{"id":62,"date":"2006-12-31T19:14:55","date_gmt":"2006-12-31T23:14:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/derekandevonne.com\/?p=62"},"modified":"2006-12-31T19:14:55","modified_gmt":"2006-12-31T23:14:55","slug":"winter-to-summer-in-5-hours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/derekandevonne.com\/?p=62","title":{"rendered":"Winter to Summer in 5 hours…"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n

After the drama of getting to the airport, and losing the car seat base, the plane ride was fairly uneventful.\u00a0\u00a0Aside from the\u00a0stewardesses\u00a0dressing in a conservative Hawaiian print blouse, and some passengers\u00a0wearing sandals and shorts, it was a normal flight.\u00a0 Luckily we had the extra seat between us so we could lay Erica down between us.\u00a0 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 We had her feed shortly after takeoff so that the act of swallowing would equalize any pressure differences.\u00a0 Throughout the flight she did her normal thing- sleep, eat, pee.\u00a0 (Thankfully she got the big #2 out of the way while we were on the ground back at YVR).\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

As we came in for a landing in Maui, I had her in the burp position.\u00a0 During the wide banking turn for final approach, we hit some air pockets and turbulance that had our stomachs in our throats.\u00a0 We could hear passengers go “whooooooah!” everytime we hit one.\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0I looked down at e, and she surprised me by falling asleep during the worst of it!<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 And the sunshine!\u00a0 Haven’t seen sunshine like that for months!<\/p>\n

As soon as the plane’s door opened, you could feel the extra humidity and warmth in the air.\u00a0 At that time, we understood why some of the more seasoned passengers changed into shorts at YVR.<\/p>\n

We got our luggage, stroller, and car seat (it was the very last thing to roll out onto the baggage carousel).\u00a0 The stroller and car seat was a bit banged up, but what can you do?\u00a0 We decided to use our own car seat rather than rent one.\u00a0 The cost of renting one was like $6\/day, and it likely would not have fitted our stroller.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 Very warm, but not scorching hot like Cancun.\u00a0 As we drove out and got our first look at the landscape, it was beautiful.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The scenery<\/strong><\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 Needless to say, it wasn’t hard to get used to all of this.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Kaanapali<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Differences in culture<\/strong><\/p>\n

One thing about visting a place like Maui or any foreign land is seperating the stereotype from reality.\u00a0 I had questions like, “do people really say ‘Aloha’, or has Maui become so Americanized that they just say it for the tourists?”\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I have no idea what happens when he encounters a strong crosswind.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Another day we took a walk with\u00a0e in a stroller by the beach.\u00a0 A surfer\/hippie dude walks by us, takes a peek at\u00a0e, smiles and gives us the “hang loose” hand sign.\u00a0 I thought that only happened in Magnum PI re-runs.<\/p>\n

Like Mexico, a lot of the buildings are “open” meaning that there\u00a0aren’t very many windows.\u00a0\u00a0Our resort had sliding front doors for you to\u00a0walk through, but then everything else is just open.\u00a0 Covered, but open to the elements.\u00a0 For example, from our hotel room, we\u00a0can take the elevator downstairs to the lobby, walk forward about\u00a010 yards, and we’re outside.\u00a0 Basically the\u00a0cover ends when the carpet ends.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The very first morning, we went downstairs to\u00a0the resort\u00a0restaurant “Ono- which means delicious” and sat down for\u00a0breakfast.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Something was out of place…\u00a0the food, which I’ll describe later was fine, the restaurant was outdoors, but you had cover… hmmm…\u00a0wait… there’s a girl wearing a bikini to breakfast.\u00a0\u00a0We\u00a0noticed that\u00a0girls wear bikinis\u00a0virtually all the time in Maui- to eat, shop, run on the beach, and\u00a0yeah, to swim.\u00a0 When things\u00a0“cool” down in the evenings,\u00a0people cover up with miniskirts and tube\u00a0dresses.\u00a0 Two main observations- This never happens in Canada, and after the age of 12, Erica is banned from Maui.<\/p>\n

\"view<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Next chapter- more\u00a0about the food and\u00a0activities<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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.\u00a0\u00a0Aside from the\u00a0stewardesses\u00a0dressing in a conservative Hawaiian print blouse, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/derekandevonne.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/derekandevonne.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/derekandevonne.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/derekandevonne.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/derekandevonne.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/derekandevonne.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/derekandevonne.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/derekandevonne.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/derekandevonne.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}