Hawaii and Japan, 2014 - 10/20 - Day 5 - Octagonal Churches, Gas Stations, and Squid Ink

Our last partial day in Maui we had breakfast at the Kea Lani restaurant at the Fairmont hotel in Wailea. Sean opted for the breakfast buffet, but I'd reached my tolerance level for buffet style food (which is pretty near zero) so I went with a potato hash made with Hawaiian style cured beef. All and all the breakfast was pretty disappointing. It was no where near the quality and service of the Ka'ana Kitchen from earlier in the week and was similarly spendy.

Holy Ghost Church, Kula, Maui

Afterwards, since we had several hours before our flight, we headed up into the "high country" part of Maui, where we stopped by the Church of the Holy Ghost Catholic mission in the very little town of Kula. The church was built in 1894 by father James Beissel, for Portuguese immigrants who were working the sugar plantations nearby. The wikipedia page on the church says that it 'may be the only historic octagonal building in Hawaii,' so I guess its got that going for it. It's also got an amazing view of the western side of the island.
After the church, we drove through the 'cowboy' town of Makawao. Google maps took us on a slight detour here and we got to see a lot of houses where the locals actually live, but the main draw of Makawao is their quaint downtown, with all sorts of out-of-place high end shops and the standard set of ice cream stalls and t-shirt stores. We were running out of time, so we just drove through and returned to Kahului.
The last interaction we had in Kahului, pre-airport, was at a Tesoro station, where we went to fill up the car before returning it to the rental center. I'm reluctant to even write this down because the entire interaction made me feel like an idiot. The configuration of the gas pumps at said Tesoro was the same as any other gas station. You pull up, you select your payment method, you flip up the lever of the grade of gasoline you want, and you proceed to fill your tank and move on with your life. I'd like, if you'll humor me, to re-enact the interaction that occurred between me and the attendant over the intercom.
Attendant: "Excuse me, you have to prepay that pump unless you have a card."
Me: "Ok, I have a card. I'll just run it."
[At this point the machine says 'Please Wait' for about 3 minutes.]
Attendant: "You need to flip the lever up to use the pump."
Me: "I have flipped the lever up."
Attendant: "You have to flip it up but not back down again. Just leave it up."
Me: "I didn't flip it back down again. I know how to use a gas pump; I've been doing it for more than twenty years."
Attendant: "Slide your card please."
Me: "I can't slide my card. The screen says 'Please Wait.'
[At this point, Sean brings my card into the station, where the attendant holds onto it while I try to decrypt her witch-machine. I'm getting looks from other customers now in the vein of 'how the hell does this guy not know how to use a gas pump?']
Attendant: "Ok, I've unlocked the pump."
[Pump does nothing.]
Me: "Am I on candid camera?"
Attendant: "We'll just start over."
Through some combination of arcane ritual and dark sorcery, I eventually got the fucking gas in the car, and then as we were driving away one of the other customers flagged us down to inform us we had left the gas cap open and I felt like even more of an idiot. When it rains it pours.
That afternoon we said aloha to Maui and headed out to say aloha to Oahu instead. What we thought would be a fairly painless air taxi ride from one island to another turned a bit more stressful when about twenty minutes before our scheduled departure Sean realized that he didn't have his rolling bag. There were a few minutes of panic (though both of us handled it remarkably well considering our penchants for dramatic response.) It turns out he had left the bag when we went to get coffee after passing through security and someone had turned it in to lost and found. Sean had to go back through security again to retrieve it, but we made the flight just fine.
The flight itself from Maui to Honolulu is comically short. We never even leveled off before we were beginning our initial descent in the the Honolulu area. We gathered our goods, picked up our awful, kind of dirty rental car from Hertz, and set out for our hotel on Waikiki Beach. Honolulu is a pretty big city. Considering its on an island, its pretty spread out. It also is most densely concentrated near the southern shorelines and drops off pretty dramatically as it sprawls up the mountainside to the north.

