coffee they sell and head back down the coffee belt road.
We head through Captain Cook, past Onouli Road, past Keopuka Mauka Road, past Hale Ke Eke E Place, past Pele Lane, past Kalamalani Place, through Kealakekua, past Telephone Exchange Road, past Lau Wiliwili Nukunuku Oi'oi Drive, past Napo'opo'o Road, past Filipino Clubhouse Road, all the way to Lion's Gate Farms. And yes, one of those street names is made up. No, I'm not telling.
Anyway, I take a quick picture or two at Lion's Gate of the coffee trees -- not only because they've got a lot of ripe red coffee cherries everywhere whereas most places are just starting to ripen, but because they also have a big prickly pear cactus growing in the midst of the trees, and it's kind of a cool pairing of red hues -- and we're welcomed into the foyer of the main house by the nice lady there. Her daughter's the business person, she tells us, and she's just filling in while she's away, but she's polite and informative and friendly (like just about everyone we've met.). She talks about their macadamia nut trees and how the nuts are harvested and aged to detach from the shell, and how nobody sells them raw because the oils go rancid too quickly to have a viable shelf life... and then she gives the opportunity to crack open a macadamia nut and try one raw.The nut needs a specialized machine to open, since mac nuts have the hardest shells of any nut on earth -- you could use a hammer, but that usually results in macadamia nut paste instead of a whole nut. Mac nuts also have the highest amount of monounsaturated fat of any nut, so the raw nut meat is incredibly creamy in texture. Roasted mac nuts are tasty and all -- salted, honey roasted, chocolate coated, flavored, with cayenne, whatever -- but eating the nuts raw is an entirely new experience. They'll even sell them raw by special request, which Lucie and I agree we may need to do once we're back in California. And kudos to you if you didn't giggle at all during that last paragraph; way to go.
We buy a few bags of chocolate covered coffee beans, powdered sugar coated toffee mac nuts, coffee, and some macadamia nut oil for cooking, then head on back toward Kailua. It's just after lunchtime, so we stop off in Kealakekua at a place we've driven past several times now, Rebel Kitchen, for a bite to eat.
The owners are Bay Area transplants who moved out here earlier this year to pursue their dreams of opening a restaurant, against people's advice (hence the name)... And if that dream includes making some really groovy food, their dream is coming true. Their jerk chicken sandwich is a little messy because of the jerk sauce runoff, but the flavor is outstanding -- sweet, tangy, and with just a tiny bite of heat, all the while keeping the chicken moist and tender. The bun is soft and freshly baked, as are their desserts (we split a banana oatmeal dark chocolate loaf, a chocolate lover's cupcake, and a slice of outstanding liliko'i cheesecake with what tastes like a macadamia nut crust.) As with most meals, we stick with cold bottled water and I supplement with a can of POG. I'm mildly entertained by the fact that while most of the water we've had so far has been Hawaiian brands, our entrepreneurs from San Francisco are offering Crystal Geyser water, bottled in California and shipped to Hawai'i... maybe not the most ecologically friendly choice but it makes me chuckle a little.After lunch, we return to our hotel and relax for an hour or two before getting gussied up in our finest casual wear to head downstairs to the Royal Kona's luau. I have linen pants and the new Hawaiian shirt we bought in Hilo, and I also bought a new pair of sunglasses in the hotel's gift shop a few days ago that matches my shirt almost perfectly (which is pure happy coincidence, since I hadn't bought the shirt at the time.). In the elevator on the way down, a fellow passenger comments on the brightness of my shirt ("I probably wouldn't wear that, and I'm from here!") before pausing briefly and asking, "Is that a Mamo?" I glance down at my shirt and its handwritten "Mamo" appearing here and there, and say, "It sure is.". He nods, more impressed than before, and exits the elevator ahead of us.
As soon as he's out of eyesight, both Lucie and I whip out our iPhones and Google "Mamo Hawaiian shirt" -- oh, hey; looks like I managed to buy designer wear created by Hawaii's most famous clothing designer. I had no idea -- I was just buying something that actually fit for once. Groovy.
Feeling more stylish than usual, we head into the luau, have our picture taken for later purchase, grab some watered down mai tais, and find some seats that aren't located beneath any palm trees. We end up sitting next to a couple from England on their honeymoon; we chat a bit as the evening progresses, but the new bride seems somehow impervious to my attempts to sell her on drinking coffee instead of tea.
At the end of the night, we buy the luau picture to add to our collection, head back to our hotel room, and sadly begin packing our coffee, souvenirs, and clothes for the flight home tomorrow.
Leaving Hawai'i sucks.
.
Hawa1'1, Day 9: "Our 4th Full Day on the Big Island, No Les."
So when we were first planning for our trip, we had originally picked today to head back out to Waipio Valley and take another ATV tour with Les and Renee, but we had cancelled for two reasons: first, Renee no longer works for the company so it would be Les and some other person with whom we haven't bonded; and secondly, they had raised their price by over 20% and while we certainly appreciate Waipio and don't mind supporting small businesses, that's a lot of bucks to throw down on an activity that last time we participated tried to kill me.
So this time around, we won't be taking a day to visit my brother from another mother; my chum from a different mum; my mate from a different state; my pally in a deeper valley; my hombre with a different last nombre.. or, as they say in Hawai'i, "my 'ohana from a different mama."
Instead, we've made plans with the Kona Boys for a chartered tour on a wa'a, or outrigger canoe. We're a little unsure of going out because of the high surf -- we see some waves spilling over the retaining wall and flowing onto the street along Ai'i Drive as we drive to the dock -- and because so far this trip, Hawai'i has not yet tried to kill me. First trip, coconut; second trip, ATV mishap... third trip, wa'a?
What actually seals it for me, though, is when I try to fit into the canoe and don't quite fit. I was a bit worried about this happening; I could probably make it work okay for a while, but I'm on vacation and don't feel any real urge to pay to be uncomfortable for an extended amount of time, in the ocean during high surf conditions. We regretfully cancel our appointment, and swear to ourselves that on our next visit here, we'll be back. The ocean should behave itself better next trip, and in two years' time I will be smaller and will fit more comfortably.
We do make our next scheduled appointment, however, back at Mountain Thunder for the roastmaster tour we arranged several days ago. We make the drive up the mountain to the plantation and meet with Brooke, our host for the next hour; she walks us over to the smaller sibling of their main Diedrich roaster, located in a small room next to their gift shop. I am handed a huge bucket with raw coffee beans, and pour them into the roasting drum.
As the beans slowly roast and turn from a pale pistachio green to their final milk chocolate brown, Brooke chats with us about her training as Mountain Thunder's current go-to roast master, our experiences with other coffee plantations, living on the Big Island, and other topics. She compliments us on the picture we chose to use as the coffee labels and the name of our roast (it's the shot of us at the summit of Haleakalā, with me in my pastel tie dye and both of us wearing sunglasses, and the name we chose is "Ray & Lucie's Bright & Early Roast") and says she's never done the sunrise before but wants to; we counter with us never having lived in Hawai'i and grown coffee but wanting to.
Soon enough, the coffee is roasted to the proper temperature and I get to pour out the beans into the cooling tray; they're a perfect medium roast, milk chocolate in color and the oils just barely coming to the surface. I pour them back into the huge bucket (it smells fantastic!) and we make our way to the packaging area, where I measure them out into the proper amounts, attach the labels, and seal the bags. Mountain Thunder coffee is nitrogen flushed to provide a much longer shelf life than most other coffees that just vacuum seal their bags, but it's not really necessary in this instance -- it'll be gone well before it ever has the chance of spoiling.
After the coffee roasting, we head back to the hotel room to lighten up our luggage for the flight home. We ship a large box that is later referred to as a "baby elephant" of coffee, cookies, macadamia nuts, Hawaiian print fabric, and cold weather clothing (worn only for the frigid pre-dawn conditions on Haleakalā) back to California, then head out to our lunch destination, Da Poke Shack.
We've heard good things about this place when we were researching places to eat on vacation, but the last few times we've driven past it's been closed. Today, however, it's open for business, and we head in to try out their goods. I try "Pele's Kiss", a spicy ahi with a light mayo sauce, with seaweed salad and rice with furikake sprinkled on top; Lucie goes for the sesame ahi poke, with edamame and plain rice. Both are fantastic -- fresh, light, flavorful, and all-around serious ono kine grinds. Before we leave, I also grab a half pound to go of their Dynamite poke, a spicy ahi with creamy avocado and tobiko. Like the other flavors we tried, and no doubt like everything else they serve, it does not disappoint.
We spend the rest of the afternoon relaxing on the lanai of our hotel room, enjoying the sounds of the ocean, the view of the still-high surf frothing as it spills over the rocks below, the taste of some outstanding poke, and the always stunning Hawaiian sunset. After we get in a couple of hours of relaxation and tanning, we head downstairs for dinner and drinks at Don's.
My dinner selection is a steak Caesar salad paired with crab and scallop chowder -- they do their best to grill the steak Pittsburg rare, but can't quite do so; however, it's still nicely rare, with a good char from the fire. The chowder is thick and heavy on the cream, as all good chowders should be. My choice for alcohol is a classic piña colada and their "tiki sampler", a half-size foursome of a mai tai, a Pele's volcanic kiss mai tai (with amaretto and 151 rum), a topless mai tai (with clear coconut and mango rums instead of dark rum), and a green flash. Lucie opts for their basic Angus burger with sweet potato fries, and accompanies that with a green flash and a mango daiquiri.
We spend another hour or so sitting in those chairs, looking at the ocean and the heavy rains that have been showing up most nights, and enjoying our time together on the island. After a while, though, it's time to retire for the evening. We head back upstairs (and if Lucie's a little steadier on her feet than I am after my mai tai bonanza, I'll never say it out loud), and fall into a deep, happy sleep.
.
So this time around, we won't be taking a day to visit my brother from another mother; my chum from a different mum; my mate from a different state; my pally in a deeper valley; my hombre with a different last nombre.. or, as they say in Hawai'i, "my 'ohana from a different mama."
Instead, we've made plans with the Kona Boys for a chartered tour on a wa'a, or outrigger canoe. We're a little unsure of going out because of the high surf -- we see some waves spilling over the retaining wall and flowing onto the street along Ai'i Drive as we drive to the dock -- and because so far this trip, Hawai'i has not yet tried to kill me. First trip, coconut; second trip, ATV mishap... third trip, wa'a?
What actually seals it for me, though, is when I try to fit into the canoe and don't quite fit. I was a bit worried about this happening; I could probably make it work okay for a while, but I'm on vacation and don't feel any real urge to pay to be uncomfortable for an extended amount of time, in the ocean during high surf conditions. We regretfully cancel our appointment, and swear to ourselves that on our next visit here, we'll be back. The ocean should behave itself better next trip, and in two years' time I will be smaller and will fit more comfortably.
As the beans slowly roast and turn from a pale pistachio green to their final milk chocolate brown, Brooke chats with us about her training as Mountain Thunder's current go-to roast master, our experiences with other coffee plantations, living on the Big Island, and other topics. She compliments us on the picture we chose to use as the coffee labels and the name of our roast (it's the shot of us at the summit of Haleakalā, with me in my pastel tie dye and both of us wearing sunglasses, and the name we chose is "Ray & Lucie's Bright & Early Roast") and says she's never done the sunrise before but wants to; we counter with us never having lived in Hawai'i and grown coffee but wanting to.
Soon enough, the coffee is roasted to the proper temperature and I get to pour out the beans into the cooling tray; they're a perfect medium roast, milk chocolate in color and the oils just barely coming to the surface. I pour them back into the huge bucket (it smells fantastic!) and we make our way to the packaging area, where I measure them out into the proper amounts, attach the labels, and seal the bags. Mountain Thunder coffee is nitrogen flushed to provide a much longer shelf life than most other coffees that just vacuum seal their bags, but it's not really necessary in this instance -- it'll be gone well before it ever has the chance of spoiling.
We've heard good things about this place when we were researching places to eat on vacation, but the last few times we've driven past it's been closed. Today, however, it's open for business, and we head in to try out their goods. I try "Pele's Kiss", a spicy ahi with a light mayo sauce, with seaweed salad and rice with furikake sprinkled on top; Lucie goes for the sesame ahi poke, with edamame and plain rice. Both are fantastic -- fresh, light, flavorful, and all-around serious ono kine grinds. Before we leave, I also grab a half pound to go of their Dynamite poke, a spicy ahi with creamy avocado and tobiko. Like the other flavors we tried, and no doubt like everything else they serve, it does not disappoint.
We spend the rest of the afternoon relaxing on the lanai of our hotel room, enjoying the sounds of the ocean, the view of the still-high surf frothing as it spills over the rocks below, the taste of some outstanding poke, and the always stunning Hawaiian sunset. After we get in a couple of hours of relaxation and tanning, we head downstairs for dinner and drinks at Don's.
My dinner selection is a steak Caesar salad paired with crab and scallop chowder -- they do their best to grill the steak Pittsburg rare, but can't quite do so; however, it's still nicely rare, with a good char from the fire. The chowder is thick and heavy on the cream, as all good chowders should be. My choice for alcohol is a classic piña colada and their "tiki sampler", a half-size foursome of a mai tai, a Pele's volcanic kiss mai tai (with amaretto and 151 rum), a topless mai tai (with clear coconut and mango rums instead of dark rum), and a green flash. Lucie opts for their basic Angus burger with sweet potato fries, and accompanies that with a green flash and a mango daiquiri.
We spend another hour or so sitting in those chairs, looking at the ocean and the heavy rains that have been showing up most nights, and enjoying our time together on the island. After a while, though, it's time to retire for the evening. We head back upstairs (and if Lucie's a little steadier on her feet than I am after my mai tai bonanza, I'll never say it out loud), and fall into a deep, happy sleep.
