Month: October 2016

This entry is post-dated to reflect the actual day we left Hawaii, but it’s actually February 12. I’m only shattering this illusion of timeliness to illustrate exactly how much I have been dreading this post and the emotions that are bound to accompany it.

We YOLOHAed as best we could during our last week on Oahu. We had an amazing farewell drinks-and-apps sesh with a lot of our new friends at REAL a gastropub. We enjoyed every available second of lanai time. We ate Okinawan sweet potatoes and pineapple and sushi and Happy Haleiwa Waialua coffee peanut butter and hurricane popcorn. I got a tattoo of my happy place (Magic Island Lagoon) at Tattoolicious.

To say I was not ready to leave Hawaii is probably the understatement of the century. I spent two hours of our last full night ugly-crying on the lanai in the sarong and earrings I bought during our stay. I felt like there was still so much left to do and it was going to be so long before we could come back.

We ended up having to buy an extra suitcase to fit all of the souvenirs and other assorted items we procured over two months. I spent what felt like 12 hours packing every single thing in the condo amongst three suitcases, two laptop bags, and two carry-on bags. Mostly it was just me sadly shuffling around clutching various items of clothing I never even wore–I took two pairs of jeans to Hawaii, y’all!

Mike and I both put in a full workday the Friday we left. When he got home from work we meandered back to the Moana Surfrider for one final mai tai before heading to the airport. As we sat on the patio I watched the surf roll in and out… the people enjoying the sun and the surf… the various air and sea vessels crossing the horizon… it really hit me how much I was going to miss pretty much everything about island life. At least no one can tell you’re crying when you wear sunglasses! lol

Our first flight was a redeye on a gigantic plane, and–for whatever reason–it had what seemed like DOZENS of babies on it. I was deliriously tired, but every time I would nod off for a minute one of the babies would start screaming bloody murder. Yeah, yeah, I know babies don’t know what’s going on but when you already can’t sleep sitting up and you’re tired and depressed it just makes things that much more miserable. Our second flight was significantly easier and after a couple hours in the car we were back in Philly to get the dog and crash at my in-laws’ place. It was during that time that I learned that basically skipping an entire night of sleep and then going to bed “on time” on the East Coast is a remarkably effective way of combating jet lag.

I would love to say that I experienced all the personal growth I sought when we went, but work woes unfortunately inhibited some of that. Mike worked some pretty long days and eventually sleep deprivation caught up to me (who knew you couldn’t live on five hours of sleep per night for two months?). And I don’t know why, but I found that my job was actually MORE stressful when I was in Hawaii. I don’t even understand how that happened. Regardless, I still managed to soak up quite a bit of the aloha spirit.

To be honest, I do feel more patient. I’d love to say it’s because I fully embraced “island time,” but the truth is it was equal parts acceptance/relaxation and simply being forced to wait longer for things. But personal growth is always good–even if it’s forced upon you.

I am infinitely more aware of my whiteness. Hawaii is bursting with different cultures in addition to tourists. I met and learned from so, so many people of different origins, theologies, and mindsets. Some of those people openly expressed shock/surprise at what Mike and I knew (cultural mores we’d researched before going, a few Pidgin words and Hawaiian phrases, etc.) or could do (skillfully use chopsticks) or were willing to eat (pretty much ALL the food on the island) despite being haoles. Being the minority and learning about how white/religious people came in and pretty much ruined everything (and killed a lot of people in the process) left me feeling almost raw with guilt and sadness and deference all at once.

Seeing how most locals respect and revere nature got me back in touch with my crunchy side. Experiencing firsthand both the surreal majesty of the flora/fauna and the devastating effects of being a society that wastes/throws away so much reignited in me a deep concern for where our planet is headed that is only compounding with the new administration’s insistence on rolling back laws that protect the environment. The pristineness of many of the areas we frequented has pretty much ruined me for travel. We went to Punta Cana for a week and, like the truly spoiled brat I am, I could not get over how much trash was everywhere we went. Cigarette butts on the beach–the whole nine.

I got more comfortable with myself thanks to spending two-thirds of my time in a bathing suit among other scantily-clad folks. Don’t ask me how that worked, but it did. I got more in touch with my femininity as well, thanks to some really positive female energy I was fortunate enough to be exposed to. It’s been a long road for me in terms of finding my place within the sisterhood, but I’m really digging where I am right now.

So that was Hawaii. I feel incredibly lucky to have been given such an amazing experience and perhaps even luckier to have been in a position where we could fully embrace all aspects of island life. We blew through some of our savings, sure, but we squeezed every second out of those eight weeks. It left a permanent footprint on my heart, and I can’t wait to go back… without my laptop.

We resolved to make our last day on Kauai just as good as the first two, so we started strong with a lovely French breakfast at Art Cafe Hemingway. I ate all the bread (and our breakfasts came with like, six kinds of bread) and we had delicious iced coffee and Bloody Marys and smoked salmon and it was just delightful.

We decided to take a kayak trip before heading back to Oahu, but we found out the hard way that almost nobody rents out kayaks on Sundays. Womp womp. We’re not really people who take “no” for an answer, so we did some furious Googling on our phones and found a wonderful place called Kamokila Hawaiian Village that was open and renting to the public. Kamokila had everything we could have wanted–peacocks, chickens, cats, kayaks, and a secret waterfall.

