Tag Archives: last-post

O’ahu 2022 – The Last post

April 24, 2022 Craig Leave a comment

“What do you mean, ‘the last post”, you didn’t write any?” You’re right, I’m sorry, and maybe I’ll do better next time? Or maybe I was just writing to much before?

Here are my and Mirandas’ traditional “top lists” for our vacation. The goals here are to:

Remind ourselves for the next trip of what we did and didn’t like.
Provide an easy copy/paste link for others looking to gain from our mistakes. 😀

With that intro, here we go!

Best Restaurant

We love eating at O’ahu, but we hadn’t ever stayed in Honolulu/Waikiki before so had to find new places to enjoy. We’re not “foodies” by any stretch, but we like what we like!

For me it was a near tie between 2 new restaurants to us. Top billing goes to Surf’n’Salsa in Hale’iwa. Second best burrito I’ve ever had (and to be clear — the best burrito is still Tacofino in the Financial Distract of Vancouver — the chorizo burrito has squid in it and is crazy good). The service was weird with the front desk lady pointing me at the kitchen to solve some problems we had, which was awkward, and their chips’n’salsa were to hot for me (I enjoy spice, but I’m pretty white), but the burrito made up for it. I had the chipotle burrito with steak. The front desk lady recommended the steak and she was so right.

The runner-up for me was Five Star Poke. It was a block away from our apartment and I went there on the last day when Miranda and I couldn’t agree on where to eat so I picked up McDonalds for her. I’m so sad I found this on the last day! I had the Spicy Ahi Tuna comboed with the Garlic Shoyu Salmon and it was the salmon that won me over — garlicky and miso-y and just a ton of flavour.

For Miranda, she loved her regular go-tos of North Shore Tacos and Giovanni’s. The tacos are simple, clean and their sauce is damn good. And the garlic shrimp plate of Giovanni’s really punches you in the mouth with garlic, it’s so good!

I didn’t ask Ava what her favourite restaurant was, I’m not sure she’d know how to answer the question…she doesn’t eat much when we’re out and Miranda tends to bring a tupperware of snacks for her.

Best “for pay” Experience

These include:

Kayaking the Anahulu River in Hale’iwa (rented kayak, not a tour)
Kayaking the reefs in Kane’ohe (rented kayak, not a tour)
Turtle Canyon snorkel tour
Dolphin excursion snorkel tour
Dole plantation

For both Miranda and I, it was the Anahulu River! This is a staple of our O’ahu trips and this year was augmented because Ava had a ton of fun which made it even more fun for us. It’s just a nice paddle up a gentle river and then you slowly float back to town. Ava and I swam in the river as Miranda floated and we played on Ava’s bodyboard and tried to find a turtle, and Miranda saw a ray!

I asked Ava what was her favourite by showing her pictures and she loved everything. 😀 She loved the boats because she met some super fun kids she played with, she loved the waves and the bubbles out the back of the wake and she had an absolute blast on the Dolphin tour because they pulled out a paddleboard and paddled her and 2 other kids around a snorkel area and they all had fun “accidentally” falling off the board and climbing back on. Her kind of fun!

Best Free Experience

Miranda’s and mine are similar here — we went to a couple new beaches that we hadn’t been to before. We did this because they were said to be great spots to bring young kids — I wanted to introduce Ava to snorkeling, and Miranda wanted to sit on the beach and relax.

Miranda’s favourite was Paradise Cove, which was a public beach with no facilities and only 10 parking spots. We got there early to get a parking spot and spent 4 hours swimming around, sitting under a giant beach umbrella. The kid was happy and entertained with very little effort needed, and we had lots of snacks so didn’t need to rush off.

My favourite was a bit south at Ko Olina lagoon #4. It was similar to Paradise Cove, but better because it had facilities like freshwater showers (I love this feature of Hawai’i beaches :D).

Neither of these places were great snorkeling, but they were protected coves with gentle sandy slopes and were exactly what I wanted to be able to introduce the kidlet to looking at the fish.

Ava’s favourite “free” experience (because it was bundled, or because it’s all free from her perspective) was the pool at the hotel. She made a couple friends there and the ease of going there meant that we could say “yes” to the pool even when there wasn’t much time left in the day to do an activity. I scoff at hotel pools when you’re 2 blocks from the beach, but it turns out there is huge value in this even so!

Unexpectedly Best Item Brought

This category is about the item you brought that you found way more useful than you thought it was going to be!

Miranda had a bunch of honourable mentions:

Tupperware containers which she used to pack snacks for Ava for the day (and for me, honestly :D)
A Roku she bought just for this trip, we plugged it into the apartment TV and it was easy to get Ava to zone out for a little bit.
Shorts under her dresses.
Ava’s headphones!

