MicroblogMondays: Maui In Photos

We finally did our “real” honeymoon, five years late.  So glad that we chose Maui.  It was indeed a beautiful place for honeymooners and apparently babymooners as well.

Like I said in my last post, there were plenty of pregnant ladies on the plane.  These ladies with bumps were also spotted on beaches, restaurants, and hikes.  A favorite game between Bob and me was spotting a lady in bikinis on the beach and asking, “Is she pregnant?”  Out of all the ladies that we spotted, I’d say 9 out of 10 times those ladies were pregnant.

I have been sick for the last week and a half.  I am still sick right now.  Majority of the time on Maui I was coughing and having a stuffy nose.  I think that was why I was so tired the first two days we were there. Our original plan was to go watch the sunrise at the summit of Haleakala National Park in the first two days of our trip since we would still be on California time.  But due to my crazy fatigue, we didn’t make it on day one or day two.  Instead, we just hung out on the beach and chilled.  The condo that we rented had everything that was needed for a beach day.  You’d often find us in our swimsuits and coverups hauling two beach chairs, a beach umbrella, a bag with towels and sunscreen lotion, a novel, and a bodyboard.  We only had to walk across the street from our condo complex to a very nice and calm beach.  It was so serene to just sit on the white sand and watch the ocean.  The sun was hot and the umbrella helped to keep us cool.  However, at times, the wind was also blowing strong.  Don’t let this picture fool you.  The umbrella flew away a few times.  Imagine me or Bob running after it in the hot sand.

That IS Bob in the water facing the ocean on the right side of the picture.

I went into the water quite a few times.  It was quite fun the first couple of times when the water was calm.  The final day we went to the beach it was significantly windier.  The water was so choppy that floating on the bodyboard was a little bit scary.  Quite a few times I thought I was floating too far away from the shore and panicked a little bit.  For someone who is not a good swimmer, it was quite a scary thing.  The waves flipped me over quite a few times.  All in all, I am very thankful that we rented a place so close to the beach so we could go as often as we would like with the convenience of going back to the condo and washing up without getting into our rental car.

I have always loved Hawaiian food, so I am very happy with the food choices there.  Many good restaurants were within walking distances to our condo in Kihei.  I particularly loved the macaroni salad that came with all my Hawaiian plate lunches.  To save money, we also ate in a few times.  We picked up fish from Costco: ono, opah, blue marlin.  Fish that we usually don’t find here in California.  We ate very well there, but I also loved that we had a balance and didn’t overspend on dining out.

My own cooking: ono with asparagus

loco moco, kalua pork, and fried spam musubi

loco moco, again

macadamia nut pancakes

seared ahi tuna and coconut shrimp

two kinds of poke and pineapple cole slaw

mahi mahi and ono fish and chips

french toast with mac nuts

kalua pork moco

korean chicken and short ribs

And then there was dinner at a fancier restaurant our last day.  The chef apparently made one too many crab dips so we got that dish on the house at the end of our dinner.  Who doesn’t love some free food?

buffalo shrimp

short rib pot pie

mahi mahi with lemon caper sauce

crab dip on the house

Okay enough food talk.  Here comes my favorite part of the trip, which involved getting up at 2:15 in the morning.  Yup.  You read it right.  TWO FIFTEEN A.M.  I guess if you want to watch the sunrise on the summit of Haleakala, you have to leave Kihei at no later than 3am so that you can get a parking spot on the summit. Otherwise, you’d have to park somewhere lower and that’d have defeated the purpose of getting up so early.  Sunrise was at 5:48 that morning.  The night before we were going back and forth about whether or not we should do it.  Out of the fear of missing out, we said screw it and let’s get up early in the morning.  I went to bed at 8:45 the night before since I was still feeling sick anyways.  Bob probably didn’t go to bed until closer to 9:45.  Waking up wasn’t as torturous as we had imagined.  Bob even measured out the coffee grounds and the water for fresh coffee the night before.  It took about one hour 45 minutes to drive up that winding road to the summit.  Being from California, I am very used to winding roads.  The road wasn’t as horrible as some people on message boards described it to be.  It was like a zoo by the time we got to the summit parking lot at 4:45am.  It was pitch dark.  Park rangers with flashlights directed us to a parking spot.  We were dressed in our light down jackets and jeans, but it was still cold.  The temperature was probably about 45 degrees.  Comparable to a colder night in San Francisco.  As warned by my friends, I brought blankets and towels from the condo.  They proved to be very useful.  Instead of standing inside the glass hut on the summit, we opted for standing out in the open and braving the wind and the cold for a better view.  Bob wrapped a towel over his head and a blanket around his body.  He looked like he just got off a camel in the desert.  My phone’s compass pointed us to the east, and we occupied a spot facing that direction with plenty of crazy people who stood around like us.  We looked up and could see so many stars in the sky.  It was a great idea to come so early because the changes in the lights in the sky were phenomenal:

Standing there at 10,000 ft above sea level, you can totally see and hopefully appreciate the grandeur of God’s creation.

That same day, we got a massage in our condo.  I felt that I slept funny the day I was staying at home being sick.  My back had been hurting and the massage was heavenly.

After much debate, we decided to also do Road to Hana.  I got mixed reviews from various people who had done it. Some said you don’t want to miss it.  Others said that it was really nothing much to see.  We don’t know when we’d come back to Maui again, so we decided to do it.  After reading many times on message boards about it, I paid $5 and downloaded this app.  It approved to be the best $5 that I had ever spent.  This app uses the GPS on your phone to guide you where to go.  It tells you what sights were must-sees, what sights to skip, where to park, where to eat.  On the way back, it also tells you stories about the history of Hawaii.  I highly recommend it.  You can download it at the app store.  It’s called “Road to Hana GyPSy Driver Tour”.  It will be the best $5 you will ever spend.  With this app, I didn’t have to look at a map or flip a book.  Since the road was winding as well, I would have felt sick and thrown up looking at a map or a book.

I am very glad we went.  It was beautiful out there.  There is really nothing much to see in Hana.  The journey itself is the highlight.

black sand beach

 

This was about the best vacation one could have.  Eight days was the perfect length.  We got to spend quality time with each other.  Bob didn’t have his phone with him the whole time so we could have a conversation.  We had beach time, lazy time, crazy time to see the sunrise, driving on the road to Hana to see the lush side of Maui, massage time, reading time, and even a lot of Gilmore Girls time.  Yes we watched plenty of Gilmore Girls on Ne.tflix.  We talked a little about our next steps for our fertility treatment but majority of the time we just relaxed and went with the flow.  It was perfect.

On the beach and on the flight back, we were surrounded by babies and little children.  These babies were all so cute in their little swimsuits.  Bob repeatedly asked if I could imagine my own little baby in a swimsuit playing with sand.  It didn’t quite make me sad, but it is a reminder of what we have been longing for.  My dream is that next time we go to Maui we’ll be with our baby as well.  I am really hoping that this dream will one day come true.