The view from our balcony in Honolulu was a bit lest
captivating than in Maui

We are staying at a hotel right along the main shopping area of Waikiki beach. There are a few miles of very pricey boutiques here - Dior, Coach, Chanel, Jimmy Choo, etc.
We spent several minutes wandering around trying to find a restaurant to go to. I had scheduled some reservations at some really awesome looking places for the next few days, but nothing was available for tonight so we decided to wing it. Eventually we stumbled on a high-rated Italian restaurant named Aracino, and boy am I glad we did.
We were seated immediately, even though the restaurant was quite busy. Their menu was in both English and Japanese, and it did seem like the place was very popular with Japanese tourists. They had some exciting things on the menu and none of them were disappointing.
I admit I look silly eating squid ink pastaI had an antipesti plate with little hawaiian tomato caprese, prosciutto wrapped papaya and a grapefruit and shrimp salad, followed by a main course of spaghetti al nero di seppia - which translates to spaghetti with black of squid, or less literally - squid ink pasta. While it looks a bit terrifying (a black mass of noodles and calamari rings) it is really spectacularly good. Sean had another pasta, this one made with sea urchin roe, which was also stellar. We finished off the meal sharing a pana cotta with fresh fruit and each had a shot of frozen lemoncello.
Afterward we walked back home and spent the rest of the evening watching Captain America: Winter Soldier. Fun movie, made no sense at all, but who cares.
Tomorrow we're going to breakfast at a place called Hula Grill, and then hopefully snorkeling at a famous nature preserve on the island. Until then!

Hawaii and Japan, 2014 - 10/19 - Day 4 - See Fish, Eat Fish.

Statuary at Humuhumunukunukuapa'a Restaurant at the
Grand Wailea

Post wedding day. Surprisingly, neither of us were hungover, probably because of the inordinate amount dancing that took place the night before. The sky was once again a cloudy, windy, drizzly affair as the hurricane had left us a parting gift on its way back out into the Pacific.
Originally today was going to be snorkeling on Molokini bay, but they called a few days before to cancel. We had then planned to hike long the large volcanic crater in the middle of the island and potentially see the sunset from there...but the national parks were all closed due to the storm and there was so much cloud cover we weren't going to get a sunset.
So we sat over our brunch plates at the last hurrah of the wedding, gave our last well-wishes to the bride and groom, and formed a loose plan between a group of seven of us to find something to do in our last full day in Maui.
We eventually settled on the Maui Ocean Center, an aquarium where we could see all the exotic and colorful fishes we weren't going to be able to see in the wild because of the wild's fickle wildness. Five of us packed into one of the rental cars with two more in another (they had to potentially bail early to catch their plane) and we drove out to the northwest part of the island.
There was a second moment of indecision when we actually arrived at the Maui Ocean Center due to the sticker shock of entry fees. We stood outside the door, wondering if we could potentially find something else to do that didn't cost as much as a month of car insurance, but concluded that because of the storm we weren't going to have many options, so we sucked it up and paid their island tax.
A tour group was coming into the aquarium at the same time as us, and one of the cashiers decided her routine for convincing the long line of aged tourists to spend more money was to sell them on audio tours. Her schtick was, in its entirety, to repeat "audio guides, three dollars, very helpful" with a loud, unmodulated intonation, over and over again, even when the line wasn't progressing. We had the pleasure of hearing her unfortunate pitch phrase about fifty times before we cleared through the front entrance and were ushered over for our forced souvenir photo. 

