Walk on

July 30, 2006

I forgot to mention: first swimsuit I donned for my first day in paradise? A bikini! 3 cheers for me, I had never done anything like that before. Mind you, I felt like I was “popping out” of this particular top so I never wore it again the rest of my trip, but it was still a first to celebrate!

Snafu no. 1: We weren’t able to find an available tour for this morning’s sunrise at Haleakala Crater so for now it remains on my “must-do”s for my next Hawaiian adventure.

But even with that glitch in our itinerary, we were not lacking for things to do in Lahaina. We had breakfast at a quaint little joint called the Sunrise Café. Great breakfast, and I could almost swear that it was owned by a warm-hearted Filipino couple. (Yes, I’m bad with identifying Filipinos, but Lahaina had LOTS of them….just my hotel front desk alone was manned by no less than 3 Filipinos. One of them even commented on my great surname when I was checking out. Reminding me that it is the same last name as “one of our great national heroes.” Front Street is always busy and we got to check out the Wo Hing Museum where they were showing the very first motion pictures taken by Thomas Edison of Hawaii. We tried to visit the old prison (got to walk through some of the residential part of town in the process. Always cool to get away from the touristy stuff!) but alas it was closed on Sundays. It was still pretty neat from outside its walls, though. The prisoners broke down the coral walls of an old fort by the ocean and lugged the bricks over to build the prison.

But a fabulous part of our day? Surf lessons! Granted, I just proved to myself that I am not a surfer, haha, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t have fun trying. And I had the battle scars to prove it! Or rather, I still HAVE the battle scars. They’re healing very nicely, though, thanks. Much thanks to Nancy Emerson’s School of Surfing. Jason is a great instructor.

After that we were obviously starving. Yes, they have your typical American fare but I really wanted to try something distinctly Hawaiian (my breakfast had Portuguese sausage which I hear is a Hawaiian thing, but that was just a small part of my meal). Captain Dave’s Fish & Chips serves up “plate lunches.” Very Hawaiian. I got to try a Loco Moco: a hamburger patty on rice with two eggs cooked your style, all smothered in gravy with a small side of macaroni salad. I hear it doesn’t get much more local than that…and it was good.

Another local food, apparently, is the taro pie at McDonald’s. Unfortunately, when we found a McDonald’s a huge “sold out” sign was plastered across the picture of the taro pie. (We didn’t have much luck finding taro pie in Honolulu after, either. Apparently taro pie is “all over no more.” I love the local pidgin talk!)

We spent the rest of the evening once again strolling about Front Street. I bought a shirt from the Hard Rock Café. To my credit it isn’t emblazoned with their logo, not my style, but rather a line from a song that I quite like. Another visit to Hilo Hattie, which we had discovered the night before as well. Never got to the big 12-foot golden Buddha, it was too far up the road and it was getting pretty dark.

We picked up some microwave popcorn and some little bottles of Trader Vic’s Original Mai Tais so we could have our own little soiree out on our lanai listening to the waves crash (just like Ixtapa, I could never get sick of falling asleep/waking up to the sound of the ocean). But first, a little boo over at Bamboo “where all the locals hang out.” It was really nice just being amongst the “real” people. We each tried a bottle of Kona Big Wave golden ale. Though I’m still not much of a beer drinker I did not protest. It’s all about trying things you don’t have at home, right?

On our walk back to our hotel (which was right next to Bamboo, how great is that?), however, Daisy saw a cockroach scurry about on the sidewalk. Mercifully, I missed it. I don’t do well with roaches. Roach sighting no. 1 of our trip! *shudder* Once back at the hotel we re-organized our luggage to prepare for our transfer back to Kahului airport the next morning. But not before our little celebration on the lanai: mai tais and popcorn watching the ocean come in. Were we spoiling ourselves or what?