This post is almost a month late because uploading all the Hawaii photos was slowing me down, but I had to post some of these adorable photos from when the Jubbs were in town! I’ve known Nancy since we were kids in middle school, and I have a lot of memories with her — it was through her that I got my first part-time job (working as an accountant’s assistant at a law firm), and with her that we got our first cell phones! Not to mention all the sticker photos we took together after school in Annandale… 🙂
We’ve both come a long way since — we are both now married, and Nancy has been happily living with her English husband Matthew in London for a few years now! They just had their first child in March of this year, and they were in Sacramento visiting family and stopped by for a day in the East Bay. I not only got to meet Matthew for the first time, but 3-1/2-month old Eleanor, too! I hadn’t seen Nancy herself in over four years, so we had a lot of catching up to do. 🙂 We went to have lunch together in El Cerrito, followed by some gelato in Berkeley, and then came back and just relaxed at our humble abode for a while.
Such a beautiful family!
After lunch at Pasta Pomodoro. Look at Ellie...!
I couldn't get enough of baby Eleanor. She is just the cutest! A quarter Korean, she's going to be a knockout when she grows up! I'm jealous of her good genes.
She was so well-behaved, too! Someday, when I have kids, I can only hope they are half as sweet as this girl is!
This must be the first time I've ever seen Dan hold a baby. He is so awkward with babies! hahaha* But I am too...
Baby Ellie... so adorable!
Thank you so much to Nancy and Matthew for taking time in your busy schedule to meet up with us! We hope you had a great time visiting the East Coast afterwards. We will definitely have to visit you in London someday!
Day Nine was the last day of our vacation in Hawaii! :'(Â This was actually the only day that we didn’t have anything concrete planned, so we winged it. It was nice to just relax and drive around without a real itinerary for once. 🙂
For breakfast, we stopped by Sweet Marie’s, a gluten-free bakery in Kapaa. We just randomly found it and decided to eat there, but it ended up being really good! We recommend. 🙂
Breakfast at Sweet Marie's!
Gluten-free muffin and vegan cookie. The cookie was especially delicious! Who knew vegan cookies could be so yum?
Leave it to me to procrastinate on my souvenir shopping… Thankfully, the Kauai Products Fair on the East Shore had some really nice goodies — this is where we did the bulk of our souvenir shopping for my family. 🙂
The Kauai Products Fair on the East Shore
I loved these frogs! They made such cool sounds, so I got a bunch of the smaller ones as gifts. I really wanted to get a large one for my grandfather who makes bamboo carvings, but I had no room in my luggage for it.
An interesting doll we found at the products fair. Looks like something my brother Ted would like.
Upon completing our souvenir shopping, we went onto get shaved ice. (Yes, again!) This would be the last time we’d get shaved ice in Hawaii. :'(Â We went to Ono Ono Shave Ice.
At Ono Ono Shave Ice in Kapaa. Look at all the flavors!
Dan's shaved ice: banana + guava.
I got the "Zen Break": green tea + lychee. Such a great combination!
In the early afternoon, we returned to the Coconut Marketplace (which is right by our hotel) and watched a free hula show. One of the girls who was performing had been at a fruit stand we went to the previous day, and had urged us to stop by to watch her perform.
Free hula show at the Coconut Marketplace. These girls were adorable!
The female singer whose songs the girls were dancing to sang the famous Israel Kamakawiwo’ole version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” It was so pretty of it, I took a video to capture the audio:
The girls performing a Tahitian dance.
We were able to get a picture with these very talented ladies!
The dancers' mothers were selling handmade leis to fundraise for the girls' costumes, so Dan bought me a lei to support them.
We were pretty hungry after the hula show, so we drove over to The Fish Express in Lihue for a late lunch/afternoon snack. Dan’s coworker had recommended the place for their good poke.
The Fish Express storefront.
So many varieties of poke! I wanted to get everything.
We got a whole bunch of stuff for only about $11.60! We couldn't wait to dig in, so we ate in the car.
This was seriously hands-down the best poke I've ever had! Perfectly flavored.
Ocean salad. This was also amazing.
Kimchee shrimp poke. I am drooling just remembering it.
I'm so excited about all the food we got at The Fish Express!
You can see the effect the poke had on me.
The Fish Express is definitely a place you must go if you’re in Kaua’i and love raw fish like us! My only regret was not going to this place sooner. I would have been totally content with having poke from there every day we were in Kaua’i.