Da Fishes in the Maui Ocean Center

The aquarium itself was a so-so affair, but we did get to see a few things I'd never seen before, like the absurd unicorn fishes, which looks the world like a tank full of Fyvush Finkels. The sea turtles were also charming with their little paddle feet. The aquarium had a marine mammal exhibit which featured not a single actual animal, and a walk-through glass tunnel area, which featured a lot of little animals -- the screeching, smelly human kind. Still, it wasn't a bad aquarium, just small for the cost.
I have a tendency, and I think it's shared with a lot of my friends, to get really hungry after going to zoos and aquariums. I think that's natural. You see a bunch of edible things just out of reach, taunting you with their hidden meats, and the dark primal part of you demands reparation for its patience. We did a little research and found a little dive sushi bar about thirty minutes away with good reviews, so we decided to check out "Miso Phat Sushi."
I know. Bear with me.
The restaurant was in the back of an apartment complex, with limited, tiny parking spaces. We all piled out of the car to allow the driver to actually squeeze into the space, and then all piled into the very small restaurant, where we took up nearly half the of space with our party of seven. I had the salmon poke bowl (I also made far too many pokéball jokes during lunch. My friends are very patient.) I also had a kampyo roll, which is made from a kind of sweetened squash and was a nice surprise. Sean got a natto roll, which was not a nice surprise, at least for me. 
I am proud of my palate. It is my most finely tuned sense by far and are very few foods I can not derive some sort of pleasure from the eating thereof. I understand that taste is very subjective, but I just can't find the appeal of natto.
Natto is a fermented soy bean dish, often served for breakfast in Japan. The fermentation process causes the proteins in the soy beans to construct long sticky strands of...protein goo, so when you eat natto, the beans stick together by tendrils of snotty gunk. It smells sharp and earthy, like ripe cheese, and that profile persists in its flavor, which to me is reminiscent of the less enjoyable parts of blue cheese. I like a stinky cheese as much as the next guy...probably a deal more than the next guy...but the context of the cheesy flavor in natto just puts me right off. In short, there are a multitude of other things I'd rather have in my sushi.

Go, Pokebowl!

The ahi poke bowl (poke-bowl! Gotta eat it all!) itself was wonderful. The fish was super-fresh and the rice had a nice sprinkling of furikake seasoning on it. The avocado was fresh and fruity. It was a winner. We were all pretty satisfied with that little dive sushi bar. I'd recommend giving it a try if you're ever in Maui. Miso Phat. Try to remember the name, I know its a tough one.
The next step on our day trip was to head to the shopping town of Lahaina. Lahaina has a main road with an expanse of little shops and galleries, and since we couldn't do nature stuff, we decided on doing consumer stuff instead.
We went to a bunch of galleries and shops selling tchotchkes, posters and artwork, but the highlight of the stroll for me was discovering the surreal art of  Vladimir Kush.
Kush is a self described "metaphorical realist" and his work is strongly influenced by Dali and Bosche. He works in oils and has a bold, precise and colorful style that while aesthetically beautiful, also plays with the grotesque. I love it, and I encourage you to look him and his work up.
The last food adventure of the day was a visit to Ululani's Shave Ice stall. I've never really understood the appeal of shave ice. It's predominantly sugar water, a glorified sno-cone, but I gritted my teeth and went along with everyone and was actually pleasantly surprised by the experience. Unlike sno-cones, the shaved ice had an the actual consistency of snow. There were no huge bits of grainy ice in it. The sugar syrup was definitely presant, but along with that was a nice natural tasting flavor (I had coconut). The best part though was the sweetened condensed milk topper and the small scoop of coconut ice cream that rested at the bottom of the cone, so let's be honest, the most enjoyable features of the shave ice was everything but the shave ice. Still, it was acceptable.

You and Me and a Banyan Tree

The last stop of the day was to see the massive banyan tree that dwells in a park in Lahaina. It is the oldest tree in Maui, and is so massive it looks like its own little forest. Banyan trees have a complex root system that creates sub-trunks that appear for all the world like separate trees, but the whole thing is one organism. It was dark under the giant tree, and a cacophony of hidden birds threatened to rain their vengeance down upon us at any moment, but other than the nearly overpowering smell of ammonia, they left us alone. We took some pictures, glared at the people ignoring the "no climb, no swing" sign and hanging off the branches, paid our respects to nature's splendour, and took off back home.
Tonight is laundry and preparing for our flight tomorrow to Oahu, where we'll spend a few days exploring the city and hopefully attending a few hikes. Tomorrow threatens to be a beautiful day in Maui, so it's a shame we're going to have to leave her at the height of her glory, but we've got lots of places to see on this trip, so onward!

