Beck's Blog: Maui

A timeline:

-April 2011: I bought a timeshare.

-Mid April 2011: I decided to go to Maui.

-Mid July 2011: I got back from Maui.

-Early July 2011: (exactly 10minutes into my trip) I decided I need to move to Maui.

Disclaimer:

If you've ever been to Maui, I apologize, this post is not intended to come off as boastful, arrogant or pretentious.

If you've never been, here's why I'm moving to Maui...

So Jess, Seriza and I flew out Friday and arrived in Honolulu around 9pm. We had a several hour layover (totally worth it) and decided to rent a car and drive around the island (who wants to stay in an airport for 8 hours??)

We drove out to Pearl City in order to explore a bit of the harbor (as much as we could with everything being closed)

Oh. LOOOVE all the ridiculous street names in Hawaii

Zippy's came highly recommended.

I highly discourage anyone from eating here.

(basically bland 7-11 food)

me and our ride for the evening

(SO fun to drive!)

Our intro to your basic, totally common GORGEOUS Hawaiian foliage...

I spy....a JESS

MAUUUIII!!!

Our awesome Jeep

(not the nicest car I've ever been in, but looking back on it now, I believe it heightened the entire Hawaiian-intro experience)

Our "welcome to Maui" rainbow

(aaand cue the Israel Kamakawiwo'ole version of "somewhere over the rainbow")

After we arrived, we drove about 40min away from the airport to our condo on Kaanapali Beach, in Lahaina (west side of the island). Once at our condo, we unpacked, ate, then headed out to...

THE MAUI MARKET!!!

Every Saturday a huuuuge market (think Art in the Park, Boulder City-style) is held at a park near Maui Community College. Seriza had heard of this from a friend at work and we decided we should check it out (souvenirs, beach gear, etc)

I found a pretty cute swim cover and experienced coconut milk straight from the source (not my best)

HAWAIIAN SHAVE ICE!!!

(not shaved, shave)

Our coconut supplier
(legit, no?)

cheeeeese!

see? very art-in-the-parky

JEEP HAIR!!!!

(aka NIGHTMARE HAIR)

Saturday we wrapped up the day at the beach (pics of that a little later on) and hanging out at our condo!

THE ROAD TO HANA:

Almost everyone I spoke with before the trip suggested we take the adventurous drive up to Hana, and since Celeste isn't much of a windy-road-traveler (bahahahahahahaaaaaaaa) we decided to do this activity on a day she wasn't there.

We stopped off at a gas station and there was this little booth that sold maps and a guide-cd that I think helped us experience Hana more fully

here we gooo!!

The roads were really windy (which we were prepared for) but not as bad as I had anticipated! ...probably because the scenery was soooo gorgeous. I hardly noticed the tight curves and narrow road

gorgeous.

can you believe this??? NO PART OF THIS PIC WAS EDITED!!!

It STILL amazes me that a place this beautiful exists on earth.

Stunning. As cliche as it sounds. Ab-so-lute-ly stunning.

A bit of waterfall facetiousness

even the phone booths in Maui are cute :)

Black sand beach

Theeee most unique warning sign i've EVER seen

this plant creeps me out.

...quick. Someone grab a biore strip.

gross

the cave of wonderrrrrs

its like CRUSHED OREO!!! :D

after coming back thru the cave, we met the Bear Grylls of Maui and his...dinner.

I understand camouflage..... Well no. That's a lie. I don't understand why anyone would wear it willingly, but I understand its purpose. What I realllllly don't understand, however, is why he had on a camo-bodysuit ....in the ocean. where it's blue. and ...not at all similar to what he's wearing. Whatev.

I still think he's bad-a

HANA!!!

We made the 3 hour trip up the mountain to Hana

(traveling up a mountain to a beach does not make any geographical sense to me, but...oh well)

The drive was awesome. I'm so glad we went. I'm not sure I'll ever do it again....well, probably not for a while, but I doubt I'll see scenery quite as beautiful anywhere else.....ever.

