Kauai Day 7
Today we got up early and headed down the east side of Kauai to Wailua Municipal Golf Course for our final full day here and our second planned golf day. Wailua was an awesome course, and an excellent deal.. we golfed all 18 holes, with a cart for like $57 each and our tee time was early (9:18a sharp!). I forget where, but I read Wailua is the most affordable overall deal for golf on the island.. I think it’d be like 4x as expensive for the same tee time at The Prince. Expenses aside, we were really impressed with this course and the rental equipment. We even lucked out with no rain at all today, which meant we got plenty of sun… infact, by the looks of my forehead, possibly too much sun! (then again, I have a lot of forehead.. but I digress) This was the first time Wendie has golfed a full 18 holes in one outting, and she didn’t really get pooped out until the very end! We both hit quite a few great shots in between many more sucky ones.. but that’s what golf is all about for us newbies! :) Hole 17, a par 3, was the most remarkable with the tee box sitting a good 30 feet higher than the green which was situated tightly between some bunkers with the ocean directly behind it.. makes for a great picture, which I’m posting below.
Another surprise were the local birds.. they are apparently familiar and comfortable with getting hand fed by the golfers. You’ll see a picture below of bird which was really social.. it didn’t have any problems flying right up onto our hand waiting for a bite to eat.
Following golf, we cruised into Lihue to pick up some reading material for the flight home tomorrow, and to stop at a cool restaurant we found yesterday. On Rice St, we found “Garden Island Chinese and BBQ” (quite a combination!! Its kind of like a hybrid of Local Boys and King Tin). Both times we ate there we were both stuffed and very pleased with the quality, we’ll be back! My favorite was the Beef Curry/Hamburger Steak combination plate, and Wendies was the BBQ Steak/BBQ Chicken combination plate..and at like $7 per, it was affordable too!
Tomorrow morning we’re going to stop at the “Kountry Kitchen” restaurant for some breakfast and then proceed to the airport for our flight home which departs at 10:55a local time. I’ll likely post a little something Friday morning since we won’t be home until about midnight (PST) tomorrow. Cheers!
Obligatory self pic at the golf course! By the end of the day my face is pretty damned red!
Friendly bird meeting my wife the nature lover!
Hole 17
Kauai Day 6
Another beautiful day on Kauai, complete with a bit of rain that gave way to sunny skies at just the right times! (that is, to not interfere with our plans. lucky!)
Last year we spent a short time exploring the grounds of Kauai’s Hindu Monestary, only getting a taste of the beauty.. and without much understanding of the significance. Well, we lucked out (again!) this year, in that today we didn’t have anything else planned and there was a guided tour of the monestary and grounds at 9a and 11a. We hightailed it down to Wailua this morning, despite the prospects of rain which cleared up by the time our tour started anyhow!
Our tour started with a brief description of Hinduism, and the most recognizable god Ganesha (this is the one with the head of an elephant, you might have seen on The Simpson in Apu’s Kwik-E-Mart, our tour guide reminded us of this). The monk who lead the tour was great in his interacting with the crowd (30 or so people) and adding a touch of humor. One of the best analogies he made was comparing worship of the Hindu gods to that of using a telephone.. you’re not talking to the telephone itself, its just the medium you use to contact your friend. Well, in Hinduism, worship is not to the statue or painting of Ganesha (one of thier many gods) but to the spirit within.. In their beliefs, Ganesha is the god who is closest to our realm (put on your metaphysical safety belt, I’m not an experienced tour guide and the road is bound to be bumpy!). When the bell is rang, Ganesha will hear it and comes just above or within the statue (or painting) to bless the person making an offering. Our tour guide said that Ganesha likes fruit, flowers, and especially sweets like chocolate.. smiling, I think he knew we could all relate to chocolate!
During our walking tour, we stopped along a few spots where the monk described many of the unusual and rare plants that they have collected from around the world to build up this botanical garden. We saw black pepper vines, a big vanilla plant (which had to be manually pollinated between 9a and 12p each day, no kidding!!!), a rare flowering “bat plant”, a huge tourquoise/jade flowering vine plant which I do not recall the name of, and several other fascinating palms and such. He mentioned that we were especially lucky because several of the more beautiful plants were in bloom right now!