Hawaii and Japan, 2014 - 10/18 - Day 3 - Weddings 'n Such

Wedding day. When we woke up it was raining again, though hurricane Ana turned out to be less of a menace and more a nuisance. The ceremony wasn't scheduled to start until 4pm, but with the rain and the threat of a hurricane, we decided to stick around the Wailea/Kehei area.

Spam Musubi at Da Kitchen

Even though it was raining, we got it in our heads to walk three miles for an early lunch to a local restaurant called "Da Kitchen", which specializes in Hawaiian street-food sort of dishes. We grabbed the umbrellas and headed out, quickly discovering that the sidewalk on the main road we had chosen rather inconveniently disappeared about half a mile into the walk, so we had to walk along the side of the road for a while, the memorial flower arrangements of people that had allegedly died on the roadside taunting us with imagined tales of pedestrians that had decided to do this very thing.
We obviously survived the walk and made it to "Da Kitchen." It was located in a strip mall alongside the souvenir shops, ice-cream parlors and surf rental shops ubiquitous to beach towns.
Spam Musubi - note the elegant presentation.I ordered spam musubi, a dumpling called mandoo (they were gyoza), and a monstrous-looking local dish called a 'Loco Moco.' It was all served to us "plate lunch" style on sytrofoam plates, with the traditional modern Hawaiian side-dishes of white rice and macaroni salad. How it came to pass that the Hawaiians chose two starchy sides as their complimenta for everything is a little bit of a mystery, but historians claim that it has its origins in both the Japanese bento box and the decidedly American influence that came with the US military's co-opting of Oahu as an important Naval base and bringing with them all the diner food they missed from home.
The Loco Moco is one of those diner gems as well. There's nothing exotic about it - a hamburger steak, smothered in onions and brown gravy, with two eggs on top. No tropical island influence, no local ingredient swap that makes it unique. Just a salisbury steak with eggs. *shrug*
The spam musubi, however, is sort of fascinating, even though the version of it we got at 'Da Kitchen' was less than wonderful. Musubi is a modified form of onigiri, a typical Japanese snack composed of a ball of rice, often filled with umeboshi plum or some fish, but in Hawaii, spam musubi is king. Spam is another one of those American military delights that settled itself into the Hawaiian culture and is now inextricable. I actually quite like spam musubi. The spam is fried in the oval-form shape of its container, giving it a slightly unnatural quality, but its usually garnished with ponzo sauce and wrapped in nori, and the effect is surprisingly pallatable.
On our walk back we decided to take a shortcut through some side-streets instead of walking through the South Kihei Road death zone. We managed to take a few wrong turns and walked about a half mile out of our way before realizing that the path we were taking was never going to get us back to the condo. We followed Google Maps through a small maze of little streets only to discover that it was leading is right through a private road - one that was marked off with barricades and signs saying 'No Trespassing' and all that. Well were were both a little impatient because of the rain and the bad guidance from technology, so we walked through the no trespassing zone anyway. I wish there was a cool story here but it was an uneventful thirty feet and I never once got the feeling of a sniper bead being drawn on us or anything.

