Kauai Trip- day 1

June 25, 2009

We woke up pretty early for our 8:50 am flight. Sarah's uncle had to drop us off by 7:30 because he had to be at work around 8:15. Grandma, Mrs. Comstock, Tyler (Sarah's brother), Sarah and I checked in pretty easily. The flight to Kauai was only 20 minutes and we were out of the airport with the rental car at about 9:30. We had seen in magazines and website that chickens and roosters run rampant through the island. The first thing we saw outside the terminal was a rooster. Sarah's dad had mentioned of a place called Ma's Restaurant but we asked the Alamo gatekeeper and he said it closed down about a year ago. Our Plan B was Hamura saimin. Saimin is like Ramen noodles but way better.
We arrived at about 10:10 and the place was already packed with locals chowing down on Saimin (opens at 10) so we had to wait about 15 minutes.

From 062509

From 062509

I had the special and Sarah had the Regular. For a side Sarah and I got some skewered meats (2 chicken, 1 steak). I probably could have eaten 10 of them. For dessert, we got a lilikoi (Hawaiian Passion-fruit) chiffon pie. Overall, the entire meal was amazing!



After brunch, we made our way from the town of Lihue to the town of Kapaa (about 20 minutes) on a the main 'highway' of Kauai. Sarah found a 'cute' little vacation rental on the internet vacation rental websites but the pictures were nothing to what we drove up to. The place was dirty and the owner wasn't expecting us. Apparently Mrs. Comstock had a PayPal malfunction and the payment didn't go through. I ended up using my PayPal to pay for the rental but didn't mind since I get the WorldPoints. After that whole ordeal, Sarah myself and Tyler decided to explore the island and traveled to a not so advertised waterfall, Kipu waterfall.
We had to travel through this narrow dirt path that was surrounded by a long grass or sugar cane. Once we got to the waterfall, we took a few pictures and prepared to jump in. I started out by jumping out using the rope and then coerced Sarah to jump off too. Soon after, I jumped off the waterfall itself. It was quite a rush to jump from that height. Sarah was hesitant to jump from the cliff side but finally did it and actually enjoyed it more than the rope. Tyler had a sweet camera and took a sequence shot of one of my rope jumps which turned out great! He also got one of Sarah jumping off the waterfall!


After jumping off a few more times, we decided to head back to the vacation rental. I felt adventurous which I guess is a good thing when you want to stumble upon random things. We came across some mini horses that had a cool background so I decided to take a few pictures.

We ended up going by this old fishpond that was apparently created hundreds if not thousands of years ago by natives. They built up two breakwaters along this river and created a slit for water to flow through. They installed wooden planks and separated them enough so that small fish could get in. The slits allowed small fish to get through but the fish would grow and not be able to get out. Its a clever way to farm and simple yet effective. Once we got back to the 'resort' it was time to chow down. We walked to the main strip since it was a few blocks away and ended up eating at a Asian/Hawaiian style place. Sarah and I both had the Hawaiian style pig. The interesting thing about dinner was that it was across from a Hawaiian church and they were singing loudly in Hawaiian!

I'm off to bed, we are going to Pearl Harbor tomorrow early in the morning! More updates to come!