The trip back was as smooth as could be.  The flight from Honolulu to Seoul was on time, and we mainly stayed awake reading, listening to music, and watching bad movies.  In Seoul we had a couple hours to kill, so we split a traditional Korean plate dinner with a couple of German beers.  The food was really spicy, and it really felt like we were in another culture – even while eating at the airport on a transfer.  Kuniko and I both felt like we should try to get to Korea again soon on a culinary adventure trip some weekend.  The flight from Seoul was a piece of cake – just an hour and thirty minutes, and then we caught the bus to Kobe, and a train to Akashi, and a taxi to our house.  Everything was in perfect condition when we got back, but we were too tired to unpack and we left it for the next day.  The trip was wildly successful – another trip to put our top ten list. I think we’re starting to run out of space, though.

Our last full day in Hawaii began with sleeping until 10 am, and then Kuniko ran down to the hotel spa for an hour massage to further relax herself.  I spent the time on the sunny balcony reading a book and sipping beer.  In the afternoon we went back to the beach for our last swim in the ocean, and our last mai tai at the beach bar.  I was able to arrange a table on the beach at sunset back at the previous restaurant we had visited, this time with prime rib on our plates instead of lobster.  The timing was perfect to watch the sunset as we ate.  Kuniko’s first prime rib experience was a good one, and we snapped some pictures of the sunset along with lots of people gathered on the beach for the same reason.  It turned out to be a spectacular finish to a great vacation.  On the way home we stopped one last time at ABC mart, and I couldn’t resist buying one last Spam musubi.  It’ll be a while before I can eat one again in Hawaii.

We woke up late on Wednesday with a pretty simple agenda. Walk to the nearby shopping center at Ala Moana and do all the USA shopping that we needed to do in one day. We walked over in the morning just as the shops were opening, and then I went bananas. I got lots of long sleeve business shirts (my proportions aren’t easily available in Japan), business shoes (my size is also not available in Japan), and then we went bought lots of other small things that we’d been meaning to get. My cousin had thoughtfully supplied many things that I was looking for (Rice a Roni, antiseptic cream, and spices) but there were a few other items I wanted (Chef Boy Ardee Ravioli, mint extract). After shopping so hard we went back to the hotel to drop off the loot, and then walked across town to a Japanese restaurant called Gyotaku. Our waitress the previous night had recommended it as a good place to get local (Hawaiian style) sushi, and this place was perfect. We ordered a rainbow roll that had lots of avocado along with the raw fish, and a poke roll that had a wonderful salty/spicy poke sauce with sesame oil. Two rolls of sushi and we were good for lunch.

The rest of the day we spent hiking around town burning calories, sitting on the beach, getting more calories via the hotel bar, and napping in our room. We decided to go out and try to find some good prime rib, since Kuniko had never had it before, but thanks to the lack of internet access on my phone I couldn’t get us there. We stopped for directions and were pointed to the wrong place completely across town, but by the time we got there (around 8 pm) we still weren’t all that hungry. We decided to just get some (more) sushi, this time to go, and we brought back three unusual rolls back to our hotel balcony with a six pack of beer. It was a nice relaxing evening listening to the cheesy hula show below, and looking out over the ocean. We had pretty much fallen into a state of complete relaxation by then.

On Tuesday morning we finished up all our packing, and then we drove out to do some last minute sightseeing (and shopping at Whole Foods) with Susan.  The weather was beautiful (as usual) and it was kind of bittersweet knowing we’d have to say goodbye soon.  Once we got back we organized our stuff and dragged it out to the rental car, and then said our goodbyes.  Goodbyes are always hard, and this was a tough one.

From there we drove out towards the airport, but decided on stopping at a restaurant for some lunch before catching our flight.  We found a greasy spoon diner that served burgers and Hawaiian BBQ near the airport.  Afterwards we returned the rental car without any trouble, and then caught a flight from Maui to Honolulu.  Our hotel was a short taxi ride away in Waikiki, the Ilikai Hotel.  Kuniko had picked it out, and it was a pretty nice one.  The place seemed a little old, but in good condition, and we had a room on the 23^rd floor with a nice view out over the ocean and lagoon.  Between our hotel and the Hilton across the way was some kind of event center that held buffets and hula shows nightly for the tourists.  We could watch for free each night from our balcony, but since it was twenty floors below it was hard to catch the details.  We didn’t really stick around for the show, but instead headed to the beach for some more swimming.

I used Yelp on my phone to find a decent restaurant on the beach (Ocean House) that served lobster, and hours later we were enjoying lobster tails and scallops after dark.  Combined with a bottle of Kenwood Brut sparkling wine it made for a nice celebration dinner.  Kuniko picked up the tab for dinner, and we were amused to see that the server included a tip chart with explanations on how to tip in Japanese, Korean and Chinese.  A little cheesy, I thought.  We walked back to our hotel on the sidewalk along the beach, and reflected that it was a good first day in Waikiki.

