voyages

aloholla part 3: fancy pants dining, surfing & a malasada mission

this is it, you guys: my third and final hawaii post! i’m almost more sad about these entries ending than i was about the actual vacation ending. um… that is ridiculous.

anyway! where were we where were we… ah yes, last full day in kauai!

we started the day with brunch at the gloriously airy hotel restaurant, which may look familiar to you:

yep, it’s the same style as the restaurant at our hotel in maui, and let me just say: a missing fourth wall? does not get old.

henri had to stay in and work (boo!) so erica and i set off on an adventure of our own: the waimea canyon! on the way there, we suddenly saw a sign for “kauai coffee plantation” AND IMMEDIATELY TURNED AROUND COS WHAAAAA!!!!!

you guys. YOU GUYS. I LOVE COFFEE SO MUCH! and yet i have never been able to visit its birthplace!!!! so this was, like, my own personal field of dreams.

not only does the kauai coffee company allow you to try all of their different roasts (NOM) but they also created the world’s largest wall-less coffee maze!!!!!

as if you couldn’t already tell that the company has a sense of humor, check out the text on the maze sign:

so, yeah, it wasn’t exactly a MAZE (and maybe that’s a good thing, cos i might have lived there forever, in a victorian novelesque caffeinated haze) but it was still really neat-o.

after purchasing a lot of coffee, we got back on the road and began our climb up to the canyon viewing station. since the road actually had TWO LANES (luxurious!), we were able to appreciate the gorgeous scenery instead of fearing for our lives like on a CERTAIN ROAD I KNOW (ahem340ahem).

the higher up we drove, the better the scenery got, until i couldn’t believe that it could be any more amazing…

and then we got to the viewing platform and saw the *actual* canyon.

I KNOW, RIGHT?!!! THAT IS CRAZYTOWN NATURE!!!!!!

just to give you a sense of scale, here’s part of the platform:

when we reached the top, we were right behind a group of older couples, and the lead guy, who had a v. thick new york accent, kept going, “jerry! this was so worth it! seriously, jerry. seriously. so worth it. i mean, look at this! jerry it was so worth it!” and then he made some comment about turning the canyon into an 18 hole course.

here’s a video if you want to get a feel for the pure EXPANSE of the canyon (makes me wish i could post videos in imax).

on the way back to the hotel, erica and i paid a visit to hanapepe, a tiny town just as charming as its name suggests!

apparently, they filmed scenes from “the thornbirds” here (anyone? old people? anyone?); more recently, hanapepe was used as the inspiration for the town in “lilo and stitch,” which explains this AWESOME welcome sign:

hanapepe is indeed v. tiny, but the main street (which is about a block long) contains some lovely art galleries as well as this cool (abandoned) movie theater:

oh yeah and did i mention THE HANGING BRIDGE?!!!

dude, who needs a movie theater (or a stoplight) when you have a hanging bridge that is really bouncy and crazy to walk on?!!

famished from our rough day of exploring a coffee maze, driving up a canyon and crossing a hanging bridge, erica and i stopped at puka dog, a hot dog place famous for their tropical relishes:

Y’ALL. WHY DO WE NOT HAVE MANGO RELISH?!! IT IS SO MUCH BETTER THAN PICKLE RELISH!!!!

i had a veggie dog (they give you two, cos the bun is so big) with mango relish and this totally zingy spicy mustard.

i don’t think i can ever eat a “normal” hot dog again. PUKA DOGS 4 LIFE. which means, um, they need to open one in austin. or someone (ahem, the alamo) needs to copy their menu immediately.

we made another stop at some shops right by the hotel, which featured my favorite sign in all of hawaii:

(that’s a ukulele, btw. not a guitar)

and MY FAVORITE ICE CREAM IN HAWAII!!!!!

lappert’s is like the blue bell of hawaii, and DIZANG it is tasty business. i had a hawaiin speciality flavor that invoved chocolate, macadamia nuts and some other things i can’t remember cos the ice cream was so good, it caused memory loss. like FOOD COMA WITH PERMANENT DAMAGE.

back at the hotel, we met up with henri for happy hour on the patio:

dude. i know. it’s really hard to go to a bar now and not wish i was staring at the deep blue sea instead of neon signs/hipsters/bad art.

we went out for dinner but i’m gonna skip all that cos there are more important things to talk about like the fact that WE HAD ROOM SERVICE FOR BREAKFAST. ON OUR BALCONY. OVERLOOKING THE OCEAN.