Bride and her Father entering the Chapel at
the Grand Wailea

The second half of the day was spent at the Katz-Mulvey ceremony. I got to wear my beautiful hand-made suit for the first time in public, which was an admittedly prideful moment. The wedding itself was in the chapel at the Grand Wailea, and the weather managed to behave itself the entire time, so the wedding party was able to traverse the non-sheltered areas of the hotel grounds without having people constantly holding umbrellas over them. The ceremony was short and well-executed, but it was so efficient that there was a gap of about 45 minutes that was supposed to be filled with the photographer taking pictures of the guests, and it ended about two minutes after the first group photo.
Went to the chapel. Went to get married.I was asked by Phil to be the Master of Ceremonies at the reception and my first responsibility was to get the guests from the chapel to the reception hall...but I was supposed to be doing that at 5:30, and it was 4:45 when the wedding group was unfettered from the photographer and all looking at me to direct them where to go. I decided to walk them over early. There was no sense in having everyone standing around outside with the threat of a hurricane, so we moved the whole group, one elevator load at a time, up to the reception, where they were then informed that it wasn't starting yet and they dispersed anyway. Shit. One MC responsibility failed.
Luckily Mary Ann, the wedding planner, runs a pretty tight ship and she got things pulled together quickly, and the reception started half an hour ahead of schedule. My other responsibilities as MC were to gameshow host style announce the wedding party as they officially joined the reception, tell people when they were supposed to speak (and to keep the microphone close to their mouth), and to announce the official dances and "moments" of the reception like the cutting of the cake.
Of course, I totally over-stressed about these responsibilities and made a much bigger deal out of it than it actually was, but once said responsibilities were complete, the reception for me was all martinis and dancing. Lots and lots of dancing. Sean and I got a lot of compliments on our blues dancing form.
Tomorrow is our last full day in Maui. We've got a wedding brunch to go to, then the rest of the day is ours. We're hoping to do something with my friends that are also visiting for the wedding, weather permitting that there is anything for us to do.
Until next time.

Hawaii and Japan, 2014 - 10/17 - Day 2 - The Road to Hana...kind of....and Mama's Fish House

We woke up at 6:30 again, this time on purpose, as we wanted to get an early start driving up the picturesque highway the winds east along the northern shore of Maui to the town of Hana. The drive is about 52 miles and takes two and half hours to do in one shot, which, as everyone will tell you, you shouldn't do, because getting to Hana isn't the point of the "Road to Hana". 

The Road To Hana - Eat your heart out, Conrad

No, the point of the "Road to Hana" is apparently to embark on a terrifying allegorical journey of survival - a dark, clutching odyssey shared with all the other shivering, slack-faced tourists as you each clutch with white knuckles the unforgiving mountain-side, deflecting death's fancies in the forms of one lane bridges and blind turns, amid torrents of rain and road-debris, while the looming immensity of nature claws at you from every direction in all its raw horror.
Ok, ok. It wasn't that dramatic. It did rain - a lot - the scenery was gorgeous and somewhat forbidding and the road was occasionally treacherous, due in no small part to the large trucks that share the road and the quite possibly insane locals, who don't care how sharp and how blind that next turn is, they've gone around it at 35 miles per hour for their whole lives and they'll continue to do it that way, damn it.

Various Nibbles at "Halfway to Hana"

We did, on a few occasions, brave the rains and stop for a few nature walks with varying degrees success. We also stopped at the "Halfway to Hana" food cart and had some warm banana bread, some chunks of coconut, and a few bites of a sadly rancid macadamia nut toffee bar thing. We also used the convenient port-o-potties there. They were a Kafkaesque nightmare all their own that we have both sworn never to speak of again, for fear of stirring the ancient sleeping horrors that dwelled within them.
Having survived "halfway to Hana", we set out again on the eponymous road, and about 30 minutes later saw some signs warning us to "expect delays, road work ahead." No big deal, right? We all experience road work at home; they cause snags or slowdowns that hinder traffic flow for a few minutes. Oh no, my readers. This was not that type of road work. As I said before, the Hana Highway is often times one lane...and it seems that we had chosen exactly the time that the island of Maui also chose to *completely close off the road*. Expect delays, indeed. We were not just delayed, we were stuck. Deadlocked. There was no going around. We waited for an hour, hoping that the delay would clear up just as the skies had done. No such luck. We didn't even have cellular service to try to get more information. After many fruitless scannings of the radio stations in the hope of something more than "oldies" from the 1980's (sigh) and AM radio static, we had made zero progress forward and it didn't look like it was going to get any better, any time soon.
Alas. Defeat. We tucked our tails, made a 30 point turn on the narrow road, and returned down the half of the Road to Hana we had already explored, back to the main highway.
However, all was not lost as we did run across a restaurant we very much wanted to try. Since we were already headed in that direction and it *was* lunch time, we took it upon ourselves to stop at Mama's Fish House, rated among the best seafood restaurants on Maui. Mama's prides itself on its local sourcing, to the point that it puts the name of the fisherman who caught each dish's featured fish right on the menu.
I got into the spirit of the islands and had a mai tai that featured a rose-orange-almond orgeat. It was fan-freakin'-tastic - not even in the same universe as the syrupy sweet monstrosity we had on the airplane on the way into Maui. I'm not even sure how they can call them the same drink.

