Kauai Day Five

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Day 233

I’m always entertained when I see Simon’s sleeping position during the night.

This morning Ron went for some scuba so Simon and I stuck around the hotel and went to the pool. We stayed in the kiddie pool for about an hour before Simon got a little tired and went back to the room. Isn’t he a cutie?

Ron brought home some food from Dani’s Restaurant. Here is the deep fried seafood platter (mahi mahi and scallops) with fries and mac salad.

Kalua pork with rice and mac salad and a small side of lomi lomi salmon.

After our lunch, we all decided to take a long afternoon nap, including Simon.

When we finally woke up from our naps, we went to the Koloa Rum Company Tasting Room. They offer a tasting every 30 minutes (on the hour and on the half-hour) but no children are allowed in the tasting room itself (so Ron and I had to switch off). Each person is only allowed 1 oz total of rum. They are very strict, likely because the state laws are very tough. But it is a short and sweet presentation and they also offer their chocolate rum sauce and rum cake at the end of the tasting. Here we mixed our dark and gold rums with their mai tai mix. It’s pretty potent stuff.

We did not end up buying any rum but did buy a small rum cake and some buttered rum flavored coffee.

After the tasting, we went to find dinner and ended up at Mark’s Place. Open Monday through Friday 10am-8pm. Closed weekends.

Simon waiting anxiously for our dinner.

We ordered the famous mix plate with chicken katsu, beef teriyaki, and beef stew served with rice, chow mein, and mac salad. Very yummy.

Also, we had the loco moco (mini serving without the salad). Sauce was delicious.

Plus 2 freshly made SPAM musubi for tomorrow.

Simon is resourceful in using us to help him stand up.

He is also slowly getting better at crawling on all fours.

Here he is moving a few feet. Notice how his ankles and legs cross each other? Not sure why he does that but that is also how he “walks” sometimes when we are helping him stand up. It seems like it slows him down (which may be a good thing)… maybe something he’ll grow out of.

Kauai Day Four

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Day 232

I found Simon had wrapped himself up in his blanket early this morning. We usually put him down stretched out lengthwise and his head the other direction. For some reason, he finds sleeping across the short width of the crib more comfortable so tosses and turns until he moves this way. Silly baby.

The morning view from our room.

Happy to be out and about to start our day.

We headed to the North Shore today and stopped by Kilauea Fish Market for lunch. We had the refreshing yerba mate iced tea.

The sesame ahi poke. It had yellow onions, green onions, and sesame seeds plus a soy-wasabi dipping sauce. Very fresh and good texture. Chunks of ahi were cut in awkward pieces though, some were really big or small and some in-between.

The grilled mahi mahi taco with salsa, cheddar cheese, and a garlic-cilantro cream. Pretty tasty and the mahi mahi was grilled well, not dry. We gave Simon a few bites of mahi mahi and he seemed to like it so maybe we’ll have to try to feed him some fish when we get home.

Ron ordered the ahi wrap which is wrapped in a sun dried tomato tortilla with brown rice, carrots, cucumber, mung bean sprouts, green onions, bell peppers, tomatoes, organic greens and creamy oriental dressing. All the vegetables were very refreshing and it didn’t feel heavy at all even though there was plenty of seared ahi tun wrapped in.

After lunch, we dropped by the Kilauea Lighthouse.

We took a closer peek ($5/person, <16yo = free) since it is also a wildlife refuge. Recently, a bunch of babies were born and were nesting in the ground. This is a wedge-tailed shearwater nesting bird hatchling, if you can see that fuzzy gray colored thing in the hole.

I think this is the ne ne bird that Kauai is famous for.

As you can see, the lighthouse is undergoing renovation right now and it is slated to be complete by it’s 100th birthday in 2013. Right now it does look pretty weather-worn with windows broken and the lens boarded up. If we come back to Kauai, I hope to see it restored.

On our way to Hanalei, we stopped by to check out the view of some taro fields. We ended up stopping by Hanalei Taro & Juice Co. which makes smoothies with a taro base rather than a milk or yogurt base. We ordered a mango papaya smoothie (even though they ran out of bananas so they weren’t going to sell any smoothies today) and although it was refreshing, you couldn’t really taste any taro, maybe just a little grittiness of the taro base but that was it.

