Honeymoon Part IV - Rising Sun

The next day began earlier than most; at 2:30am. Richel and I had to wake up early for the shuttle service that was coming to get us at 3:15am. We had a trip to Mt. Haleakala to watch the sunrise. I had heard that the road to Haleakala was long and quite dangerous and so decided that I would rather not drive there myself, being unfamiliar with the roads. Richel was determinted to bring a blanket because that's what it said on the activities receipt: "bring blankets". Richel likes to be prepared, unlike me who likes to go on the fly and improvise (maybe that's why I'm always in trouble - but I had brought my ski-jacket. I looked ridiculous on the plane to Hawaii, but so what?). So we weren't leaving the room without a blanket. The problem was we didn't bring blankets with us on our trip, so Richel had to "borrow" the hotel blanket for the time being. That's okay, the maids wouldn't miss it at 3am and we would be back before housekeeping would get to the rooms.

So down to the lobby we went stealing the hotel blanket, and in the lobby we met Ewi, our driver and guide. He was a nice and friendly guy, conversational, and quite knowledgeable. We had to stop off at another hotel to pick up one other couple, and then we were on our way to the summit. It would have been nice to just enjoy the quite ride, but our driver kept talking and talking all the way to the mountain top. He wouldn't stop!

We finally made it to a point that was almost the summit. We were at about 10,000ft up, even above the clouds. At first, looking down from the mountain nothing could be seen except a vast and dark emptiness that swallowed everything up including the sounds of our voices.



Off on the horizon a sliver of orange light slowly appeared. It was still dark but at least there was something to look at, now. But the novelty soon wore off, as the same orange line on the horizon didn't change for the better part of an hour and the 39 degree temperature was a shock to our system.



I started taking pictures every ten minutes or so as it slowly became brighter and brighter. So slow in fact that I made snoring noises while we waited, and the couple beside us started laughing.





It finally got bright enough to see the mountain top with the clouds behind it. A lot of people thought it was the ocean at first. In any case, we continued to wait until...



The sun came up and it came up blazing fast (pun intended)! I almost missed it: it started as a reddish sliver and before I knew it it was half way above the horizon.




In any case, after taking pictures of the sunrise for the past hour, I concluded that perhaps all the theories of the sun and planetary bodies being spherical were all wrong. Apparently, we have a square sun.



Okay, time to go up even higher. We went another half mile up the road to the pinnacle and looked down. It was nice up there because the clouds covered all the buildings and development and all you could see was the ocean with the neighboring mountain and sky. It was then that I decided to carry on Goh's and Gah's tradition and have my picture taken. Without explanation, only Gah and Goh would understand these pictures.



As Gah and Goh had their photos taken while they were "creating the world" at Yosemite Park, I would continue that tradition and have my picture taken here creating the world at Mt. Haleakala.



And Richel would help with some creations, too. She put in all the butterflies.

Anyway, now that the world was sufficiently created, it was picture time.

After we had taken enough photos and our guide got bored and came looking for us, we rode back down the mountain to a small little cafe/diner to have breakfast. It had a beautiful view, and we had a prime spot right in the corner.

On our way, however, we saw a series of bunkers on the side of Mt. Haleakala. According to our guide, these bunkers were built back in the days of WWII to defend against the Japanese. So I presume those were built in the late 1940's-1950's. Ironic that 30 years later Japanese would take over just about all of the Hawaiian islands without firing a single shot. For those of you who've been to Hawaii, you know what I'm talking about - during the 80's when Japan's economy exploded they came in to Hawaii and bought and invested just about everything and dominated the islands until 9-11. But the influence of their presence and culture still remains, as there are still store signs and shops, street names, newspapers, restaurants, etc., etc. all in Japanese (in fact, I bought my sunglasses from a very nice Japanese lady named Misako).


There was actually a small community in the area, as well. Can you imagine living in this area? The view would be awesome; the commute would not.

After breakfast, we were dropped off at our hotel at 10:30am, just as our guide had promised. Richel and I hurried back to our room, not because we were exhausted and wanted to take a nap, but didn't want to get caught in the lobby with the hotel's blanket. If we did get caught, I was planning on denying any association or relationship with Richel.

"I don't know who she is, officer. We were just walking in the same direction. Honest!" After taking her away, I'd go to the beach and check out all the hotties - j/k

According to our guide, the drive from Makena to Lahaina was a pain in the butt and we would no doubt get caught in traffic if we left any later than 2:30pm. So after getting back to the Maui Prince and putting the blanket back, we...crap! I don't remember what we did! Uh...apparently we had a 4 hour memory lapse, brought on no doubt by our insane hour of revelry. I do remember that we did shopping stuff for a while, and then drove over to Lahaina.

The drive over wasn't as bad as we thought it would be. We got there fairly quickly and had quite a bit of spare time. We had gone there for the show Ulalena, a musical/dance show which described the history of the Hawaiian islands through song and dance. Sort of like a musical, I guess. But we had gotten there with an hour-and-a-half to spare and since we hadn't eaten lunch, we decided to look for food.....at close to 3pm. I was doing okay without sustenance, having survived internship and residency without regular meals on a daily basis and working all day. But Richel wasn't accustomed to that form of torture, so we ate at this place called Cilantro, a Mexican/Hawaiian fast food place that was surprisingly good.

Afterwards we watched the show, which was entertaining and very different from any musical I had seen in the past. I guess that was because of all the theology, culture, and legend. Richel and I actually got front row seats, which was something I didn't want. I wanted to sit a few rows back so that I could see everything all at once. You know, the big picture. There was this one underwater "scene" where the actors/dancers had large sticks with large fish and sea animals attached at the top, and they would run around and wave the sticks to give the appearance of the fish swimming around. And I swear some girl almost took my head off flinging that thing around.

When we got out, we went to go eat at this restaurant that the people at the theatre recommended. The menu looked okay, but didn't realize it was a fancy-shmancy restaurant. I felt just a bit underdressed with the shorts, sandals, and T-shirt attire, even if the T-shirt was a Banana Republic dry-fit shirt. It was quite pricey, but Richel and I had the best seared Ahi tuna there I've ever tasted. It was like butter melting in your mouth.

With dinner's end, we drove the treacherous rode home. I didn't realize how dangerous the roads were in Hawaii because it's so dark, especially when they have areas with no street lights. The roads are winding and it's pitch black. But we made it back in one piece.

Another fun-filled day had gone by. Part V to come...(anyone out there actually reading all this? Besides Richel?)