Hawaiian Combination at Mama's Fish House

For an appetizer we had a ceviche of mahi mahi, made with star fruit and kefir lime, with Maui chili peppers and cilantro, served with purple sweet potato chips which was top notch - super fresh, light and flavourful.
For entrees, Sean got a fish called Monchang, which is very sparingly fished here, so was a special treat, with Hamakua Ali'i mushrooms in a garlic butter sauce. I opted for a traditional mix of Hawaiian specialities -- grilled mahi mahi, octopus luau (which was sweet and had a thai curry-like flavor to it), wild boar lau-lau, ahi poke, Molokai sweet potato, rainforest banana and poi.
The ahi poke was the star of the meal. It was profoundly fresh and clean tasting. The Molokai sweet potato was actually another surprise, as it had a very floral flavor to it.
And then there was the poi. Ah, the poi. How to describe the poi. Poi, poi, poi. Poi is best described as...gray. It's a gray paste. It smells gray, it tastes gray. It's smooth and gummy and as Sean put it, *almost* tastes like black bean paste, but then sort of gives up on it. It's made from taro root, is the Polynesian staple, and while I can respect the role it plays historically and culturally, is so amazingly non-descript in every way that just thinking about it makes my mind slide into a sort of half-paying-attention state...
...
...Where was I...

The Black Pearl at Mama's Fish House

Ah right, anyway I think I must have eaten the poi, though I remember little of the experience. We finished the meal with a french press of some very good Kipahulu coffee grown around the Hana area, and also partook of Mama's signature dessert, "The Black Pearl" which is a very photogenic chocolate cake filled with mousse and passionfruit creme, enrobe in a thin ganache and escalloped in a clam-like butter cookie shell. It was good, but it wasn't as amazing as it looked. I should probably have guessed when the waiter described it as "our most photographed dessert" that it was more a showpiece than it was a show-stopper.
At this point it was 3:30, and I needed to go buy a highly over-priced replacement battery and charger for my camera before the wedding dinner tonight, so we settled our insane bill and returned to Kehei. On returning to the condo, we discovered that some crumbs we had left on the countertop had attracted a host of little ants into the kitchen, so we set about eradicating the little bastards and eliminating any temptation for them to return, then rested a bit before the evening's wedding-related festivities.
We ended the evening in the company of good friends, and drank far too many mai tais. A good finish.