For me it was two things. First was a fanny pack. I bought this thing a couple years ago because I wanted a “kid go bag” that was my own. We had a shared one, but I always found it overfull with things I didn’t think I needed, so I bought my own. Fast-forward to 2 years later and I haven’t used it for a bit, but it was perfect for this trip. In it I had a webbed strap, some clips, some twist ties, hand sanitizer, wipes and I used all of those at least once. And then it was a great place to keep my wallet and phone when I was in swim shorts!

Second place for me goes to some “sinking snakes” Miranda brought. I wouldn’t have written about these except that when making this list Miranda put these under her “worst item brought” and I was like “HELL NO, those were super useful!” Ava and I took them to the pool and not only did Ava have fun diving down to get them, but they allowed us to play with much older kids than Ava would be able to otherwise. Every kid likes grabbing things from the bottom of the pool!

Favourite Item Brought

This category competes hard with the above one, but is different because it’s not an “unexpected item” and neither of us really had strong feelings about anything we brought this trip.

For Miranda, it was melatonin to help her sleep and a little bag of re-usable cloths that she brought. For me it was my snorkel gear, which I like being able to pull out and use without needing to worry about rentals or fit or sanitary concerns. For Ava it was nubby (her stuffed bunny) and her backpack, which she regularly carried with a bunch of toys in it.

Best Dollar Spent

This is about efficiency!

For Miranda and I both it was a new beach/sun jacket cover she bought. She bought it after she burnt her shoulders in the first week, and I borrowed it on several occasions. It was so nice. I didn’t think I’d like having things on my arms (I hate sleeves) in the sun, but it was breezy and light and not hot and fine to get wet and so comfortable so was great.

Worst Restaurant

We had a couple rough restaurants this time around, but not many that were straight up bad.

The worst was Oahu Mexican Grill. The ordering was super confusing, they tried to give me something I hadn’t ordered and messed up my order. When we got food, the taco’s Miranda had were kind of meh and my nachos were soggy. Ew.

On our first pass of this category, Miranda had said Longboards near Ko Olina was her worst because the salad she ordered was really bad. The experience overall was decent. My burger was ok there. But America, come on, your salad’s suck. A bunch of iceburg lettuce and a few cherry tomatoes are why no one likes salads in your country. You can do better.

For me, and this was sad, it was a sushi place that had been recommended called Katsu Midori. Worst, not because of any experience or the food, but because they were “full” by the time we got to them! They wouldn’t let us in to eat! I was pretty sad I failed at this. This is my fault, not theirs, but be ware and make reservations!

A last minute addition to the list here was The Local @ HNL in the airport. The ordering experience was trying to be efficient — you ordered your food on a website and paid for it online and the kitchen got the order and you’d already paid and yay. But the system wouldn’t allow multiple orders at the same table so we had to troubleshoot that. Then when Miranda fixed part of that problem with the server another website foible appeared. The food and drinks were crazy expensive in a city with expensive food and drink and the nachos had some strange cheese on them that reminded me of fake cheese from a jar.

Favourite Animal

A family favourite, they were:

Miranda’s ray that she saw in the Anahulu River.
I saw a sweet little black squid while snorkel diving down in the Dolphin tour! (no dolphins though 🙁 )
Ava generally loved the koi everywhere, but specifically the koi at the Dole plantation. There was a fish food machine nearby that we pushed some quarters into and the koi (hundreds of them) went a little crazy to get food.

Worst Item Brought

Miranda thinks we didn’t need to bring the picnic blanket she packed.
I didn’t need two pairs of adventure shorts. I only needed 1 plus some exercise shorts.

Best Research Time Spent

For me it was when I looked into Paradise Cove, which led to Ko Olina later in the week. We had read about the area in previous trips, but just hadn’t taken the time to go, and I was glad we did this trip.

For Miranda, it was an indoor kids playground she took Ava to one day called Kid City. She wishes we had one in Vancouver, because she’d go to it all the time. It was the perfect combination of all of the things she likes to take Ava to.

Most Missed Item

For both Miranda and I, the Tula was a staple of our last trip to Mexico and I wished I’d had it here as well. The kid is still to small to go walking for as long as Miranda and I would like to walk and so I uncomfortably packed her on my shoulders for several long distances. Having her on my back would have been much more comfortable! The worst part was that we agreed to bring the Tula then both forgot to pack it. >.<

As well, anti-nausea meds — 2 out of the last 4 boat tours I’ve been on have ended with me having nausea. Not a good ratio. I think I’m getting old. It’s ruining a good time. 🙁

Saddest Lost/Broken Item

Let me itemize the things we lost or broke this trip, it’s brutal:

Our water camera
One swim fin of mine (but not two)
Ava’s body board
Ava’s sunglasses
Ava’s lifejacket
Ava’s mermaid toy

Miranda’s saddest item was the body board. I was separated from them for a short time and while waiting, Ava started using it as a kite in the crazy Hawaii wind so Miranda took it to keep it safe. I arrived back to them at the bus stop at the same time as the bus arriving and in the process of getting everything and everyone on the bus Miranda sadly left the body board at the bus stop. Ava took it well, but Miranda and I were both a little upset at ourselves. Later in the trip we bought Ava another one, and this one came with stories about how her mom had lost her old one at the bus stop. She told that story to a bunch of people, including us, several times. She took the new body board to bed.

