Wailua Falls

After a day and a night on Oahu, we headed off to Honolulu Airport before dawn to catch our flight to Lihue, Kauai.  The kids were very excited, because they knew that Grandma was also visiting the Garden Isle, waiting for us to arrive.

The Hawaiian Airlines flight to Kauai is short, only 30 minutes or so.  What made the experience so easy was that Noah got his own seat this time.  Even though he was about a month short of 2 years old, we strapped him into a window seat, next to Daddy, and he devoted most of the flight time to craning his neck trying to see out the window.  On the flight from Tokyo, Noah slept in the bassinette most of the time, but here he was in his own seat, and actually behaving well!

After landing at Lihue, we got our rental car and headed off to Walmart for some supplies.  On Kauai, we were not staying in a hotel.  This time, we  –along with Grandma and our friends from Japan, Shizuko and Akira — were staying in a vacation rental in Princeville.  So before the 45 minute drive from Lihue to Princeville, we bought some things we would probably need once we got to the house.

Grandma and Noah

Shizuko and Akira arrived on Kauai about an hour after we did.  We all stopped for lunch in Lihue (a Mexican restaurant…yeah, in Hawaii) and then drove up to Princeville.  We found the house with no problems and Grandma was already there, unloading luggage from her rental car.

Grandma and the kids had not been together since the previous summer, so being able to spend time on Kauai was especially nice!  As always, Sara was a bit shy, but Anri was very excited to see Grandma again, and Noah loved cuddling with her!  Shizuko and Akira were happy to see her again too.  The last time was on Maui after Sara was born.

Living and Dining Room, Hale Pakele

The house, named Hale Pakele, was very nicely appointed.  The living/dining area was luxuriously decorated and the kitchen was well-stocked with just about everything you would need.  And it has a great gas grill on the patio.  There were even two mountain bikes on hooks in the garage, and plenty of meach mats, beach toys, kites and other things to make a day on the shore fun for everyone.

The house has 4 bedrooms and 3.5 baths, and very nicely manicured yards, both front and back.  It truly felt like home, albeit a temporary one.  We knew when we were there that we would want to stay in that house again.

Waimea Canyon

But we didn’t go to Kauai to see a house.  We went to see the island!  Kauai is hands-down the most beautiful of all the islands.  It has great beaches, but when you stand on them, you would be more tempted to look inland, not out to sea.  The mountains, with waterfalls coming down off them and a rainbow here and there, are spectacular to see!  The mountains have fluted cliffs everywhere.

The beaches are some of the best in Hawaii, but unlike those of other islands, Kauai’s beaches usually don’t have resorts built right next to them.  In many cases, you have to put on hiking boots to get to the best beaches.  But once there, they are a wonderful sight to see! 

The Na Pali Coast

Lots of movies have been filmed here, including South Pacific, Blue Hawaii, all three Jurassic Park movies, and Six Days Seven Nights.  Kauai’s biggest attractions are the Na Pali Coast and Waimea Canyon, a huge valley that looks like a lush, greener version of the Grand Canyon.

Every day on Kauai, we got in the car and headed out to explore.  We went shopping in Hanalei, swimming at Lydgate Park, beachcoming at Ke’e Beach — where we saw a Hawaiian monk seal taking a rest in the sand – and did some serious hiking on the first mile of the Kalalau Trail. 

On the Kalalau Trail, Ke'e Beach in the background

The Kalalau trail is really 11 miles long, and all of it along sea cliffs, but Anri and Sara couldn’t handle that distance, and a hiking permit would be necessary to go the full length of the trail.  We figure a simple up and back to the first viewpoint is enough for this trip.  Sara went the whole way without any help.  She scrambled over rocks and climbed all the way there and back.  The last hundred feet or so, she started to let everyone know she was tired by saying “Ah…I’m tired!”  But she did it!  All on her own.  We were so proud of her!  It was steep in places and despite the existence of old stone paving on the trail, it was not easy for a three-year-old to traverse.

