A Bunch of Stuff, Some Chickens, and Kukui

the rain greeted us this morning and it looked like the rest of the day was going to be just as wet. however around 10:00a or so the rain stopped but it was still overcast. it was a good thing that it stopped because the vacation club that we’re staying at offers free picture-taking for timeshare owners and this morning at 10:50a was our scheduled time on the beachfront. after that we went into the management office for some free coffee and pastries. i poured some coffee into a cup and then realized that there was ice for the sodas so i got another cup and poured half of my coffee into it, added cream and sugar to both of them, and filled both with ice. i would have just made one cup of ice coffee for myself but i had already poured enough for one cup and no one else in my family wanted ice coffee. on the way back to the villas we decided to take more pictures around the property since we were already dressed up. when we eventually got back to the villas it was time to prepare lunch. while my mom and aunts got lunch ready, i changed into shorts and headed back out to take more pictures. lunch was ready by the time i got back… fried-leftover rice and vegetables from the night before. nice! another nice thing was that the sun finally came out though it was still pretty cloudy.

unpredictable weather surely has made planning activities difficult so we did what my family does best and naturally… shopping! after lunch our family split into two groups. one group headed into town for the farmer’s market, walmart, and some other places. the smaller group, consisting of my parents and i and Carissa, walked across the street to the Poipu Shopping Village. my dad wanted to exchange the Crazy Shirt he picked up yesterday because it wasn’t entirely to his liking. we browsed around the other stores for a while and then returned to pick up my aunt Elsie to go the Spouting Horn. its one of those holes in a reef that sprays water when water is funneled into it from a wave. when we got there we saw the largest gathering of chickens to date. this group of chickens weren’t even afraid of us as i approached for some closeup shots. when i finished taking pictures of the chickens i was intercepted by a row of booth vendors as i made my way to the viewing point for the Spouting Horn. i had been looking for a kukui shell necklace and found the cheapest price at one of the vendors there. Carissa got one too. we checked out the Spouting Horn doing its spouting thing and then went to the National Tropical Botanical Garden where we saw many flowers and trees and a couple of cool geckos. as we headed back to the villa from the Garden, we received a call from my aunt Carol. she told us to meet them at the Kauai Marriott so we did. i still don’t know why we had to go there but after about an hour we ended up having dinner at a inexpensive but tasty Chinese restaurant.

i learned that aunt Carol and Carissa share my sentiments about how ice cream as dessert is very satisfying right after eating Chinese food. so on the way back we stopped in Old Koloa Town for Lappert’s Ice Cream and picked up a pint of Caramel Coconut Macadamia and a pint of Kona Java Lava – a blend of Kona coffee ice cream and chocolate sorbet. the rest of the evening involved the older adults eating the fruits they picked up at the farmer’s market and Carissa and i watching funny viral videos of a CGI bear off the internet and talking about asian movies and music. oh yeah… and everybody had some ice cream.