Mine was the water camera and the fin. The water camera I’m almost immune to — I’ve broken more “waterproof” electronics than I will recount here (though you could probably itemize that list by going through the archives at this blog :D). I’m cursed. I literally just walked into the ocean with the battery door open. So dumb. We replaced it with a $40 one from Facebook Marketplace the day before our Dolphin tour.

The fin was super annoying, I lost it on the first day we were at the beach. It just slipped out of my bag and I was shoulder-carrying the child and carrying a lot of stuff and I didn’t notice I dropped it. I walked our path several times, minutes after we think we’d lost it, but I think the Honolulu clean-up crew is too efficient — it was gone. I bought new ones of the exact same type, but I’ll always remember because I now have 3 fins.

Honourable Mention

I’ve mentioned the Dolphin tour a few times here, but you won’t see any photos of dolphins and I haven’t exactly raved about it.

The tour with Iruka Tours was really really good. The operators were fun, knowledgeable, efficient, and well-run. Just…there were no dolphins in the area! We boated around for probably 3 hours looking for them before giving up and dropping anchor for some snorkeling. I want to give these guys my money again next time we’re in O’ahu, because they worked hard for it keeping a boat of tourists entertained while the “main attraction” wouldn’t come on stage!

Best Photos

Our airport shuttle was late so we caught a ride with some people we met. Nice ride!

Mexico

Mexico 2020 – The Last Post

February 17, 2020 Craig Leave a comment

I like to finish off vacations with one final summary post. Most people don’t have time to read my entire 2 weeks of rambling, so I bring together the best moments and photos into one.

Scroll to the bottom if you just want a bunch of photos!

Miranda and I usually do this, but this time we’re including Ava. She can’t give an explicit opinion, so we’re making educated guesses based on her behavior.

Best Restaurant

For Miranda, it was the Indigo Beach Club, which was no surprise to me. She liked that it had consistently good food, the location was fantastic and the service was great.

She says her runner up was Aldea Corazon, the somewhat expensive restaurant with a freaking cenote built into it. The food was fantastic, the drinks were good, and…you got transported from the middle of a bustling city street to a jungle, within minutes. Super cool place.

My favourite restaurant was Aay Chabela. I liked every meal I had there (including both of Miranda’s :P), the price was right where I wanted it, and it was 2 blocks away. With so much decent food available, location is pretty key for me.

But having said that, Zitla was my runner up. I really enjoyed my conversation about Mexican craft beer with Justin, our server at our first visit, and I thought the food showed some real promise. Much of the food we ate was good. Zitla’s was really good.

Ava’s favourite restaurant was 100% Natural. The fruit platter came in a larger mason jar, and she loved the mix of fruit so much she ate 90% of it every time.

And with that, I think we’ve covered all of the notable restaurants we ate at. Everything else was either bad, or just…ok? Adequate, in the most positive sense of the word.

Best “For Pay” Experience

Miranda’s was Xcaret. She says you wouldn’t have known that we’d been before (we went 6 years ago, pre-child), with how much we saw that felt new and fresh.

Mine was Kantun Chi. I loved (eventually) having the place to ourselves, I loved just snorkeling around the most stunning natural scenery in the world while my family kayaking around me. It was peaceful and serene and amazing.

Ava’s was Xcaret. She loved the aquarium, and the monkeys (we visited each twice) as well as the rope course in the kids area (which she and I did 4 times, back and forth, making 8 times total).

Best Free Experience

Although not strictly free, mine was getting money out of the HSBC ATM. We had assumed we could take money out of any ATM kicking around (and there are lots), so when several of them declined us we got worried. I went on a walking adventure alone to try as many different ones as I could, and as soon as I saw the HSBC I knew it was going to work. HSBC always works.

Ava’s was the water fountain at Calle 14 and Av. 5th. She loved it so much she got soaked several times, and also encouraged other children to get soaked. Her runner up was the advertising display/TV at Oakley aka, her dance platform.

Miranda’s best free experience was a tough one, but ultimately she decided it was the beach at Fundadores Park. She enjoyed sitting and watching me and Ava play in the sand and build a moat.