.
Hawa1'1, Day 8: "Google Maps Takes Us to Hilo and Back."
We wake up slowly the next morning with a slight relaxation hangover from the massage. And what better way to get rid of all that excess relaxation than to head over to that bustling metropolis, that overcrowded urban conurbation, that densely peopled concrete jungle that is Hilo (pop. 43,263)?
So we plan our route. Not having learned my lesson from our last trip, I enlist the help of Google Maps on my iPhone, and get directions to the Hawaiian Vanilla Company in Pa'auilo. We'd gone there on our first trip but weren't able to make it last time, so we figure we're due for another visit. Google Maps tells us to take a different route than I remember us taking (up along the Kohala coast before cutting inland to Waimea, while last time we took the Mamalahoa Highway until it hooks right and heads down the Kona Belt, then followed Hawai'i Belt Road -- which, confusingly, is also called the Mamalahoa Highway (guess those Hawaiians like at name as much as I do) -- to Waimea. We ponder this for a moment, then in a fit of insanity I suggest we go ahead and try the Google Maps directions; we do like the Kohala coast's continuous view of the ocean, and either way we get to Waimea, so it's all good.
You do see where this is going, don't you? 'Cuz I sure as heck didn't when this is happening.
The trip up Queen Ka'ahumanu Highway along the Kohala coast is as pleasant and calming as we remember; the ocean is that spectacular pāua shell combination of intense and vibrant blues; the locals' roadside messages created by white rocks arranged in the black lava landscape is still as quaint and cool as I remember (and I'm still tempted to grab some white rocks and make my own message for future travelers, though I don't); and the turnoff for Waimea is right where we remember it from last trip when we drove this route (although last time we continued along the coast, and this time we turn inland.) The weather ranges from partly cloudy to cloudy to slightly drizzly, but never really enough for it to warrant us putting the top up on our car. Before long, we end up in Waimea... we notice sadly that the German restaurant Edelweiss is no longer in business (apparently the owners retired in late 2007), which is a bummer, but we continue on our way, following the INCREDIBLY PRECISE AND ACCURATE directions from Google Maps.
We continue on past Honoka'a, home of Waipio Valley and Les and Renee, and drive just a few miles further to where my iPhone tells me to turn off the highway and head mauka ([mah-oo-kuh], adv.; toward the mountains; inland. Also, "place where haole tourist gets no cellular reception") so we do. The iPhone then tells me to turn from Kalopa road left onto Kalopa road, then right onto Kalopa road then left onto Kalopa road, then to shake my iPhone all about and to do the Kalokey Pokey, then -- aww, CRAP, we're lost again! By the time I'm willing to admit that this looks nothing like what I remember from our last trip here, we're way up in the mountains, a mile or two up a one-and-half lane road, and have driven over several one-lane bridges, built apparently for two-way traffic, and we don't have cell service so we can't verify the directions using a different source. I make a truly frightening eleven-point turn in a "wide" spot of the road, hoping that nobody comes along the road from either direction and slams into us broadside, then we head back makai ([mah-kaee], adv.; toward the ocean; seaward. Also, "get off of our mountain, devil white man") until we find a place where we get a whole one bar of cell service, and I do what I probably should have done in the first place, namely go to the stinkin' Vanilla Company website and get the directions they offer, because the Hawai'i Vanilla Company wants our business, and Google Maps is apparently in cahoots with either Hawai'i or the nēnē, to either kill me or mock me, respectively (yet at the same time without any respect whatsoever.)
Using their friendly and easy-to-follow directions, we get to our destination without incident. In a fruitless attempt to feel less like a complete idiot, I encourage Lucie's impulse buys in the Vanilla Company store, grabbing vanilla-infused soaps and lotions and coffee and tea and home fragrance spray and lip balm and Hummel figurines and everything else they sell. Finally, my ego slightly mollified and the trunk of our Mustang filled, we get back onto the highway and continue on our way to Hilo.
(Incidentally, the directions on Google Maps would have taken us to the vanilla plantation as well, just not by the fastest or most direct, or most paved, route. Hopefully the new mapping app that Apple is rumored to be working on has more features.)
The rest of our trip to Hilo is relatively hassle-free. There are a few lane closures where road crews are reinforcing cliff walls and trying to unbend "danger: falling rocks" signs, but other than that it's smooth sailing.
Once we get to Hilo, our first stop is at the Discount Fabric Warehouse located on this side of the island -- Kona's was closed yesterday so we make up for it here by buying several different colorful prints to have shirts made back in California. Lucie also scores a huge bonus when she snaps up a bolt of garlic print fabric. Awesome.
After I get my cotton on, we decide it's time for lunch, so we head to one of the most famous restaurants in Hilo, Ken's House of Pancakes. It's a little busy, even though we're sort of between breakfast and lunch right now -- apparently, there's always a crowd. We check out the Rock wall (as in, there are a bunch of pictures of actor/wrestler the Rock hanging behind the register; the owner is a relative) and are seated in short order.
This is a polar opposite from Edelweiss; it looks and feels as though it's a diner stuck in the 50's, the waitresses are local aunties who move on Big Island time, and the booths are orange vinyl. But, you don't come here for the ambiance, you come here for the hearty food, the big portions, and the experience. The hearty food in our case is corned beef hash moco for Lucie (eggs and gravy over corned beef hash) and the "Kilauea" for me (a triple stack of huge buttermilk pancakes, with ham and bacon between the pancakes, and fried eggs on top), which is downright delicious when I alternate with the maple and coconut syrups they offer. Lucie also orders me a Vietnamese iced coffee, which is passable, and we order dessert, which is awesome -- my coconut cream pie is smooth and sweet and creamy, and Lucie's pineapple upside down cake is intensely flavored, still steaming hot when it gets to the table, and gone in seconds. Ken's (referred to as "K-HOP" buy the locals) has been voted best breakfast on the island for 14 years, and we agree with that assessment.
After lunch, we head on over to Hilo Hattie's. Sure there's a Hilo Hattie's in Kailua-Kona, but this is Hilo Hattie's... you wouldn't go to an Outback Steakhouse anywhere other than in Australia, would you? Or shop at a Tommy Bahama's anywhere other than Nassau?
Okay, yeah, well sure -- so would I. But it's right there, on the way to the Mauna Loa macadamia nut factory, so we might as well. The nice lady behind the counter as we come in asks us if we're locals -- and honestly, that seems to be happening to us more often this trip than before -- and we regretfully say no. We poke around, I try on some clothes (which I've never bothered to try and do before, since they don't have my size), and I actually find an amazingly bright floral print shirt that fits! Woo-hoo! We also find some jams and macadamia nuts and candy and other stuff, which is pretty much one size fits all, so we load up on those as well.
After that, we head to the Hershey's Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Corporation Visitor Center, formerly just the Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Factory but now apparently yet another cog in the giant foodstuff machinery of Hershey's. We buy some mac nuts, and some mac nuts, and then some mac nuts, and a bottle of water along with some mac nuts (seriously, what else would you buy here?), then head back toward Kailua. We had also wanted to stop by Big Island Candies but it's too close to closing time, so a tour of their facility will have to wait for another day, perhaps one where we don't waste a lot of time trying to get unlost after listening to what Google tells us to do.
We stop in Honoka'a, at Tex Drive-In -- they're rated pretty high in Yelp for their malasadas, and it's about dinner time, so we figure we might as well take advantage of the situation. Unfortunately, we didn't read through all of the reviews, or we'd have seen several comments about the rest of their food being somewhat hit or miss, and it is... the filled malasadas we buy (pineapple for Lucie, mango for me) really are awesome, but the saimin Lucie has is a bit too strong on the fish sauce and the variant on Hawaiian pizza I get (pineapple and what they call kalhua pork) is overly greasy and barely passable; but the bento box of teriyaki, SPAM, Portuguese sausage, fried chicken wings, and a krab omelet over rice is pretty good, and fills us both up decently even if we don't finish our first choices.
We take the inland road back to Kailua -- it's a little windier and wetter, and more hair-raising than the coastal Queen Ka'ahumanu Highway, but I kind of missed driving this route on the way out -- and make our way back to our hotel. We head upstairs and listen to the ocean as we relax in our room. The ocean is a bit louder than usual, as the surf is still high (Lucie says there's a high surf warning for tomorrow, but it seems to be arriving earlier than expected), but it's still some of the best background noise one can ask for.
We go to bed for the night, with the ocean still barely audible behind the closed doors and the sound of the AC.
.
So we plan our route. Not having learned my lesson from our last trip, I enlist the help of Google Maps on my iPhone, and get directions to the Hawaiian Vanilla Company in Pa'auilo. We'd gone there on our first trip but weren't able to make it last time, so we figure we're due for another visit. Google Maps tells us to take a different route than I remember us taking (up along the Kohala coast before cutting inland to Waimea, while last time we took the Mamalahoa Highway until it hooks right and heads down the Kona Belt, then followed Hawai'i Belt Road -- which, confusingly, is also called the Mamalahoa Highway (guess those Hawaiians like at name as much as I do) -- to Waimea. We ponder this for a moment, then in a fit of insanity I suggest we go ahead and try the Google Maps directions; we do like the Kohala coast's continuous view of the ocean, and either way we get to Waimea, so it's all good.
You do see where this is going, don't you? 'Cuz I sure as heck didn't when this is happening.
The trip up Queen Ka'ahumanu Highway along the Kohala coast is as pleasant and calming as we remember; the ocean is that spectacular pāua shell combination of intense and vibrant blues; the locals' roadside messages created by white rocks arranged in the black lava landscape is still as quaint and cool as I remember (and I'm still tempted to grab some white rocks and make my own message for future travelers, though I don't); and the turnoff for Waimea is right where we remember it from last trip when we drove this route (although last time we continued along the coast, and this time we turn inland.) The weather ranges from partly cloudy to cloudy to slightly drizzly, but never really enough for it to warrant us putting the top up on our car. Before long, we end up in Waimea... we notice sadly that the German restaurant Edelweiss is no longer in business (apparently the owners retired in late 2007), which is a bummer, but we continue on our way, following the INCREDIBLY PRECISE AND ACCURATE directions from Google Maps.
We continue on past Honoka'a, home of Waipio Valley and Les and Renee, and drive just a few miles further to where my iPhone tells me to turn off the highway and head mauka ([mah-oo-kuh], adv.; toward the mountains; inland. Also, "place where haole tourist gets no cellular reception") so we do. The iPhone then tells me to turn from Kalopa road left onto Kalopa road, then right onto Kalopa road then left onto Kalopa road, then to shake my iPhone all about and to do the Kalokey Pokey, then -- aww, CRAP, we're lost again! By the time I'm willing to admit that this looks nothing like what I remember from our last trip here, we're way up in the mountains, a mile or two up a one-and-half lane road, and have driven over several one-lane bridges, built apparently for two-way traffic, and we don't have cell service so we can't verify the directions using a different source. I make a truly frightening eleven-point turn in a "wide" spot of the road, hoping that nobody comes along the road from either direction and slams into us broadside, then we head back makai ([mah-kaee], adv.; toward the ocean; seaward. Also, "get off of our mountain, devil white man") until we find a place where we get a whole one bar of cell service, and I do what I probably should have done in the first place, namely go to the stinkin' Vanilla Company website and get the directions they offer, because the Hawai'i Vanilla Company wants our business, and Google Maps is apparently in cahoots with either Hawai'i or the nēnē, to either kill me or mock me, respectively (yet at the same time without any respect whatsoever.)
Using their friendly and easy-to-follow directions, we get to our destination without incident. In a fruitless attempt to feel less like a complete idiot, I encourage Lucie's impulse buys in the Vanilla Company store, grabbing vanilla-infused soaps and lotions and coffee and tea and home fragrance spray and lip balm and Hummel figurines and everything else they sell. Finally, my ego slightly mollified and the trunk of our Mustang filled, we get back onto the highway and continue on our way to Hilo.
(Incidentally, the directions on Google Maps would have taken us to the vanilla plantation as well, just not by the fastest or most direct, or most paved, route. Hopefully the new mapping app that Apple is rumored to be working on has more features.)
The rest of our trip to Hilo is relatively hassle-free. There are a few lane closures where road crews are reinforcing cliff walls and trying to unbend "danger: falling rocks" signs, but other than that it's smooth sailing.
Once we get to Hilo, our first stop is at the Discount Fabric Warehouse located on this side of the island -- Kona's was closed yesterday so we make up for it here by buying several different colorful prints to have shirts made back in California. Lucie also scores a huge bonus when she snaps up a bolt of garlic print fabric. Awesome.
This is a polar opposite from Edelweiss; it looks and feels as though it's a diner stuck in the 50's, the waitresses are local aunties who move on Big Island time, and the booths are orange vinyl. But, you don't come here for the ambiance, you come here for the hearty food, the big portions, and the experience. The hearty food in our case is corned beef hash moco for Lucie (eggs and gravy over corned beef hash) and the "Kilauea" for me (a triple stack of huge buttermilk pancakes, with ham and bacon between the pancakes, and fried eggs on top), which is downright delicious when I alternate with the maple and coconut syrups they offer. Lucie also orders me a Vietnamese iced coffee, which is passable, and we order dessert, which is awesome -- my coconut cream pie is smooth and sweet and creamy, and Lucie's pineapple upside down cake is intensely flavored, still steaming hot when it gets to the table, and gone in seconds. Ken's (referred to as "K-HOP" buy the locals) has been voted best breakfast on the island for 14 years, and we agree with that assessment.
After lunch, we head on over to Hilo Hattie's. Sure there's a Hilo Hattie's in Kailua-Kona, but this is Hilo Hattie's... you wouldn't go to an Outback Steakhouse anywhere other than in Australia, would you? Or shop at a Tommy Bahama's anywhere other than Nassau?