One of the better known places in Kaua’i that we had not been to yet was Poipu Beach, so we drove down to Poipu once our stomachs were stuffed with poke fabulousness.
The sign at Poipu Beach.
A beached Hawaiian Monk Seal. Don't worry, it's not dead - just lazily sunbathing.
Poipu has a strip of the beach which extends down the middle, and the waves come in from either side and meet, and then retract again. I felt like Moses parting the sea; so powerful!
Dan walking further down the beach strip, where there's lava rock.
Me at gorgeous Poipu Beach!
Dan found a sea cucumber... for some reason, he is really good at finding these slimy things.
Walking on lava rock at Poipu.
Against the ocean at Poipu Beach.
The waves were really crashing against the rocks!
Never before have I seen a rooster on the beach!
Dan and I at Poipu Beach.
We had time to stop by one more location before having to grab dinner and head towards the airport, so we drove over to the nearby Wailua Falls.
Wailua Falls
With the video, you can sort of see a more accurate view of how the falls looked from our vantage point. We even caught a rainbow on camera. 🙂
Double waterfalls... too bad there was no double rainbow there, too!
The pool of water at the base of Wailua Falls.
For dinner, we decided to eat near the airport at the Japanese restaurant Kintaro.
Eating dinner at Kintaro Japanese restaurant.
My soba from Kintaro.
Tempura to go with the soba.
Great sushi!
Our last meal in Kaua'i... so sad!
I don't want to leave! :'( ::sniffle::
But alas, we had to leave. After dinner, we promptly returned our rental car and dragged ourselves to the airport to catch our flight. The lines for check-in and for the security check were heinous… it seemed like half the island was flying to LA! But after all the waiting and stress, we were able to safely board our plane. The journey back to San Francisco was anything but fun, since it was an overnight flight and I was freezing the whole time in the overly air-conditioned cabin. I barely got any sleep! We arrived at Los Angeles International Airport early in the morning, where we had a three-hour layover. Not fun! 🙁
Freezing and sleep-deprived at our layover in LAX. I knew it was a bad idea to return to the mainland...
We were surprised to find many more beached creatures lying around in LAX than on the beaches of Hawaii.
But eventually, we boarded our one-hour flight from LAX to SFO, and were able to get home safe and sound. It’s only been a month since we’ve gotten back, but I miss our time in Hawaii a lot. There’s still a lot I’d like to see if and when we ever go back, and I’d like to check out the other islands of Maui and Big Island someday, too.
Thank you to all of our friends who gave us recommendations on places to go, sights to see, and foods to eat! Our trip wouldn’t have been nearly as memorable if it weren’t for you!
Christopher Nolan never fails to impress, and this just might be his best film yet! It’s incredible that he not only directed but also wrote the screenplay for Inception — it is such a complex and unique film that has kept people talking for days after seeing it. I think it’s pretty safe to say that this is the movie of the year…. I don’t care if we’re only halfway through, I just can’t see any other movies surpassing this one.
Nolan can add this to his growing pile of groundbreaking work, atop Memento, Batman Begins, The Prestige, and The Dark Knight… he’s got to be one of the most genius and daring filmmakers of our time. Leonardo DiCaprio, too, has been building quite a career for himself with the great roles he’s been taking on in the past few years — in The Departed, Blood Diamond, and Shutter Island, to name a few. I noticed that in his most recent movies, he’s been playing the same sort of haunted, disturbed characters, but he definitely boasts a wide breadth in his acting ability. He’s come a long way since the days of being the teenaged heartthrob from Romeo and Juliet and Titanic, of whom I collected clippings and taped all over my locker. Those days are long gone, but I have a lot of respect for him as an actor nowadays.
There’s a lot of discussion and theories being thrown around about what really happened in this film. Are they alive? Are they dead? Are they dreaming the whole time? Will we ever really know? And does it matter? What is your take?
We kicked off our second full day in Kauai’ with a trip to Eggbert’s in Kapaa, which was right in front of our hotel. They are known for their awesome macadamia nut pancakes!
Eggbert's in Kapaa
Macadamia nut pancakes!
After breakfast, we drove over to Lihue to Kaua’i Backcountry Adventures, where we had reserved tickets to go on a tubing tour! It’s a mountain tubing adventure where you can float down the historic irrigation system of the former Lihue Plantation — it’s a ditchy and tunnel system that was once used to irrigate sugar crops, but is no longer used since 2000. It’s now exclusively used for tubing tours.
All geared up and ready to go!
