Day 235
We went today to check out Spouting Horn, a natural wonder that occurs when water rushes under the lava shelf and bursts through a small opening at the surface. A pretty cool site, complete with sound effects (from a nearby blowhole) and we saw some sea turtles nearby.
We went to find ourselves breakfast and ended up at Poipu Tropical Burgers. Bad choice. We should have read Yelp before eating here. Their menu sounded good and the service started out well but we were disappointed and irritated by the end of the meal. We ordered the cornflake crusted French toast with guava sauce with 2 eggs and Portuguese sausage. This is what we got for >$10.
There is about half a banana there for Simon to eat but he ended up not wanting to eat it. Instead he spent the meal squirming and wanted to get out of the stroller.
A few things were bad at this restaurant. The quality was bad, look at that soggy French toast. The value was terrible, >$10 for that little food. The service was not friendly nor helpful. I had asked if I could have half a banana for Simon since he started to eat bananas yesterday and I wanted him to have some breakfast. At first, the waitress said no, they can’t do it but when I asked again, she said she would ask the chef. At first I was happy when we got the banana for Simon, until we saw the bill. They charged $1.50 for those few slices of banana but she hadn’t even come to inform us before putting it on the plate and charging us for it. At the very least, I think she should have come to tell us how much it would cost so that we could choose to get it or not. I would’ve just tried to feed Simon some jarred baby food instead if that was the case. $1.50 for half a banana?! Probably wasn’t even half.
After breakfast, we went to check out the beach near the Marriott Waiohai Beach Club. Very warm and pretty.
It’s almost time to say Aloha to Kauai.
Another stop during the day was to the Kauai Coffee Company Visitor Center. They have a nice little walking tour that takes about 20-30 minutes (lots of signs to read).
Simon next to some coffee plants.
Back at the visitor center, they have a lot of coffee out to taste and some interesting memorabilia. It was a good to be able to try their coffee and although they were very fragrant, I wasn’t a fan of the flavor of the coffees. Most left a strange aftertaste to me and were more bitter than I like. I usually like my coffee dark with a touch of cream and without sugar but couldn’t handle these beans.
We did some shopping around town before heading back to the hotel. We stopped by Costco which is just like any other Costco except that they carry some Hawaiian products and apparently make a great ahi poke (but didn’t get to try it). When we go to Hawaii again, I think this should be our first stop for water, milk (they sell it by 1 gallon instead of 2), snacks, etc for the week. You end up spending a lot at this small grocery chains and ABC, etc. After we got back from shopping around town, Simon did his stretches with daddy.
Then since he didn’t seem tired, we down to the pool again in the early evening. He got a little bored and started sucking on the octopus tentacle.
Although we did this yesterday, I didn’t make a video until today. Simon got “dunked” into the water. Yesterday, Ron dunked him straight down while covering his nose (so water wouldn’t go up inside) but today, another dad recommended that you make Simon “dive” head first so that the water will just pass the top of his nose rather than run the risk of going up inside. Does that not make sense? Well, check out the video to see. Simon didn’t seem to mind much and he held his breath automatically. Still makes me nervous though.
Ron also started to put Simon horizontally to mimic actual swimming and at first, Simon didn’t do anything, just kept looking around and smiling and giggling but then he started to really get into it by flapping his arms and kicking his feet a little bit. It was so adorable and people around us kept on smiling and laughing with Simon. You can see a bit in this video with his arms doggy paddling and his feet slightly moving. He’s on his way to becoming a water baby!
With all that exercise, he was understandably tired so we couldn’t go out to dinner since he went to sleep early. Ron instead went across the street for takeout from Kalapaki Joe’s. Here are their fish tacos with onions rings. The tacos were very refreshing and delicious slaw. Onion rings nice and crunchy even for takeout.
The nachos with kalua pork. Also yummy but could do with some more sauce or something (like more sour cream or guac…).
Tomorrow it’s time to head back to the bay area!