Okay, yeah, well sure -- so would I. But it's right there, on the way to the Mauna Loa macadamia nut factory, so we might as well. The nice lady behind the counter as we come in asks us if we're locals -- and honestly, that seems to be happening to us more often this trip than before -- and we regretfully say no. We poke around, I try on some clothes (which I've never bothered to try and do before, since they don't have my size), and I actually find an amazingly bright floral print shirt that fits! Woo-hoo! We also find some jams and macadamia nuts and candy and other stuff, which is pretty much one size fits all, so we load up on those as well.
After that, we head to the Hershey's Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Corporation Visitor Center, formerly just the Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Factory but now apparently yet another cog in the giant foodstuff machinery of Hershey's. We buy some mac nuts, and some mac nuts, and then some mac nuts, and a bottle of water along with some mac nuts (seriously, what else would you buy here?), then head back toward Kailua. We had also wanted to stop by Big Island Candies but it's too close to closing time, so a tour of their facility will have to wait for another day, perhaps one where we don't waste a lot of time trying to get unlost after listening to what Google tells us to do.
We stop in Honoka'a, at Tex Drive-In -- they're rated pretty high in Yelp for their malasadas, and it's about dinner time, so we figure we might as well take advantage of the situation. Unfortunately, we didn't read through all of the reviews, or we'd have seen several comments about the rest of their food being somewhat hit or miss, and it is... the filled malasadas we buy (pineapple for Lucie, mango for me) really are awesome, but the saimin Lucie has is a bit too strong on the fish sauce and the variant on Hawaiian pizza I get (pineapple and what they call kalhua pork) is overly greasy and barely passable; but the bento box of teriyaki, SPAM, Portuguese sausage, fried chicken wings, and a krab omelet over rice is pretty good, and fills us both up decently even if we don't finish our first choices.
We take the inland road back to Kailua -- it's a little windier and wetter, and more hair-raising than the coastal Queen Ka'ahumanu Highway, but I kind of missed driving this route on the way out -- and make our way back to our hotel. We head upstairs and listen to the ocean as we relax in our room. The ocean is a bit louder than usual, as the surf is still high (Lucie says there's a high surf warning for tomorrow, but it seems to be arriving earlier than expected), but it's still some of the best background noise one can ask for.
We go to bed for the night, with the ocean still barely audible behind the closed doors and the sound of the AC.
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Hawa1'1, Day 7: "'PSYCH-K Methods Engage the Magical Something Else That Releases Resistance to Making Your Outer Life a Perfect Match for Your Highest Inner Wisdom' Means... What, Exactly?"
Our seventh day in Hawai'i begins on a somewhat slow note as we spend the morning doing laundry and/or sitting on our lanai, watching the ocean, and seeing snorkelers, and a honu, and dolphins cavorting in the ocean, and the dolphins being stalked by the snorkelers, and boats converging on the area and more snorkelers entering the water from the boats to interact with the dolphins, and people on paddle boards making their way over to the dolphins, and many other forms of dolphin-related excitement.
Eventually, though, we head on out along Ali'i Drive, and stop at Kamuela Deli for lunch (I have a small loco moco; Lucie has chicken katsu) before heading up to Ueshima Coffee Company where we have an appointment to roast some coffee. We've done this on all three trips to Hawai'i, and while we're sort of okay with skipping a bunch of the buildup on the tour (explaining how coffee is grown and processed, showing us the coffee trees growing on the hillside below us, telling us how the beans crack twice during the roasting process [the first time is when water escapes from the beans; the second time is when the oils come out and give dark coffee beans that shiny appearance], etc.), we still geek out a whole lot when we actually roast our own beans.
Our Roastmaster guide for this experience is Jeff, with whom we talk about other UCC employees ("yeah, Seichi-san is great; and I started working here when June had her baby back in 2010"), living in Hawai'i ("it's actually a pretty good time to consider moving here right now, since there's a lot of available places"), and our mutual appreciation for a good medium roast on our coffee. After our coffee has been roasted and bagged and labeled with or custom labels, we hit the store and buy some more coffee, cookies, their always refreshing Kona coffee ice cream, and a major score -- "Coffee Pretz", basically coffee flavored biscuit sticks like Pocky but not actually Pocky but from the same people who do make Pocky so it's basically Pocky but not Pocky.
Pocky. I like saying that. Pocky on the Mamalahoa Highway.
Anyway, after we leave UCC, we cruise a bit north of Kailua and stop by the Discount Fabric Warehouse, to buy some fabric for shirts; unfortunately, I get a bit lost trying to find the place... by the time we eventually find it -- after we stop at a grocery store and buy some drinks and ask the person working the register which driveway we need to take (the first driveway on the road, as it turns out, and of course I tried driveways two through six already) -- we arrive ten minutes after they've closed for the day. Curses! Not only that, but it begins to rain moderately hard as we sit parked in our car.
We consider our options as to what to do next, and Lucie suggests the Kona International Market, just a few blocks away from our current location. It seems a little touristy, but technically we are tourists (repeat tourists and wannabe kama'aina, but tourists nonetheless) so we decide to give it a go. It's almost closing time -- they close half an hour later than the Discount Fabric Warehouse we just left -- and no other customers are still there because of the late hour and the rain, but we peruse through the stores that are still open and find a few things to buy for family and friends and ourselves before they announce that business hours are over.
We return to our room at the Royal Kona, make an appointment for a couples massage later that night (it'll be our first, and an extravagant impulse buy, but it is after all vacation and it's good to do things like that on vacation sometimes) and rest for a bit on the lanai looking at the ocean. The dolphins are gone for the day, but they'll be back; it's Hawai'i.
We head to the "Lotus Center" at our arranged time and meet our masseussesses, Chakra and Reiki (not their real names [I don't think so, anyway]) and we begin our massage. We avoided any of the metaphysical stuff they offer (I'm more than a little bit of a skeptic) like astrology or crystal biofeedback or PSYCH-K, whatever the heck that's supposed to be (the title for today's entry is from an actual quote from the web site describing PSYCH-K's benefits) but the basic massage is incredibly relaxing, and we spend the hour appreciatively limp and drooling, listening to the calming music playing in the background. My masseussess, Reiki (or is it Kinoki?) tells me afterward to make sure and drink lots of water because she had "activated the lymph noids and they need replenishing.". I nod politely, thank her for her consideration (misinformed and mispronounced though it may be), and Lucie and I walk back to the main building, a little unsteady on our feet still since we're so relaxed, but happy.
We have dinner at Don the Beachcomber's, our feet on the barrier wall, as we watch the waves crash against the rocks below. The surf is higher than usual, which makes for some spectacular splashes as we eat and drink and continue to relax. I have the "bleu Hawaiian burger" with bleu cheese, bacon, and grilled onions, a passion-guava daiquiri, a scorpion, a mango daiquiri, and a sweet potato haupia pie for dessert; Lucie has a turkey sandwich, a paradise found, a green flash, a mango daiquiri, and a chocolate molten lava cake for dessert.
Happy, relaxed, full, relaxed, and relaxed, we head back upstairs to our room for the night, relaxed.
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| The sign of a true geek, roasting coffee, iPhone in hand... |
Our Roastmaster guide for this experience is Jeff, with whom we talk about other UCC employees ("yeah, Seichi-san is great; and I started working here when June had her baby back in 2010"), living in Hawai'i ("it's actually a pretty good time to consider moving here right now, since there's a lot of available places"), and our mutual appreciation for a good medium roast on our coffee. After our coffee has been roasted and bagged and labeled with or custom labels, we hit the store and buy some more coffee, cookies, their always refreshing Kona coffee ice cream, and a major score -- "Coffee Pretz", basically coffee flavored biscuit sticks like Pocky but not actually Pocky but from the same people who do make Pocky so it's basically Pocky but not Pocky.Pocky. I like saying that. Pocky on the Mamalahoa Highway.
Anyway, after we leave UCC, we cruise a bit north of Kailua and stop by the Discount Fabric Warehouse, to buy some fabric for shirts; unfortunately, I get a bit lost trying to find the place... by the time we eventually find it -- after we stop at a grocery store and buy some drinks and ask the person working the register which driveway we need to take (the first driveway on the road, as it turns out, and of course I tried driveways two through six already) -- we arrive ten minutes after they've closed for the day. Curses! Not only that, but it begins to rain moderately hard as we sit parked in our car.
We consider our options as to what to do next, and Lucie suggests the Kona International Market, just a few blocks away from our current location. It seems a little touristy, but technically we are tourists (repeat tourists and wannabe kama'aina, but tourists nonetheless) so we decide to give it a go. It's almost closing time -- they close half an hour later than the Discount Fabric Warehouse we just left -- and no other customers are still there because of the late hour and the rain, but we peruse through the stores that are still open and find a few things to buy for family and friends and ourselves before they announce that business hours are over.We return to our room at the Royal Kona, make an appointment for a couples massage later that night (it'll be our first, and an extravagant impulse buy, but it is after all vacation and it's good to do things like that on vacation sometimes) and rest for a bit on the lanai looking at the ocean. The dolphins are gone for the day, but they'll be back; it's Hawai'i.
We head to the "Lotus Center" at our arranged time and meet our masseussesses, Chakra and Reiki (not their real names [I don't think so, anyway]) and we begin our massage. We avoided any of the metaphysical stuff they offer (I'm more than a little bit of a skeptic) like astrology or crystal biofeedback or PSYCH-K, whatever the heck that's supposed to be (the title for today's entry is from an actual quote from the web site describing PSYCH-K's benefits) but the basic massage is incredibly relaxing, and we spend the hour appreciatively limp and drooling, listening to the calming music playing in the background. My masseussess, Reiki (or is it Kinoki?) tells me afterward to make sure and drink lots of water because she had "activated the lymph noids and they need replenishing.". I nod politely, thank her for her consideration (misinformed and mispronounced though it may be), and Lucie and I walk back to the main building, a little unsteady on our feet still since we're so relaxed, but happy.
We have dinner at Don the Beachcomber's, our feet on the barrier wall, as we watch the waves crash against the rocks below. The surf is higher than usual, which makes for some spectacular splashes as we eat and drink and continue to relax. I have the "bleu Hawaiian burger" with bleu cheese, bacon, and grilled onions, a passion-guava daiquiri, a scorpion, a mango daiquiri, and a sweet potato haupia pie for dessert; Lucie has a turkey sandwich, a paradise found, a green flash, a mango daiquiri, and a chocolate molten lava cake for dessert.
Happy, relaxed, full, relaxed, and relaxed, we head back upstairs to our room for the night, relaxed.
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Hawa1'1, Day 6: "The Day We Experience Déjà Brew."
Our next day begins slightly early and slightly slowly, as we awaken to the sounds of the ocean crashing below our room. Our room at Kā'anapali Beach Hotel was in the building closest to the water, but it was still far enough away where we couldn't hear the ocean; our room at the Royal Kona Resort, while up much higher, is almost directly above where the waves crash against the rocks, and that really does make a nice alarm clock.
We eventually leave our air conditioned room and cruise down Ali'i Drive. We make a stop in a small commercial section for breakfast (me) and shopping (Lucie.) The Internet cafe (Surf Dogs) that was here has closed sometime in the last fifteen and a half months since we last visited, but I make do with the new joint, Ali'i Buzz -- their breakfast wrap of cream cheese, eggs, and turkey bacon is decent, but the poor girl behind the counter is new and unused to the coffee equipment, and doesn't have enough supplies to make a triple mocha, so I have to downgrade to a double. After breakfast, I peruse the small Country Samurai Coffee store I've seen before but never entered and pick up some of their beans. Lucie's trip into Island Silversmith is fruitless, but her trip into Sarongs "R" Us (which Lucie swears is NOT the actual name, but this is my blog, so there) is good, so we're both mostly appeased by the stop.
After breakfast, brew, and clothing blue, we head up Palani Road to our favorite first stop of every coffee tour, Mountain Thunder. This is our third visit here, and it's been getting more crowded and busy every time we come. This is a good thing for founder Trent A. Bateman, of the Mountain Thunder Coffee Farm Batemans, and his family; but we kind of miss the last couple of times where we were able to get complete privacy or personal service from Trent himself. That's fine, though; we entertain ourselves by trying out some of their coffee and watching TV clips about the farm (Dirty Jobs, Food Network's All American Festivals, and several Hawai'i-based foodie shows) and buy several bags of beans and other gifts, and sign up for their new Roastmaster Tour for a few days from now.
From Mountain Thunder, we backtrack slightly to the (and I really *do* love saying this name) Mamalahoa Highway and hit our next planned stop, Hula Daddy. The view of Kailua-Kona from their balcony is as amazing as it was last time, but unfortunately it's about three weeks away from when the coffee cherries will be ripe and ready for picking, so they don't have too much in the way of coffee for sale. We still pick up one bag of their premium bean, Kona Sweet, a cool Hawaiian print burlap bag, and some other nifty goodies, and we continue down the Mamalahoa.
We wave at Ueshima Coffee Company as we drive past, but we've got a "roastmaster tour" arranged for tomorrow so we delay our stop until then and we continue past. We also pass by Old Poi Factory road, which leads to Buddha's Cup Coffee, but it's getting near lunchtime and we're in the mood for a bite to eat, so we postpone our reunion with Pancho for another day, and head to Kona Joe for their great combination of clean restrooms, awesome espresso smoothies, and great coffee. Their espresso smoothie is just as awesome as I remember it being, and the huge honking banana muffin that Lucie gets is nicely sweet, dense, and moist, and staves off our hunger enough to hit their gift shop where we buy (wanna guess? Wanna guess? Rhymes with "koffee"...) coffee, some various kitchen foodstuffs, and some coffee before heading further down Mamalahoa to Big Jake's Island Barbecue for lunch.
