Ring of Fire

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Aloha! We both woke around 4am this morning and sat on our balcony watching the sunrise and it was beautiful. There was a break in the water so it looked like a ship was flying across the ocean. Like an alien ship. Ha I took some pictures and tried to capture the situation. I swear I’m going to post tons of pictures someday soon. I walked to Starbucks to get an iced tea and Kamie decided he wanted breakfast. We had a fantastic breakfast at Bali Restaurant here in the village with a gorgeous ocean view from the back and lagoon view from the side. It was good food and good conversation.

Something happened yesterday that cracked me up and I forgot to share it. As we were walking into the Pearl Harbor Visitor Center this amazing hunk of a man in a uniform reached his hand across in front of me… and then said “Whoa – you need to check your bag ma’am, sorry” and then he pointed the direction of the purse check lockers ($7 to leave my tiny purse there for 2 hours). I checked my purse and as Kamie and I were walking back I was sorta giggling and said “I thought he was reaching out for a hug” and Kamie said “YOUR HUSBAND is RIGHT HERE!!” Bahahahaha Too bad I didn’t get a picture of said hunk.

Kamie took a nap after breakfast and I went to the ocean and took a dip but it was too rocky so I moved to the lagoon where I floated around for a while. It got warm out there quick and I was starting to get too toasty so I decided to sit by my favorite pool. I would read a few chapters, get a bit warm, go take a dip, and repeat. It was great. They have a towel exchange system here. Every time you want a towel, you use your digital key on your phone and you grab a towel from a giant locker or from a person, depending on where you are and what time it is. When you return the towel, you get a yellow card showing you returned it. At the end of your stay, every towel not returned or every yellow card not given to the desk at checkout is $20. I have at least 7 yellow cards right now. It’s a strange system because no one tells you those yellow cards are important initially (they give you two at check-in but don’t tell you what they are).

Around 3pm, we took showers and walked outside to meet a bus at 4pm that took us to the Honolulu Country Club for a luau! I was excited for this and it did not disappoint. The Maukau Warriors Luau is at the top of a mountain adjacent to the Hawaii Country Club. The traffic out there was bumper to bumper because it was nearly 5pm before our bus finished all the hotel pickups. They gave us a KuKui Nut Lei when we stepped off the bus. This is a lei made from the local candlenut and is a symbol of peace. We had our pictures taken and spent some time looking at the beautiful view because it was now sunset. We had a clear view of Diamond Head tonight. They had a big ceremony of digging up the roasted pig from the ground where it had been cooking all day. That was super cool. We had a meal and a couple of free drinks. They danced and invited the audience to dance with them. Then “the show” started and it was fabulous. Men aka warriors danced and women did different hula dances as they changed over the years. There were several dances involving fire but my favorite was an 11-year-old kid who is the world champion fire dancer at this time. He and two other kids did rings of fire and it was cool. The show had several costume changes. We both liked it. My favorite part was Kamie getting on stage and dancing. I have a video so it happened. He was supposed to wiggle his butt but Kamie doesn’t have a butt.

We came home tired but happy we attended. Earlier in the day, around 2pm, Kamie had said he didn’t know if we should go. It is not a secret to anyone that Kamie has Crohn’s disease and it’s not something that he can necessarily control. Today was one of those days. He drank water all day and sat around reading on his Kindle. I realize he probably didn’t want to go to the luau but we paid a lot of money for this luau and we had already missed Diamond Head and Kualoa Ranch so I just wasn’t ready to give-up on the luau. At this point, he doesn’t like to do much which is why our travel is going to change. He’s becoming a hermit. I think his work schedule makes it worse but I digress. He is a good person and he does have some health issues so we are simply going to have to learn to work around them better.

Overall, it was a warm day in Honolulu and then a wonderful cool and breezy night at the top of the mountain for the luau. It was fantastic. Mahalo for now!

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Photos

The finale
It was neat

These kids are 7 9 and 11 years old!
The 11 year old is currently the fire champion of the world - something like that. They were great. At one point, one of the kids got on the other kids shoulders all while they were both running a ring of fire around.

Everyone on stage is celebrating either...
..honeymoon or a wedding anniversary. Hawaii is full of honeymooners and people celebrating engagements and people celebrating anniversaries.

Dancers
The show had lots of costume changes and went through the history of the islands. It was interesting.

Warriors dance
They all did push-ups in a weird way at one time

The main guy (cousin Jerry?)
This entire show is ran by a family and they do an amazing job

Kamie's Plate
So-so. Not my type of thing but it was included along with two drinks and unlimited tea, punch, and water

My plate
The chicken was good

Comments

[Stacy]

This day started off very promising! The towel situation is AWFUL! Did Kamie ever tell you the story of the kid who said he should never wear skinny because he has no butt? I died. You needed this luau early on my friend!

[Eeda and Jahn]

The towels are ugly and no one would ever want to steal them but I suppose it keeps thieves at bay. They showed I had 4 towels or towel cards to turn-in at check-out. I had 7. Their system is "okay" once you figure it out. There are always plenty of fresh towels and you can get a new one all day long by just giving them your room number. It's a thing, for sure.