I recently got back from one of my favorite trips ever. Hawaii! It was my first time to go. I am ready to go back. Like right now! 8 Days. 3 Islands. 1 Awesome Mother/Daughter Adventure. A favorite friend’s wedding. Love.
A few business matters first. I am aware that this post is very long and that I could have saved space by making my pictures into a slide show. But I didn't want to do that. So just scroll fast if you wish. And if you are reading this on your iphone, good luck. Mom, I'm sorry that there are so many pictures of you on the internet now. I know how much you hate that. Apparently all of the pictures of me are on your camera.
So here are my top five highlights:
#1 - Honolulu
Mom and I started out our trip on the island of Oahu in Honolulu. We stayed a couple of blocks from Waikiki Beach, so we spent a lot of our free time there. Although we didn’t have much free time! I must admit, Waikiki Beach is different than any other beach that I have ever been to. It is literally in a metropolitan city. And it is very crowded. But I am a City Girl, so I kind of loved walking through high rises and tall buildings to get to the beach. I liked hearing city sounds from the sand. But that is not something everyone would appreciate and not something that I would want on every beach vacation, but I loved it!
Sunset on Waikiki Beach
While on the island, mom and I stopped by the Dole Pineapple Plantation,
I was obsessed with all of the fresh fruit!
A Macadamia Nut Farm,
The North Shore,
Surfers!
Jurassic Park and Lost filming locations
The Famous Lizard Point (the rock formation in the background)
The Monument
The U.S.S. Arizona - Her tears (oil) are still seeping into the ocean. They say she will stop crying when the last Pearl Harbor survivor passes away.
Plus we had some really awesome food!
An incredibly flattering picture of me eating the famous homemade Japanese noodles.
Fresh Fish at the International Marketplace
Another incredibly flattering picture - this one with no makeup - but you have to see my pineapple drink. The guy cut open the pineapple, blended the contents, and poured it back in. Yep, I drank a whole pineapple. And ate a hamburger with a pineapple slice on it. And I loved them both!
And I haven't even mentioned the flowers yet!
Plumeria
Bird of Paradise
Hibiscus
Or the chickens!
After a couple of hurricanes a few decades ago, some chickens literally flew the coop. Because Hawaii does not have any predatory land animals to eat the eggs, the chickens populated like crazy and now roam the islands freely. You see them as often as you'd see a pigeon. They are everywhere!
And we spent New Year’s Eve in the streets of Honolulu.
Cool Tree on Waikiki Beach
That is, we did before we got really tired. We went back to the hotel room and I totally did the thing where I laid down in bed, left the light on, and promised myself that I would close my eyes to rest for a second but I would NOT fall asleep. I would stay awake to see 2012 roll in. An hour and a half later I woke up to the sound of fireworks out our window. I rolled out of bed and looked out the window to see a firework. Singular. One. It was red. That was enough. Then I said “Happy New Year.” and laid back down. It was our first night there and after a whole day of travelling, staying up until midnight in Hawaii proved to be impossible since they are four hours behind Nashville time (meaning that midnight in Hawaii was 4am at home!). But because this was our first night there and we stayed up pretty late, I adjusted to Hawaii time pretty well fo the rest of the trip.
#2 - Waimea Canyon
After our first half of the trip on Oahu, I hopped over to Maui for a quick business meeting and lunch. I saw the three miles of shoreline between the airport and the broker’s office, so I didn’t really see Maui, but I technically did.
Maui Coast
But then mom and I met up in Kauai – affectionately known as “The Wedding Island” in our minds but “The Garden Idle” to the rest of the world. We are forever in love with this place. It is gorgeous. We kept saying that everything was “So beautiful.” and then would just laugh because by the end of the trip we had used the word “beautiful” so many times that it didn’t even capture what we were trying to say anymore. One day mom and I rented a car and drove to the Waimea Canyon, also know as “The Grand Canyon of the Hawaiian Isles”. We drove into the canyon, stopping at each overlook along the way because we just couldn’t get enough of the views.
