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i am going on my first big trip!!!
i will be using this webpage to document my trip with pictures and stories and other things that i see fit. thank u for joining me!!! closest post to top is newest idk really how to make a website 🙂
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SATURDAY DAY 2
day of many treats!!!
i got my freaking coconut!!!!!!! have been dreaming about this for a very long time. we went to the Kauai community market which ROCKED. bought so many beautiful tropical fruits i have never heard of before from small farmers on the island.
we bought tiny Thai ice cream bananas, cream apples, Kona oranges, durian!!!!, banana flowers, pomelos, special….. beans……???? yes. i loved it there.
we also went to Kauai Bakery and got 10 million gorgeous malasadas which are Portuguese donuts that are really popular in Hawaii. other pic is one Abbot just sent of me eating the sweet hot dog yesterday. i did not know that i look like this while eating 🙂 i look like i am about to bite my own fingers.
lata i snuck off by myself to get pupu and poke from Hononiki Seafoods because nobody else I’m here with likes fish!! when i got there there was a line of locals out the door. i made friends in line who recommended the hokkigai clams (top left) which BOPPED!!!!! i love eating.
then….. i don’t have any pic evidence of this but we spent many hours swimming and snorkeling in the ocean. i saw a big ass school of fish and they let me swim down in between all of them and they didn’t run away! this was huge for me because I’m actually really scared of fish. it’s nice that you can still scream while you have the snorkel mask on.
ok THEN EVEN LATAAAA we got shave ice which i had never had before!!!! and didn’t know!!! that there’s ice cream in the bottom! yay!!!!! i got honeydew lychee and pineapple flava with haupia on top. it seems as though i simply love fruit.
perhaps the greatest treat of all though……… was that actually before any of this, i woke up at 3:30AM and hung out alone on the beach for hours in the pitch black darkness looking at the stars and getting scared by different driftwood logs until sunrise. sunrise made me go “wow” and “no way” and “are you freaking serious” today. because i was sitting my ass in the cold wet sand and flopping about on logs and running and rolling etc etc, once i got in the water at sunrise (shark feeding time oopsie!!!!!) it felt soooo warm and nice.
here i am interacting and celebrating. lmk if the sky in these pictures makes you hungry because i know i am!!!!!
it is 9:30pm for me now which means I’ve been awake for 18 hours on 4 hours of sleep so pardon if this post is kind of um whateva. i love you ty for reading.
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FRIDAY DAY 1
today we saw many waterfalls and did many things! i am so tired big day!
this morning i woke up at 6 and watched the sun rise over the ocean and cried about god. the colors and the way the sky tasted (???) was so intense that it made me nauseous and dizzy. i was trying to drink the sky i was trying to open my retinas up like port holes on hinges and suck the air in so i could feel the light on the humidity particles brush across the lobes of my wet brain. well yes you could say i liked what i saw.
hot dogs or legs the volcanic rock is SO cool covered in barnacles got to see lots of skittering crabs. we’re staying in a little apartment very close to the water, it is unbelievable to wake up and look at the ocean RIGHT THERE. i learned that there are chickens EVERYWHERE!!!!! ON KAUAI!!!!! because of two hurricanes that happened in the late 80s and early 90s. a lot of coops got destroyed so loose domesticated chickens bred with wild red junglefowl and now their population has exploded because they don’t have any real predators. a lot of people see them as a nuisance but i think they are fun. they get really close to you and are not scared of anything and they walk all about with their babies. the only sad part is that the stray cats are afraid of the chickens!!!!
the ocean water is really warm and clear and very pleasant to the touch. i cannot wait to swim in it tomorrow i hope!!
Abbot finally got here this afternoon and it has been fun as hell to CHOP IT UP together. we were college roommates and he is one of my oldest friends!! he is fun to be a goddamn idiot with. we ate vegan SWEET HAWAIIAN HOT DOGS from Puka Dog and they were so FUCKED up good. mine had star fruit relish and sweet Hawaiian mustard on it and it’s still all i can think about. the sweet hot dog made me tired but it is my favorite thing i’ve eaten on this trip so far. extremely wet and the bun is closed off at the bottom so all the slop can gather there for your last bite. no muss no fuss!
there are a lot of waterfalls here. they are all so pretty and make me feel like im gonna fall over. today we saw ‘Opaeka’a falls and Wailua falls. it’s really weird to just like drive up to them and look and say “okay :)” then drive away. they are these extremely powerful ancient gigantic thundering forces and fr*aking Linda from Utah or whatever is standing next to me saying “once you’ve seen one of these you’ve seen them all” mama you’re about to see something brand new when i push you off this cliff.
i’m having a lot of strong negative feelings about the powerfully evil vibe of tourism here and everywhere (while I’m actively doing it!!!!! smdh!!!!)! i will not go into my many sadnesses around this because they are (hopefully!!!! damn!) obvious but i will just say that i am very grateful to get to experience this place, AND will probably never do anything like this again, AND i want to k*ll m*rk z*ck*rb*rg.
anyway. i have very much enjoyed the plants i’ve gotten to meet so far and the conversations with locals i’ve had about these plants! someone i met this morning told me that there are two kinds of naupaka (the plant with the little flowers above on the right) – coastal and mountain. they each have flowers whose petals are in a half circle, just on opposite sides of the stem. he said there’s a Hawaiian legend that Naupaka (a princess who lived in the mountains) had a forbidden romance with a poor fisherman (named Kaui). they were forced apart because of a big storm, so they tore a flower in half to represent their eternal forbidden love!! and that’s why the plants are like that.
speaking of forbidden love, here are two kinds of animals we saw today that i wanted to kiss on the head sooooo bad. we went to Poipu beach and saw freaking wild monk seals (ʻīlio holo i ka uaua, which translates to “dog that runs in rough water”) and sea turtles (honu). sea turtles are believed by many native Hawaiians to be guardian spirits, called aumakua, who are mediators between the physical and spiritual worlds. i believe that!!!!! we got to see them sleeping on the beach and they looked so warm and calm and like they know everything there is to know. the monk seal we saw up close looked like a freaking puppy and was snoring so loud we could hear the honking from the many respectful feet away we were. when lil diva rolled onto his belly we gasped in delight.
more tomorrow xoxoxo