We continued driving and stopped at Tunnels Beach for a fresh coconut drink.

There was strong currents today though so not appropriate for swimming.

The best scuba is usually here but with the big waves during the winter, people do not go scuba during this time of the year. Also, we should have known better to not sit too close to the water’s edge but our things got a little wet when the water surprised us when a big wave splashed down and the edge of the water came all the way up to where we were sitting. At least only our feet got wet.

We tried to let Simon drink some coconut juice but he couldn’t suck that hard through the length of the straw. Simon has figured out how to drink from a straw but only if it is a bendy straw and if it has been cut in half. He doesn’t have enough “sucking power” yet. He has also learned how to drink from a water bottle since it is sort of like his milk bottle but without the nipple so he pulls the bottle towards his mouth, either puts his entire mouth around it or on the lip and I help to tilt the water into his mouth. I’m surprised whenever he can actually take a few gulps. I think it entertains him a bit.

The beautiful green mountain behind us.

Right below the green mountain is a dry cave. Not much to see but pretty cool.

We continued driving and reached the end of the highway at Ke’e Beach.

Along the beach were these visible tree roots since the water had washed away all the sand underneath it.

Ron held Simon to let him put his toes in the sand.

Right after this picture was taken though, a big swell caught us again and we got wet up to our knees! Ron almost lost a shoe but it stayed at the edge of the water so he was able to retrieve it. Simon wasn’t affected at all though since Ron was holding him in his arms. I understand now why where was a lifeguard tower and there were actually lifeguards there, it’s easy to get caught by these big waves. We’ll have to go back to South Shore for some calmer beaches.

We then slowly made our way back to our hotel. First we stopped in Princeville to walk around the shops and have some ice cream at Lappert’s. On the left is Kauai Pie (Kona coffee ice cream swirled with chocolate fudge, coconut flakes, macadamia nuts and vanilla cake crunch) in a chocolate-nut waffle cone and on the right is Big Island Inspiration (Vanilla ice cream with chunks of fudge brownies and chocolate) and Pumpkin Crunch (seasonal) in a regular waffle cone.

Simon enjoying a toe while we’re enjoying ice cream.

Then we stopped by Kapaa Farmer’s Market to get some fruits to try. They had this neat sign.

Then we went nearby to this place called Chicken in a Barrel to pick up dinner. They smoke their meats in an old oil drum. It smelled really delicious, a very good smokey smell. The beef was maybe a little too charred but everything else was delicious, including their chili which had big chunks of ground meat.

We bought Simon a big Hawaiian avocado. It’s supposed to be creamier than Haas but it actually didn’t seem that way. It seemed harder even though it was ripe but still able to mash easy enough for Simon’s little gums. He seemed to like it. His favorite foods now are avocado, puffs, and cookies. Not really healthy huh? I hope it’s a phase he’ll grow out of soon.

Other fruits we bought include the apple banana, starfruit, and cherimoya (I think) plus a Haas avocado thrown in (we bought it just in case we couldn’t find a Hawaiian avocado so Simon would have something to eat). The apple banana is supposed to taste a bit like apple and also turn pinkish or reddish with cooking or ripening, we’ll have to see if it does that. This starfruit should be sweet since it’s almost orange in color. Cherimoya? Not sure how that will taste. There is also something called an egg fruit that I’d like to try. It’s shaped like an egg and inside texture is like a hard boiled egg (kind of dry and pasty) and supposed to taste like sweet potato.

We did pick up some baby yogurt with peach for Simon to see if he would eat it. He ate about 1/3 of it (most of it on his face) before he stopped. He would only eat it if we let him hold the spoon and direct it into his own mouth.

We worry that Simon isn’t eating enough solid foods and seems to prefer to drink milk. It’s been tough feeding him while on vacation as there isn’t much of our food that he can eat since it usually has too much salt or is fried or he just can’t gum. As I mentioned, he tried mahi mahi today and seemed to enjoy it so we’ll keep on trying to feed him whatever he is willing to eat. I just hope he’s getting enough nutrients. I guess I shouldn’t worry too much as long as he keeps on growing.

