A Bit Behind

I haven’t done a very good job these past few months of updating my blog.  Part of that is just general busy-ness, part of it is just a lack of motivation.  I did post a film review of Avatar over on the film blog, but other than that I haven’t done much in the way of blogging.  I figured I’d give a brief update on things.

Well, I finished my first semester at Washington University.  I made an A in both classes, so I was pretty pleased with that.  Next semester I have a class on children’s literature and film, the Italian Renaissance, and an English class.  Seems a weird combination of classes, but I really didn’t have a lot to choose from, and so I just picked the three things that sounded best.  Well, the English class I have to take.  But the other two classes sounded somewhat interesting. Heather is done completely, having finished her last class.  She’s graduating with her graduate degree and already has a full time position lined up as the International Human Resources Coordinator at the law firm where she was interning.

Other than that, not a lot is happening.  I’ve been reading The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes, which is very good, as well as The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova.  I got quite a few books for Christmas, as well as a few video games and movies, so I’ve been pretty occupied.

Maui Vacation Part Five and Recap

After seeing the Nakele blowhole, we drove back to the hotel and cleaned up, then went into Lahaina to Warren and Annabelle’s, which according to the guidebook is the best show on the island.  You can eat there, but we thought it would be cheaper to just eat in Lahaina, so we found an excellent deep dish pizza place and had a nice dinner, then walked over to see the show.

Before you see the show you are forced to wait in Annabelle’s parlor where you are served drinks, appetizers, and are treated to a “ghost” playing old tunes on a piano.  It would’ve been enjoyable had the wait been twenty minutes…but it ended up being like an hour and a half before we were actually seated in the theater and got to see Warren perform his magic tricks.  Thankfully, the show lived up to its billing and we were quite amazed.  Warren was witty, humorous, and his show was quite impressive.  If you get a chance to go to Maui, I highly recommend you check it out.

Day 6

The last day our plane didn’t leave until 6, so we used the morning to drive to the Iao Valley, a luscious Maui valley that gets over 400 inches of rainfall a year.  It also has served as the site to one of Maui’s most historical events, a great battle during the 1700’s between two warring Hawaiian factions.  Because my camera was broke, I didn’t get any picture, but again, you can see some of it over on Heather’s blog.  It was quite impressive, extremely green and just some gorgeous scenery.  Absolutely breathtaking.

Finally, our flight left at 6 (about 10 pm our time) and both the flight from Maui to Dallas and from Dallas to home were among the worst flights I’ve ever had.  During the former, I was seated in front of two young kids who were separated from their parents, and they kept screaming, laughing loudly, and just generally being annoying.  No one, it seemed, could get any sleep.  The second flight, the lady behind me complained every time I tried to put my seat back because it interfered with her ability to push her laptop screen up where she wanted it, so I got little to no sleep on that flight either.  I hope that lady gets stuck behind those kids on her next red eye flight.

Overall, I was blown away by the beauty and grandeur of Maui.  Almost every place we went was breathtaking and absolutely stunning, and no words or pictures can fully do it justice.  A couple of things extra that I’ll note.

Hawaiian people generally do live up to their reputation for friendliness. Most people were extremely helpful, and made you feel very welcome.

This does not necessarily extend to good service in restaurants though.  Not that the service was horrible, but other than the luau, most places we ate the waiters weren’t great about refilling drinks.  Most of the time on vacations I look at the food as one part of the equation when assessing how great the vacation was.  I kind of separate Maui from that because everything else was so awesome.  It’s not that the food was bad, it’s just that for the most part, I can’t say that it was exceptional.  I had a very good open faced crab and shrimp sandwich at Leilani’s in Whaler’s Village, and the deep dish pizza was pretty good.  Other than that, most of the restaurants were good but not great.  The one exception was the breakfast buffet at the Sheraton.  It was the best breakfast buffet I have ever had, bar none.  The food was UNBELIEVABLE…so many fruits, meats, and breads that you stuffed yourself trying to get some of everything.

The Sheraton was absolutely fabulous, both in terms of ambience and the staff.  When I return to Maui (notice I say when and not if) I definitely plan on staying there again.  The bellhop, the front desk, the concierge…everyone was extremely helpful and gracious, and the rooms were very nice.

The one thing to note about Hawaii is that it does tend to be rather pricey.  Almost everything costs money, and quite a bit more than what you would pay for at home.  Consequently, the majority of people who are there tend to be a little wealthier, and that can make poor saps like me feel a bit out of place.  That’s probably a silly thing to notice, but if you are used to moving in less affluent circles, it’s something to keep in mind.

Hope you enjoy looking at the pics and reading my take.  Overall, the most beautiful place I have ever been and one of the greatest vacations I’ve ever been on.

Maui Vacation Part Four

Day 5

Consistent with our plans to see the “big” attractions on Maui, we were leaning towards going to see Haleakala Crater this day.  However, we decided at the last minute to switch plans and head north on Highway 30, to see several things we hadn’t got to see the first time we went up there.  I’m sure that Haleakala is beautiful, but I didn’t regret this change in plans for a minute.  It turned out to be some of the best nature had to offer.

First, we checked out a beach or two on the way up there.  They were certainly beautiful, but nothing we hadn’t seen already on Maui.  Still, they were worth seeing and I wasn’t disappointed.

We then went on to a place called the Dragon’s Teeth.  This was…well, I know I’ve said it before, but it was amazing.  It’s a lava rock formation off a golf course where the surf comes CRASHING in, shooting waves up high, high, high.  The rock formations look like the teeth of a big dragon (hence it’s name) and we stayed here forever, just watching the waves come rolling in, taking pictures and enjoying the natural beauty.  It was absolutely gorgeous.