It took us a pretty significant amount of time to get set up with our two-person kayak. Partially because there was an older pair of women trying to rent canoes at the same time and the one woman just couldn’t gather all her things. We sat around and waited for her to find her phone, her bag, her water bottle, etc. before we were given what I will affectionately call Hawaiian directions to “paddle down river and tie off your kayak at the first landing spot–you can’t miss it.” Fortunately for us there were already a few other kayaks tied off there, so we really couldn’t miss it.

We spent a solid 10 minutes hiking in the wrong direction before we realized we weren’t even on a trail. Whoopsie. We doubled back and hiked through grass that was taller than us before hitting the main trail. The trail was ALL MUD, which is the second time on this trip I was glad we bought water shoes. We hiked for quite a while–in the mud, across a river that was deep and swift enough to necessitate a guide rope, past myriad mini-falls–until we finally came upon the secret falls.

When we got there, there was only one other couple hanging out. They left not long after we got there so we had maybe five minutes to ourselves before the next group of hikers showed up. Mike convinced me to go under the waterfall where the force of the water literally blew my right contact out. We swam around in the surprisingly cold pool below the falls and hung out with the chickens on the rocks. We hiked and kayaked back–with me half-blind and hanging on to Mike for dear life.

After I replaced my missing contact out of the trunk of our rental car, we headed to Koloa Rum Company, which was supposed to be having its last tour of the day but, as luck would have it, the website we visited had the tour times wrong and we were half an hour too late.

We headed to Mariachi’s Authentic Mexican Cuisine to lick our wounds (and some margarita salt). Our waiter was awesome and regaled us with stories about being deported and then becoming a citizen. We still had a little time to kill before our flight so we checked out Duke’s Kauai for hula pie and mai tais in celebration of our seventh wedding anniversary.

It rained while we were there, but all the kids who were playing in the ocean didn’t seem to mind. The band played under umbrellas and the whole ambience was quintessential Hawaii as I have experienced it: relaxed, happy, and accepting of whatever nature throws our way. I could not have asked for a better last weekend on my favorite archipelago.

 

You know neither Mike nor I is a morning person, so you know we’re headed for something EPIC when I tell you that after getting up at 4 for a flight yesterday we got up at about 4:45 this morning for a tour of part of the Na Pali coast that is only accessible by boat or helicopter. Because it was so, so early, we went to a 7-Eleven and treated ourselves to some iced Kona coffee and Spam musubi that had *cheese* on it and I was instantly ready for a full day of adventure.

We arrived at the strip mall that housed the Kauai Sea Tours office and signed our lives away via a few waivers that said we could die or be maimed. You know. The usual stuff. Our “cabin girl” Jamie debriefed us and gave us dry bags before loading us into the van to take us to our Zodiac boat for our adventure.

I’m being 1,000 percent serious when I say that this boat tour is hands down the absolute best thing I have ever experienced in my life. We loaded our stuff and ourselves onto what is essentially a glorified raft–we didn’t even have seats FFS! We sat on the edge of the raft, put our feet under a rope on the floor and held on to the ropes on the side of the raft as we did something crazy like 35 mph (which felt like 80 mph) across an unpredictable ocean. We spent about an hour and a half getting to the the spot where we ended up docking. We schlepped our stuff to the shore, took a walking tour of an archeological fishing village site (if you’re not familiar with how thoroughly and completely missionaries decimated the people and culture of Hawaii, it’s a very sad but familiar story), had lunch, snorkeled, and then had another hour-and-a-half ride back to the strip mall.

After three hours on a bumpy boat with no seats and an afternoon of walking in water shoes and snorkeling, my whole body hurt, but I didn’t even care. I saw dolphins. I saw a sea turtle. I saw an eel and lots of fish. I saw where they filmed Jurassic World. I saw things that people can only see via boat, helicopter, or a 12-mile hike.

After the boat tour Mike and I hopped across the street (from the rental office) to Kauai Island Brewery and Restaurant. Honestly? The beer was meh, but the staff was super friendly and the pupus were good. I’d go back.

We hit up the Kauai Dirt Shirt Factory where we were given a complimentary cup of chipped ice with syrup on it (it was not what I would consider shave ice, so…). We snagged some tees and headed to the Kauai Chocolate Factory, where we fell in LOVE with a delightful treat called “opihi,” which is a small shortbread cookie with caramel and a macadamia nut on top of it and then the whole shebang is covered in chocolate. They also make an ice cream version and we enjoyed some of that as well. Naturally.

On our way back to the Airbnb we drove through (past?) the Waimea Canyon, which is considered the Grand Canyon of Hawaii. You can apparently hike it, but we were not dressed for it, and we were running out of daylight.

As we continued our drive back to Kapa’a, we made one final stop at the Kauai Coffee Plantation and it did not disappoint. Their cold brew is TO DIE FOR and we got to check out the coffee plants for a hot minute before they closed for the day.

Originally we were going to go back to the Airbnb and change before heading out for dinner, but the Kapa’a Art Walk was going on as we were driving through town and we decided it’d be way, way easier to just park while we were there because traffic was already snarled. We snagged some souvenirs and checked out a lot of great shops including Bamboo Works, which almost took alllll my money because it was an entire store full of neat kitchen stuff made from bamboo and coconut tree wood.

We finished our night with dinner at Sushi Bushido, which was recommended to us by the lead singer of the band that was playing at Imua Lounge on Day 42. Said lead singer is the niece of the gentleman who owns Sushi Bushido. We ordered an obscene amount of sushi and every single piece of it was more delicious than the last. We’ve had so much good sushi on this trip, but I think Sushi Bushido is my favorite overall.

We hit up the Long’s Drugs next door to grab a cheap bottle of red and retired to the Airbnb for a night cap before another day of adventure.