you guys we were so rich!!!!! look i’m even wearing the v. plush and cozy hotel robe!!!!

le sigh. needless to say, it was tough to bid farewell to beautiful kauai, but we still had one more stop to make: waikiki beach in honolulu! which is basically like saying we went from the wilderness to las vegas cos check this shizz out:

honolulu is, like, a real city (although do they have a swinging bridge? no), and it was weird to transition from the laidback resort atmosphere to the relatively quick pace of urban life. weird but not hard, cos um, we were still pretty much in the lap of luxury. i took that picture from our room balcony, and here’s the view during the day:

yep, not too shabby!

the night we got into honolulu, we decided to eat at the hotel restaurant, ciao mein which, get this, is an italian AND chinese restaurant. their slogan alone provided endless quips between henri and erica and i:

FINALLY!! WORLD PEACE!! THANK YOU CIAO MEIN!!!

aside from the fact that the restaurant is obvs v. proud of itself for the italian/chinese gimmick (CIAO mein, get it? GET IT?!! oh HA HA HA we are so CLEVER!), the food was pretty good. i especially liked the caesar salad that came in a giant wonton bowl.

the next day, we headed up to the hotel club for breakfast and a fabulous view of the beach:

waikiki is a v. touristy beach, and you could tell by all of the surfers in the water:

erica and i took a stroll down the bustling beach, which seemed like an entirely different world than the (deadly) calm of big beach in maui.

you can see how crowded (a fun, vibrant kind of crowded) it was in this video:

the whole surfing thing is REALLY big here, again probably due to the tourists. oh those silly tourists, taking cheesy pictures and making cliched hand gestures!

so of course, henri and erica had to get their surf on. they signed up for an afternoon lesson from a local shop (with v. hot instructors, according to erica) and quickly discovered that, hey, surfing’s not that hard!

in fact, erica was pretty dang good at it!

henri wasn’t bad either…

although he did have his share of wipeouts:

VAYA CON DIOS, DUDE (sorry, i can’t write about surfing without quoting “point break”).

my favorite moment of their surfing time occurred when henri almost smashed into erica, causing her to “turtle” (pull her board over her head) and henri to plummet into the water. here’s an awesome photo play by play:

1. henri sees what is about to happen and laughs in the face of disaster.

2. erica shields herself, henri’s board starts to turn over.

3. BOOM! BLUE CRUSH!

you may be wondering why i didn’t try surfing myself. well, part of the reason is that i try v. hard to avoid even the slightest risk of bodily injury at all times. because i am a delicate pants. and also a weenie. but the *main* reason was that i was on a mission: A MISSION FOR MALASADAS. see, i’d read about these things, also known as portuguese donuts, on cakespy, and i was *determined* to find them in hawaii.

it turns out that leonard’s bakery, the most famous place to get malasadas (as mentioned in the cakespy entry), was only about a mile and a half from our hotel! OMGGG!!!!! YOU GUYS IT WAS FATE!!!!!

my walk to leonard’s was almost as awesome as the bakery itself, cos i discovered my favorite hawaiian store:

(i got my most treasured souvenir from the trip, a ring made out of a shell, from peggy’s)

as well as my favorite crazy pants store, bailey’s antiques and aloha shirts:

when you get to the front door, you can tell right away that this store is going to be amazing:

15 THOUSAND!! PLUS!!!!!

as if you needed further proof, this picture is taped above the entrance:

DUDE. not only is that nicholas cage, but he’s wearing his hawaiian shirt UNBUTTONED. YESSSS!

the inside of the store is so cray, it’s almost dizzying. in fact, this picture alone makes my eyes cross:

after a few stops, i finally made it to the promised land: LEONARD’S!!!!!

you guys, i was REALLY excited when i saw this place. like, even more excited than when i saw waimea canyon. does this make me a superficial person? if so, i don’t care cos LOOK THEY EVEN HAD A TOY VERSION OF MALASADAS!!!!!!!!!