We rode in these vehicles that were formerly used by the Swiss army to transport personnel and arms. It made for a bumpy but fun ride!
They stopped as we made our way up the mountain so we could admire the view.
Below is a video that Dan took of “sleepy grass,” a type of plant that closes its leaves temporarily when touched. I’d never seen anything like it before!
Once we reached the tubing site, they filed everyone into a single line and put us on tubes, and we just floated on our donuts in the river.
Everyone on their inner tubes, ready to go!
Dan floating in the water.
We floated through a series of dark tunnels.
Entering another tunnel...
We were to turn our helmet lights on when we went into the tunnels.
Floating lazily along...
Look at how red those leaves are!
At the end of the tubing tour, we got out of the water and enjoyed a sandwich lunch in the mountains. They then took us back down the mountain in the army vehicle again. Our tour guides were very funny and friendly, and the tubing tour was pretty fun without requiring too much physical effort. My kind of activity! 😉
For the rest of the afternoon, we drove up to the Northern part of Kaua’i, to get some beach time. Our first stop was Tunnels Beach.
Arriving at gorgeous Tunnels Beach.
The current was pretty strong on the Western side of the beach. Apparently a guy broke his arm earlier that day trying to swim there. Snorkeling is not advised on this part of the beach.
We headed over to the Eastern side of Tunnels Beach, which was much calmer and more snorkeling-friendly. Here is Dan, so ready to go snorkeling!
Me snorkeling in the water.
We spotted a triggerfish.
A school of fish at Tunnels.
Dan snorkeling.
Me in the water.
Another triggerfish... look at its piglike snout!
Lone coral.
A deliciously large sea urchin.
Dan discovered sea turtles!
This was my favorite snorkeling picture!
The sea turtles were nibbling on the coral.
Such amazing creatures!
Dan was taking a video of the sea turtles at one point (below), when a current pushed him forward towards the turtle’s butt. The turtle got spooked and quickly swam away….
A sea cucumber.
Closeup of coral.
Coral at Tunnels Beach.
A closeup. Huge thanks to Estella for lending us her underwater case to use with our camera. It was thanks to her that we were able to get some of these great underwater photos!
After spending a couple hours snorkeling at Tunnels Beach, we drove further north to see what we could find. We came across this super creepy-looking wet cave. I looked it up later and found out it was called Waikanaloa Cave. Sea caves are formed by thousands of years of ocean waves pounding against the lava and eventually etching out a cavern. At one time, the ocean was up to this point.
Waikanaloa Cave
This wet cave is right by the road, you can't miss it!
Hubby in front of the Waikanaloa Cave. I was getting more and more freaked out every minute we were there.
Can't get over how creepy-looking it was!
What lurks in that darkness? Apparently nothing (no sea life) except for leptospirosis, a nasty and dangerous bacteria. Swimming is strictly prohibited. (Who would want to swim here?!)
Me at the Waikanaloa Cave. Don't let my peace sign fool you; I couldn't wait to get out of here. Continue!
Desperate to get away from the scary cave, we continued on our way up the island and arrived at Ke’e Beach, where a much more pleasant sight greeted us.
Arriving at Ke'e Beach.
Me at beautiful Ke'e Beach.
Dan told me to look more enthusiastic...
Dan on Ke'e Beach.
Sparkling waters.
Dan under the giant roots of a tree on Ke'e Beach.
Me perched on the roots.
After Ke’e Beach, we started making our way back down the Eastern part of the island. There was a slight drizzle, after which we found this rainbow over the Kaua’i landscape!
Rainbow over Kaua'i.
Too bad it wasn't a double rainbow... haha*
We stopped by this souvenir vendor area on our way back, but most of the shops had closed up by then. We vowed to return the next day!
Kaua'i Products Fair, about to close.
For dinner, we decided to check out Kalapaki Joe’s in Lihue, a sports bar that one of the tubing tour guides had recommended as having great nachos and happy hour specials. The food was good, but the service was mediocre….
Kalapaki Joe's in Lihue.
A monster nacho plate, with kalua pork. It had to be the largest nacho plate I'd ever seen, but I have to admit it was pretty delicious.
Seafood pasta from Kalapaki Joe's. The lighting was horrible, so the photo doesn't look too appetizing, but it was also pretty good!
We returned to our hotel, stuffed and ready to pass out. The next day was our last day in Kaua’i, and in 24 hours, we’d be boarding a plane back home to San Francisco. Check back for Day 9, our last day in Hawaii! (Finally, right?)