We buy a pulled pork sandwich and a brisket sandwich, and split each to have some variety. The sauce is sweet and smoky, and the protein is tasty (Lucie prefers the pulled pork while I kind of dig the brisket), and the cold bottles of water really hit the spot. From there, we cruise further down the road and relive our We Don't Know Where the Heck We're Going experience from last trip -- except that this time I do know where I'm going, and don't even need to look at directions -- and visit Kona Lisa Coffee.
It's still as great an experience as last time, and we chat with both Mary and her husband Ron (we met Mary last time, but this is our first time meeting Ron) about coffee, life, and retirement in Hawai'i. They're both friendly and talkative, and they still have some coffee that they'd just roasted a couple of days ago, so we say hello to their cats and their new dog, buy a few bags of medium roast coffee, and leave them to their work.
We stop by the Kona Coast Macadamia Nut shop, but we've just missed them closing for the day; we make plans to hit them again later on our stay here. We also stop by Sacred Grounds as we head back up the Mamalahoa toward Kona, but they're still closed... we'd heard they they'd opened back up, but Ron and Mary had told us that they didn't have insurance back when they'd had the fire (it's a combination pottery store and coffee farm, and the pottery studio kiln was above the coffee area, which turned out to be a bad idea) and apparently their insider knowledge is more accurate than something we'd read about online... who knew?! Also on the way back, we stop by the site of Sam Choy's new restaurant, Kai Lanai. It was expected to open already, but the construction crew is on Big Island schedule, so they're still working on it as we drive past. It looks really cool, and we're both big fans of Sam, so we just shrug and remind ourselves that nothing hurries on the Big Island, and we'll make plans to stop by here the next time we go on vacation.
We continue back to Kailua-Kona, find a parking place along Ali'i Drive, and make our last planned stop for the day at Kona Henna Studios. I've been working on a small doodle off and on for a couple of months now, and I'm eager to see how it looks in real life; and Lucie really enjoyed the hibiscus pattern she got last time and wants to have something similar. My tribal San Jose Sharks logo looks awesome when it's finally applied, and I couldn't be more please with it. Lucie get a hibiscus pattern on one foot and a stylized manta ray on the other. They both look great as well -- our henna artist this time around has over a decade of experience in Henna, and is amazingly fast and precise with the applicator.
We walk out happy and satisfied with the results, but realize belatedly that we can't go out to dinner anywhere since Lucie needs to keep the dried henna on her feet for at least an hour, and even in Hawai'i the restaurants won't let you in barefoot. Our solution is simple, easy, and in a weird sort of way what a local would do: we hit a McDonalds drive-thru. The food is almost exactly what you'd expect from a McDonalds, except that apparently in Hawai'i they offer some location-unique items, such as the Spam or Portuguese sausage breakfast plate, or the haupia fruit pie.
We return to our hotel room (you're not supposed to walk barefoot through the hotel lobby area either, but nobody says anything) have some simple food (including a pretty darn tasty deep fried fast food fruit pie) for dinner, lounge around until our henna has been on for the recommended amount of time, and then shower and go to bed; stained, suntanned, fed, and still slightly caffeinated.
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We eventually leave our air conditioned room and cruise down Ali'i Drive. We make a stop in a small commercial section for breakfast (me) and shopping (Lucie.) The Internet cafe (Surf Dogs) that was here has closed sometime in the last fifteen and a half months since we last visited, but I make do with the new joint, Ali'i Buzz -- their breakfast wrap of cream cheese, eggs, and turkey bacon is decent, but the poor girl behind the counter is new and unused to the coffee equipment, and doesn't have enough supplies to make a triple mocha, so I have to downgrade to a double. After breakfast, I peruse the small Country Samurai Coffee store I've seen before but never entered and pick up some of their beans. Lucie's trip into Island Silversmith is fruitless, but her trip into Sarongs "R" Us (which Lucie swears is NOT the actual name, but this is my blog, so there) is good, so we're both mostly appeased by the stop.
After breakfast, brew, and clothing blue, we head up Palani Road to our favorite first stop of every coffee tour, Mountain Thunder. This is our third visit here, and it's been getting more crowded and busy every time we come. This is a good thing for founder Trent A. Bateman, of the Mountain Thunder Coffee Farm Batemans, and his family; but we kind of miss the last couple of times where we were able to get complete privacy or personal service from Trent himself. That's fine, though; we entertain ourselves by trying out some of their coffee and watching TV clips about the farm (Dirty Jobs, Food Network's All American Festivals, and several Hawai'i-based foodie shows) and buy several bags of beans and other gifts, and sign up for their new Roastmaster Tour for a few days from now.
From Mountain Thunder, we backtrack slightly to the (and I really *do* love saying this name) Mamalahoa Highway and hit our next planned stop, Hula Daddy. The view of Kailua-Kona from their balcony is as amazing as it was last time, but unfortunately it's about three weeks away from when the coffee cherries will be ripe and ready for picking, so they don't have too much in the way of coffee for sale. We still pick up one bag of their premium bean, Kona Sweet, a cool Hawaiian print burlap bag, and some other nifty goodies, and we continue down the Mamalahoa.
We wave at Ueshima Coffee Company as we drive past, but we've got a "roastmaster tour" arranged for tomorrow so we delay our stop until then and we continue past. We also pass by Old Poi Factory road, which leads to Buddha's Cup Coffee, but it's getting near lunchtime and we're in the mood for a bite to eat, so we postpone our reunion with Pancho for another day, and head to Kona Joe for their great combination of clean restrooms, awesome espresso smoothies, and great coffee. Their espresso smoothie is just as awesome as I remember it being, and the huge honking banana muffin that Lucie gets is nicely sweet, dense, and moist, and staves off our hunger enough to hit their gift shop where we buy (wanna guess? Wanna guess? Rhymes with "koffee"...) coffee, some various kitchen foodstuffs, and some coffee before heading further down Mamalahoa to Big Jake's Island Barbecue for lunch.
We buy a pulled pork sandwich and a brisket sandwich, and split each to have some variety. The sauce is sweet and smoky, and the protein is tasty (Lucie prefers the pulled pork while I kind of dig the brisket), and the cold bottles of water really hit the spot. From there, we cruise further down the road and relive our We Don't Know Where the Heck We're Going experience from last trip -- except that this time I do know where I'm going, and don't even need to look at directions -- and visit Kona Lisa Coffee.
It's still as great an experience as last time, and we chat with both Mary and her husband Ron (we met Mary last time, but this is our first time meeting Ron) about coffee, life, and retirement in Hawai'i. They're both friendly and talkative, and they still have some coffee that they'd just roasted a couple of days ago, so we say hello to their cats and their new dog, buy a few bags of medium roast coffee, and leave them to their work.
We stop by the Kona Coast Macadamia Nut shop, but we've just missed them closing for the day; we make plans to hit them again later on our stay here. We also stop by Sacred Grounds as we head back up the Mamalahoa toward Kona, but they're still closed... we'd heard they they'd opened back up, but Ron and Mary had told us that they didn't have insurance back when they'd had the fire (it's a combination pottery store and coffee farm, and the pottery studio kiln was above the coffee area, which turned out to be a bad idea) and apparently their insider knowledge is more accurate than something we'd read about online... who knew?! Also on the way back, we stop by the site of Sam Choy's new restaurant, Kai Lanai. It was expected to open already, but the construction crew is on Big Island schedule, so they're still working on it as we drive past. It looks really cool, and we're both big fans of Sam, so we just shrug and remind ourselves that nothing hurries on the Big Island, and we'll make plans to stop by here the next time we go on vacation.
We continue back to Kailua-Kona, find a parking place along Ali'i Drive, and make our last planned stop for the day at Kona Henna Studios. I've been working on a small doodle off and on for a couple of months now, and I'm eager to see how it looks in real life; and Lucie really enjoyed the hibiscus pattern she got last time and wants to have something similar. My tribal San Jose Sharks logo looks awesome when it's finally applied, and I couldn't be more please with it. Lucie get a hibiscus pattern on one foot and a stylized manta ray on the other. They both look great as well -- our henna artist this time around has over a decade of experience in Henna, and is amazingly fast and precise with the applicator.We return to our hotel room (you're not supposed to walk barefoot through the hotel lobby area either, but nobody says anything) have some simple food (including a pretty darn tasty deep fried fast food fruit pie) for dinner, lounge around until our henna has been on for the recommended amount of time, and then shower and go to bed; stained, suntanned, fed, and still slightly caffeinated.
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Hawa1'1, Day 5: "Happy Anniversary."
Our fifth day in Hawai'i, our tenth anniversary, and our last day on Maui. We finish packing our suitcases, and call our friends the bellboys to come lug our suitcases downstairs to the hotel lobby. We've managed to keep the number of suitcases the same at three (I've got my smaller suitcase full of clothes stuck inside my larger suitcase, in anticipation of Kona coffee from the Big Island) but we do end up with an additional piece of carry-on luggage.
One of the many ways that the staff of Kā'anapali Beach Hotel shows their Aloha is that the hotel gives a kukui nut lei ceremony to its departing guests. The kukui nut is also called a candlenut, since the nut's oils used to be used for lighting homes; our friend Malihini explains as she puts our leis on that the symbolism is that they want to share their light with us and to have us carry it when we go. Some people might think that giving out kukui nut leis is a little kitschy or gimmicky, but in my opinion the sentiment behind it is pretty cool.
We pick up our Jeep for the last time and make our way across the island to Kahului, I drop off Lucie and our luggage at the airport and drive to the car drop off location. The airport is very efficient today -- before I finish dropping the car off, Lucie texts me that she was able to find porters to assist, the luggage has been checked, and she's got our tickets ready. The flight to the Big Island is almost as fast -- just enough time to hand out a mini bag of macadamia nuts and a drink (POG, since we're still in Hawai'i) and we're on our favorite island.
Our car for this leg is a convertible Mustang, whom I name Sally (trite and obvious, I know, but it still makes me smile) -- back when we were having trouble with our SUV Leasa and we had to rent cars, I tried out a Mustang one time but wasn't able to fit behind the wheel. Now, however, I'm not only able to fit behind the wheel, but I don't even need a seat belt extender like I did with the Jeep. Lucie says this is proof that I'm actually losing weight with my diet and exercise; I'm still a bit of a pessimist about it so my suggestion is that they're just making Mustangs bigger than they did a few years ago. Either way, I put the top down, and cruise happily back to the airport to pick up Lucie and our luggage. We need to put the two large suitcases in the back seat -- convertibles aren't really known for their trunk space -- but we get in and head toward Kailua.
Halfway there, we start to feel the intense sun and heat, and make a quick stop for some slushy drinks. We both enjoy the icy beverages for about twenty seconds before we're both incapacitated by dual brain freezes, but eventually recover, look around to make sure there are no witnesses, and get to the Royal Kona Resort where we check in. Not to be outdone by Maui, the Royal Kona has also congratulated us on our anniversary by upgrading our room and giving us a bottle of champagne.
I wonder if we can use this every time we check in to a hotel... seems to be a good way to get some nifty perks...
We drop off our luggage and make our now-traditional trip down the Mamalahoa Highway to Kealakekua where have appetizers at Aloha China BBQ. The food here isn't extravagant or amazing; it's simple Chinese food, good and well priced (especially for Hawai'i), and we still remember how on our first trip to Hawai'i they helped bring me down from my first Kona-based caffeine high. We don't actually want a full meal, since we're slated to have a private dinner in just a couple of hours, but since we didn't have time for breakfast before leaving Maui this is our first solid food of the day, and it's very appreciated. We have some cold drinks and have crab and cream cheese purses (because of the cheese content, these are mostly for me), egg rolls, and fried shrimp; mostly sated and cooled down, we head back to the hotel.
We relax for a bit and enjoy the air conditioning, then change into "formal clothes" (meaning I put on something other than shorts) and meet our dinner concierge Ashley by the lobby. She introduces us to our musician for the evening, Kula, and we proceed over to the private bungalow at Nohea Point where we'll be having our sunset dinner.
Michael, our waiter for the evening, greets us and gives us flower leis, and we sit down for our anniversary dinner. As the sun slowly sets in front of us and Kula plays a selection of Hawaiian mood music for our enjoyment, we have one of the best meals we've ever had. And I'm including the five course meal with Kobe beef we had at Alexander's in Cupertino.
We both chose the same appetizer, a jumbo lump crab cake, served on a mound of corn salad, and with dollops of roasted bell and mango tartar sauce placed in the sweet chili sauce along the edge of the plate. The crab cake is big, meaty, and flaky, and perfectly crispy on the outside while remaining moist on the inside; the sweet corn mixes incredibly well with the chili sauce, and the tartar adds a nice savory touch. There's an orchid also on the plate, adding a nice touch of color with its deep magenta; Michael informs us that they're edible ("but they look a lot better than they taste.")
Our second course is a Caesar salad; they serve the croutons and Parmesan cheese on the side for Lucie because she'd told them when we arranged the dinner that she's lactose intolerant and they're going above and beyond in their efforts to make sure everything's acceptable. Their obvious efforts in this regard (her appetizer didn't have tartar sauce, for the same reason) is impressive, and exceedingly considerate, and very much appreciated. The salad itself is light and tasty, with an anchovy fillet placed unobtrusively along one side in case we wanted the extra flavor (I do, Lucie doesn't.)
Shortly before the main course begins, Kula says that he's about to play his last song for the night, and that he hopes the rest of our evening is wonderful. We take a break from our dinner and dance to the song we specified when we made the arrangements, the final song that played at our wedding, Adam Sandler's Grow Old with You from The Wedding Singer.