Unexpectedly Best Item Brought

It’s easy to say your clothes were the best item you brought, this category is something that was better than you thought it would be.

Mine was the Tula. I use it about once a week at home to carry Ava to the pool, and I love it as a method of moving us both quickly. We bring it whenever we go places, but I’ve never used it as much as we did this time. I used it literally every day. I love how easy it is to get around, I love that I don’t have to feel encumbered by a stroller, and that we just get up and start walking.

I also thought it was funny whenever we’d walk into a restaurant and ask for a table for 3, and I’d turned sideways and then they’d see Ava on my back for the first time and laugh. It happened so often!

Ava’s was the swim ring. It’s a plastic yellow ring that we have, that I’ve seen at our local pool for kids to swim down and get from the bottom of the pool. We used it a lot, although Ava can’t swim down yet, she loved playing “fetch” with it with Miranda.

Ava’s runner up was Skye and Dog. Dog is Marshall. Both are small figures of animals from PAW Patrol, a popular show for kids. Miranda questioned whether this was unexpected, but for me it was unexpected that we managed to get Ynnub out of Ava’s hands in exchange for these two figures. We didn’t want Ynnub (a fuzzy bunny) out and about on the streets, and the plastic toys were easier to manage.

Favourite Thing Bought

Miranda’s was her headband, her hair was really bugging her by mid-trip.

Ava’s was snakey, a glittery stuffed snake we bought at Xcaret. She’d come home from a long day and see it and grab it and say “oh snakey!” and give it a big hug and just seem so happy.

Mine was Ava’s Xcaret swim top. We somehow forgot Ava’s swimwear when we went to Xcaret, such bad parents. So Miranda ran off to get something for Ava to swim in, and picked up a great teal long-sleeve swim shirt .

Best Dollar Spent

Miranda’s was on the Cancun Cheap Transfer, a company that picked us up and brought us from the airport to our condo. It was super nice to walk out of the airport into hot chaos (Cancun airport is a extreme chaos), to see a man standing there with a sign with your name on it. You get into his van, and he offers you water and a beer and drives you directly to where you want to be. It was so comforting and let us relax immediately.

For this one, my mind goes to the fruit vendors at Fundadores Park. Fruit is cheap, and they just stand there with cut up papaya and mango and sell it to you and it’s delicious and you don’t have to exert any effort in enjoying the most amazing fruit you’ve ever tasted.

Ava’s was snakey, as above.

Best Place To Stay

We only stayed in 2 places this trip, so this one is a bit of a gimme, but we’re including it because we really liked our accommodations and want to spread the word.

El Taj Oceanside and Beachfront is a hotel, but is a group of condos. So you get multiple bedrooms, and a kitchen and a living room and couch and space. We stayed at the El Taj Beachfront, and we’d do it again. Some of the Oceanside condos had stunning views, but most of them looked into the courtyard. While our view wasn’t great, it was close to the best (of 4) pools in the complex, which was exactly what we wanted.

Worst Restaurant

We don’t love being negative, but here it is.

Mine and Miranda’s worst restaurant was Blue Lobster. It was expensive, the service was “ok” and the food was “ok”. Our second trip was what gave it this award, with the food being kind of bad and the servers (initially) ignoring our child and then ignoring that we needed more space with the kid than 2 adults at a 2 adult table.

Ava’s was the restaurant at Kantun Chi, as the only thing she could eat there was chips. Ava ate a lot of chips on this trip, but usually she could have something from our plates. This place that was really hard.

Favourite Animal

My favourite animal was the very large iguana at the parking lot to Dos Ojos. I was standing there, waiting out my decompression timer and I saw just this giant lizard sunning itself in the middle of the parking lot. That’s some confidence, lizard.

Ava’s favourite animal was the monkeys at Xcaret. She loved them so much she was giggling at their antics, and I’m pretty sure she said “monkey!” for the first time here.

Miranda’s was collectively all of the birds at Xcaret, particularly the tucan because they are so cool to see.

Best Body of Water

Miranda’s was Uch Ben Ha at Kantun Chi. We had it entirely to ourselves, it was gorgeous, and she got to kayak above the thing that she finds very frightening.

Ava’s was pool #2, the “hot tub”, aka, the “slightly warmer than the regular pool” tub. She spent a lot of time in that tub, and loved that she could jump from a ledge and swim across quickly to the other ledge. She also loved that it was slightly warmer than the main pool, because she got a little cold at times.

I choose our Zacil Ha cenote at Kantun Chi, although my answer is really the same as Miranda’s. Zacil Ha was a super cool hole in the ground with amazing stalagmites and stalactites and was just beautiful.

