Honeymoon Part 2

...and we're back!

Day 6 (Friday): Busy Day

One of the things we really wanted to do while we were in Kauai was to hike the Kalalau trail {it came highly recommended to us}.  Promises of waterfalls, beautiful remote beaches, and little pools to wade in were made to us, so we made it a priority to drive around the island to the end of the road on the northeast side of the island to get to the trail head.  After more than an hours worth of driving, we arrived to this:

"Trail Closed"

A helicopter had crashed near the trail {don't worry, no one was hurt} and they closed it for awhile to clean it all out.  D and I were disappointed, but decided to roll with it and see where the rest of the day took us.

Some cool trees near the trailhead

First world problems: the trail we wanted to hike on was closed, so we had to drive the camero with the top down a whole extra two hours out of the way.  Our lives are so hard.

We stopped at a few places that peaked our interest on the way back towards our hotel.  Some were just cook lookout points, and we also tried to drive to see a lighthouse {but we didn't because it cost $10 and we didn't want to pay to see it up close, so we just got some far away pictures instead}

As close as we could get to the lighthouse without paying

At this point, we headed down a road off the main highway towards what we thought was going to be another trail.  Somehow we found a trail head, and decided to see where it lead us.  After about 2 miles or so, it opened up to a picnic area with a pretty cool view.  We then had a little picnic, and headed back to the car.  It wasn't full of waterfalls and pristine beaches, but it was better than just sitting around!

Cool view

Panorama of our lunch view

Super cool tree that reminds me of Game of Thrones

The weirdest part about the hike was how incredibly MUGGY it was.  It was almost too uncomfortable towards the end {I'll admit, I was hiking in my swimsuit for part of it}.  I guess we just really weren't used to being constantly hot all the time.  It was quite strange.

After the hike we got back in the car with some sweet AC, and then we stopped at the Foodland {yeah?} to buy more lillikoi ale.  That stuff was so good.

We then got ready to go to a luau!  We knew it was going to be ridiculously touristy, but I really wanted to go to one so we decided, why not?  D and I dressed up in our finest Hawaii casual attire and headed out the door to a shuttle to take us to the luau!

Totally fell in love with this dress!

ARGH we will make beautiful babies someday

So

Freaking

Handsome

We asked our concierge what the most authentic/least cheesy luau was, and we were surprised to hear him tell us "Smith's Garden Luau".  When you hear the name "Smith" the first thing that comes to mind is NOT authentic Hawaiian luau.  But he seemed to know what he was talking about, so off we went!

We arrived at the property and were greeted with shell necklaces and hugs from extremely tan and in shape people posing with us for portraits.  D and I gave each other the, "well we knew what we were getting ourselves into" look, and began walking around the gardens.  The other option was to take the little train tour for $5 where they drive you around the gardens and tell you about everything, but we took the opportunity to walk around for ourselves and take our time.

So this is where these flowers come from!

Chickens and goats! {For Becky}

Banana tree!

After walking around the gardens we attended the Conch shell ceremony where men blew on conch shells and dug up the kalua pig that had been cooking in the ground.  I think more people were paying closer attention to their iPhones/iPads than what the guys were actually trying to teach us about this tradition, but I digress.  We enjoyed it.

After the ceremony we were called to dinner in the massive dining hall.  Musicians were on stage playing hawaiian music, and we were served "all you can drink" mai tais and beer.  Yum.

Dinner was great.  We ate way too much kalua pork, other random assortments of meat, rice, veggies, fruit, rice pudding and poi.  Yes, we tried poi.  It was purple and didn't really taste like anything.  Nothing to be scared of. :)

At one point during the dinner, a guy got up on stage and proposed to his girlfriend:

  
Doug and I looked at each other, and then to the couple who had been sitting across from us at the table for dinner.  We hadn't spoken with them for whatever reason, but the woman was getting visibly upset about this proposal, and got up and left the table leaving the guy looking kind of dumbfounded.  D and I think she wanted one, too.

After dinner was the show part of the luau, which consisted of cool dancing, singing, and visual displays {including some sweet sweet fire}.  D and I were extremely irritated at first at the sheer amount of people using their flash on their iPhones/iPads to try and take pictures of the show in the dark.  After several minutes I think everyone finally figured out that their pictures weren't going to come out, and we were able to enjoy the show better.  It was a very cool experience, and I'm really glad we were able to do it!

Day 7, 8, and 9 to be continued... :)

<3 J