Hawaii and Japan, 2014 - 10/16 - Day 1 - Settling in, cocktails and brunches

Front Entrance to the Andaz Resort

We started our first day in Maui at 6:30am, which for us was sleeping in late relative to the time change. We awoke to a completely unstocked condo, through no-one's fault but our own, so we went out in search of breakfast. Atop our list of places to try was the Ka'ana Kitchen at the Andaz resort. The Andaz was only a brief 15 or so minute walk from our condo, so we walked there and were greeted by a beautiful main lobby with a great view and an very delicious, albeit costly brunch at Ka'ana Kitchen. 
Brunch itself was a high-end buffet, full of local delights and international favorites. Particularly good was the Kona coffee, which to the uninitiated, rather  defies description as to its quality. The breakfast buns filled with eggs and pork with ponzu sauce were also great, as too the thin, opalescent slices of smoked Ono, the fresh papaya-orange-guava juice, and a pastry which Sean called a Craquelin that was filled to bursting with nutella. We also had some mighty fine mimosas...of course. Perhaps the best part of the experience was the wait staff, who were all smiles and competence. Every time we went away from the table, our coffee cups were covered with napkins when we came back, presumably to keep the coffee warm, and our spent plates would disappear like magic when we turned away to admire the view from the splendid balcony.
We returned to the condo by way of the beach, which was everything one expects from paradise -- soft sand, attractive people, sunny skies, salt-sea air, and glass-clear water. There was even an unexpected sea turtle sighting right by the shore, and people were huddled around with their phones, braving water-damage and voided warranties to get a good shot of the enormous testudines. The turtles were not being very cooperative, so we didn't try to get a shot of them.
Afterward we drove north to a drug store and got some essentials we had neglected to bring with us and then went to Whole Foods to stock up on snacky things and bottled water, as we'd been warned that Hurricane Ana was indeed going to cause some trouble on Saturday. The beaches will apparently be closed tomorrow and Saturday, so hopefully the storm will blow over Sunday and we'll have some time to experience a bit more sand and sun before we're off to Oahu on Monday afternoon.
On the way to Whole Foods we stopped at a little farmer's market, a place I had actually been to last time I was in Maui, because I remembered they had fresh coconuts. A skillful old man with all his fingers intact hacked them up with a machete and we drank them by the side of road in the company of a smattering of tourists, locals, and some coy chickens. We also picked up a few passion fruits which I'm determined to figure out how to consume, and a handful of rambutan.

Rambutan - Alien Egg

Here's the deal with rambutan. Its name in Malay translates roughly to 'hairy thing' as it is a fruit with a rough, spiny outer shell. Inside said shell lies a mass of slimy white flesh surrounding a hard pit that looks like an almond. To me, it has the appearance, from start to finish, of an alien egg. Its bizarre presentation however belies a soft, sweet taste reminiscent of lychee, to which it is in fact closely related. Rambutan is climacteric - it only ripens on the tree - which means it's not easy to come by outside its native growing region. If you happen to find some, do try them. My grotesque description aside, they are pretty delicious.
I also discovered today that I forgot the charger for my camera batteries. I've got at least a few days of charge left between the two I have with me, but I'm going to have to find a charger either here or in Honolulu to get through the rest of the trip or there will be decidedly fewer high quality photos for the gallery when I get home.
With the remains of the day, prior to our scheduled cocktail evening with the wedding, we hiked the paved path along the beach at Wailea, which winds through the various resorts and condominiums along the shore. We eventually wound up at the Grand Wailea, which is a gorgeous luxury hotel built in 1991 and owned by the Waldorf Astoria.
The Grand Wailea has a split-level design with a large, lush internal courtyard and is, frankly, a maze. Paths lead off in all directions within the grounds and it's difficult to figure out which one leads you where. We wandered around for twenty minutes or so before finally breaking down and asking a staff member how to get to the lobby. With our bearings set, we spent the last 45 minutes before our cocktail engagement at the Shops and Wailea mall just north of the Grand Wailea. Originally intending to window shop the generally overpriced high-end boutique shops, we actually ended up getting a really nice shirt for Sean from one the stores, which he promptly put on for the party we were about to go to.
That evening's wedding-related event was a cocktail gathering at the Botero bar in the lobby of the Grand Wailea. We each had far too many high-sugar-content drinks -- I had a mojito (not a great one), two pina coladas (not bad ones), and something called a "Maui Mist", which tasted like a passionfruit bomb had gone off in my mouth.
Sean and I spent the whole evening chatting with several of my current and ex-coworkers and a pleasant evening was presumably had by all. Tomorrow we plan on waking up pretty early and driving the Hana Highway, stopping at a few places along the way before hopefully returning in two human-shaped pieces for dinner tomorrow night at Tommy Bahamas' with the wedding group.