Worst Item Brought

Unfortunately, for me it has to be my scuba camera. I usually get such good use of it, even if I only scuba once, that I don’t even consider leaving it behind. But it’s a large item and needs a lot of management, and…I don’t feel like I got any “stand out” photos with it. I got some good ones, but ultimately, it felt like a waste of space.

Miranda’s was her conditioner. I had bought her Lush conditioner for Christmas and it was in a conveniently sized container compared to her regular stuff. Unfortunately, it didn’t do what it needed to do – make her hair feel nice.

Ava’s item was a list of small things:

Her white noise machine. Because, oddly, this suite came with them. Probably because of the night clubs surrounding it. >.>
Her hair de-tangler, which we didn’t use once.

Best Photos

Lastly, here are the best photos of the trip.

First look at our place in the morning, this is the view walking up the stairs to the El Taj Oceanside.

Hawaii

#5 – The Last Post, with Lessons

March 31, 2018 Craig Leave a comment

Lessons

Miranda:

Apple TV FTW. I recommended she bring it almost at the last minute, and because we had so much downtime between Ava’s naps she got good use of it.
She should have brought her laptop.
Always bring more charging cables than have devices
Bring re-usable bags. We brought one, but it wasn’t nearly enough.
Bring a couple pieces of tupperware for leftovers.
Less clothes and toys for Ava, because we ended up buying stuff there – easily enticed by local wares.

Craig:

My PJ pants aren’t necessary – gym shorts are fine PJs.
Check dive watch battery. It didn’t have any power for my first dive so it was useless.
I need to bring at least 3 usb cables – 2 for my stuff and 1 for the car.
Don’t forget toothbrush charger. Annoyingly, this one is the larger of the 2 small-USB standard plugs. 🙁
Having my laptop was amazing.
Don’t need to bring 2 books…or even 1 book… I play games or write or edit photos, particularly with the laptop with me.
Also with the laptop, didn’t use tablet at all. 🙁 Maybe on the flight still though.
I want a snorkel compass. I’ve wanted one for years, and I tried to find one while in Hale’iwa but it didn’t work out. I want to navigate and make a little map of underwater places.
Just 1 “nice” shirt. I brought 2 but only wore one. I was a little embarrassed by my Hawaiian shirt when I packed it, but ultimately didn’t feel that when I wore it.
4 tank tops. I brought 3, needed a fourth.
Bring the meat thermometer! I bought a $6 cheap one so I could cook meat without worrying.
3 weeks is about when we lost our steam. Even with the reduced pace with Ava, we were pretty burnt out after that!

And that’s it for Hawaii #5. Thanks for reading, and I’ll catch ya’ll next vacation!

Hawaii

Hawaii #4 Post-thoughts

December 9, 2015 Craig Leave a comment

I’ve had these ideas in my to-do list since we got back from our honeymoon. Time to get them out of my list and into my blog!

As we go places, I refine the list of things I need to remember for next time. This time, the list is short and possibly hilarious.

You don’t need medium shave ice – small is enough! We both bought a medium shave ice, with ice cream and condensed milk and I added gummy bears and man it was too much!
Bring your own tea. Whatever backwards country you’re traveling to probably doesn’t have good tea. The USA is a backwards ass country when it comes to tea. Horrible.
Don’t need 2 boxes of granola bars! We go into a grocery store early, and I regularly buy 2 boxes of granola bars, and I regularly eat half of one of those boxes. >.<

Until next time! 🙂

Japan

Japan – lessons learned

April 21, 2015 Craig 2 Comments

Japan was my first vacation that wasn’t to a tropical/hot country, so there was a lot of things that had to be done differently.

2 weeks away is too much. Was happy at 11 days. At 13 days was super ready to be done.
If I’m going to do any navigation at all, I’d need a new phone with full day battery. We used Google Maps a lot to get around, but I could barely turn it on in enough time, let alone have enough power to use it all day.
Related – this trip finally saw good use of my external battery. When you leave the house at 9am and walk until 10pm, and use the phone all day, the extra battery is important. Nik with his superior phone needed it a lot.
I didn’t really need shorts for this trip. I brought a pair of pants that had zip-off leggings and they were fine. I’m not certain I would have left the shorts at home though – there could easily have been a 23 degree day where I might have felt comfortable wearing them. 1 pair of shorts, 1 pair of pants and 1 flexible pair sounds like the ideal combo for 2 weeks.
I don’t need a plan every day to have fun. I do need to do something every day, but it doesn’t need to be super planned out. Often we just left the house and started walking. Japan, as a place with a wildly different culture from us, as well as a place that is tightly packed, had a lot of awesome things to see that were very accessible.
I used my camera bag as my primary bag for a lot of the trip. Japan has vending machines everywhere, so I packed a couple bar foods, my camera, a few small lenses and my visa/rail pass/subway pass and I’m good to go for the day. Usually I carry my backpack, because if I needed to carry at least one more thing, I don’t have enough space anymore.
The FitBit works for about 12 days without charging. At 12 days it started saying to charge it, so I might have been able to get to 13 or even 14 days without charging.
When they say “nobody speaks English in Japan”, they really mean it.