Well, after that we decided to go further north to the Nakele blowhole.  It was then that I discovered some awful news…in my zest to get good pictures, I had gotten as close to these considerably high waves as I could, and in the process had soaked both myself and my camera…and the camera was now unable to take any further pictures.  Which is heartbreaking, because as cool as the Dragon’s Teeth was, the Nakele blowhole was that much more amazing.  It is a formation of lava rock, with a hole where the sea forces water through at high tide.  They say it gets up to 70 feet when it is at its peak…and it sure seemed like it was at its peak when we were there.  You had to crawl down a rocky hillside to get to it, but once there it was one of the most beautiful sites I’ve ever seen.  Visit Heather’s blog for pictures.  Hopefully I’ll get the pics from her camera soon and post them here, but until then you can see them there.

To Be Continued…

Maui Vacation Part Three

Day 4

After Lahaina turned out to be…well, not everything we thought it was going to be, we decided that rather than continue to follow the advice to stay on the western side of the island, we would do some of the stuff we wanted to do rather than what we were recommended to do.  And one of the things I was really anxious to do was make the legendary journey along the Hana Highway.

The Hana Highway is an extremely curvy, narrow road through the rainforest of Maui, and is full of beautiful scenery, including gorgeous ocean views, luscious waterfalls, babbling brooks, and more green than you’ve ever seen in your life.  At times the road is so narrow that you have to stop and wait for oncoming traffic to make it through so you can get by.  But it is absolutely worth it, because we saw some of the most beautiful natural sites I’ve ever seen.

A few things that were a little frustrating though. Some of the waterfalls are on private grounds, and you can either overlook the No Trespassing signs or try to get permission from the owners (mostly EMI, the Maui water company).  We didn’t do the latter, and only once were we brave enough to try the former.  About ten minutes into our little hike, it started pouring down rain, so we took that as a sign and went back to the car.  So for about the first 15 miles or so we missed some of the waterfalls Maui Revealed says were quite grand.  We also didn’t go far enough along the highway and missed the Seven Sacred Pools, which I was a bit disappointed about.

That aside, we still got to see some gorgeous things, which I will share with you.  I took TONS of pictures, as did Heather, but the pictures don’t do it justice.  And I took so many, I’m not sure which to share with you.  So I’ll do my best.  I also got some video of it all, and put it on youtube.  Check it out.

To be Continued…

Maui Vacation Part Two

On to…

Day 3

It must be said here that when you only have a short time in Hawaii (we were there for roughly 5 full days) that many well intentioned souls will tell you what THEY think you ought to or ought not to do during your stay.  The two main attractions in Hawaii, the legendary Hana Highway and the Haleakala Crater, were over on the other side of the island from us.  So when people shared their opinions of what we should see via mediums like Trip Adviser, many of them said we shouldn’t bother with Hana or Haleakala either one.  Many of them, even the guidebook we were using, stated that we should plan to spend at least one day in Lahaina, a small beachfront town a few miles from Kaanapali, where whalers used to get supplies.

Let it be said, these people don’t know what they are talking about.

First, our morning.  We got up and went to the Plantation House, a golf club and restaurant that sits overlooking the ocean, and is renowned for their eggs dijon.  I had their crab eggs dijon, and I can verify that they are indeed delicious.  The view while we were eating looked like this:

That’s quite a site to eat breakfast to, and we greatly enjoyed it.  We followed the road north a little bit, finding a small, semi-secluded beach with some beautiful scenery and few people, and snapped a few photos.

By this time, though, we were both hot and thirsty, and weren’t really prepared to go farther north, although we were told there were some really beautiful things to see if we did.  Anyway, we decided to follow the advice of our guidebook and Trip Adviser friends, and spend the rest of the day in Lahaina.  We were booked for a luau in Lahaina that night at a place called The Feast at Lele, anyway, so we just went over early and checked out the town.

It was a big mistake.  I won’t say that there’s nothing to see in Lahaina, it’s just that compared to the rest of Hawaii, it’s not that spectacular.  There are some historic buildings you can see which are interesting, and they have a lot of cool shops and dining areas there, but nothing that would make you want to spend more than a few hours there, and definitely not while the sun is shining and the rest of Maui is waiting to be explored.  Most of the shops are pretty similar, selling Hawaiian shirts, shorts, and touristy trinkets.  There were two exceptions.  One was an out of the way used book shop which had some great deals (Ron, if you read this, I’ve got some books you’ll want to read).  We perused that store for over an hour, and I still didn’t get a chance to look at everything there I wanted to.  The other place was a spectacular art gallery with some amazing paintings.  I’m not exactly a patron of the arts, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

Finally, we ended the day by attending the Feast at Lele.  We initially had made reservations at the Sheraton’s luau, but theirs had been canceled while we were there, and the concierge and guidebook both recommended this one.   It was a bit more pricey, but you got your own private table and a five course dinner was served to you, rather than a buffet at a big table like most luau’s.  It was magnificent…the kalua pork was the best pork I’ve ever tasted.  Dinner was a five course meal served around a Polynesian Islands theme.  The first course was Hawaiian, and then between courses they would have dances native to that island.  Second course was from New Zealand, and so on.  The food was magnificent, although Heather wasn’t crazy about some of it because she’s not a fan of seafood.  And the entertainment was top notch, too, topped off by a fire dancer.  My camera isn’t the best, so I didn’t get any good pictures, but take my word for it, it was a spectacular show that I wouldn’t hesitate to do again.

To be continued…