Also, I would like to say thank you to everyone for the birthday greetings these last few days! I feel very loved 🙂 We’ve been having a wonderful time here on Kauai, what more could anyone ask for on their birthday? 🙂 Thanks again!

Kauai Day Three

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Day 231

Today we decided take a drive through Waimea Canyon. Simon got dressed up in his Hawaiian shirt and jeans and we went on our way.

We stopped in Eleele for some breakfast at Grinds Cafe and Espresso. It smelled delicious when we walked inside, kind of like roasted garlic, so we were hoping for a good meal.

Simon fell asleep in the car and slept through our breakfast.

I ordered the Portuguese sausage skillet with potatoes and 2 eggs over easy. The potatoes also have green bell peppers and onions and some melted cheese. The sausages were thick and plenty of it but the potatoes were a bit burnt and very greasy.

Ron had their fried chicken cutlet (like chicken katsu) with rice and scrambled eggs. It was sort of like chicken fried steak except Japanese style and chicken. I guess what I mean to say is that the white gravy is similar to the chicken fried steak gravy.

After breakfast, we stopped by the Kauai Kookie Company for some free samples and picked up some cookies for home. They have delicious flavors like guava macadamia nut, mango mac nut, haupia mac nut (although sold out so we could only sample), lavender mac nut, etc.

Then we dropped by a grocery store to pick up a bottle of water for our drive through Waimea canyon. Simon’s first ride in the seat of the shopping cart.

Our first stop was at the Waimea Canyon Lookout. We put some sunscreen and a hat on Simon since we didn’t want his delicate skin to get sunburned.

Then into the Ergo Baby Carrier to go exploring.

They had white hibiscus plants at the lookout point. Very pretty.

Hello from Waimea Canyon!

After that lookout point, we decided to drive all the way to the end to the Pu’uokila Lookout. We came too late though so the fog started to roll in and we didn’t really get any good pictures.

Once the fog rolled in, you basically couldn’t see anything else but the fog.

We tried to hike down the trail a little bit but Simon was being really fussy. He was really tired so we ended up turning back and heading to Kalalau Lookout. Simon fell asleep in the car so Ron stayed with him while I ran out to check out the view.

Apparently they do some missile testing and research in the area. I wonder if this building is part of it. Looks like a big golf ball.

We stopped at one more look out point, Puu Hinahina Lookout. I was greeted by this rooster.

There is a view of the private island Nihau where visitors are not allowed so you can only see it from afar.

It’s that flat thing in the distance.

The other side has a view of the canyon. Lots of different colors and interesting shadows. I wish I had my dad’s DSLR but it’s so cumbersome to carry now especially with all of Simon’s stuff.

On the drive back to Waimea the city.

We stopped by Shrimp Station Restaurant for lunch. They have sauteed shrimp, fried shrimp, shrimp tacos, and a shrimp burger.

I had their coconut shrimp with fries. It is served with a papaya ginger sauce that compliments the shrimp well. I really liked these as it was really fresh and the coconut was nice and toasty.

Ron had the shrimp burger which also had the same papaya ginger sauce. The patty was chopped up shrimp pieces with some binder to make it into a patty.

After lunch, we stopped by Jo Jo’s Shave Ice and ordered two of their “favorite combinations”, #2 and #4.

Simon checking out #2.

Ron’s partially eaten #4.

The mac nut ice cream on the bottom was the best part. I could have probably done without the shave ice actually… but not to say that the syrup wasn’t good and refreshing. There was just too much of it. Also, according to Yelp, the location we went to on the main highway is not the good Jo Jo’s… the good one is the one in the alley around the corner called Original Jo Jo’s Anueanue Shave Ice. Apparently the one of the main highway was sold by the original owners but the buyers didn’t keep the quality up to par so the original owners reopened a shop in the alleyway by customer demand. Not sure if it makes much difference as I’m not sure what really good shave ice is supposed to be like.

We still had a good cool dessert break.

and we ran into the gentleman Lionel who told us all these places we should eat at. Ron started chatting with him on the plane from SFO to HNL and got some good tips on where we should eat. We ran into them at Hamura Saimin on Day 1 and now again at Jo Jo’s on Day 3.