Hawaii

Hawaii #1 – Oops

March 7, 2015 Craig Leave a comment

I’ve been meaning to post this for a couple years now. The only reason I remember is because occasionally I’ll find the piece of paper that I wrote it all down on and think “oh, I can’t throw that away, I still want to write about that”.

Today I’m cleaning my desk for real (as opposed to just putting my paints away :P) and decided I’m getting rid of the paper.

I present to you: Craig and Miranda’s Top Picks in Maui and The Big Island (TBI), 2013. 🙂 The name of the place is from the list, but the commentary is from my memory, so we’ll see how accurate this is.

Best Restaurant: Aloha Mixed Plate. I had an amazing kahlua pork here, that made me fall in love with the simple plate. Runner Up: Sam Choy’s. I think it had a fantastic sunset view from the south shore of TBI. Worst: Home Maid Cafe. This was one of our first breakfasts, and it was absolutely awful.

Best Place to Stay: Tracey’s Tropical Treasure. This place was so hilarious, we still talk about it today. She had labels on everything, and if you thought about wanting something long enough, you would eventually find it in the apartment. Runner Up: Dolphin View. This was a pretty rough “group home” style sort of place, but I still remember sitting on the porch listening to the wind chimes and relaxing for the first time in years. That and eating fresh papayas from the owners papaya tree. Sheraton on TBI: These guys really pissed us off, and we still talk about it today.

Best Booked Activity: Fair Wind II Snorkel Cruise. I think this was the first time Miranda happily put her face in the water to look at the ocean below, and I went SNUBAing for the first time, and it was an all around good time. Runner Up: Doors Off Helicopter Tour on TBI. In hindsight, these should be swapped. We still talk about how amazing this helicopter tour was, but I have long since forgotten the cruise. Seeing the volcano like that was phenomenal. Worst: Dinner cruise: (<3 my sweetie). We bought a dinner cruise for Miranda’s birthday, after the stargazing tour fell through. But the food wasn’t all that great, and it was a little boring, but the company was good as was the sunset. 🙂

Best Hike: Mauna Ulu. This was amazing. We hiked along a set trail for an hour, and when we got to the end we saw, about 45 minutes away, a steaming hill and thought “lets go over there”. Another couple joined us, and some time later we’d crawled over old lava trails to the top where a 500ft diameter hole in the ground awaited. Runner Up: Kileua Crater Iki trail. This was a long hike around the basin of an old volcano, and it was stunning. Worst: Mauna Kea. The worst because I couldn’t breathe after exercising at 10,000 feet and when we got to the top it was entirely socked in. Fuck hiking volcanoes!

Best Non-Booked Activity: Volcanoes Hiking. I’ve always said that the only thing I’d go back to TBI for is to hike the volcanoes more, they were stunning. Runner Up: NW of Maui drive. This was also incredible, but I don’t think I’d do it again. Sean drove while Kerry, Miranda and myself looked. It was a harrowing drive around the northern nub of Maui, and there were moments of not being able to see the road outside the window because the cliff was so steep. Gorgeous scenery though! Worst: Stopping for night photos. Another thing we still talk about. We stopped in the middle of nowhere to take some star photos, and heard a “coughing goat” and we both laugh now about how we panicked and all but threw ourselves in the car. Miranda is pretty certain it was someone dying in a ditch, but I maintain the facade that it was a coughing goat. Terrifying.

Favourite Animal: That first turtle I saw. I’d been wanting to go to Hawaii for a few years, specifically because Sean had told me about the turtles. A few months later Miranda was planning a trip, out of nowhere. I had never done such a thing, and she hadn’t realized that I was dreaming, and BAM now we travel a lot. 🙂 The first bit of water I got into in Maui I found a turtle and followed him around for a while. Runner Up: Humu, the national fish. Worst: The turtles that hid from me. Sad face.

Favourite Cat: All of the cats of A-bay. I think it’s the linked-to park – the hard part of acronyms. 🙂 There were a ton of cats in this park, with signs all over that they weren’t stray, that they were well taken care of and not to worry. We petted a few, because that’s how we roll. Runner Up: The sheet says none, but I still remember the cat we found under the banyan trees. Worst: None.