Ocean on one side of the road. Canyon on the other. The Canyon was absolutely beautiful. Because we had already been to the main lookout, we debated going the last couple of miles to the end of road, knowing that we would just have to turn around and come right back out since the roads can not wrap all the way around the island due to the Na Pali Coastline. It was just two more miles. We wouldn’t miss much, right? We thought, “It is so beautiful. Let’s drive to the end just to say we did.” The roads got narrower, the pavement got rougher, and the curves got tighter, but we kept going. I felt like we were either going somewhere that no one drives for a reason or we were about to discover a grand secret. The latter. We got to the end of the road and I walked to the edge of the lookout. My eyes filled with tears as I tried to take it all in. It was one of those views. The kind that you can’t even believe that you are actually seeing in real life because surely nothing is that beautiful.
Above the Clouds
It was one of the top five most beautiful places I have ever seen in my entire life. (Perhaps I should blog about the others in a future post…)
#3 - Catamaran Tour
One morning Nancy (the Bride) organized a Catamaran Tour for the wedding guests. I had never been on a catamaran before, and I have a feeling that they aren’t all this nice, because let me just tell you that this one was very nice. The whole time I was thinking two things: “I really hope I get to see a whale.” and “I really hope I don’t get sea sick.” During the winter, humpback whales migrate south to the area surrounding Hawaii and then travel back up north to Alaska during the summer. I thought I would surely be lucky if I could see one whale. One? Seriously? What was I thinking? Try one hundred! I feel like I saw sooo many whales! They were everywhere. This youtube video was shot in the same area of Kauai that we were in, and I promise that this is the kind of thing that we were seeing. Okay, we weren’t THAT close. These people are in a zodiac (basically a white water raft with a motor). I was on an actual boat. But, I did see whales up close and personal, including the rare sighting of two whales breaching simultaneously. And I got a picture of it because I am awesome like that. Although most of the picture is the boat cables. Minor detail.
Two whales breaching together
A whale surfacing by the boat
Once I saw a whale breach not even ten yards from a zodiac boat. My heart stopped for a second. I felt sorry for everyone on that boat. I just knew they’d all end up in the water or having a Jonah experience. And then the whale went under, the zodiac steadied, and everyone was still on board. And then I wished I had been on that boat. Talk about the experience of a lifetime!
And no, I didn’t get sea sick. Although I felt like half of the people did. I did take Bonine, though, because I wasn’t going to chance it. And before lunch when I started feeling the slightest bit weak, I ate some crackers and bounced right back. Here’s a tip, if you are going on a boat in the ocean, go on a full stomach. And every couple of hours eat crackers, even if you don’t feel hungry. Most of the people that were sick hadn’t eaten. And crackers cured it almost every time. So eat them before you feel sick! You’re welcome in advance.
At one point our boat dropped anchor and we got out to snorkel. Seriously. Can I please do a few exciting things on this trip? I had never snorkeled before. When the guide was explaining how to snorkel, I (silently) psyched myself out. I thought “Wait! Do I even know how to swim? I don’t even know if I like water! Can I breathe properly? Ah!” Okay, duh. I can swim. And breathe. And the ocean is where my heart usually is. So I strapped on my goggles, flippers, and breathing tube (I don’t know any of the technical terms for this stuff… I am a first timer, okay?) and flopped ever so gracefully into the waves. I wasn’t so sure of what to do so I did what any person would do. I followed the Bride. No one would ever let anything happen to her. Therefore, I’m with her. Glad I was! She swam me over to the coral and the bright yellow fish and the schools of cool striped fish drifting by and then… the sea turtle. Yep. I swam with the Bride AND a sea turtle. Now that’s a special day. And I only drank half a gallon of ocean water. That’s a success for my first snorkeling trip!
We also saw a rare Hawaiian seal (of course I was not as Camera-Ready at that moment) and a ton of spinner dolphins! I should add that we snorkeled before we saw any whales. If it had happened the other way around I would have been a bit more hesitant.
The catamaran took us up the Na Pali coastline which was spectacular!
#4 - Island Activities
Mom and I stayed at the Sheraton Kauai Resort on Poipu Beach on the south side of the island – which happened to be the wedding location. At the resort, mom and I learned to make fresh flower leis.
