We walked back to our hotel, rather than taking the bus. Along the way Mark pointed out the crazy Christmas decorations that he'd seen on the same route Friday - a giant blow-up Santa and his wife, chilling by the pool with soft drinks and diving penguins.
As Mark pressed one of the pedestrian cross buttons he let out a yelp. With all the recent heavy rain something must have gotten wet that wasn't supposed to, and touching the metal button gave Mark a good, strong shock. I may be exaggerating when I list "near electrocution" in this entry's title, but we'd just played around with a simulation of an electric eel shock at the San Francisco Academy of Sciences and Mark told me the shock he got here was much stronger. Fie on you Oahu - we're ready to get off this island!
We didn't do much the rest of the morning - just packed up. On the news we heard that Hanauma Bay was closed due to the heavy run-off - apparently the "brown water" attracts sharks.
I'd hoped to get a manicure/pedicure, but the spa at the hotel was all booked up, a nearby shop that I'd read about was closed for the day (even though their website said they were open Mondays), and the little place across the street hadn't opened up by 11:00, even though their sign said they open at 10:00. Fie on you again Oahu for denying me my pre-wedding indulgence. So I went and bought a cheap bottle of nail polish (from the ABC Store - where else?) to do it myself.
We flew mid-afternoon to Kaua'i, picked up our rental car, and found our resort, Kaha Lani, fairly easily - we missed our turn-off, but since the resort is on a loop road we encountered it without even trying after getting off at the next turn-off. Happily it's only about 10 minutes from the airport, so an easy drive. And it's also next to the ocean, in a fairly isolated spot, but with shopping a quick drive down the road.
Mark's sister, Sara, was already there, having flown in the night before from Vancouver. She'd had a bit of an adventure, getting in so late at night that her luggage wasn't available, then taking a taxi out to the resort to find that they weren't expecting her until the next day with the rest of us. Her friendly taxi driver, Darson, turned off the meter and stayed until someone showed up and found her a room.
Mark and I got settled in, did a grocery run with Sara, and started cooking a curry stir fry dinner for the three of us. Just then the rest of our families (Mark's father, John, my mother, Edith, my sister, Heather, and my brother-in-law, Anthony) showed up - they'd been booked on a later flight for the last leg of their journey from Oahu to Kaua'i, but luckily got spots on the earlier flight. So we threw on more food, briefly caught up on the travel stories, then headed to bed, with everyone but myself and Mark tired out from flying and disoriented by the time change.
Loving the sixties-era bureaucratic architecture!
Crazy mash-up of tropical setting and Christmas tradition.
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