A Change of Plans

Well this is a first. I am sitting in the international café as type this.

If you have been following us you know that this is the long awaited day when we were supposed to be on our way to the lighthouse at the northern end of Kauai. We wanted to do this before but Princess does not have a tour that goes there. However our friends Wayne and Carol told us about a tour company that they discovered who does go to the lighthouse. We booked the tour months ago , It would be a highlight of this trip. The wake- up call was set for 6:45 and breakfast was to be delivered at seven. Docking was scheduled for eight and we were to meet our tour van at 8:45 to begin a wonderful six hour tour to the lighthouse, twin waterfalls and the glories of Kauai.

Then at 7:00 the captain comes on the speaker in our room to inform us that due to 45 know winds and a narrow harbor entrance the Grand Princess would not be making her stop at Nawiliwili and we would not be seeing our lighthouse number 311.

It was still dark but we were treated to the most amazing sunrise. The sky was dark and foreboding when the sun made its wondrous appearance. Fortunately I have found the settings for sunrise on this new camera and I was able to capture it in all its glory.

So we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast, gathered up some laundry to send it out and left the room so the room steward would have access. Ken has gone to desk 15 and I have come down to deck 5 to enjoy my coffee and catch up on the blog.

To quote a friend “Life is Good”

Now to tell you about yesterday,

It began with another great sunrise and a room service breakfast. The ship docked at seven and it turned out to be a glorious sunny warm day. We relaxed until it was time to disembark and meet Mari and Paul.

In case I had not mentioned it before…. On our 2013 Australia adventure we were table mates with Dr. Paul Lim and his wife Mari. We have stayed in touch. Their home is in Honolulu and when they learned we would be there for the day they offered to show us around.

So we left the ship around 9:30 to meet them at the scheduled time of 10:00. Just inside the terminal there was a table where the vendors were selling Leis and bracelets. I bought a kukuii nut bracelet and I gave a Canada pin to the little girl and she allowed me to take her picture.

Ken used his cell to call Paul and Mari right at ten o’clock and they were just a few minutes away. They picked us up and we exchanged gifts. I had brought them some chocolate covered fruit from Brookside which is produced in Abbotsford and they brought us Kona Coffee and jams from the islands.

They drove us around pointing out landmarks that we passed. Our first stop was to the summer palace of Queen Emma. At one time this was the summer home of the queen consort and her husband King Kamehameha IV and their young son Prince Albert Edward.

Today the museum houses a collection of Queen Emma’s belongings, furnishings, artifacts and memorabilia. We were treated to a guided tour. The young man was very knowledgeable and he regaled us with interesting facts and details of this golden age in Hawaiian history. I was very impressed to learn that she was very well educated even by today’s standards. She was fluent in French, English and Hawaiian. She was a close friend of Queen Victoria who was the godmother of her son Albert who was named after The Prince Albert.

The guide told us how public education and public health care were two of her pet projects. While listening to accounts of all that she had done for those causes I immediately connected it to President Obama. He is a native Hawaiian and public health is his main cause. Like Queen Emma he has been fighting his political foes to try to give the people access to good health care. She did all she could and refused to give up her dream and that is also true of President Obama. The gift that Hawaii has given to the United States….. perhaps?!! Only time will tell.

We were very fortunate because the palace will be closed for a month beginning today. We might not have seen it if the ship were there today.

We toured the grounds and the gift shop and then continued our driving tour.

Then the next  photo op was at the Nuuanu Pali Look off on the windward side of the island. I guess it is normally very windy and even bees have a difficult time flying.

They pointed out where they lived in relation to this spot. There were a couple of golf courses in view and it looked like they would be a great spot for a game.

The next stop was a restaurant in China Town in downtown Honolulu. Paul and Mari took us to a place that they often frequent. The place was very crowded and for awhile it looked as if we might not get a seat. But Paul and Mari persisted and soon Ken and I were the only Houlii in this place. Everyone  of the patrons  was Chinese. Here they serve what is called Dim Sum. They told us it means a little bit of this and a little bit of that. We were treated to things we had never eaten before.

 There were strange vegetables, different mushrooms, unusual shrimp and the list went on. It was a culinary adventure to be sure. Some we liked and some we would have to get accustomed to. Paul and Mari again treated us and as with the palace they refused to allow us to pay.

I was asked if there was anything I wanted to purchase while in Honolulu. Because we didn’t get to buy flowers in Hilo I asked if they could take me to a place where I might be able to get some fresh flowers for our room. So away we went. We parked the vehicle and did a walking tour of the markets in Chinatown. I got my flowers and we were shown many different fruits and vegetables we had never seen before. Paul bought some “Hairy Fruit” among other things.

Hairy Fruit has  a proper Hawaiian name that I could never begin to pronounce. It is red and inside the shell is a very tasty fruit very much like the lychee nut. I could eat those but the rest had little or no appeal and would take some getting used to. The name Black Fungus was a real turn off but Mari said it is quite a tasty mushroom when cooked. Dried it looked like a piece of very old shoe leather and it was hard like concrete.

Our visit with our friends came to an end all too soon. Back on the ship I laid down and rested my ankle which had begun to swell. Ken went topside for more sun.

Later I happened across a movie on the ship’s TV which I really enjoyed. It ended at seven , just in time for me to go to the Princess Theatre to catch the local folklore show of hula dancers. It was such a treat, we loved it.

Then since we had not eaten since our Dim Sum adventure we went to the Nepture and ordered a cheese burger. The young hula dancers were there enjoying a lunch at the same time. I got a picture of the absolutely magnificent orchids in the hair of one of the young ladies.

We returned to our room with our burgers and it was a wonderful warm evening. We sat on the balcony enjoying our meal and the city lights. It was truly magical. We napped until it was time for sale away which was at eleven o’clock. We watched the captain ease this huge vessel out of what seemed to be a very narrow space and head for the open sea.

Our wonderful day had come to an end.

So here I am in the café enjoying my coffee. A lady just stopped to chat. She is from Lacey Washington and I guess she was travelling with her cousin and he passed away in Hilo. They will cremate him there and send the ashes home. She said she was planning the funeral etc from the ship using very slow internet connections. She said she was born in St John New Brunswick. To our surprise we had eaten in the same place yesterday. This certainly is a small world. I just realized that we never did exchange names.

Well I have been doing this for over an hour so I guess it is time to see if I can figure out how to spell some of these words and to choose which pictures I will include before I go on line to send this on its way.

Because this is an unplanned sea day I have no idea what we will end up doing today.

Stay tuned.

ALOHA!!!