Since everyone else had work and school, Susan offered to join us on a drive to Hana on the eastern side of Maui. We had never been out there, and I wanted to see what it was like on that part of the island. It is a long, windy road, so Zen-like patience is required. We split up the driving to make it easier, and it was really a beautiful place to drive. We stopped in for some banana bread at a stand halfway to Hana, and also took some pictures along the jagged volcanic coastline. I took over the driving from that point, and we passed through Hana and then on around to the southern side of the island. Originally I had expected that we would go to Hana and then come back the same way, but as it turned out it seemed like we would be able to completely drive around the Haleakela volcano and get back to the Underwood place in Makawao. So after calling Dave to see if he thought it was possible (“sure, go for it”) we drove on around. I was struck by the contrast between the north side of the volcano (lush, wet, heavy vegetation) and the south side (rocky, dry and barren). Our first stop past Hana was the Seven Sacred Pools state park – and it was beautiful. After having enjoyed jumping into pools the other day it wasn’t so important to try it again here, but it was nice to see them up close, and to see how they lead to the rough ocean nearby. We stood in the wind and I took pictures like crazy to try to capture the feel of the place. So beautiful.

Once we left the pools and continued on the road things got bumpy. The road changed from pavement to occasionally rough, and back again. Sometimes it became a dirt road, and then temporarily a paved road. It would have been hard to drive in rough weather, but luckily the day was beautiful, and we had no problems. The only problem was the sharp turns and lack of visibility on what was essentially a one lane road. Sometimes we had to turn the corners slowly and just hope there were no surprises coming the other way. After a long, slow drive on very bumpy roads we started to emerge on the other side. We could see volcanic rock everywhere, and the color of the blue sea was even brighter against the dry brown windswept grass everywhere. It was a long trip, but it was a great chance to spend more time with Susan talking about this and that, and really catch up. We hadn’t really had a chance for much conversation the last couple of trips, so I was glad to have the opportunity.

Finally, we finished the loop, and after stopping at a rather mediocre winery we ended up back in Makawao. Susan suggested some pupu and beer at the local Mexican restaurant. More Mexican food? Sounds great to me. We sipped beer and had nachos and had a good conversation. The breeze floating through the place really reminded me of the atmosphere in Mexico or Southern California – I wish they had places like this in Japan. We wrapped up the evening with leftover night – trying our best to kill off all the delicious leftovers that we had developed the last few days. We did pretty well, but I think despite our best efforts we still left some food in their fridge. We gave it a shot, though. Our last night at the Underwoods was one of the best – we watched “Little Shop of Horrors” (which was a bit of a culture shock for Kuniko), and afterwards we all went out and sat on the roof of the house to watch the stars. It was a great moment to sit together under the blanket and take in the cosmos together. We even got to see a shooting star up there – talk about good timing. Since this was our last night we said goodbye to Dave and the kids before we went to bed. It was so good to spend time with them, and hopefully we’ll have a chance to see them sooner rather than later.

Since we had the whole family together on Sunday we drove out to Lahaina for some more beach time.  I drove one car with Alex and Kuniko, and it was fun to spend time talking with Alex about this and that.  She is a bright kid and she could keep up a conversation well.  At Lahaina we went right out to the beach.  The beach here was especially nice, and a little crowded, but we found a good spot and we all went out swimming.  Alex even climbed up “Black Rock”, a dark set of rocks out on the ocean where brave souls could jump into the deep water.  Alex jumped it easily, but everyone else skipped it.  It looked a little scary to me.

We swam for about an hour or so, and then headed back to our cars, and onwards to the Maui Brewing Company beer pub for lunch.  There we could eat some Hawaiian pub grub and try the local beers.  All the beers I had from Maui Brewing were good – but with so many on tap it would take a long time to try them all. Once our bellies were full of food we drove off to town to walk around a bit and to get some shave ice from Alex’s favorite shop.  The workers in the shop seemed to know her by sight, so she must be a regular customer.  I love shave ice, and this place offered to add three flavors to your cup.  The texture was really unique – much finer than the kakigori that we find here in Japan.

After all of that, we drove back home, and Susan put together some fajitas for dinner.  Kuniko and I were thrilled to get some Mexican food on this trip – it is pretty rare to get it outside of our home in Japan.  To top it all off, Kuniko poured some sake for Dave and Susan, and we enjoyed some of the local sake that we had brought to Hawaii.

Saturday Dave and Drew took us out to visit some waterfalls and pools where we could swim.  It would give us a chance to swim in something besides the ocean this trip.  We followed the Hana highway until we reached a popular roadside trail, and then followed the trails to three different pools that were under three different waterfalls.  It was beautiful inside the jungle, and since we were wearing our suits we jumped in the pools and got a nice waterfall massage.  At each pool there were people jumping into the water from the rocks above, and it was fun to watch some of the jumpers performing flips and other acrobatics before hitting the water safely.  After swimming for a while we sat on the rocks surrounding the pool and let the tiny fish in the water nibble on our feet.  Ticklish, but fun.  Walking around with Drew was fun, too.  It was good to hear about his opinions and various subjects – he wasn’t so talkative at first but he started to warm up afterwards.

After a few hours of hiking and swimming we decided to call it a day and head into town to find some Spam musubi.  One of my favorite Hawaiian foods is a well-made Spam musubi from a local store.  We struck out at the first place we went, but they did sell hot dogs there (the strange orange sauce turned out to be mayo and mustard combined).  After missing out there, we went to a local Chevron station and finally scored a couple.  Yum!  After snacks and juice we went back to another beach, and got some more time out in the water.  We just couldn’t get enough of the beach this trip.

Back home Dave and Susan barbecued a huge feast – steaks, shrimp, chicken, along with side dishes of lomi lomi salmon, a delicious bean salad, and plenty of rice.  We tried to make a dent in all the food, but I’m afraid we couldn’t come close to finishing all of it.  After dinner I did try to eat slices of leftover pizza to see if I had any allergic reactions, but nothing happened.  Had to have been the salad.  We also watched the movie “Be Kind, Rewind” and had some red wine – a good finish to the day.

We started off the day with a drive out to check out some beaches.  We ended up traveling out to Kahului for a couple of beaches and ended at Kihei.  It was really nice to put our toes in the surf and walk around without a care in the world.  We had lunch in Kihei in a café that served us sautéed mahi mahi, and after a couple of cocktails we hit went swimming one more time and then headed back to the Underwoods’ place.

They took us to a flatbread pizza place in the hippie town of Paia which had some enormous, delicious pizzas.  My favorite was covered with goat cheese, but they had plenty of options on the other pizzas to keep us interested.  There was a waiter that Alex kind of liked named Seth who I was interested in meeting, but unfortunately he wasn’t working that evening.  We kicked off the dinner with a salad full of exotic ingredients – which caused me some problems later on.  But the evening was great and we left with full stomachs.  I drove one of the cars back home with Kuniko and Susan, and then we came back inside and played some ping pong and got ready to watch a movie.  It was just about that time that I felt a little bit of itchiness on my arm and leg.  I went into our bathroom to look in a mirror, and I could see that I was getting some kind of allergic reaction starting.  This has happened before about a year ago, but this was a particularly strong reaction.  I tried to go out and talk with everyone, but I almost passed out all of the sudden.  After causing a general panic, I decided to lay down and just wait for the reaction to pass.  Susan gave me some Benedryl to try to stop the reaction, but I don’t think it had any effect.  After about an hour, I felt much better and the hives disappeared.  It was a little bit of a scary situation for a while there, but then everything was fine.  Who knows what caused it – but I didn’t have any other problems like that the rest of the trip.

We started off our holiday slowly.  Our flight out toSouth Koreawas around 6 pm, and having finished packing at around 9 am that morning we found ourselves with nothing especially to do.  In the end we decided to get organized and leave early, and kill time at the airport instead of waiting around at our house.  Both were air conditioned but at least at the airport someone else was paying for it.

We had our ceremonial “first drink of the vacation” at the bar in Kansai International, and then we killed the rest of our time walking around the airport and writing last minute e-mails.  Our flight toKoreawas delayed a bit, but we made up some of the time in the air and were able to make our connecting flight with plenty of time to spare.  Then it was just eight hours in the air, mainly sleeping.  Surprisingly, our seats were somewhat separated, and I switched my aisle seat with Kuniko’s emergency exit seat.  That put me next to two cute girls for eight hours.  I (wisely) decided not to start any conversations.

We had a few hours to kill at Honolulu airport before our quick flight toMaui, and then we finally met up with the Susan, Alex and Drew at the airport. They put leis over our heads, and gave us a very warm welcome.  It is always good to see family again after so long.

Dividing and conquering, I took Alex and Drew with me to the car rental place, while Kuniko went with Susan back to their place.  The car rental went smoothly enough, but I was surprised how many dents, bumps and scratches were all over the car.  Luckily I had purchased the loss damage waiver, so I didn’t have any problems.  Still, if I hadn’t, it would have taken 20 minutes to outline all the damage on the form. Seemed like a scam to me.  The care itself was fine – and we drove on out to the Underwood estate to kick off the rest and relaxation.

It was our first time to meet the family dog, Bentley, and he was a very friendly (and agile) pooch who didn’t mind crawling all over you to show his affection.  Kuniko was a little wary at first, but they had made friends by the end of the visit.

Susan and Dave put out a bit platter of homemade lasagna for dinner, and we ended up in bed a little on the early side thanks to all that travel in one day.  What started out as a slow day ended up being quite a long one, as well.