The view from our balcony :)

HAWAIIAN FOLIAGE:

all of these pics were taken right outside our condo. totally normal, everyday plants. I was absolutely amazed at how gorgeous everything in Maui is!!!

LUAU:

Why my face was soooooooo burnt the rest of the trip...

(i always picked the crappy side of the table to sit on. And poor celeste had to sit by me because of our 'disability')

oh. and i hate hawaiian food. it's tooooo sweet :(

"our boys"

yawn.

the fire dancers :)

by far the coolest part!

All in all, the Luau was really cool, but I don't know that I need to ever see one again. Apparently there is a cirque-du-soleil (I totally just spell checked that word and spelled it right the first time!!!) show that displays a lot of the 'culture and history of hawaii' that I wouldn't mind checking out next time I'm there (/when I move there permanently. tomorrow. for reals.)

okay, tangent time: I have a bone to pick with the Philippines:

The bone.

So I can't spell for crap (lie. I can spell really difficult, rarely used words, but occasionally brain-fart on the really simple stuff). so when you're country is The Philippines (one l and two p's??? Reeaaaaaalllly???) that sucks, and when you're from the Philippines and are Filipino (mmk, what happened to the PH, and the second p in the middle??) ...that sucks even harder. But then you go and call your food Pilipino food. That makes me want to punch you in the throat. for reals.

End of tangent.

What's better than Maui?

(nothing)

but what's better than Mickey Mouse pancakes in Maui??

(absolutely nothing.)

especially when this was the mix we used:

amazing.

Burrrrrrrrned.

I don't really burn, and I've yet to feel the pain from a burn....but I blister.

and the "after" is SUPER cute!!!

SEA TURTLES!!!

one evening, Seriza, Jess and I were hanging out on the beach outside our condo and this guy walks by and nonchalantly says, "you should go over to the reef (about 20ft away from where we were), there are some sea turtles over there..." then he walks off. We run over and start frantically searching for Crush (

) and we found him!!!

well...it's almost him.

JESS' FIRST VISIT TO THE BEACH!!!

i wanna go back :(

HORSEBACK RIDING:

i'd preface this section with the MOST HILARIOUS STORY EVER, but somebody would kill me...so i won't.

So we got to the ranch, were taxied down to the stables and assigned horses. Naturally, when the fugliest horse is pulled around and I say, "please bless that one's not mine," the ranch hand says, "girl. black tanktop. this your horse" (yeah, they speak like that).

me and shadow :)

grew to love this guy.

*note: throughout the 2hour ride, we experienced every variation of hawaiian weather, here, it was just beginning a torrential downpour.

so please. be nice. we got roughed up.

the right of passage "pee shot"

peeeeeeeeee

jess and duke

(prettiest horse!)

celeste's horse roxy was shy...

they call this shark rock

apparently a ton of Tiger sharks hang out around here

(hence the absence of surfers)

horses loooove to roam and be the bosses of their own lives.

The Pier:

henna.

(turtles = luck/long prosperous life. i got it cuz my last name is tuttle and i like them...but i like that they have a good meaning too)

jess and her pirate tat.

the banyan tree

(HUGE. like, 1x1 block)

yummy shave ice

i spilled.

SNORKELING:

we rented some snorkel gear from the Boss Frogs by our condo as well as an underwater camera, so here are our "intro into snorkeling" pics:

After snorkeling around our beach, we decided we could hold off until Thursday (when we had our snorkel tour scheduled) to go again (salt water sucks). When we went out to Molokini, the water was SUPER choppy and everyone started to get sea sick once the boat was stopped and rocking wicked bad with the waves (bahahaha. another forbidden story). Jess, Seriza and I got our wet-suits on and went out into the ocean to snorkel (and get off that horrible boat!). The water wasn't much better (the waves were so high the water kept getting into our snorkel tubes) but we did our best, and here are the pics from that excursion: