We were on our way to Kauai. It was going to be our first excursion to one of the other islands. We booked our flights, our car, and our room at the Hanalei Surfboard House. We were so excited to visit Hanalei Bay and try one of the uber muddy hikes. We spent one whole day shopping for our trip, picking up clothes we could get grubby in. K got a great pair of hiking shoes from Nordstroms. He even put them on at the mall to start breaking them in.
We had to try different places for my hiking shoes and found a great place suggested by the Nordstrom salesperson: Mauka to Makai. Their inventory was low so I ended up with a decent pair from Sports Authority.
Unfortunately when we got home K was called into work for the next few days so we had to cancel all of our plans. Hopefully we’ll be able to go before the holidays.
Instead of visiting a luxurious vacation island, we went to a couple of movies to unwind. We settled for Journey to the Center of the Earth at the dollar theater. Dollar did you say??? Yes we were shocked. I haven’t been to a dollar movie in at least 10 years. And I’m not even sure it was a dollar I think it might have been two. The crowd at Hollywood Restaurant Row 9 was a pretty rowdy crowd. Lots of locals and lots of kids. I mean I felt like we watched a show before the actual show. I whispered to K during the cartoon previews that we could leave at any point if it ended up not being good.
The movie proved to be perfectly fun. In NY I carefully choose theaters based on the fact that I know it’s a neighborhood crowd and people won’t be chattering through the whole thing. I was a little skeptical at Hollywood. Particularly when an older Hawaiian couple plopped down next to us and started talking right away. But a quarter of the way into the movie I gasped at a heart racing scene and the portly woman next to me immediately whispered ‘what?’. I was immediately won over and didn’t mind that they talked through the whole movie.
This past weekend we got to see Quantum of Solace. Which I loved. In looking for a theater we discovered Winward Mall in Kaneohe which is so different from Ala Moana. The mall reminded me of my Long Island roots. It was fantastic. We had lunch at IHOP and wandered the mall after seeing the movie. The highlight for me was the pet shop–very diverse. I think all pet shops in general are, to varying degrees, not good. But I’m a sucker for baby animals. Here is one of my favorites:
Also, note for the future. There was a Leonards Malasadas truck in the Winward Mall parking lot.
Three One Nine 