Our entrees arrive next; Lucie has chosen the beef Wellington and I've opted for the fish. The beef is a tenderloin, cooked perfectly and topped with a portobello mushroom mixture and a wine reduction sauce drizzled alongside, roasted potatoes, and a grilled baby bok choy with truffle oil. My seared ahi is draped over a mound of coconut rice, surrounded by a ginger-wasabi sauce, with grilled asparagus, lychees, and a seaweed salad accompaniment. The bite Lucie gives me of her beef is incredibly tender -- as it is every time I taste Parker Ranch beef; my ahi is also cooked perfectly, and the ginger wasabi sauce has a good sharp bite while still being mild enough where it doesn't drown out the delicate flavor of the raw center of the tuna.
Halfway through the main course, it begins to rain. It begins as gentle, whispering and warm, a soft background white noise as we eat and talk and reminisce about the wedding; before long it becomes much heavier, and we hear the sounds of the distant luau falter slightly before resuming. Michael is stoic and accepting of the weather (he's Hawaiian, after all), and Ashley makes an appearance to give us emergency rain ponchos for the walk back after dinner (the thatched roof of the hut above is impressively waterproof and is keeping us dry during our meal), but the rain doesn't bother us -- tonight, I believe nothing could.
Our dessert arrives during a lull in the rain. The chef has created a mixed fruit tarte tatin for Lucie, but has somehow managed to form it without a crust to avoid milk content; my dish is a banana liliko'i creme brûlée, with some fresh berries and mint leaves. The creme is thick and warm, and the crust is crispier than any creme brûlée I've had before, without having any hint of bitter burned flavor at all -- it's simply amazing.
The entire meal has been simply amazing, really. The rain, which had picked up some during dessert, even stops completely before our dinner is ended; so the walk back to our room is merely humid, with the ponchos unneeded and kept in their sealed bags.
The new winner of the most expensive meal we've ever had, as well as the best meal we've ever had, has ended. The rain has ended. Our first day back on the Big Island has ended. And our tenth anniversary has ended.
The rest of our lives together remains ahead of us.
We can't wait.
.
One of the many ways that the staff of Kā'anapali Beach Hotel shows their Aloha is that the hotel gives a kukui nut lei ceremony to its departing guests. The kukui nut is also called a candlenut, since the nut's oils used to be used for lighting homes; our friend Malihini explains as she puts our leis on that the symbolism is that they want to share their light with us and to have us carry it when we go. Some people might think that giving out kukui nut leis is a little kitschy or gimmicky, but in my opinion the sentiment behind it is pretty cool.
We pick up our Jeep for the last time and make our way across the island to Kahului, I drop off Lucie and our luggage at the airport and drive to the car drop off location. The airport is very efficient today -- before I finish dropping the car off, Lucie texts me that she was able to find porters to assist, the luggage has been checked, and she's got our tickets ready. The flight to the Big Island is almost as fast -- just enough time to hand out a mini bag of macadamia nuts and a drink (POG, since we're still in Hawai'i) and we're on our favorite island.
Our car for this leg is a convertible Mustang, whom I name Sally (trite and obvious, I know, but it still makes me smile) -- back when we were having trouble with our SUV Leasa and we had to rent cars, I tried out a Mustang one time but wasn't able to fit behind the wheel. Now, however, I'm not only able to fit behind the wheel, but I don't even need a seat belt extender like I did with the Jeep. Lucie says this is proof that I'm actually losing weight with my diet and exercise; I'm still a bit of a pessimist about it so my suggestion is that they're just making Mustangs bigger than they did a few years ago. Either way, I put the top down, and cruise happily back to the airport to pick up Lucie and our luggage. We need to put the two large suitcases in the back seat -- convertibles aren't really known for their trunk space -- but we get in and head toward Kailua.
Halfway there, we start to feel the intense sun and heat, and make a quick stop for some slushy drinks. We both enjoy the icy beverages for about twenty seconds before we're both incapacitated by dual brain freezes, but eventually recover, look around to make sure there are no witnesses, and get to the Royal Kona Resort where we check in. Not to be outdone by Maui, the Royal Kona has also congratulated us on our anniversary by upgrading our room and giving us a bottle of champagne.
I wonder if we can use this every time we check in to a hotel... seems to be a good way to get some nifty perks...
We drop off our luggage and make our now-traditional trip down the Mamalahoa Highway to Kealakekua where have appetizers at Aloha China BBQ. The food here isn't extravagant or amazing; it's simple Chinese food, good and well priced (especially for Hawai'i), and we still remember how on our first trip to Hawai'i they helped bring me down from my first Kona-based caffeine high. We don't actually want a full meal, since we're slated to have a private dinner in just a couple of hours, but since we didn't have time for breakfast before leaving Maui this is our first solid food of the day, and it's very appreciated. We have some cold drinks and have crab and cream cheese purses (because of the cheese content, these are mostly for me), egg rolls, and fried shrimp; mostly sated and cooled down, we head back to the hotel.
We relax for a bit and enjoy the air conditioning, then change into "formal clothes" (meaning I put on something other than shorts) and meet our dinner concierge Ashley by the lobby. She introduces us to our musician for the evening, Kula, and we proceed over to the private bungalow at Nohea Point where we'll be having our sunset dinner.
Michael, our waiter for the evening, greets us and gives us flower leis, and we sit down for our anniversary dinner. As the sun slowly sets in front of us and Kula plays a selection of Hawaiian mood music for our enjoyment, we have one of the best meals we've ever had. And I'm including the five course meal with Kobe beef we had at Alexander's in Cupertino.
We both chose the same appetizer, a jumbo lump crab cake, served on a mound of corn salad, and with dollops of roasted bell and mango tartar sauce placed in the sweet chili sauce along the edge of the plate. The crab cake is big, meaty, and flaky, and perfectly crispy on the outside while remaining moist on the inside; the sweet corn mixes incredibly well with the chili sauce, and the tartar adds a nice savory touch. There's an orchid also on the plate, adding a nice touch of color with its deep magenta; Michael informs us that they're edible ("but they look a lot better than they taste.")Our second course is a Caesar salad; they serve the croutons and Parmesan cheese on the side for Lucie because she'd told them when we arranged the dinner that she's lactose intolerant and they're going above and beyond in their efforts to make sure everything's acceptable. Their obvious efforts in this regard (her appetizer didn't have tartar sauce, for the same reason) is impressive, and exceedingly considerate, and very much appreciated. The salad itself is light and tasty, with an anchovy fillet placed unobtrusively along one side in case we wanted the extra flavor (I do, Lucie doesn't.)Shortly before the main course begins, Kula says that he's about to play his last song for the night, and that he hopes the rest of our evening is wonderful. We take a break from our dinner and dance to the song we specified when we made the arrangements, the final song that played at our wedding, Adam Sandler's Grow Old with You from The Wedding Singer.Our entrees arrive next; Lucie has chosen the beef Wellington and I've opted for the fish. The beef is a tenderloin, cooked perfectly and topped with a portobello mushroom mixture and a wine reduction sauce drizzled alongside, roasted potatoes, and a grilled baby bok choy with truffle oil. My seared ahi is draped over a mound of coconut rice, surrounded by a ginger-wasabi sauce, with grilled asparagus, lychees, and a seaweed salad accompaniment. The bite Lucie gives me of her beef is incredibly tender -- as it is every time I taste Parker Ranch beef; my ahi is also cooked perfectly, and the ginger wasabi sauce has a good sharp bite while still being mild enough where it doesn't drown out the delicate flavor of the raw center of the tuna.Halfway through the main course, it begins to rain. It begins as gentle, whispering and warm, a soft background white noise as we eat and talk and reminisce about the wedding; before long it becomes much heavier, and we hear the sounds of the distant luau falter slightly before resuming. Michael is stoic and accepting of the weather (he's Hawaiian, after all), and Ashley makes an appearance to give us emergency rain ponchos for the walk back after dinner (the thatched roof of the hut above is impressively waterproof and is keeping us dry during our meal), but the rain doesn't bother us -- tonight, I believe nothing could.Our dessert arrives during a lull in the rain. The chef has created a mixed fruit tarte tatin for Lucie, but has somehow managed to form it without a crust to avoid milk content; my dish is a banana liliko'i creme brûlée, with some fresh berries and mint leaves. The creme is thick and warm, and the crust is crispier than any creme brûlée I've had before, without having any hint of bitter burned flavor at all -- it's simply amazing.The entire meal has been simply amazing, really. The rain, which had picked up some during dessert, even stops completely before our dinner is ended; so the walk back to our room is merely humid, with the ponchos unneeded and kept in their sealed bags.
The new winner of the most expensive meal we've ever had, as well as the best meal we've ever had, has ended. The rain has ended. Our first day back on the Big Island has ended. And our tenth anniversary has ended.
The rest of our lives together remains ahead of us.
We can't wait.
.
Hawa1'1, Day 4: "This is not a boat accident! And it wasn't any propeller; and it wasn't any coral reef; and it wasn't Jack the Ripper!"
A new day on Hawai'i begins bright and early, made better by the fact that the tour we're taking today doesn't require us to get up as early as the Haleakalā sunrise tour... as a way to celebrate our last full day on Maui, we have decided to leave Maui and take a day trip to Lana'i.
We drive along the amazingly-close-to-the-ocean highway to Lāhaina (in several places, it would literally be possible to drive ten feet from the road, park and walk another ten to twenty feet, and go surfing ... no barrier at all, just road, shoulder, sand, then ocean) and park in the designated lot near Front Street. We're a bit early, so we walk along a few of the shops to get a pedestrian's viewpoint of the drive-by we did a couple of days ago... lots of shirt and swimwear shops, but of course nothing in my size. We proceed to the harbor where Trilogy Tours has their ship berthed, and board along with a few dozen other people.
We're met by Captain Chuck, who's being assisted today by Captain Owen and Captain Riley (lots of captains!) and Snuba Instructor Nick, with young Shipman Sam playing the part of Ensign Smith (although without the red shirt, which no doubt comforts him greatly.)
The trip from Lāhaina Harbor to Manele Harbor on Lana'i takes about an hour and a half on Trilogy I, their 64-foot sailing catamaran. Along the way they offer cinnamon rolls, fresh fruit, beverages, and sandwich wraps ("feeding people is the best way to avoid mutiny," Captain Chuck declares) as we enjoy the amazingly blue water, clear sky, and the wind. We managed to snag what we consider a prime spot on the boat, the right rear corner; so we get a smoother ride, some privacy since all of the families have the kids clustered along the front of the boat to get splashed, an amazing view, and the chance to chat with the guy behind the wheel. For the trip over, this is Captain Chuck -- Cpt. Owen is the senior captain but he'd rather relax and have fun with the passengers.
We also chat briefly with Captain Riley who's from Hawai'i but went to school at Santa Clara University; our curious question of "why did you ever leave?!" is answered with a good-natured "that's why I'm back here... you gotta leave the rock to appreciate the rock."
Captain Owen gives us some geology lessons as we near Lana'i -- the sheer cliffs we see as we approach the harbor are a result of the makeup of the Hawaiian islands -- as the ocean waves undercut the rock, eventually huge pieces of the hills detach and fall into the ocean, leaving sheer vertical walls. This is common on older islands (the Big Island, for example, has none of these cliffs as it's the youngest of the islands) and is a sign of an island starting to deteriorate. The white cliffs of Dover? Same thing, just with more chalk.
We reach the harbor and dock, and are shuttled to Hulopo'e Beach Park and Marine Preserve, voted the #1 beach in America in 1997 by Dr. Beach (based on impressive name length alone, I'm guessing.) It's a beautiful white sand beach, with half of it reserved for the tour guests. We grab some beach mats and chairs, stake out a place, then wander over for the snorkeling gear. My mustache gives us a bit of an issue since I can't get a good seal on the mask, but a little bit of lip balm helps.
We head out into the water and poke our heads around in the shallower areas, but it's a bit murky from the sand. Captain Owen comes out to us and escorts us deeper into the bay, pulling a surfboard as we hold on and look around, and all of a sudden the water clears up. No longer murky, it's clear and bright, and we can see everything around us -- coral, yellow tang, parrot fish, surgeon fish, rainbow fish, bandit angelfish... and then Captain Owen hears some people talking about seeing a shark a bit further out.
So he takes us out there, because I'm assuming that at some point I must have angered him, and we see it -- a 5 to 6 foot long white tip reef shark, swimming below us under a coral shelf. It's somewhat small for a shark, and it's minding its own business, which is just fine with us, but it's an unreal experience nonetheless. It's Lucie and I facing our fears and being in nature with a carnivorous dinosaur that gets its own week on Discovery Channel. It's us, taking Jaws and Deep Blue Sea and Shark Boy and Lava Girl and Open Water and Sharktopus and turning it into our own personal Care Bears Movie. Only, without the horrified screams and nightmarish mental imagery.
I mean, don't get me wrong; it's not like we saw a nēnē or anything, but it was kinda cool.
After we get back onto dry land and I once again thank my lucky stars that I decided to use some of my Reward Points to buy that underwater digital camera, we dry off a bit and board the van to take a tour of Lana'i. Our driver Moana takes us through the small city, talking story about the history and economics of the island... It's a plantation town, the last one still standing in Hawai'i, which has had to turn into a tourism-based economy after the pineapple and sugar cane industry was moved overseas. Moana's history lesson is at the same time both fascinating and a little sad; if not for the two resort hotels on the island, Lana'i wouldn't have any economy at all... the pineapple fields are now wild growth; coffee and macadamia nuts, crops that are plentiful on other Hawaiian islands, have never produced anything noteworthy; and it's considered one of the United States' most endangered historic sites because the current owner wants to remove the old buildings and build more resorts.