Hawaii and Japan, 2014 - 10/15 - Day 0 - Plans and Itineraries

My partner Sean enjoying our first full-strength restaurant
cocktail after being released from the shackles of
Utah liquor laws

It is a casual rule of mine not to visit the same place twice. Afterall, there are so many places to see out there, it seems a shame to overlap. But I also recently started another chapter of my life as well, a chapter I am sharing with my partner Sean. Japan was high on Sean's list of places to see, and since we were planning on going to Phil's wedding, and Hawaii is halfway to Japan anyway, it seemed a natural choice to make it our first international destination together. So, I happily return to Japan, expecting that my perspective will be notably different with a partner than it was traveling with friends.Ok, sappy stuff out of the way, let's talk about itineraries. I am currently writing this entry on the plane from Seattle to Maui, where we'll arrive in the late evening and then drive to the property we are renting for the next six nights. The next five days are all Maui and wedding. We've got a few hard scheduled items like driving the Hana Highway on Friday and snorkeling on Sunday afternoon, but the rest of our schedule is either wedding related, or unstructured. It also appears now that we'll be enjoying the company of category one hurricane Ana during our short stay, so our plans may have to be a bit flexible.
Two nights in Oahu, then we're off to Tokyo, where we'll spend five days and five nights. There's no wont for things to do in Tokyo and we've got a loose list of things we want to hit up and a much bigger list of things we want to eat. I'll get to that in another post.All of our stays with the exception of the night in the Ryokan, the two nights in Nara, and the two nights in Honolulu, are at rented apartments we discovered through two services - AirBnB and HomeAway. A coworker of mine said he had a terrific experience using them when he traveled to France, so thought we'd try it out on this trip and see how it goes. I'll report in with my findings.

Setting off for adventure again!

I'd like to get started on this particular travel journal acknowledging the impetus for this trip, that being the wedding of two good friends of mine, Phil Katz and Jessica Mulvey. My first trip to Hawaii and indeed Japan, were both in Phil's company, and he and his generous family allowed me to stay in their home in Maui and experience the island with people that were very familiar with it. Now I return to Maui to see Phil married to the love of his life and enjoy the company of his family once again, though I suspect they might be a bit more harried this time around with the hundred plus other guests that will also be enjoying their company.
After Maui we island hop to Oahu and spend a few days there. I know very little about Oahu, having only been in the Honolulu airport and not much else. We're staying in the city and have some loose plans to maybe...hike...somewhere, I don't know. The plan will become clearer as we get closer, I'm sure.
Following Tokyo we take the Shinkansen to Kyoto where we'll be spending one night in a traditional ryokan, equipped with onsen and everything. I suspect our hosts won't speak a lick of English, and I look forward to the awkwardness of that. After the one night in the ryokan we'll be spending three more nights in Kyoto, and then headed for a short stay in the town of Nara.
After Nara, it's back on the Shinkansen to Osaka where we'll spend three nights before returning to Tokyo. Two more nights in Tokyo, then it's back to Salt Lake City via Portland and back to normal life.
That's it for now. Tune in for the next time!

Hawaii, Japan 2014: Pre-trip Round-up

Hello occasional readers! Just letting you know that I'll be taking a trip to Hawaii and Japan starting...this Wednesday! I've been so busy at work that I haven't had time to write about it, but I will be blogging my adventure as usual as my method of processing/recall, and will post whatever I can during the trip with galleries to follow post-return.

I'm going to try to do a better job on this trip of writing down the names of restaurants and what I ate there, because I'm doing Trip Advisor reviews these days. I'll cross post those reviews here as well.

Itinerary:
Wednesday 10/15 (Becomes Thursday 10/16) -- Depart Salt Lake City to Maui via Seattle
Thursday 10/16 - Monday 10/20 -- Maui
Monday 10/20 - Thursday 10/23 -- Honolulu
Thursday 10/23 - Tuesday 10/28 -- Tokyo
Tuesday 10/28 - Friday 10/31 -- Kyoto
Friday 10/31 - Saturday 11/1 -- Nara
Saturday 11/1 - Monday 11/3 -- Osaka
Monday 11/3 - Wednesday 11/5 - Tokyo
Wednesday 11/5 -- Tokyo to Salt Lake City via Portland