Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Shopping, Shave Ice, and Sh.... (Luau Night)

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

This morning, I went souvenir shopping in Lahaina Town with my sister in law Barb and niece Morgan. Rick stayed behind to enjoy the house alone while his father took the younger kids to the Maui Ocean Center.  Arnie and Steve went golfing very early.  Diane and Sally went snorkeling.  I found some fun, cheap sundresses for Fiji and tried to shop for everyone back home, but I just couldn't imagine dragging everything on to Fiji.  After shopping, Barb and Morgan got shave (not "shaved" they make a huge deal of that!) ice and shared with me.  It was heavenly! Difficult to think of a pile of shaved ice with flavors described that way but there really are no words for how good it was.
This isn't our picture, but this is exactly what it looked like - HUGE!  Vanilla ice cream underneath, too!

All of us went snorkeling in Kapalua for the afternoon.  Rick came upon 5 VERY large sea turtles (honu).
Only 2 of them - the biggest was twice the size of these.

Being as afraid of the water as I am (only because I can't hold my breath underwater like normal people because of nasal/frontal sinus issues), it usually takes a good 15 minutes to suck up the courage to even put my snorkeling equipment on.  This time, I actually didn't think twice about throwing on my snorkeling equipment and jumping in in less than 5 minutes of Rick yelling for me to come see the turtles.  Heck, I didn't even take the time to put my snorkeling vest on - a first for me - and now I don't think I'll ever use a vest again! Anyhow, YAY! After all of the turtles except the largest one swam away, I was feeling pretty good about my snorkeling skills.  I found a lone, glowing fish and decided to just follow him wherever he went.  Lame, maybe, but it's very rare for me to enjoy being in the water, so I just went with it! This was the type of fish I followed (Picasso Triggerfish):
From Wikipedia 

Tonight, I was really looking forward to the Grand Lahaina Luau.  Having lived in tourist cities and currently living in an over sized tourist city, I wasn't ready for the island's largest tourist trap.  It rained most of the time and they seated us in an area that looked like an outdoor cafeteria - complete with... wait for it... PLASTIC RAIN PONCHOS! I was imagining people walking around Cedar Point and Bourbon Street in those stupid things and here I was, needing to wear one.  Oh well, everyone else was doing it, right? There's a picture of Rick and me being really goofy in ours, pretending to be walruses with our drink straws to entertain the kids.  I'll put it in this post as soon as I find out who has it.  It was classic.  I must say, the kids had a great time.  I don't think I saw them without smiles all night.  Another cool thing was the rainbows.  There were some amazing rainbows that appeared throughout the night.  The food was incredible, too.  I won't say too much about the Polynesian dancing because I think I'd be hypocritical.  I can't dance, period. However, I've seen better Polynesian dancers at Disney.  I was hoping that native dancing on a native island would blow me away.  But it didn't.  Let's just say it was all a bit "Love Boat-esqe."  




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