The tour ends, and Captains Chuck, Owen, and Riley, and Snuba Nick and Ensign Smith treat us to a luncheon of mesquite grilled chicken, mixed salad, peas, vegetarian soba stir-fry, and pineapple. It's a simple meal, fresh and delicious, and the view overlooking the harbor is outstanding.
On the trip back to Maui, they cut the engines and raise the sails, and for several minutes we cruise through the water, the strong afternoon winds tugging at us as we reach speeds of 10 knots, which in miles per hour is exactly as fast as we'd be going if we were doing 10 knots. Captain Riley, given the wheel as everyone else scurries about hoisting jibbers or something (Captain Chuck) or changing the angle of the sails (Snuba Nick) or walking about the catamaran, offering ice cream sundaes (Shipman Sam) or standing around joking with the passengers (Captain Owen), whoops and hollers in joy as he steers our craft swiftly through the water, then a little slower through the water, then at a standstill in the water, then through the water again as they give up and restart the engines and we power our way across the ocean once the wind dies.
We reach Maui safe and sound, and only slightly miffed because some jerk and his blonde-in-every-way girlfriend have taken our spots in the rear of the boat. Dude, that's just wrong; don't bogart someone's spot unless they let you know they no longer want it. What a tourist.
Anyway, once we get back on dry land we stop by one of the stores on Front Street and get a shave ice, then drive back to our hotel. We sit for a bit and enjoy some of the hula show they the hotel offers (and recognize our Hawaiian language teacher Malihini performing), order food to go from the Tiki Grill (fruit salad and a mahi mahi sandwich), then head upstairs to our room. We eat our food, open the bottle of champagne and have a glass to toast our last night at the extremely warm and welcoming Kā'anapali Beach Hotel, pack for tomorrow's flight to the Big Island, then go to bed.
.
We drive along the amazingly-close-to-the-ocean highway to Lāhaina (in several places, it would literally be possible to drive ten feet from the road, park and walk another ten to twenty feet, and go surfing ... no barrier at all, just road, shoulder, sand, then ocean) and park in the designated lot near Front Street. We're a bit early, so we walk along a few of the shops to get a pedestrian's viewpoint of the drive-by we did a couple of days ago... lots of shirt and swimwear shops, but of course nothing in my size. We proceed to the harbor where Trilogy Tours has their ship berthed, and board along with a few dozen other people.
We're met by Captain Chuck, who's being assisted today by Captain Owen and Captain Riley (lots of captains!) and Snuba Instructor Nick, with young Shipman Sam playing the part of Ensign Smith (although without the red shirt, which no doubt comforts him greatly.)
The trip from Lāhaina Harbor to Manele Harbor on Lana'i takes about an hour and a half on Trilogy I, their 64-foot sailing catamaran. Along the way they offer cinnamon rolls, fresh fruit, beverages, and sandwich wraps ("feeding people is the best way to avoid mutiny," Captain Chuck declares) as we enjoy the amazingly blue water, clear sky, and the wind. We managed to snag what we consider a prime spot on the boat, the right rear corner; so we get a smoother ride, some privacy since all of the families have the kids clustered along the front of the boat to get splashed, an amazing view, and the chance to chat with the guy behind the wheel. For the trip over, this is Captain Chuck -- Cpt. Owen is the senior captain but he'd rather relax and have fun with the passengers.
We also chat briefly with Captain Riley who's from Hawai'i but went to school at Santa Clara University; our curious question of "why did you ever leave?!" is answered with a good-natured "that's why I'm back here... you gotta leave the rock to appreciate the rock."
Captain Owen gives us some geology lessons as we near Lana'i -- the sheer cliffs we see as we approach the harbor are a result of the makeup of the Hawaiian islands -- as the ocean waves undercut the rock, eventually huge pieces of the hills detach and fall into the ocean, leaving sheer vertical walls. This is common on older islands (the Big Island, for example, has none of these cliffs as it's the youngest of the islands) and is a sign of an island starting to deteriorate. The white cliffs of Dover? Same thing, just with more chalk.
We reach the harbor and dock, and are shuttled to Hulopo'e Beach Park and Marine Preserve, voted the #1 beach in America in 1997 by Dr. Beach (based on impressive name length alone, I'm guessing.) It's a beautiful white sand beach, with half of it reserved for the tour guests. We grab some beach mats and chairs, stake out a place, then wander over for the snorkeling gear. My mustache gives us a bit of an issue since I can't get a good seal on the mask, but a little bit of lip balm helps.
We head out into the water and poke our heads around in the shallower areas, but it's a bit murky from the sand. Captain Owen comes out to us and escorts us deeper into the bay, pulling a surfboard as we hold on and look around, and all of a sudden the water clears up. No longer murky, it's clear and bright, and we can see everything around us -- coral, yellow tang, parrot fish, surgeon fish, rainbow fish, bandit angelfish... and then Captain Owen hears some people talking about seeing a shark a bit further out.
So he takes us out there, because I'm assuming that at some point I must have angered him, and we see it -- a 5 to 6 foot long white tip reef shark, swimming below us under a coral shelf. It's somewhat small for a shark, and it's minding its own business, which is just fine with us, but it's an unreal experience nonetheless. It's Lucie and I facing our fears and being in nature with a carnivorous dinosaur that gets its own week on Discovery Channel. It's us, taking Jaws and Deep Blue Sea and Shark Boy and Lava Girl and Open Water and Sharktopus and turning it into our own personal Care Bears Movie. Only, without the horrified screams and nightmarish mental imagery. I mean, don't get me wrong; it's not like we saw a nēnē or anything, but it was kinda cool.
After we get back onto dry land and I once again thank my lucky stars that I decided to use some of my Reward Points to buy that underwater digital camera, we dry off a bit and board the van to take a tour of Lana'i. Our driver Moana takes us through the small city, talking story about the history and economics of the island... It's a plantation town, the last one still standing in Hawai'i, which has had to turn into a tourism-based economy after the pineapple and sugar cane industry was moved overseas. Moana's history lesson is at the same time both fascinating and a little sad; if not for the two resort hotels on the island, Lana'i wouldn't have any economy at all... the pineapple fields are now wild growth; coffee and macadamia nuts, crops that are plentiful on other Hawaiian islands, have never produced anything noteworthy; and it's considered one of the United States' most endangered historic sites because the current owner wants to remove the old buildings and build more resorts.
The tour ends, and Captains Chuck, Owen, and Riley, and Snuba Nick and Ensign Smith treat us to a luncheon of mesquite grilled chicken, mixed salad, peas, vegetarian soba stir-fry, and pineapple. It's a simple meal, fresh and delicious, and the view overlooking the harbor is outstanding.
On the trip back to Maui, they cut the engines and raise the sails, and for several minutes we cruise through the water, the strong afternoon winds tugging at us as we reach speeds of 10 knots, which in miles per hour is exactly as fast as we'd be going if we were doing 10 knots. Captain Riley, given the wheel as everyone else scurries about hoisting jibbers or something (Captain Chuck) or changing the angle of the sails (Snuba Nick) or walking about the catamaran, offering ice cream sundaes (Shipman Sam) or standing around joking with the passengers (Captain Owen), whoops and hollers in joy as he steers our craft swiftly through the water, then a little slower through the water, then at a standstill in the water, then through the water again as they give up and restart the engines and we power our way across the ocean once the wind dies.
We reach Maui safe and sound, and only slightly miffed because some jerk and his blonde-in-every-way girlfriend have taken our spots in the rear of the boat. Dude, that's just wrong; don't bogart someone's spot unless they let you know they no longer want it. What a tourist.
Anyway, once we get back on dry land we stop by one of the stores on Front Street and get a shave ice, then drive back to our hotel. We sit for a bit and enjoy some of the hula show they the hotel offers (and recognize our Hawaiian language teacher Malihini performing), order food to go from the Tiki Grill (fruit salad and a mahi mahi sandwich), then head upstairs to our room. We eat our food, open the bottle of champagne and have a glass to toast our last night at the extremely warm and welcoming Kā'anapali Beach Hotel, pack for tomorrow's flight to the Big Island, then go to bed.
.
Hawa1'1, Day 3: "How to Speak Hawaiian Like a Haole."
We wake up this morning a little confused and disoriented -- it's the next day already?! After gathering ourselves, however, we decide that today's going to be a relaxation day; it seems fairly obvious that we need a bit of rest after the lack of sleep we had over the past couple of days.
Bearing that in mind, we go to the free buffet breakfast that our hotel offers... it's a "welcome breakfast" where they talk about the special deals they offer for tours, and the free lessons they offer, and the magic show they host and for which we can buy discounted tickets; it feels much like a timeshare spiel, except with tours and shows instead of condos, but hey, free food!
So we sit and listen to Sam (actual Hawaiian name unpronounceable) talk about how we can spend our money while we help ourselves to scrambled eggs, Portuguese sausage, crispy fried potatoes, fresh fruit, and Danishes to go with our coffee and ice water. It's very good for a free breakfast, and Sam is entertaining enough, so a nice time is had.
Afterwards, we go back to our room and put on swimwear, then head out to the adjacent beach. We stop by the rental kiosk and rent a cabana for a partial day, then spend the next several hours relaxing on the shaded lounge chairs on the sand; enjoying the view, and snoozing, and reading books we brought along for the occasion, and shaking our heads judgmentally at the people we see walking along the beach talking on their cell phones and gesticulating wildly, and playing in the water, and getting a little sunburned because I'm unused to the aerosol sunscreen we bought and end up missing parts of my farmer's-tan shoulders and my non-driver's-side-of-the-car arm.
For lunch, we go to the hotel's courtyard and have a seat at the Tiki Grill. We share teriyaki beef skewers, Lucie has a fruit salad, and I opt for the extremely Hawaiian Reuben sandwich. YES, the Reuben sandwich is authentic Hawaiian -- what else says "Polynesia" than thousand island dressing?
After lunch, we head to the free lesson we signed up for, the Hawaiian language class. It's hosted -- like all of the culture seminars at the Kā'anapali Beach Hotel -- by one of the employees, in this case a nice woman named Malihini. She walks us through basic pronunciation (vowels and consonants pronounced very much like Spanish, with the exception of the w ["veh" instead of "double you"] which can be either a v or a w sound) and many of the basic words (aloha, mahalo, pupu, humuhumunukunukuapua'a), and other essentials such as diphthongs and accents. It's a fun and informative class, and Malihini is warm and encouraging and entertaining ("and I was born here, even though "malihini" means "newcomer", she admonishes), and we like her. Heck, we've liked everyone we've met here; that's one of the great things about Hawai'i.
It's also one of the great things about the Kā'anapali Beach Hotel... as previously mentioned, it's called "Hawaii's Most Hawaiian Hotel." They received that moniker from other groups (Waiaha Foundation, and the Hawaiian Tourism Authority) in large part because of their employees' actions... welcoming songs sung at the welcome breakfast and (at their request) Fridays in the lobby; carving a single hull outrigger canoe and hundreds of other authentic Hawaiian traditional items; offering free hula and Hawaiian language and lei-making and other lessons; planting and maintaining traditional flower gardens... they were even named as one of President George H. W. Bush's "Points of Light."
After the language lesson, we rest for a bit, then walk to Whalers Village just down the way -- there's a paved walkway along this stretch of beach called the Kā'anapali Beachwalk so we stroll to the shops while enjoying the beach view. Once at Whalers Village we make a few stops at some of the stores (The Honolulu Cookie Company for -- surprise! -- cookies, and Soul Lei for a honu pendant for Lucie) before going to the Hula Grill for a sunset dinner.
We have a very nice view -- apart from all of the tourists along the Beachwalk who end up in our way -- and a very nice ambience -- apart from all of the noise and screaming children -- as we enjoy our dinner. Our appetizer of kalhua pork potstickers is yummy, Lucie's entree of macadamia nut crusted moonfish is juicy, and my fire seared ahi is cooked perfectly; Lucie's "Hana hou" (a concoction of vodka, ginger honey, liliko'i, iced tea, and lemonade) and my "Kā'anapali cooler" (gin, ginger syrup, mint, and lemonade) and liliko'i mojito are cold and refreshing, and make the screaming children a little more tolerable as we watch the sun set from our table.
After dinner, we walk back to our hotel and sit at a table near the stage, where the slack key guitar band is once again playing songs. We request Hawaiian Suppa Man from Iz and Drop Baby Drop from Sean Na'auao, both of which receive appreciative nods from the band as they hear them called out. We order piña coladas from the courtyard's Tiki Bar (located right next to the Tiki Grill where we had lunch) and listen to the band until they retire for the evening, and chat with the band afterwards; they ask if we're kama'aina and we regretfully say no. When they hear that we're from San Jose, they perk up a bit and ask if the store Sun Jose Hawaii is still around (it isn't) and we ask if they've played the Hukilau (they have, but the San Francisco location, not the one in Japantown)... Turns out the bassist has a relative living in the Bay Area, so as far as they're concerned we're practically ohana.
We pay for the drinks ("charge it to our room" are five words that go very well together) and head upstairs for the night, full and happy and feeling welcomed and just maybe slightly tipsy. It's been a good day.
.
Bearing that in mind, we go to the free buffet breakfast that our hotel offers... it's a "welcome breakfast" where they talk about the special deals they offer for tours, and the free lessons they offer, and the magic show they host and for which we can buy discounted tickets; it feels much like a timeshare spiel, except with tours and shows instead of condos, but hey, free food!
So we sit and listen to Sam (actual Hawaiian name unpronounceable) talk about how we can spend our money while we help ourselves to scrambled eggs, Portuguese sausage, crispy fried potatoes, fresh fruit, and Danishes to go with our coffee and ice water. It's very good for a free breakfast, and Sam is entertaining enough, so a nice time is had.