And upon his recommendation, we went to Da Imu Hut Cafe in Hanapepe for some takeout dinner. We actually tried to go there this morning for breakfast but they only open 10am-2pm and 5pm-8:30pm. So we decided to try our luck and go there again. We had about an hour before it was going to open for dinner so we drove through Salt Pond Beach Park, hoping to see some salt being made but I guess we are out of season since it seems like they do it only in the summer when it was warm. Apparently salt water is pumped into large vats and the water is allowed to evaporate then more water is pumped in until the vat is super concentrated with salt. I guess it makes sense it is done in the summer when the sun is warmer so that the water can evaporate faster. But we drove by anyhow just to take a look before heading to get our dinner at Da Imu Hut Cafe.

Their menu is on the entrance.

We ordered a combo plate of teri fried chicken and fried chicken served with rice and mac salad. It wasn’t as crispy when we finally got back to our hotel but still pretty tasty. The batter has something sweet in it, kind of like mochiko rice flour.

We also had their saimin noodles which has a shrimp based broth. The noodles were a little soggy since it probably soaked up the broth on the way home but the wontons were interesting as they had fish paste as a filler (at least that’s what we think since it wasn’t pork).

The noodles also came with a teri chicken stick. Extra protein if the noodles weren’t enough.

End of Day 3. Tomorrow we will be exploring North Shore.

Kauai Day Two

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Day 230

After our long day of flying yesterday, we decided to take it easy today and stay around our hotel and check out the pool. Simon was up early this morning though since he still thinks we’re in California. He actually got up several times this morning and didn’t want to go back to sleep even though it was still dark. It will be hard the next few days while he readjusts (IF he readjusts).

Peacefully sleeping…

Then wide eyed and awake at 4:45am HST (7:45am PST)…

He eventually went back to sleep after 1.5 hours so I could go back to sleep then woke up wanting to eat so I fed him some breakfast of his favorite prunes and a bit of pureed banana. He will eat purees if you intermingle spoonfuls with his favorite puff snacks.

After breakfast, Simon had a change of clothes and had some quiet time to play in his crib. He seems to like this crib as he has discovered how to stand up!

Here he is in action going from sitting to standing by using the crib rails.

Kind of like in jail.

Ron and I needed to get breakfast ourselves so we walked around the back of the hotel then across the street to Market Street Diner. Along the way, we checked out the weather forecast.

I had spam with 2 eggs sunny side up, wheat toast, and hash. Standard fare.

Ron had the loco moco with 2 eggs over easy. The beef was a little over charred and the gravy lacked flavor.

On our walk back, Simon konked out and napped for a bit in his stroller. I had a nap too.

After he woke up, he and Ron had a conversation which Simon found really funny. Maybe he thought daddy was silly trying to speak baby language.

While Simon waited for us to decide what to do for lunch, he had a snack. He had his first cookie.

And made a big mess of himself so that he needed a change of clothes afterwards…

So instead, we decided we should just go to the pool and splash around. We started in the 0.5 ft pool to get him used to the water then Ron blew up his inflatable toy to let him float around in the big pool.

He didn’t like the inflatable toy much so instead we held him for a bit and let him splash around.

But then he got fussy and started to rub his eyes so we assumed he wanted to go back and take another nap. After a shower and change of clothes, he was wide awake again wanting to play. Ron put him “in jail” for a bit so that we could decide what we wanted to do.

We decided to go out to have lunch ourselves so walked to our car. There was a beautiful hibiscus plant right near our car.

As we drove to Pho Kauai, of course Simon decides to finally take a nap.

Ron had the pho.

I had an avocado shake with pearls. Although I’m pretty sure this is powder avocado flavoring, lots of ice and milky flavor instead of rich creamy avocado. Pearls weren’t bad though.

Plus the vermicelli with grilled pork and egg rolls. Best part were the egg rolls.

After lunch, we did a bit of driving which included driving through the famous Eucalyptus Tree Tunnel.

We just did a bit of walking around before heading back to our hotel. In the next few days, I hope we can hit a farmers’ market for some fresh fruits as we passed by a papaya tree that I wished had ripe fruits..

We didn’t really know what to do for dinner so asked a local and she recommended take-out from Garden Island Barbeque and Chinese Restaurant. We were intrigued by the name but the food ended up not being very good. We had the lemon chicken with teri beef combo and the crispy chicken.

