aloha maui

ok, i have peeled myself away from facebook to finally write a post about my vacation. for the record, i'm hating blogger right now b/c it timed me out of my session, and it didn't save any of my changes, so i had to write this post all again!

i went with 4 other friends from back home, but only one still lives in edmonton. one is in vancouver, two in calgary, and me in toronto. even though we don't see each other as much, we are still very close and talk all the time, but this vacation was a good chance for us to get together. especially since it's usually very difficult to coordinate everyone's schedules these days.

natalia, sandy and i flew into maui on saturday, and sim and thils on sunday. this was our first day on the beach before the other two girls got there. the weather was impeccable, also considering i was leaving -20 degree weather, i was especially happy. this was kaanapali beach, where there's a row of nice hotels right on the beach.

we stayed in the city of lahaina, which is in the western part of the island. we rented the top floor of a house used for vacation rentals. this house was super cool, and also nicknamed the tsunami house because it is entirely made of concrete and can withstand huge tidal waves. it was originally built by jerry garcia. then a porn star lived there. so i'm sure some crazy stuff happened in that house. the property manager (sean) and his wife and dog lived in the pool house. a guy named armand and his mother lived on the main floor. a girl named mattie lived on the second floor and her boyfriend victor was visiting at the same time we were there. and then we had the 3rd floor. the staircase in the middle connected everyone together.

there was this crazy massive banyan tree in the middle of lahaina. thils and i are standing at the main trunk, but this tree branches off and creates different trunks, so it almost looks like there are several trees in this park, but it's really just one. there are 12 major trunks, is over 60 ft tall, spans over a 200 ft area and shades 2/3 acres. it was a crazy looking tree.

another thing natalia heard from someone who had been to hawaii before was that there is a banana bread stand in the north part of the island that is suppose to have the best banana bread in the world. who can say no to that?! so we went on a little excursion to find this stand. the drive was pretty amazing b/c it was along the coast and through the mountains. so many hairpin turns too, so that was a little crazy. and once we got closer, and were really in the residential part of the mountain side where this stand was, the lanes became smaller and really only had room for one car for both directions. so when we came across a car wanting to go the opposite direction, we'd have to find a somewhat wider part of the lane, squeeze as close to one side as possible to let the other person drive by. it was kinda crazy, but the banana bread was indeed good. at one point it was a little scary b/c we were driving out and back to the highway, but there was another car coming, so we sqeezed over to the cliff side of the lane, but we were in a ford escape, so it's not a small car. i wasn't sitting on that side of the car, but apparently we were really close to the edge of the cliff. i don't want to die in hawaii by going down a cliff in our car, just b/c we wanted to get banana bread.

one of the things we had heard from a few people who have been to maui before was that we needed to go on one of the bike tours down haleakala national park, which is in inactive volcano. we signed up for the sunrise tour, so they take you up the mountain to watch the sunrise, then you bike down it. we also did a self-guided tour, so we could go at any pace we wanted to. it was also flippin' freezing up at the summit before the sun rose. we were standing there shaking from the cold. it was a nice sun rise, but way too cold. sure we knew we were going up a mountain, and it would be cold. but who knew it would be THAT cold!

we had to be at the bike shop at 3:30 am. it was an hour away from our house, giving ourselves some wake up time, etc. we had to wake up at 1:30 am! we went to bed at 9:30 that night. this is a picture of the girls waiting outside the bike shop before we went up the volcano. it was so early, we were all pretty delirious and giddy.

so when you're in hawaii, you have to go to a luau. the only one we could book so last minute was at the hyatt, so i'm sure it wasn't a authentic luau. but it was still lots of fun. this is a picture of us in line before the luau started. there was tonnes of food, and it was a buffet dinner. we set up a game plan before going to get our food. no salad, minimal bread, load up on all the meats, and a little bit of vegetables on the side. the food was so good! and i totally ate too much. this whole all-meat game plan was a little much, but oh well. there was also unlimited alcohol, but we didn't get trashed, it was a classy place! they had performances, dances, and skits. it was also valentines day, so i think the luau was extra busy.

natalia and sim wanted to go surfing, so armand took them out one day. sandy, thils, and i hung out on the beach while they were surfing. they were pretty good too, both could stand up by the end of the lesson.

natalia ended up crashing with another surfer. she grew there, we flew there! (a blue crush reference we kept using the whole trip). i'm assuming she was a local because she was pretty good on the surfboard, but i'm not sure.

we walked around town a few times, and this is a picture of us hanging out by the pier, chilling out, taking in the scenery.

we hung out on our patio (or as it is called in hawaiian, a lanai) every night because it was so big and a nice place to relax. it also had a view of the beach. this night, victor and armand came up to hang out with us as well. apparently the neighbours were saying we were being too loud, but whatever, it's a vacation rental house.

spending so much time in the sun, it's important to put on sunscreen for protection. sandy took this to a new level. she started with spf 70, then downgraded to 45. she would put on two coats in the morning, and then reapply every hour or so. but considering it probably takes about 15 mins to reapply, she probably reapplied every 45 mins. every time she felt hot, she would reapply the sunscreen. this is a picture of her with the sunscreen on the beach. but that day was kind of cloudy and rainy, i don't even think any of us took off our clothes to be in our bathing suits on the beach that day. but there's sandy, applying the sunscreen. it was a running joke all week, sandy and the sunscreen.

since we rented a car, we could drive and see more of the island. this is one spot we stopped along a highway to take pictures. the view was spectacular. this is me, sandy, and natalia.

this is my diPod relaxing on the beach with me. i got some sand stuck in the earphones. oops. a little souvenir from maui. is it kind of weird that i talk about it like it's a living object? perhaps. just a little.

so that's about all from my trip. i had an incredible time, and it went by way too quickly. was nice to hang out with the girls again, made me feel like we were in high school again, even though we're way older than that now.


...'til the next girls trip, but that probably won't be for awhile.