Afterwards, we go back to our room and put on swimwear, then head out to the adjacent beach. We stop by the rental kiosk and rent a cabana for a partial day, then spend the next several hours relaxing on the shaded lounge chairs on the sand; enjoying the view, and snoozing, and reading books we brought along for the occasion, and shaking our heads judgmentally at the people we see walking along the beach talking on their cell phones and gesticulating wildly, and playing in the water, and getting a little sunburned because I'm unused to the aerosol sunscreen we bought and end up missing parts of my farmer's-tan shoulders and my non-driver's-side-of-the-car arm.
For lunch, we go to the hotel's courtyard and have a seat at the Tiki Grill. We share teriyaki beef skewers, Lucie has a fruit salad, and I opt for the extremely Hawaiian Reuben sandwich. YES, the Reuben sandwich is authentic Hawaiian -- what else says "Polynesia" than thousand island dressing?
After lunch, we head to the free lesson we signed up for, the Hawaiian language class. It's hosted -- like all of the culture seminars at the Kā'anapali Beach Hotel -- by one of the employees, in this case a nice woman named Malihini. She walks us through basic pronunciation (vowels and consonants pronounced very much like Spanish, with the exception of the w ["veh" instead of "double you"] which can be either a v or a w sound) and many of the basic words (aloha, mahalo, pupu, humuhumunukunukuapua'a), and other essentials such as diphthongs and accents. It's a fun and informative class, and Malihini is warm and encouraging and entertaining ("and I was born here, even though "malihini" means "newcomer", she admonishes), and we like her. Heck, we've liked everyone we've met here; that's one of the great things about Hawai'i.
It's also one of the great things about the Kā'anapali Beach Hotel... as previously mentioned, it's called "Hawaii's Most Hawaiian Hotel." They received that moniker from other groups (Waiaha Foundation, and the Hawaiian Tourism Authority) in large part because of their employees' actions... welcoming songs sung at the welcome breakfast and (at their request) Fridays in the lobby; carving a single hull outrigger canoe and hundreds of other authentic Hawaiian traditional items; offering free hula and Hawaiian language and lei-making and other lessons; planting and maintaining traditional flower gardens... they were even named as one of President George H. W. Bush's "Points of Light."
After the language lesson, we rest for a bit, then walk to Whalers Village just down the way -- there's a paved walkway along this stretch of beach called the Kā'anapali Beachwalk so we stroll to the shops while enjoying the beach view. Once at Whalers Village we make a few stops at some of the stores (The Honolulu Cookie Company for -- surprise! -- cookies, and Soul Lei for a honu pendant for Lucie) before going to the Hula Grill for a sunset dinner.
We have a very nice view -- apart from all of the tourists along the Beachwalk who end up in our way -- and a very nice ambience -- apart from all of the noise and screaming children -- as we enjoy our dinner. Our appetizer of kalhua pork potstickers is yummy, Lucie's entree of macadamia nut crusted moonfish is juicy, and my fire seared ahi is cooked perfectly; Lucie's "Hana hou" (a concoction of vodka, ginger honey, liliko'i, iced tea, and lemonade) and my "Kā'anapali cooler" (gin, ginger syrup, mint, and lemonade) and liliko'i mojito are cold and refreshing, and make the screaming children a little more tolerable as we watch the sun set from our table.
After dinner, we walk back to our hotel and sit at a table near the stage, where the slack key guitar band is once again playing songs. We request Hawaiian Suppa Man from Iz and Drop Baby Drop from Sean Na'auao, both of which receive appreciative nods from the band as they hear them called out. We order piña coladas from the courtyard's Tiki Bar (located right next to the Tiki Grill where we had lunch) and listen to the band until they retire for the evening, and chat with the band afterwards; they ask if we're kama'aina and we regretfully say no. When they hear that we're from San Jose, they perk up a bit and ask if the store Sun Jose Hawaii is still around (it isn't) and we ask if they've played the Hukilau (they have, but the San Francisco location, not the one in Japantown)... Turns out the bassist has a relative living in the Bay Area, so as far as they're concerned we're practically ohana.
We pay for the drinks ("charge it to our room" are five words that go very well together) and head upstairs for the night, full and happy and feeling welcomed and just maybe slightly tipsy. It's been a good day.
.
Hawa1'1, Day 2: "Up Before the Sun."
Our second day in Hawai'i begins shortly after our first day ends -- just about 45 minutes afterward, as a matter of fact. Our guide for the Haleakala sunrise tour is scheduled to pick us up shortly before 2AM, which means we get up shortly before 1AM... which means it was probably a mistake to go to bed at 11:30PM, but it's a bit late to change that.
We manage to get to the lobby only one minute late and meet our tour guide from Temptation Tours, Eric. His entertaining monologues and offerings of local trivia and really just his overall personality remind Lucie of Crush, the turtle from Finding Nemo, so that's how she refers to him (to me at least) for the rest of the day.
As we drive to our next stop where Eric/Crush is to pick up some more passengers in or limo van, he regales us with various trivia about Haleakala, Maui, and the cities through which we drive, such as:
-There's a 3-degree drop in temperature for every 1000 feet in elevation on the extinct volcano, meaning that at the summit of just over 10,000 feet it'll be 30 degrees colder than it is now, and that 40MPH winds at the top are not uncommon;
-Approx. 92% of everything in Hawai'i has been introduced by man -- this includes such "Hawaiian" things as pineapple, plumeria, sugar cane, and birds of paradise;
-Wailea is Hawaiian for "waters of Lea" (the canoe goddess);
-Likewise Kalahaku means "eye of the clouds" and Puka'alakea means "hole to heaven";
-Haleakala, actually Haleakalā, means "House of the Sun"
He also entertains us with various of his favorite lines such as having PMA (for Positive Mental Attitude), or his weather report of "Welcome to Maui -- the weather will be partly cloudy, with temperatures between 76 and 84, for the next 85 years..."
After we stop and pick up the other passengers (a family of four staying at the Grand Wailea, in Wailea), we begin our ascent to the summit. Eric points out some wild deer feeding in a golf course along the way -- axis deer, African in origin and introduced into Hawaii as a gift to King Kamehameha by Hong Kong in the 1800s, and brought from Moloka'i to Maui around 1960 for hunting. We also see a small wildfire by the side of the road, and Eric calls 911 to report it. The father of the family tries to make a joke and suggests that the deer had started the fire, and before I can make my planned deer-related pun that arson doesn't bring in the big bucks, Lucie quips that they were deer, not Camels. Outpunned by my wife -- curses! And it was a great pun, too, although only the wife seems to get it since after a few seconds she gives a quick bark of laughter and everyone else remains silent. Sigh.
We make a quick stop at a roadside coffee stand in the city of Kula (no espresso machine, so I get a cup of coffee since it's only 3:30AM at this point) and continue our drive. We reach the viewing point on Haleakalā around 4:45. The elevation here is 9740 feet, and there are no clouds to be found this high -- we've already passed through the cloud layer on the drive up. The temperature is surprisingly mild compared to what we were expecting -- somewhere around 45 degrees, with only a slight breeze. The view of the stars, however, is just breathtaking -- we have a clear view of the huge expanse of the Milky Way, with no city lights or airborne pollution impeding our view.
I have never seen more stars in the sky in my life; nor has Lucie.
We spend the next hour or so bundled in our warm clothes, huddled together for warmth, splitting our time between looking at the stars and watching the horizon, as the sky gradually turns from black to midnight blue, to royal blue, then continues from blue to peach as sunrise nears. As the sky lightens, we're also able to see more of the caldera of Haleakalā beneath us. We're standing at the edge of a sheer dropoff, with the caldera floor 3000 feet below us. The far edge of the crater is 7000 feet away, but without any trees or manmade structures in the crater, the distances are very deceiving... It looks like it's only a thousand feet or so at most in diameter, and maybe a few hundred feet down. The reddish hue of the rocks, an artifact of the presence of iron oxide, makes the landscape almost look like that of Mars.
Finally, at 6:05, the Sun begins to make its appearance. From behind us, a group of elders begins their traditional chant welcoming the Sun.
E ala e
Ka la i kahikina
I ka moana
Ka moana hohonu
Pi’i ka lewa
Ka lewa nu’u
I kahikina
Aia ka la.
E ala e!
(Awaken/Arise
The Sun in the East
From the ocean
The ocean deep
Climbing (to) the heaven
The heaven highest
In the East
There is the Sun
Awaken!)
The sky is clear, the sunrise is amazing, and it's something that we will remember forever. It's not just seeing a sunrise, it's seeing the Sun rise from one of the tallest places in Hawai'i, and one of the most untouched by man; it's the combination of seeing one of the most beautiful things in nature, in one of the most beautiful places in the world, and on this particular day with one of the best viewing conditions possible.
We admire the sunrise for a while, then Eric takes us further up to the summit itself, 10,023 feet above sea level. We walk through the information cabin at the top, reading about the weather conditions on Maui and why some parts of the island are bone dry while others are straight-out rain forest, and about the fact that there are supposedly nēnē living around here, which as ALL know is a total scam and there are no such things as nēnē, and about such rare plants such as the silversword which is endemic to Hawai'i, and -- Lucie nudges me and points down to the parking area and we see some birds down there, which look kind of like... OMG!!! NĒNĒ!
We scoot out of the cabin and take the stairs down to the parking area as quickly as we can -- which, given my bad knee and the fact that we're almost two miles up and there's not all that much oxygen up here so it's a little difficult to breathe when we exert ourselves, isn't really all that quickly -- as I take picture after picture with my iPhone.
Trying to look inconspicuous and as native as possible so the nēnē won't catch on that they're supposed to be hiding from us, we get closer to our quarry, whistling Hawaiian songs nonchalantly as I pretend to play Angry Birds while actually taking picture after picture... we see Crush -- sorry, Eric -- nearby and tell him excitedly about what we'd seen. "Yep," he tells us happily, "those are chukars, originally brought to Hawai'i in the 1930s, and introduced to Maui in 1954; those guys are everywhere up here."
D'ohh. D'ohh!!. Already in my mind I can hear the laughter of the Hawaiians at the big tie-dye-wearing haole falling for their big prank. I'm pretty sure that right now the chukars are guffawing and giving each other high fives (or high feathers, or whatever it's called when birds do it -- I'm pretty sure there's a specific term for it.)
After a few moments of soul-crushing humiliation at actually allowing myself to believe in the presence of the nēnē, we soothe our feelings by taking pictures of the silversword plants. Haleakalā silverswords are endemic, or found nowhere else on earth than on this mountain; once the silversword's flower stalk blooms, which can be anywhere in the plant's lifecycle from 5 to 50 years, the flowers bloom for just a month or two before the stalk and the plant then shrivel and die. Needless to say, because of both this reproduction method and the extreme conditions in which the plant grows (and the clueless or willfully ignorant tourists who cross the erected barriers and walk near the plants, ruining the root systems and killing the plants before they can bloom) these plants are extremely rare.
We take some more pictures of the summit, the silverswords, and the science city nearby inhabited by NASA workers who use the summit buildings for infrared laser and satellite studies, but NOT of the chukars, who are still chirping hysterically and mooning me, and then we head down the mountain. Since we'd talked about seeing nēnē with Eric, he makes a small detour on the way down and stops at a few places to see if he can find any. We see plovers, more chukars, and even a wild pheasant, but (of course!) none of the fabled and imaginary nēnē. We do get a very nice above-the-clouds view of the town of Puka'alakea ("hole to heaven", remember?), named such because a vortex of air currents created by the valley between Maui's mountains creates a huge circle of clouds with an open spot directly above the city. It's a much more impressive view from up here than it is from ground level.
We stop once again in Kula, at the same location where we stopped for coffee on the way up. As part of the tour, we're getting breakfast at the Kula Lodge, owned by the wife of the guy who runs the coffee stand. I sense a bit of a cooperative deal here, but after the awesome experience we just had (sunrise, not nēnē) I'm not bothered at all. After a short walk through the garden where they have ivy, roses, and protea growing on a steep hillside with an amazing view of the Maui coast far below us, we sit down for breakfast. I have cinnamon raisin French toast with coconut syrup and Lucie has a classic breakfast with eggs, toast, potatoes, and ham, and we both have coffee. Lots of coffee... at this point, because of the early flight yesterday and the time change, and the late night last night combined with with the early morning today, we're running on about two hours of sleep in the last 30-plus hours, and I'm getting too old for that stuff.
After the breakfast -- which was tasty and very large, and came with an impressive view of Maui and the Pacific Ocean -- we head next door to a protea shop and I buy my mom a bouquet for a belated birthday present, then head on down again into Kahului, then across the island to our hotel. Along the way, Eric gives us more running commentary about the island... all of the sugar cane growing around Kahului is actually a loss crop -- the Baldwin family (not associated with Alec or Stephen or, sadly, Adam) who own the majority of the land at best break even with the sugar produced (which gets turned into turbinado sugar products like Sugar in the Raw) but they want Maui to remain agricultural instead of selling the land for condominiums, a desire I wholeheartedly support.
He also points out a huge building located halfway up a mountain, a large pink structure originally designed by Frank Lloyd Wright as a 7,000 square foot home but adapted into the 74,000 square foot building it is now, used as a clubhouse for the King Kamehameha Golf Club. Originally named Crownfield, FLW had originally designed the home for a family in Fort Worth, Texas, which ended up being scrapped; then adapted it for an official in the Mexican government to be built in Acapulco before those plans were scrapped; then redesigned it again to be build in Connecticut for Marilyn Monroe before those plans were scrapped; then finally the building plan was eventually purchased in 1988 by a group of Japanese businessmen and redesigned by Wright's firm to fit the current setup.
Eric drops us off in front of the Kā'anapali Beach Hotel lobby at approximately 12:00; we thank him profusely for such an incredible experience, and he leaves to take the other passengers back to their lodgings. We briefly consider going upstairs to sleep, but it's about lunchtime and we're both famished, so instead we pick up our car from valet and head off in search of food.