I even took a quick hula class to perfect my dancing skills for the upcoming wedding.
From the mountains, to the seas, my love pours forward like the rising sun… Something like that…
Mom and I also went to the Smith’s Family Garden Luau. We ate a freshly roasted pig, fresh fish, poi (A traditional Hawaiian food that I tried once and will likely avoid from here on out. Very creamy and bland and lavender colored. Bizarre!), and many other delicious things. I ate a whole whole lot of food. And then there was a show. Don’t worry, I recorded some of the moves to practice later. I was born to hula.
At the ceremony to unveil the pig
The Smith Family Garden
As one last hoorah on the morning that we were leaving the island, I decided that I just had to try surfing. I knew I wouldn’t be good and probably wouldn’t get up, but I had to try it. I am not overly athletic. Okay, I’m not incredibly athletic at all anymore, but I thought I’d give it a shot. I went to the Aloha Surf School on our beach and the (really cute) instructor taught me and two other girls the basics while we were on land. After carrying our long boards on top on our heads down to the water (definitely the hardest part),
our instructor took us out into the water, stood by us, gave us a push (because the paddling would have been pretty intense without a little help) and sent us to shore. On my first try I don’t even know what happened. I just know he pushed my board and then I was in the water. But, on my second try, I stood right up and was a rockstar from then on out (with the exception of a few minor collisions with other students, a little cut on the foot from lava rock, and an occasional moment of I can’t actually stand on this board so I’ll just ride to shore on my knees, but only a few of those, I promise! I say that I am really good at surfing, not to tout my athletic ability, but to emphasize that I was SHOCKED! My mom was on shore watching and cheering me on and snapping pictures. Judging by her pure excitement for me, I’d say she was pleasantly surprised too! I mean, the instructor said “If you can do a push up, you can surf.” Ummm… bad time to mention that I can’t to push ups? Ah, well. I did it and loved it and am dying to go surfing again.
Did I mention that there were whales breaching and playing behind me? And I thought boogie boarding in the gulf was fun? I have my eyes on greater things now.
#5 - The Wedding
Nancy and I were really close friends all through college, including the time when we were actually roommates during my last semester there. Her mother was my Oklahoma Mother. Her house was my house. She even came to see me in the Hamptons one summer (which wasn’t too difficult to convince her to do). I was actually present when she met the guy that she ended up marrying. It was our junior year and several students went to a finance conference in Ohio. Exhilarating, I know. Sounds like just the place to find love, right? When we got to Ohio we split up into two vans. The girls gravitated to one van and the guys to another. One problem. The Australian golfer that she had her eyes on was in the other van. She looked at me and said “I’ve got to get in that other van.” I’m usually not very forward or confident with things like this, but sometimes I surprise myself. I marched right up to these two guys that we didn’t even know and said “Professor Jones needs you in the other van”. Yep. Totally made that up. But before they could figure out what was going on, the guys headed to the other van and we had snuck our way into the new van. And later that night when we were supposed to go out, I had a (pretend) headache and she went out with her dream guy that she married just a couple of weeks ago. I’m sure a little bit happened in between the meeting and the marriage, but I’d like to just take this time to say You’re Welcome! Okay, realistically I had very little to do with any of it and she would have met him anyways, but I'm glad I was there!
The wedding was the most gorgeous event I have ever seen. We were on a grass lawn that jutted out into the ocean and was surround by lava rock. The sun was setting in the background. The weather was perfect. Nancy was stunning.
Me at the Wedding
The Bride!
The reception was on another lawn right beside the ocean as well. There was music and dancing and speeches and lobster and all sorts of fun. I looked at mom and one point and said “I hope you are getting prepared now for my wedding some day. I am getting some really big ideas here.”
The Aussie Groomsmen
Me and Mom at the Reception
The Perfect Wedding Location
Me and Nancy
As you can see by all of the pictures and gushing and "loves" and "beautifuls" in this post, I absolutely adored my first Hawaiian adventure. And I was so glad that I could be there on Nancy's special day.
Aloha, Hawaii. I'll be back soon.
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