Horseback riding at Silver Falls Ranch

The trip was not lacking in other “adventures”.  During our stay, all three kids, Grandma and I, got a stomach bug.  That put the kids out for a day, and put Grandma out for about the same amount of time, but it didn’t stop me and Tomomi from going horseback riding.  Yeah, as long as I didn’t eat, I was fine.  Since it was our tenth wedding anniversary, Shizuko and Akira promised to watch the kids, so we could have some time together.  We went to the Silver Falls Ranch, near Princeville, for a two hour trail ride to a waterfall for a picnic.  It was just me, Tomomi and the guide.  The surroundings were lush and beautiful.

The Makaha Sons!

And at the end of the trip, we finished it off by going to a hula recital by the Hula Halau of Leilani Rivera Bond.  This annual event is a big draw and this year, the special musical guests were the Makaha Sons, a legend in Hawaiian music.  I wish I could say that I enjoyed seeing the Makaha Sons, but I had to leave early.  The kids were cranky so I took them back to the house, while Tomomi, Shizuko and Akira stayed to see the main event.  Tomomi came back later and told me about what a wonderful performance it was…yeah, the one I missed.  But at least she got to see it.  She was happy.  And what she is happy, everyone else is too.

The morning after the concert, we had to head back to the airport for the long trip back to Japan, but to our surprise, there in the Lihue airport, waiting to get on the same flight as us, was Jerome Koko, one of the members of the Makaha Sons.  He was very friendly and we chatted with him for a short time before boarding the flight.  A nice ending to a great week in Hawaii!

Noah was a nightmare on the flight back to Tokyo.  Ugh!

So, why did it take so long to post this?  While we were enjoying a nice morning at Lydgate Beach, we got a phone call from Japan.  It was the realtor who manages the house we rent in Nagano.  It seems the owner, in Tokyo, wants to move back to Nagano and wants us out by the end of March.  That means, clear out in about a month.  Not gonna happen.  Besides, our lease lasts until the summer of 2011, so unless the owner is prepared to offer some serious “I’m sorry” money, we won’t be moving out before the end of the lease.  It has put some pressure on us though — we wanted to find property and move in a three-year time period, but now that is cut in half.  So since we got back, we have been on a marathon search for some real estate.  And that leaves me with little time to sit and blog.

All the photos we took from our trip to Hawaii can be viewed here!

Though it has been ever a month since we got back, I have only now been able to sit down and write about the wonderful time we had on our trip to Hawaii in February for our tenth wedding anniversary.  Why did it take so long?  Read.

Our original plan was to fly to Honolulu and then on to Lihue on February 1, but with all the problems Japan Airlines has been facing lately, that schedule didn’t go exactly as intended.  We were informed that our flight was cancelled and that the airline wanted us to take a different flight later the same day.  But since the later flight meant that we would miss our separately purchased connecting flight on Hawaiian Airlines, we asked for and got a change to a JAL flight one day earlier.  Changing the Hawaiian Airlines flight would have cost $100 per person, even though the original tickets cost about $80 each.  Not worth it.  We figured it would be better to fly to Oahu on the 31st, stay in a cheap Waikiki hotel (plenty of those!), and then take our originally scheduled Hawaiian flight out to Kauai.  With this little problem solved, we booked a room at the Holiday Inn in Waikiki and on January 31, flew off to Honolulu.  The flight went without incident, and we got to watch the movie “Up” on the way.

Once we arrived on Oahu, we rented a car.  None of us had every been to this island before, other than the airport, which doesn’t really count.  We got a GPS system, since I don’t know the roads there and I would be the one driving.  I punched in the address of the Holiday Inn and then off we went.  First instruction: “Take the ramp onto the H1 Highway.”  Highway?  In Hawaii???

Driving down the H1 toward Waikiki, Tomomi and I were pretty quiet.  We passed in and out of several small rainshowers, and then, right around the Punchbowl area, Tomomi finally said, “It doesn’t feel like Hawaii at all, does it?”

