The morning of Dec 15th was surreal- howling wind, driving rain, and as we stepped out of the door at 7am, we were greeted by freezing rain/snow.

After the drama of getting to the airport, and losing the car seat base, the plane ride was fairly uneventful.  Aside from the stewardesses dressing in a conservative Hawaiian print blouse, and some passengers wearing sandals and shorts, it was a normal flight.  Luckily we had the extra seat between us so we could lay Erica down between us.  We were instructed during takeoff and landings to hold her in a burp position, but other than that, she could lay down on the seat. 

We were somewhat worried about how she would take the change in cabin pressure, and react to all the new sights and sounds, but she didn’t seem too bothered by the takeoff.  We had her feed shortly after takeoff so that the act of swallowing would equalize any pressure differences.  Throughout the flight she did her normal thing- sleep, eat, pee.  (Thankfully she got the big #2 out of the way while we were on the ground back at YVR).  We even got to hand her off to UH/AD for about 30 min near the end of the flight… just for a change of scenery.

As we came in for a landing in Maui, I had her in the burp position.  During the wide banking turn for final approach, we hit some air pockets and turbulance that had our stomachs in our throats.  We could hear passengers go “whooooooah!” everytime we hit one.  I’m not bad with this sort of thing, but I definitely felt the drops and could hear the engines speed up to counteract the turbulance.  I looked down at e, and she surprised me by falling asleep during the worst of it!

Thankfully we landed safely, and looking outside we could see that there was a very brisk wind blowing through the palm trees, so that’s why we had such a fun landing.  And the sunshine!  Haven’t seen sunshine like that for months!

As soon as the plane’s door opened, you could feel the extra humidity and warmth in the air.  At that time, we understood why some of the more seasoned passengers changed into shorts at YVR.

We got our luggage, stroller, and car seat (it was the very last thing to roll out onto the baggage carousel).  The stroller and car seat was a bit banged up, but what can you do?  We decided to use our own car seat rather than rent one.  The cost of renting one was like $6/day, and it likely would not have fitted our stroller.

Standing outside the car rental place, we had to get our sunglasses out, take off our jackets, and roll up our sleeves- it seems that Hawaii is a constant 27C year round.  Very warm, but not scorching hot like Cancun.  As we drove out and got our first look at the landscape, it was beautiful. 

I didn’t know what to think about Maui- my perception of Maui mostly came from Hawaii 5-0, Magnum PI, and the Brady Bunch episode where they visted Hawaii, and took a sacred idol, and got cursed with bad luck.

The scenery

I’ll post more photos into the gallery, but wanted to show this one as an example of the sand, water, sky, mountains, and trees.  Needless to say, it wasn’t hard to get used to all of this.

Differences in culture

One thing about visting a place like Maui or any foreign land is seperating the stereotype from reality.  I had questions like, “do people really say ‘Aloha’, or has Maui become so Americanized that they just say it for the tourists?”  Well as we drove along the highway, we saw one dude riding a mountain bike- fitted with a bracket to carry his 9 foot long surfboard.  I have no idea what happens when he encounters a strong crosswind. 

Another day we took a walk with e in a stroller by the beach.  A surfer/hippie dude walks by us, takes a peek at e, smiles and gives us the “hang loose” hand sign.  I thought that only happened in Magnum PI re-runs.

Like Mexico, a lot of the buildings are “open” meaning that there aren’t very many windows.  Our resort had sliding front doors for you to walk through, but then everything else is just open.  Covered, but open to the elements.  For example, from our hotel room, we can take the elevator downstairs to the lobby, walk forward about 10 yards, and we’re outside.  Basically the cover ends when the carpet ends.  

The very first morning, we went downstairs to the resort restaurant “Ono- which means delicious” and sat down for breakfast. 

Something was out of place… the food, which I’ll describe later was fine, the restaurant was outdoors, but you had cover… hmmm… wait… there’s a girl wearing a bikini to breakfast.  We noticed that girls wear bikinis virtually all the time in Maui- to eat, shop, run on the beach, and yeah, to swim.  When things “cool” down in the evenings, people cover up with miniskirts and tube dresses.  Two main observations- This never happens in Canada, and after the age of 12, Erica is banned from Maui.