We drive down the highway from Kā'anapali to Lāhaina (Hawaiian for "merciless sun", a fitting name for this oceanfront but scalding city) and drive along the popular Front Street to see if there's anything that looks good. Unfortunately, everything here seems so tourist-based that there's really nothing that says Hawai'i to us... there's a Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, a Hard Rock Cafe, a Dairy Queen and Orange Julius... honestly, to my slightly cynical and definitely sleep-deprived eyes, it's really not all that different from what we could find in Monterey other than the impressive and rightly famous banyan tree; and we sort of want something a little more of what the locals would eat, so we continue on down the road.
After a wonderfully scenic but seemingly long drive, we end up in the city of Kihei, where Lucie's read about an eatery named WokStar that has a devoted Yelp following. Sounds good to me, so we hunt for a bit and eventually track the place down. It's a sort of hole in the wall joint, easy to miss unless you're looking for it; but the menu is impressive and I'm immediately liking the place based solely on an "I (heart) sriracha" sticker I spot on the cash register. We order and have a seat outside under the awning, and the food comes out to us shortly.
For appetizers, we pick the chicken satay skewers and the potstickers -- the peanut sauce is tasty and the chili sauce they have on the table goes very well with the potstickers. For the entree, Lucie's teriyaki stir fry has udon noodles cooked with bean sprouts, broccoli, cabbage, spinach, and other fresh veggies with a plum-ginger teriyaki sauce; my 13 Dolla' Salad is a huge mound of greens, tomato, carrots, broccoli, spiced stir-fried tofu, bacon, and shrimp tossed in a Thai vinaigrette -- it's a delicious combination of flavors, enormous in size, and (if you ignore the bacon) remarkably healthy for me to actually enjoy as much as I do. We both have water to drink, and Lucie also buys me an iced Thai coffee, the caffeine and sugar of which helps my alertness to the point where I feel awake enough to drive back to the hotel.
We return to our hotel at 4PM (at this point working on 2 hours of sleep in the last 40 hours,) manage to make it upstairs to our room, and plan to lie down for a brief nap before dinner. That's the last thing we remember until we wake up the next morning.
.
We manage to get to the lobby only one minute late and meet our tour guide from Temptation Tours, Eric. His entertaining monologues and offerings of local trivia and really just his overall personality remind Lucie of Crush, the turtle from Finding Nemo, so that's how she refers to him (to me at least) for the rest of the day.
As we drive to our next stop where Eric/Crush is to pick up some more passengers in or limo van, he regales us with various trivia about Haleakala, Maui, and the cities through which we drive, such as:
-There's a 3-degree drop in temperature for every 1000 feet in elevation on the extinct volcano, meaning that at the summit of just over 10,000 feet it'll be 30 degrees colder than it is now, and that 40MPH winds at the top are not uncommon;
-Approx. 92% of everything in Hawai'i has been introduced by man -- this includes such "Hawaiian" things as pineapple, plumeria, sugar cane, and birds of paradise;
-Wailea is Hawaiian for "waters of Lea" (the canoe goddess);
-Likewise Kalahaku means "eye of the clouds" and Puka'alakea means "hole to heaven";
-Haleakala, actually Haleakalā, means "House of the Sun"
He also entertains us with various of his favorite lines such as having PMA (for Positive Mental Attitude), or his weather report of "Welcome to Maui -- the weather will be partly cloudy, with temperatures between 76 and 84, for the next 85 years..."
After we stop and pick up the other passengers (a family of four staying at the Grand Wailea, in Wailea), we begin our ascent to the summit. Eric points out some wild deer feeding in a golf course along the way -- axis deer, African in origin and introduced into Hawaii as a gift to King Kamehameha by Hong Kong in the 1800s, and brought from Moloka'i to Maui around 1960 for hunting. We also see a small wildfire by the side of the road, and Eric calls 911 to report it. The father of the family tries to make a joke and suggests that the deer had started the fire, and before I can make my planned deer-related pun that arson doesn't bring in the big bucks, Lucie quips that they were deer, not Camels. Outpunned by my wife -- curses! And it was a great pun, too, although only the wife seems to get it since after a few seconds she gives a quick bark of laughter and everyone else remains silent. Sigh.
We make a quick stop at a roadside coffee stand in the city of Kula (no espresso machine, so I get a cup of coffee since it's only 3:30AM at this point) and continue our drive. We reach the viewing point on Haleakalā around 4:45. The elevation here is 9740 feet, and there are no clouds to be found this high -- we've already passed through the cloud layer on the drive up. The temperature is surprisingly mild compared to what we were expecting -- somewhere around 45 degrees, with only a slight breeze. The view of the stars, however, is just breathtaking -- we have a clear view of the huge expanse of the Milky Way, with no city lights or airborne pollution impeding our view.
I have never seen more stars in the sky in my life; nor has Lucie.
We spend the next hour or so bundled in our warm clothes, huddled together for warmth, splitting our time between looking at the stars and watching the horizon, as the sky gradually turns from black to midnight blue, to royal blue, then continues from blue to peach as sunrise nears. As the sky lightens, we're also able to see more of the caldera of Haleakalā beneath us. We're standing at the edge of a sheer dropoff, with the caldera floor 3000 feet below us. The far edge of the crater is 7000 feet away, but without any trees or manmade structures in the crater, the distances are very deceiving... It looks like it's only a thousand feet or so at most in diameter, and maybe a few hundred feet down. The reddish hue of the rocks, an artifact of the presence of iron oxide, makes the landscape almost look like that of Mars.
Finally, at 6:05, the Sun begins to make its appearance. From behind us, a group of elders begins their traditional chant welcoming the Sun.
E ala e
Ka la i kahikina
I ka moana
Ka moana hohonu
Pi’i ka lewa
Ka lewa nu’u
I kahikina
Aia ka la.
E ala e!
(Awaken/Arise
The Sun in the East
From the ocean
The ocean deep
Climbing (to) the heaven
The heaven highest
In the East
There is the Sun
Awaken!)
The sky is clear, the sunrise is amazing, and it's something that we will remember forever. It's not just seeing a sunrise, it's seeing the Sun rise from one of the tallest places in Hawai'i, and one of the most untouched by man; it's the combination of seeing one of the most beautiful things in nature, in one of the most beautiful places in the world, and on this particular day with one of the best viewing conditions possible.
We admire the sunrise for a while, then Eric takes us further up to the summit itself, 10,023 feet above sea level. We walk through the information cabin at the top, reading about the weather conditions on Maui and why some parts of the island are bone dry while others are straight-out rain forest, and about the fact that there are supposedly nēnē living around here, which as ALL know is a total scam and there are no such things as nēnē, and about such rare plants such as the silversword which is endemic to Hawai'i, and -- Lucie nudges me and points down to the parking area and we see some birds down there, which look kind of like... OMG!!! NĒNĒ!
We scoot out of the cabin and take the stairs down to the parking area as quickly as we can -- which, given my bad knee and the fact that we're almost two miles up and there's not all that much oxygen up here so it's a little difficult to breathe when we exert ourselves, isn't really all that quickly -- as I take picture after picture with my iPhone.
Trying to look inconspicuous and as native as possible so the nēnē won't catch on that they're supposed to be hiding from us, we get closer to our quarry, whistling Hawaiian songs nonchalantly as I pretend to play Angry Birds while actually taking picture after picture... we see Crush -- sorry, Eric -- nearby and tell him excitedly about what we'd seen. "Yep," he tells us happily, "those are chukars, originally brought to Hawai'i in the 1930s, and introduced to Maui in 1954; those guys are everywhere up here."
D'ohh. D'ohh!!. Already in my mind I can hear the laughter of the Hawaiians at the big tie-dye-wearing haole falling for their big prank. I'm pretty sure that right now the chukars are guffawing and giving each other high fives (or high feathers, or whatever it's called when birds do it -- I'm pretty sure there's a specific term for it.)
After a few moments of soul-crushing humiliation at actually allowing myself to believe in the presence of the nēnē, we soothe our feelings by taking pictures of the silversword plants. Haleakalā silverswords are endemic, or found nowhere else on earth than on this mountain; once the silversword's flower stalk blooms, which can be anywhere in the plant's lifecycle from 5 to 50 years, the flowers bloom for just a month or two before the stalk and the plant then shrivel and die. Needless to say, because of both this reproduction method and the extreme conditions in which the plant grows (and the clueless or willfully ignorant tourists who cross the erected barriers and walk near the plants, ruining the root systems and killing the plants before they can bloom) these plants are extremely rare.
We take some more pictures of the summit, the silverswords, and the science city nearby inhabited by NASA workers who use the summit buildings for infrared laser and satellite studies, but NOT of the chukars, who are still chirping hysterically and mooning me, and then we head down the mountain. Since we'd talked about seeing nēnē with Eric, he makes a small detour on the way down and stops at a few places to see if he can find any. We see plovers, more chukars, and even a wild pheasant, but (of course!) none of the fabled and imaginary nēnē. We do get a very nice above-the-clouds view of the town of Puka'alakea ("hole to heaven", remember?), named such because a vortex of air currents created by the valley between Maui's mountains creates a huge circle of clouds with an open spot directly above the city. It's a much more impressive view from up here than it is from ground level.
We stop once again in Kula, at the same location where we stopped for coffee on the way up. As part of the tour, we're getting breakfast at the Kula Lodge, owned by the wife of the guy who runs the coffee stand. I sense a bit of a cooperative deal here, but after the awesome experience we just had (sunrise, not nēnē) I'm not bothered at all. After a short walk through the garden where they have ivy, roses, and protea growing on a steep hillside with an amazing view of the Maui coast far below us, we sit down for breakfast. I have cinnamon raisin French toast with coconut syrup and Lucie has a classic breakfast with eggs, toast, potatoes, and ham, and we both have coffee. Lots of coffee... at this point, because of the early flight yesterday and the time change, and the late night last night combined with with the early morning today, we're running on about two hours of sleep in the last 30-plus hours, and I'm getting too old for that stuff.
After the breakfast -- which was tasty and very large, and came with an impressive view of Maui and the Pacific Ocean -- we head next door to a protea shop and I buy my mom a bouquet for a belated birthday present, then head on down again into Kahului, then across the island to our hotel. Along the way, Eric gives us more running commentary about the island... all of the sugar cane growing around Kahului is actually a loss crop -- the Baldwin family (not associated with Alec or Stephen or, sadly, Adam) who own the majority of the land at best break even with the sugar produced (which gets turned into turbinado sugar products like Sugar in the Raw) but they want Maui to remain agricultural instead of selling the land for condominiums, a desire I wholeheartedly support.
He also points out a huge building located halfway up a mountain, a large pink structure originally designed by Frank Lloyd Wright as a 7,000 square foot home but adapted into the 74,000 square foot building it is now, used as a clubhouse for the King Kamehameha Golf Club. Originally named Crownfield, FLW had originally designed the home for a family in Fort Worth, Texas, which ended up being scrapped; then adapted it for an official in the Mexican government to be built in Acapulco before those plans were scrapped; then redesigned it again to be build in Connecticut for Marilyn Monroe before those plans were scrapped; then finally the building plan was eventually purchased in 1988 by a group of Japanese businessmen and redesigned by Wright's firm to fit the current setup.
Eric drops us off in front of the Kā'anapali Beach Hotel lobby at approximately 12:00; we thank him profusely for such an incredible experience, and he leaves to take the other passengers back to their lodgings. We briefly consider going upstairs to sleep, but it's about lunchtime and we're both famished, so instead we pick up our car from valet and head off in search of food.
We drive down the highway from Kā'anapali to Lāhaina (Hawaiian for "merciless sun", a fitting name for this oceanfront but scalding city) and drive along the popular Front Street to see if there's anything that looks good. Unfortunately, everything here seems so tourist-based that there's really nothing that says Hawai'i to us... there's a Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, a Hard Rock Cafe, a Dairy Queen and Orange Julius... honestly, to my slightly cynical and definitely sleep-deprived eyes, it's really not all that different from what we could find in Monterey other than the impressive and rightly famous banyan tree; and we sort of want something a little more of what the locals would eat, so we continue on down the road.
After a wonderfully scenic but seemingly long drive, we end up in the city of Kihei, where Lucie's read about an eatery named WokStar that has a devoted Yelp following. Sounds good to me, so we hunt for a bit and eventually track the place down. It's a sort of hole in the wall joint, easy to miss unless you're looking for it; but the menu is impressive and I'm immediately liking the place based solely on an "I (heart) sriracha" sticker I spot on the cash register. We order and have a seat outside under the awning, and the food comes out to us shortly.
For appetizers, we pick the chicken satay skewers and the potstickers -- the peanut sauce is tasty and the chili sauce they have on the table goes very well with the potstickers. For the entree, Lucie's teriyaki stir fry has udon noodles cooked with bean sprouts, broccoli, cabbage, spinach, and other fresh veggies with a plum-ginger teriyaki sauce; my 13 Dolla' Salad is a huge mound of greens, tomato, carrots, broccoli, spiced stir-fried tofu, bacon, and shrimp tossed in a Thai vinaigrette -- it's a delicious combination of flavors, enormous in size, and (if you ignore the bacon) remarkably healthy for me to actually enjoy as much as I do. We both have water to drink, and Lucie also buys me an iced Thai coffee, the caffeine and sugar of which helps my alertness to the point where I feel awake enough to drive back to the hotel.
We return to our hotel at 4PM (at this point working on 2 hours of sleep in the last 40 hours,) manage to make it upstairs to our room, and plan to lie down for a brief nap before dinner. That's the last thing we remember until we wake up the next morning.
.
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