SWEET FANCY MOSES I LOVE TOY FOOD!!!! ESP. TOY FOOD YOU CAN CUDDLE!!!

i waited in line v. patiently, esp. given the fact that the whole place smelled like my own personal brand of heroin, if heroin smelled (twilight reference, wtf!). and then, like a winner of the freaking lottery, i was given a small white box with six malasads, three with white sugar and three with cinnamon:

GAHHHH I WANT THEM BACK RIGHT NOW!!! I NEED TO SMASH THEM INTO MY MOUTH!!!

you guys. YOU. GUYS. UN.BE.LIE.VA.BLE.

basically, they tasted like a cross between a donut and a beignet. in other words, my malasadas were sooo worth the walk (“so worth it, jerry. so worth it!”). i sat down on a bench with an older african american gentleman and a japanese lady, and the three of us stuffed our faces in delirious, delicious harmony. seriously, forget ciao mein. malasadas will end *all* arguments, period.

YAY I DID IT! I ACHEIVED MY TASTY BUSINESS GOAL! it felt like reaching the end of the oregon trail, except without any hardship or illness along the way!

i met up with erica and henri for a happy hour at “cheesburger in paradise,” which is obvs super cheesy (HA get it?) and the perfect setting for surf stories and tropical drinks.

and look, they have mini-cheeseburgers!!! and they are delicious!

later that night, henri and i headed out onto the streets of waikiki (erica was beat from her hardcore surfing), which, again, are a far cry from anything in maui or kauai. there’s street performers and tons of people and like, every luxury store you can imagine (oh yeah, and prostitutes). like i said, it’s a mini vegas!

due mostly to the presence of posh hotels, there’s also some really nice landscaping and plazas:

every block or so, there’s a person passing out a flier for this gun club, which, by the look of this ad, is the best thing ever:

GAH if only we’d had one more day! and i had packed my 70s business lady blouse! curses!

in the midst of all of these luxury stores, henri and i made a v. v. v. exciting discovery: HONOLULU HAS A NOBU (ha ha, that is really fun to say out loud, btw).

so, being the tasty business professionals we are, of course we had to go there for dinner.

so, i know nobu gets a lot of flack for being an LA b-list scenester kind of hangout, but the food was DIVINE. like, UCHI level divine (and that’s saying a lot, y’all). we tried about four different dishes, including this monkfish liver (sounds gross, i know, but it tastes kind of like… custard) served with the MOST HEAVENLY SAUCE MY TONGUE HAS EVER KNOWN:

and this cray cray bubbling dish with tasty, tasty beef:

needless to say, henri did his little happy food dance a LOT.

and OF COURSE WE HAD DESSERT!! what kind of amateur do you take me for?!!

this was some kind of (incredible) banana frozen compote with homemade chocolate and peanut nougat and ice cream (GAH i can’t remember the flavor… stupid food coma memory loss!).

so yeah, nobu and i? totally friends now.

the next morning, hawaii gave us the perfect going-away present: A RAINBOW!!!!!!!!!

SQUEE PANTS!!! some of you know how i get about rainbows, so you can imagine the amount of jumping up and down i did when i spotted that thing. i believe i said, “THIS IS THE PERFECT ENDING TO OUR TRIP!” at least a dozen times.

since our flight wasn’t leaving until 7:30, we had a few hours to enjoy the beach one more time. erica and henri went surfing again, and i spent some time in the v. friendly, non-face planting ocean. i also got another good-bye present from hawaii: A SLEEPING BEACH BABY!! HAI BABY!!!

we also hung out at the pool bar, where we made friends with the ultra delightful bartender:

when we told him we were from texas, he was like, “oh, texas! you guys must be rich! i read an article about a lady there who gave her daughter’s boyfriend a check for 36o billion dollars!!” he proceeded to whip out the actual article from his wallet and show it to us:

as you can see, he kind of missed the gist of the article. maybe he… skimmed it.

i also got in some quality time with a rocking chair and my book, holla!

being by the pool also afforded me some excellent adorable child-watching. this little cowboy was my favorite:

and then we packed up our stuff, headed to the airport, and got on a plane to texas (well, technically, we went to another island first. then phoenix. then houston). honestly, i was ready to get back home, which i think is always the sign of a good vacation.

mahalo for the awesomeness, hawaii! mahalo for the malasadas and the kauai hotel pool and the incredible scenery and the ocean views and the drinks with tiny umbrellas and the island breezes! i will alohoa you 4-EVS!

LINKS

molly ringwald reminisces about finding neverland with john hughes, i.e. a must read.

MOST AMAZING SLIP ‘N’ SLIDE EVER (thanks for the link, dad! and hey, why didn’t you ever build me one like that?!).

and, finally, a little scott speedman to brighten up yr day!

© 2009 Poshdeluxe.