Sand. Surf. Rinse. Repeat. Ah. Maui. The condo rocks. And what a relief, because you never really know, ya know? It's not like they put up pictures on the website showing the water damage in the bathroom ceiling. So it's always a crapshoot. But we scored big time on this go 'round, thanks to Mr. Johnson's connections. And we kicked our first day off with a crazy schedule of ... well ... bobbing up and down in the ocean. That's pretty much it. And there were several rounds of discovering just how much passion fruit and guava juice to put in [View Full Entry]

---

---

So we were up at 5:00 AM and scurrying around packing the last items and consoling the dog, all on 4 hours sleep. The car service arrived promptly, even after Kenneth was relentlessly teasing me about it not coming, and off to the airport. Seamlessly. We checked in and boarded Hawaiian Airlines HA0011 and off we went. On the flight we were pampered thanks to first class upgrades purchased in a last minute bit of impromptu silliness, but wow what a nice thing… even if only for a nicer seat and a place to but 6’5” legs. And then there was [View Full Entry]

---

---

Most of my travels and blogs are anything but vacations. My trip to Hawaii was exactly what I needed- A VACATION!!! Trust me, there is no better place in the world to vacation than Hawaii. As a spoiled child I went to Hawaii every year (hey its my dad's favorite place!) and actually got sick of going to Hawaii. This was my first time there in 8 years. I forgot how much I love Hawaii. It is absolute Paradise. It all started last February when I decided to stay in Japan another year. I knew that I wanted to see my [View Full Entry]

---

---

Fine, 33c Toast, eggs and a glass of champagne - that was my first breakfast in America! Only 6 hours earlier I’d met my very lively Aussie seat buddy Shane who’s moving to the US, only the 3rd Aussie I’ve met in nearly 5 weeks. He decided we needed to celebrate our big adventures, so there were a few bottles of airline sized red wines and “cheers mate” in row 18. It was kinda fun and I felt very excited to be traveling again, an achievement in itself considering I hadn’t slept properly for two days and the journey definitely wasn’t [View Full Entry]

---

---

I'm going to have to make these a little more concise now that I'm paying for the time to write them, plus there probably won't be any photos as again I'm on public computers so it might be a bit difficult timewise for the uploads. Day 8 Not a lot happened to me today, the six hour flight from San Francisco coupled with the wait at Honolulu meant that most of my day was spent in transit. I did meet a nice man on the plane from San Francisco, though, who was the regional head (State of Hawai'i) of Morgan Stanley. [View Full Entry]

---

---

Hi there, We have now uploaded pictures of Fiji; take a look at the 'Bye Bye Fiji' entry and see what we got up to. Don't laugh too much!!! Having a good time in Maui, lots of sun. Today we hired a couple of bikes but came accross a few more hills than we were expecting! I spent most of the morning waiting for Ginnie to catch up!! We have also been utilising the gym facilities at our hotel...in an effort to return the healthy lifestyle of the previous 6 months, rather than the last 2 months! Tomorrow we have hired [View Full Entry]

---

---

Well, bizarrely it is still Sunday the 8th, it has been now for nearly 45 hrs for us, courtesy of crossing the International Date Line on the flight during the night! Consequently we arrived in Honolulu this morning about 15 hrs before we left!!Good news is that I managed to safely get through US Immigration with all my Green Card visa details complete! It's official now, they have let me in!! We then got straight onto another plane and flew out to another island - Maui... We spent the day by the pool, enjoying some much missed sun (forget Fiji!!) Temps [View Full Entry]

---

---

Day 1 - Thursday, Maui We arrived after a very short smooth flight from the Big Island. What hit me straightaway was how much hotter it felt in Maui. The airport was bigger than I expected and it was so much busier, which felt slightly strange seeing as the Big Island is larger than Maui. We picked up our massive 4x4 from the unhappy Alamo people and went on our way. As soon as we got on the main road there was an announcement stating that there were major delays on the road to Lahaina which was the one we were [View Full Entry]

---

---

What is better than celebrating my big birthday in Maui? When I close my eyes every night, I can still hear the sound of the ocean, I can still feel the sands between my toes, I can still smell the fragrance of tropical flowers. I remember the taste of Kalua pig & cabbages from "Aloha Mixed Plate", the seared beef on grilled papaya from "Mama's Fish House" and macadamia nuts pancakes from "Gazebo". I remember the excitement of biking down the Haleakala and the close encounter with green turtls. It was indeed a happy birthday. [View Full Entry]

---

---

Today we continued our morning ritual of waking up early, having Breekfast at the hotel and going to the pool. The buffet is really good with a nice atmosphere. The restaurant is open air, with all the tables facing out to a lagoon with a waterfall and Japanese-style garden. Two white and one black swan swim around, while sparrows fly in and around the restaurant, on the floor and tables, looking for food. They play soft Hawaiian music and it’s all very relaxing. It only takes a few minutes of sitting at the pool to start roasting. The sun gets hot [View Full Entry]

---

---