Best Drive: Kohala, driving north. This is that drive I mention above. Runner Up: NW of Maui…I didn’t drive. No idea why it’s both the best and runner up drive, but apparently it was the only notable one! Worst: Puna. I don’t remember why this was the worst, but here we are.

Best Beach: “Turtle Town”, south of Kihei. We drove down that way, and Sean and I went for an epic snorkel. Before that moment I hadn’t realized that you could see such amazing fish and rocks and coral while snorkeling, I thought it would be all so far away. Runner Up: Kealekeloua Bay. I think we just had a good time swimming and snorkeling here on TBI, don’t remember why this was amazing. Worst: A-bay. Still don’t remember, but maybe the cats were the best part of it. 😛

Best Dollar Spent: Big Blue Book. There’s some controversy over the book, but I’m still in love with it years later. His style of writing really draws me in, and lets me enjoy the trip how I want to enjoy it, and I haven’t found a travel guide for any other place that is quite as amazing. Runner Up: SNUBA. SNUBA was a surprisingly good time – about as much money as one SCUBA dive, but with 70% less hassle. Sure you can only go 15 feet under, but that’s the price you pay. I’d do it again, and have. 🙂 Worst: Dinner cruise. Runner Up Worst: Sheraton.

It’s funny the things you can remember. That’s the list, 2 years later! That was fun to type out, and now I get to recycle this piece of paper that I’ve been keeping handy for 2 years! 😛

Costa Rica

Lessons learned

February 21, 2015 Craig 2 Comments

I like writing down my lessons so I can refer back to them later. 😛

1 pair of shorts/5 days on vacation. That’s shorts to wear, not including swimwear. It’s ok to wear “dirty” shorts in the tropics, because even if you wear new ones every day, you’re sweating buckets as soon as you leave your place to stay. I brought 2 pairs, and thankfully had laundry in the middle.
1 pair of good synthetic t-shirt or tank per 5 days of vacation. Not including swimwear, again. I brought 2 t-shirts and 1 tank and I wanted just one more. Cotton is just to thick and brutal. Merino wool is surprisingly not bad, but wash it repeatedly before you go otherwise it is still scratchy, no matter what they claim.
We traveled to 6 places over 17 days. That’s too much! We could have done with one less location, but ideally I think 1 location/5 days maximum. Even if you hate the place, you can go somewhere else. And that’s enough time to really get to know a place, as opposed to dine’n’dashing.
My new sandals aren’t my old sandals. These ones started to rip apart at the foot bed after less than one year of use. My old ones lasted somewhat near 6 years of my kind of abuse. Tevas > Merrells? I don’t know, but I’m not impressed. (even less impressed that the underlayer is bright orange. Would it have killed anyone to make it somewhat brown?!)
Driving around a country isn’t that hard. Time consuming. Occasionally difficult, scary or slow as hell, but definitely can be done.
If you don’t like something, you can leave.
I really love learning language (just Spanish so far), but holy hell is it exhausting! My pet theory is that this is why Expats and tourists have such great conversations – being able to speak English clearly, and know that the other person will understand you without problem is so reassuring. Every tourist we spoke with was so fun and friendly.
You need more money than you think. >.> We accidentally took twice as much money out of the ATM (because our math was wrong, one tired day) as we thought we needed…and then we spent that too. We were terrified until we counted out where it had all gone.

And unless I think of something else in the next few minutes, I think that wraps up Costa Rica for this blog! I’m going to “best of” on Facebook and post a final link here so folks can find it, but I’m done here. Thanks for reading, Melissa! (…and my Dad :D)

Hawaii

Moar lernings

May 21, 2014 Craig 1 Comment

Mexico, being a distinctly foreign location, had a lot more to teach me than Hawaii, which I’ve been to 3 times in the last 1.5 years. >.> But there’s still a handful of things I want to think about for the future.

Clothing. Damnit, I’m tired of carrying around needless clothing. For a week long trip to a hot location, I only need the following items:

More underwear than you can imagine. Just bring it all. It’s small, lightweight and if you want new underwear, you can do that.
2 pairs of “adventure shorts”. I can’t find the exact model anymore, but something like this. Zip pockets keep valuables safe. Comfortable. Lightweight. Folds easily. Dries quickly should it get west. Sweat band around the waist. I only currently own one pair, and the reason I want two is so that I don’t end up wearing the same pair all week. I brought two other pairs of shorts that were not at all appealing to be worn in the heat, near water this week.
2 pairs of wicking t-shirts. “Dry wear” type of poly-pro. Make them look good and dry quickly.
2 pairs of tank tops. I really like these.
1 shirt that could be worn to a nicer place.
Don’t bring any socks…
My toe shoes count as hiking, water and running shoes…just make sure to rinse after they go in the salt water. Yuck.