Following our little botanical garden walk, we finished up the tour with learning about the efforts underway to build a huge temple made of granite. Every piece of granite in this temple is hand carved using a hammer and chisel by many highly skilled carvers in India. Each of these pieces is finished in India and shipped by boat to Kauai. This temple is designed to withstand at least 1000 years of time, with some others still standing after 3000 years in India. To say the least, the craftsmanship and dedication to this effort is remarkable.. these are people who are part of families with several generations of stone carvers. There are a half dozen carvers who are on two year rotations from south India to do finish work and to assemble the pieces of granite being shipped to this site. Wendie asked a very poignant question of if this was an honor for the carvers who are working on site. The monk guiding our tour told us that it was, these carvers are likely to never have left thier villages let alone get on a plane and fly to Hawaii… on top of that, they are working on the largest handmade Hindu temple in the West. I had a chance to discuss this with a carver (he spoke very broken english, but had motioned me over while I was milling around and taking pictures), and it was clear to me that he was very happy to be working on this temple. In the picture below, the piece he’s working on started as a large block of granite which he will have completed in 3 months time…with only his determination, skill, hammer, and chisel! The work on this temple has been going for about 7 years and they expect it to take another 7 to complete. I really could go on and on with what I’ve learned today, but I’m sure you get the gist of the situation.. We both had a very great time learning about this religion, and to be exposed to the people and thier devotion in spreading it to the West. Below are a few of our favorite pictures, and here is a link to another slideshow of the full set of our favorites, click the pictures to see description.
The entrance to the Monestary, a statue of Ganesha.
A pond of Koi.
The stone carver I had a chance to chat with.
Kauai Day 5
Hello there! Aloha, and all that! Well, what can I say, today was freaking swweeeeetttt! Wendie and I have two days of golf planned and today was the first.. We played at “The Prince” in Princeville, rated as the #1 course in Hawaii by Golf Digest. We tee’d off just before 3pm, for only $90 each with club rentals! (earlier tee times are as high as $220 each with clubs!!) The bonus here is that you get to play as many holes as you can between 3pm and 6:30pm, we managed to get 12 holes! So needless to say, we were both really stoked at getting such a great deal.. and this is easily the most BEAUTIFUL and the most DIFFICULT course I’ve ever played (we lost 12 balls!!! hahahah). It’s been rainy all morning, and we got dumped on (like torrential down pour!) for the first two holes… but its all good, hey, we’re from Oregon we’re used to rain! Luckily at the tail end of hole 2, the beverage cart came by and we loaded up on a couple glasses of wine for Wendie and a couple shots of Jack Daniels with some Pepsi for me.. nothing like a little alcohol to calm the golf frustrations, this course really is that difficult, the camera does a decent job of picking up the depth of these fairways. I’m not kidding when I say that I’m shocked and amazed at all of the elevation and the hills undulating all over the fricking place, and to top it off there are hazards everywhere (water here, huge gaps of lush tropical plants there, cliffs dropping off and out into the ocean just past a few greens.. piece of cake right?).
The kid at the golf cart return area was telling us that the pros on TV, the guys shooting 65-70 on most courses, shoot in the 80’s here… IF I was actually keeping track, I probably would have ended up with 120 or something silly like that today.
Oh! On hole 11, I think, I tee’d off down this big hill towards a few cocks (roosters) and actually HIT one! The ball bounced several times before hitting him, it wasn’t fatal or anything, just surprised him.. we were laughing our asses off at the freakish coincidence of it, and luckily he didn’t seem to mind (at least, he didn’t call for reinforcements and take us down!)… In my picture set I’ve got a pic of the cock (rooster!!!) after he was hit, then fluttered his wings, and ran off a few yards.. hehe!
After we finished with golf we cruised down to Kapaa to enjoy dinner at our most favorite restaurant (Lemongrass Bar and Grill) for some dinner! mmmm good stuff!
A few thumbnail pics are below, click on them for a bigger version with a description. Also, here is a link to the a set of pics I uploaded to Flickr.. this link goes to a slideshow, click the greyish “i” to see the description of each picture as the slideshow goes, I hope you enjoy!
A pic of a GREAT chip that Wendie made out of the sand!
Me driving over a big gap onto a green.
Kauai Day 4
Aloha! Weather is beautiful, we decided to take a day to just hang out and relax.. both finished reading our books and we’re thinking about driving into town for another book and to catch a sunset somewhere.. If we do, I’ll add a pic to this posting later. Cheers!
