Aloha! It's Cody this time. It's been exactly one month since we got married and things are still great. Our honeymoon took place two weeks after the wedding (because that's when there was an open spot) and was in beautiful Maui. In this post I'm planning on giving a bit of a wrap up of what all we did.
Monday: Woke up really early for a nice long plane ride. But don't worry, we were traveling in style in 1st class, so it was fun. After getting in and checking in a bit early we cruised around for a bit before finally heading over to Son'z Maui at Swan Court for dinner. This restaurant was recommended to me by my wonderful cousin, Jeri Lynn. It's located inside the Hyatt in Ka'anapali, and we got a little lost trying to find it, but a friendly valet helped us out. The place was awesome. We got a seat right by the pond that the restaurant overlooks. During the meal several birds came by to see what was happening, including some flamingos, ducks, a white swan, and two black swans. Great way to start out the honeymoon.
Tuesday: We started this morning with some surf lessons! In a word: amazing. We had a great time learning how to surf in Kihei Bay, along with many other first timers. Alicia managed to stand up on her very first wave! I got it on the second. By the end of the lesson we'd each caught several great waves that took us all the way back to the beach. Also, we learned an important lesson for next time: rash guards and board shorts are important. Alicia ended up with some gnarly (oh yeah, I went there) board rash on the front of her legs, and to add injury to insult she also sunburned the back of her legs as well. Oh well, sunburns happen.
That night we went to the wonderful Old Lahaina Luau (up in Lahaina, imagine that). We signed up for this Luau a week in advance, only to find out that this is a really good luau that tends to fill up the good seats over a month in advance! It's cool though, the show was still great and now we know for the future that when we come back in however many years we'll need to book our seats way in advance. Great drinks, amazing food, and a fantastic performance. I recommend this luau to anyone who happens to find themselves in Maui, even if you've already seen a luau before.
Wednesday: This was the day we got up early and made our way up to Haleakala (the local volcano) for a horseback riding journey down into the crater. Alicia was astride Lucky, and I got to ride Rocky. Apparently Rocky was a bit lazier than many of the other horses on the trip, as he kept falling behind unless I routinely spurred him forward. After several bumpy hours we made it down to the bottom of the crater where we stopped for lunch. The views on the way down were gorgeous and awe inspiring. The ride itself was a bit rough on the posterior regions and Alicia's sunburn, but we made it all the way down and back safely. Also, I got to ride a galloping horse! I have no idea how cowboys do it... That night we decided to eat in, thinking that a little grocery shopping could made for a cheaper meal... We were wrong! That night we ate the most expensive coconut lime chicken we've ever made. I think Alicia's jaw almost hit the floor when we found the $8 box of cereal we needed to bread the chicken with.
Thursday: Back to Lahaina! We went in the morning for a much needed couples massage, followed by lunch at Star Noodle, a recommendation of Alicia's Uncle John and Aunt Ann. This was another good recommendation. We had some Lahaina Fried Soup (big fried noodles with pork) and some "Hot and Sour Soup" which ended up being much more like Phó. Both were delicious. This was followed with a trio of ice creams/sherberts including watermelon, chocolate, and vanilla bean. Simply delicious.
After wandering the Lahaina wharf for a while and browsing all the shops and art galleries we rounded out the evening with dinner and a show. It started with dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe where we ate delicious steak followed by creme brulee. After that we went over to the Maui Theatre to watch 'Ulalena, a show about the history and mythology of the islands. Dancing, singing, and wonderful acting really brought this show to life. Because we purchased the dinner and a show package we got the VIP bonus of getting to hang around after the show to meet the cast and ask them questions. They were really cool and we got a few pictures with them.
Alright, well, I've covered the first half of the week, now I'm going to let Alicia cover the second half. Also, I'd like to put a note out there for everyone that funded us through Honeyfund (or other ways): Don't worry, we haven't forgotten about you! We wanted to wait till after the honeymoon to put the thank you notes together so we could also include some pictures from our journey. This way we can show people exactly what awesome things they helped us do. Anyway, Aloha for now, and I'll let Alicia walk you guys through part two of our awesome trip!
Miss me? Let's see, where did Cody leave off...
Friday: After all the excitement earlier in the week, we decided to take a day off and just bum around the condo. I ended up napping for most of the day while Cody watched TV and checked up on the internet. For dinner we hit up Shaka Pizza in Kihei for a slice in the absurd hope that somehow we'd be able to get SPAM as a topping. We settled for pepperoni, and decided we'd have to do it ourselves when we got home.
Saturday: We got up early and headed to nearby Maalaea Harbor to board The Pride of Maui, the 65' catamaran that would take us out on our snorkeling adventure. First, we headed to Molokini Crater, a partially submerged volcano with some of the clearest water in the world. Where we docked, the water is approximately 40' deep, but you can see all the way to the bottom as if it was only a few feet deep. We snorkeled a little bit (my first time snorkeling ever!), and got close to a few schools of fish. Unfortunately, the trade winds started to pick up and the water got really choppy as a result, forcing us to leave.
After a very long, rough ride, we ended up back off the coast of Maui at a place called Coral Gardens and out of the wind. We got geared up and did some snuba diving! Snuba is essentially a mix of snorkeling and scuba diving: a breathing apparatus attached to a tank of air, but the air is floating on a raft at the surface. We dived around at about 15' deep, and checked out some awesome coral and more fish. Supposedly there was a turtle, but it was really shy. We did get to see two turtles on the way home, though! After that, we went home briefly to take a shower and get dressed up. Then, it was back to the boat for a romantic sunset cruise to finish off our day at sea.
Sunday: SO. MUCH. DRIVING. We decided to take a road trip to Hana, on the legendarily twisty, curvy, bridge-filled, narrow, and painfully beautiful Hana Highway. I took it slow, and we stopped often along the way to do some exploring and taking in the sights. Waterfalls! Black sand beaches! Forests! Random kitten! We had a lot of fun, and wow... it was so pretty. One of the hikes we took at Pailoa Bay led us across an a'a flow that felt almost alien and ethereal. Awesome. Halfway back home, we also stopped and got some shaved ice. Yum.
We made it back to home base by late afternoon, and went to dinner at Three's, a restaurant owned by three chefs that specialize in Pacific Rim, Hawaiian, and Southwest cuisine. It sounds like kind of an odd mix with the Southwest thrown in there, but it actually worked really well! We started off with some really addictive purple sweet potato chips and salsa, and Cody is still raving over his unique island-style jambalaya. It was an awesome end to the last full day we'd spend in Hawaii.
Monday: Time to say goodbye to the islands. :( We packed up our clothes and memories and set off back to the mainland.
Now that you've made it to the end, have some photos!
Full size version of slide show
Go to the gallery
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