It was “meh”, edible but probably not a place we would eat again. At least we still have another 5 day to find some better grub.

Kauai Day One

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Day 229

We arrived safely in Kauai today without too much trouble although we were all exhausted and did not do any exploring this evening.

We didn’t have the best night of rest since Simon woke up around 3am and wouldn’t go back to sleep until he had some milk. He seems to be waking in the early morning again since he hasn’t been eating much dinner. He looks so peaceful here though at 2am.

Thank you Dan for giving us a ride to the airport this morning. At the airport, the Hawaiian airlines counter was a bit disorganized and we weren’t able to print our boarding passes online or at the kiosk so we were directed to wait in another line. While we were in the line, they told us we needed to wait in the other line. We stayed put and were eventually helped. It was basically because our connecting flight was overbooked so they wouldn’t let us print out those boarding passes. But the attendant that helped us eventually printed us priority boarding passes for our connecting flight and handed them to us at the gate. I thought that was great customer service that made up for the disappointment earlier.

We had a bit of coffee and a pastry while waiting for our flight to board. Simon still in his PJs to be comfortable for the flight.

On the plane, Simon checked out the luggage trucks outside loading our plane.

On take-off, Simon didn’t even let our a whimper.

He fell asleep shortly into the flight.

Then continued to sleep in my arms for about 2 hours.

He woke up as there was noise in the cabin during the meal service. The complimentary meal was a spinach frittata.

Upon arrival in Honolulu, we had to take a bus over to the interisland terminal and check-in at the gate to get our seat assignments. We ended up being seated in the very last row of the plane but at last we got onto the plane.

Then arrived safely on the island of Kauai! It was a really short flight, maybe 45 minutes end-to-end. Simon got a little fussy though since I’m sure he wanted to stretch out and because we were in the back, it was really noisy and he couldn’t hear himself.

Upon exiting the airport, we were greeted by the famous Kauai chickens… why did the chicken cross the road? To avoid getting run over by a car of course!

On our way to our first lunch in Kauai.

Ron met this gentleman on the airplane who recommended this place called Hamura Saimin Stand. Here is their menu.

We had a teri chicken skewer and a teri steak skewer.

This is their special saimin with won tons.

The won tons were different than what we are used to since it had chopped pork instead of ground pork. It gave it an interesting texture while eating.

The noodles were nice and chewy and the broth light but rich. Either we were just really hungry or it was really really good since we finished our bowls quickly.

We also ordered a slice of lilikoi chiffon pie to go. It was very light and airy with a crunchy light crust. The lilikoi flavor was very light though, it almost just tasted like lemon chiffon pie but there was that hint of passion fruit flavor as well.

Afterwards we did a little shopping at Kmart before heading to our hotel for the evening. Simon got to finally change his clothes and stretch out. He showed us his card tricks with our hotel key card.

Simon had some playtime in the crib provided by the hotel.

Then we basically all konked out for the evening. Ron fell asleep at 6pm. Simon fell asleep at 6:30pm. I fell asleep at 7pm. Ron and I eventually woke up hungry for dinner around 11pm but not much is open that late here so it was off to McDonald’s which is open 24 hours. Simon will probably wake up soon too so it might be a long night for all, including our neighbors.

For traveling mommies who exclusively pump breast milk, don’t read if not interested… or read if secretly interested but don’t want to admit it 😛 … since Simon won’t take milk from the boob anymore, I’ve been solely pumping and bottle feeding him. It brought up some difficulty while traveling though since there are no electric outlets on the plane and my pump does not use batteries so I had to pump before I left home and find a place in the Honolulu airport to pump. In the interisland terminal, there was supposed to be a family room but there were no signs directing me to where it was and the employee I asked had no idea where it was so instead I got stuck in the ladies’ restroom, standing at the baby changing counter (which is a basically a tiled table), pumping with my nursing cover on. I’m guessing newer model pumps can run on batteries or if you don’t have one, invest in one that does. I’m grateful to my coworker who gave me her pump but it doesn’t do well for long plane rides. Also, I’d check online to find out the location of the family rooms (if there are any) at the airport. The Southwest terminal at SFO, has a family room with a nursing chair, a changing table with a sink, and a foam bouncy house and all you need is the code to get in.