Lost my shoes in Paradise...

It happened in the twilight hours one morning in Hawaii; I was doing what I went to do in Hawaii... walk on the beach barefoot and feel the sand between my toes. Since I was carrying my camera that morning and intended to take pictures, I set my beach shoes on a rock protruding from under the sand...

When it was time to return to the hotel, I couldn’t find my shoes anywhere... somebody just couldn’t resist the pretty pink color or may be she/he needed it really bad.
(It was far out in the dry so waves couldn’t have taken them and if they did they didn’t leave any signs...)

As I was about to get upset that I’ll have to walk barefoot back to the room, I realized that the day before I was thinking that I was getting tired of wearing same beach shoes trip after trip and that I was planning to leave them in the hotel room when I leave... I guess it was better that somebody who really needed it or really liked it got the shoes than house keeping throwing it in the trash...

And that gave me a genuine reason in years to buy some new shoes... (I usually buy shoes for no apparent reason...)

Evening Walk at Waikiki Beach

The world is an oyster and you its pearl...

Picking out your oyster and then finding what kind of pearl you’ll get inside is a very popular tourist activity in Hawaii. Although I have never done it myself, we thought it would be a good idea for my girl to see where pearls come from...


So, she pointed to the oyster that she wanted


Her Mamma took it out of the bucket for her


After a little ceremony of tapping wooden tongs on the oyster and shouting Aloha, the lady at the shop cut open the oyster....


The pearl was pink in color... we were told that pink signifies ‘Beauty’


The pearl is now turned into a pendant with a gold ‘Hula’ skirt holding it together and waiting in a pretty jewelry box for a special occasion...

Some Hawaii pictures...

A small dent in the big pile (virtual) of pictures...

Our Hotel garden as seen from our balcony...


Its a new game for her, feeding her sister...


Saumya Said, "Mamma, I think she loves me"


Three of us at Honolulu Zoo


Self portrait at International market...

Aloha- logging in from Hawaii

We are here and settled (as settled as it gets)...
My attitude: 'Minnesota nice meets Hawaiian Hang-loose'... can't get better than this.

Jet lag is almost over but for the fact that I wake up at 4:00 am ... totally loving it, a few hours to myself before kids wake up (hats off to stay-at-home moms, how do you do it?)
I have taken to the old fashioned way of journaling (pen and paper) for the trip so chances are there won't be daily updates but once I get back, I might share some words from my journal... we'll see.

We are staying at the same hotel as we did 2.5 years ago, so familiarity is playing a big role in maneuvering around with two kids. Funny, Divi is almost the same age as Somu was when she was here the last time... I am trying to dig pictures for comparisons.
I have realized that I have photographic memory and I navigated us to a restaurant that we really liked last time but didn't even have a clue about which city it is in... but I kept saying... lets turn right and may be a right again... and there we were... loved the feeling.
We have a little kitchenette in our room ( very helpful with kids) and I am loving making banana-macadamia nut pancakes for breakfast... its fun to shop at local grocery store and farmers market and cook with locally available ingredients...
Getting to know the people and their culture and interact with them... the best part, people often mistake me for a local Hawaiian...
(side story: few years ago, DH and I were sitting in a bar in Wisconsin and two native americans joined us in conversations, they thought I was a native american and when I said I am not, they swore that I should check my ancestral history and I'll find a link... When they found out that I was in school, they offered us both jobs in the local casino. Well I never checked my genealogy but hey! in this world where everybody is trying to find differences and exclude one another if someone can identify with me and is trying to include me as one of them, who the heck am I to complain...)

I like this vacation especially for the fact that there is no agenda, we don't have to rush from one tourist site to the other, kids don't have to take afternoon naps in the car... we might not have all the things that we need and use in our home but its fun making do with little things,... I am not worrying about deadlines at work, the phone calls I should have made before I came or the emails I need to send, all that can wait... right now, all I want to do is ' live in this moment' and soak it all in, may be cause its Hawaii or may be cause I am acutely aware that this too shall pass...
Besides discovering Hawaii, I am re-discovering me... I sit at the lanai (balcony) and watch the sunset and its all so pure, so serene, so beautiful... that I feel like crying... (Thank you God! for letting me experience all this....)

Here are some pictures from our hike to the top of Diamond Head...