“I was thinking the same thing,” I replied.

“It feels more like Tokyo,” she went on.

“Yokohama!” I corrected.  Yup, definitely Yokohama.  Our previous Hawaii experiences were all on Maui, where all the roads are more of either the easy-going country style or the elegantly decorative garden boulevards found in resort communities.  But no highways.

We drove on.  After about 25 minutes of driving, we arrived at our destination, only to find that the Holiday Inn was nowhere to be found.  We circled the block about four times looking for it, but where there should have been a Holiday Inn, there was instead a Ramada.  Finally I went inside to ask and found out that this Ramada Hotel was the Holiday Inn “until yesterday”.  OK…

They honored our reservation, though, so we unloaded the luggage and then got back in the car.  It was only about 10 in the morning, so we had the whole day to explore.  We hightailed it out of the city altogether.

The kids at Nuuanu Pali State Park on Oahu

We drove up the Pali Highway to Nuuanu Pali State Park, where there is a great view from the cliffs down to the windward coastline of Oahu.  The kids liked the view almost as much as the family of chickens strutting around the parking lot up there.

Next we drove down to the windward coast and headed up toward Kualoa County Park.  On the way, the whole family fell asleep, so I kept driving, making our way all the way up that beautiful coastline to a town called Hauula, just south of Laie.  There we had lunch at a great local eatery called Papa Ole’s.  We ordered a couple of plate lunches, scoops of rice with huge portions of teriyaki chicken.  It was way to much for our family, but very good!  Just as we got there, a biker gang of about 30 people rode in to have lunch.  A few of them played peek-a-boo and gave little waves at Noah and Sara.

The kids at Kualoa with Mikolii Island in the distance.

After lunch, we headed back down the coastline and stopped at Kualoa County Park.  There we let the kids out to run around and play a bit.  The view of the mountains on one side and out to sea the other is wonderful there!

Next we drove back toward Honolulu and on the way stopped at the Valley of the Temples.  There we saw an almost full-scale replica of the Byodo-In, a famous Japanese temple.  This replica was built in the 1960s to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the first Japanese laborers arriving in Hawaii.  We tried to keep the kids as quiet as possible here, but that was a very tough thing to do!

The Moana Hotel in Waikiki.

We finally got back to the Holiday Inn Ramada in Waikiki.  Our plan was to change and then take a walk down to the Sheraton Princess Kaiulani hotel, where Tomomi read there was a decent dinner buffet.  Walking past Fort DeRussy Park and then down Kalakaua Avenue, we discovered that Waikiki is a lot bigger than any map can suggest.  What I thought would take about 25 minutes too closer to 50, but the little tike Sara insisted on walking all the way there.  We had our double stroller with us, but this three-year-old absolutely refused to ride.  On the way, I finally understood exactly why Japanese people like Waikiki, yet I can’t explain it in words.  The best sight I had personally, was of the Moana Hotel, the oldest in Hawaii.

Dinner was good, and there was a live music and hula show to watch.  Anri and Sara were almost as entertaining as the hula show itself.  The girls were imitating every move the dancers on stage were making, and several of the guests devoted more attention to our noisy kids than they did to the professionals!

We had to get back though.  We couldn’t stay too late because the next day, very early, we were flying off to our originally intended destination, Kauai.  So, we walked back, a casual stroll, with Sara once again insisting on walking herself.  We stopped at a few shops along the way, kind of surprised that they were open until 10 and sometimes 11pm.  Once back at the Ramada, we crashed out.  Everyone was tired.

(A word on the Ramada:  It was surprisingly elegant, more than expected, and the staff was very friendly.  It was only $115/night.  A great deal for someone only staying overnight in this area!) 

The next morning, February1, we were up and on the road before sunrise.  Off to Kauai!

Read part 2 of this story here (including the part on why it took so long to write about this trip).

Photos of this trip can be viewed here.