We ended up paying to upgrade to First Class for our flight back. This was worthwhile, but only because we had a backup plan. If we’d been anxious and ensured we had it, it would have cost an extra $300 each. Instead, we waited until 24 hours before the flight and booked it for only $150 each. Our seats in the back of the plane were ok, but FC gave us more recline, more leg room and more arm space which was awesome for actually being able to sleep on the blasted plane.

Miranda carried a pillow around Hawaii. This was a good idea, I wish’d I had an actual pillow. >.<

Hawaii

Last photos

May 20, 2014 Craig Leave a comment

I still have a flying video to post, but here are the last of my photos.

P1280652 — The powered hang gliders flew by our house on the North Shore regularly and one time I got my long lens out quickly enough to grab this photo.

P1280621 — One night we went out on the North Shore beach and took some photos. Miranda has some super awesome photos, but I forgot my tripod and just fooled around. That light is the moon, poorly lit.

P1280618 — My camera has an ISO 25600 mode. That’s a lot of ISO…that’s a lot of noise. This is handheld. 😛

P1280608 — Miranda takes photos by moonlight.

P1280571 — A finger above the mountain just to the right of the middle of a spec of black paraglider.

Mexico

Learnings

February 11, 2014 Craig 1 Comment

We learned a lot in Mexico, and a lot of it was really small things that you wouldn’t think about.

When pushed, you can communicate. With less than a hundred words, no available translation methods, gestures, and a smile, you can make things happen.

Travel with ear plugs. You never know when you’ll be staying in the most beautiful place that just happens to have 5 dogs, a rooster and a lot of noisy neighbours nearby.

Driving in Mexico is scary. But it’s less scary than you think.

Many people in Mexico want to take your money as efficiently as they can. However, just like in your home country, there are genuine and amazing people out there if you keep your eyes, mind and heart open. We narrowly avoided a needless car rental bill because we’d met the right person, and our scooter rental guy was super nice. Both of these activities we were wary of, because you read so many bad things on the Internet.

Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet. But you can believe some of it. Everyone has a different need when they travel. I can appreciate that some people may not want to do what we do, but if you want to you can do it.

You haven’t actually eaten a mango until you’ve had one in Mexico.

We searched high and low for the Best Guacamole in Mexico, and we finally found it in Cancun. But you can still get the Second Best Guacamole in Mexico from Earls in Vancouver.

It is worth finding the right place to stay, and stretching your boundaries to learn something new. We stayed in Playa for 9 days and in Cancun for 1. Cancun is fake, with giant hotels and people who speak “perfect” English. Playa is a much more real place, that is still a safe experience. Don’t trust the stereotypes that you may have.

You can buy anything on 5th Ave. Some stereotypes are true. I got offered blow and crack one night.

Sometimes the best experiences of your trip, will be the least expensive ones. But sometimes, you just have to fork out the @#$% cash.

The more you know up front, the better you’ll feel. We did a bunch of research beforehand, but mostly left our day-to-day unplanned. We took a Spanish class beforehand, which was really worth it.

Double check all your reservations…

There may be a map nearby somewhere that will tell you everything you need. It’s not the end of the world if you miss it, because the experience is worthwhile regardless. But there may be a turtle oasis if you swim just a little further.

Get someone to hand you your scuba camera. Check all of your waterproof seals. Check them again. Get the sand out of the o-ring. Check the o-ring again. Check your pockets for electronics before you go in the water. Check them again.

There is no situation in which you should bring socks to the Caribbean. Even fewer situations where you should bring 5 pairs. >.<

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And that’s all we’ve got for this trip. Thanks for reading! Friends won’t be surprised, but we have another trip coming up in May… one of Miranda’s best friends is getting married in Hawaii, and we’re going. More turtles! 🙂

Stuphes

Tag Archives: last-post

O’ahu 2022 – The Last post

Best Restaurant

Best “for pay” Experience

Best Free Experience

Unexpectedly Best Item Brought

Favourite Item Brought

Best Dollar Spent

Worst Restaurant

Favourite Animal

Worst Item Brought

Best Research Time Spent

Most Missed Item

Saddest Lost/Broken Item

Honourable Mention

Best Photos

Mexico 2020 – The Last Post

Best Restaurant

Best “For Pay” Experience

Best Free Experience

Unexpectedly Best Item Brought

Favourite Thing Bought

Best Dollar Spent

Best Place To Stay

Worst Restaurant

Favourite Animal

Best Body of Water

Worst Item Brought

Best Photos

#5 – The Last Post, with Lessons

Lessons

Hawaii #4 Post-thoughts

Japan – lessons learned

Hawaii #1 – Oops

Lessons learned

Moar lernings

Last photos

Learnings

Things!