spicetart

Kauai

We left the Monday after the wedding for Kauai for 5 days. Here's my 10 Things I Remember Most About The Garden Isle:

1) Chickens, chickens, chickens - seriously this must be the County bird or something, these damn chickens are everywhere.

2) Crap food - even the best rated restaurants were meh, I am not alone in this.

3) Shave ice - best invention ever. I could survive on this - if I could survive on this. Get the guava.

4) Terrifying helicopter rides - Never again. Chris owes me big time "It'll be smooth, no turbulence" LIAR. If you want to experience sheer terror from 2000 feet in a 5 person bird WITH NO DOORS, then this is the ride for you. We have great pictures, too bad I couldn't take any myself because my hands would not unclinch from the nearest handle.  We stopped after an hour at a private jungle waterfall to have lunch.  That was great because we were on the ground.

5) Hiking to awesomest oceanside swimming hole ever - Note: Next time, bring mask and snorkel

6) Forget the hotels, stay in a beach front condo - even the top rated hotel was disappointing (unless you have kids, becaue the pool rocked)

7) Incredible pineapple - I mean I eat a lot of pineapple, but the pineapple that we got from the family running the stand by Wailua Falls has set a new standard. They also fed us some yummy starfruit.  They were the nicest people we met on the island by far, next time, we're visiting their farm for sure.  So did I take any pictures or write down their name?  No. Der.

8) Farmer's market - If we were staying in the above mentioned condo, I would have gone crazy here and stocked up on local eats. We did leave with a fresh coconut, which, if you have never eaten the rubbery, sweet flesh of a fresh coconut, you really must try one day. Yum.

9) Don't try to find that magical, secret beach that you went to 13 years ago.  It is no longer magical nor secret.  And it's windy.

10) Seeing an old friend from many years ago...

Stay tuned for MAUI!!

It's all over.

It's all over, all the wedding stuff and the honeymoon and...oh, that's right, there's still that baby thing. Yeah, that's not over yet. Anyway.

BUT we had a wonderful wedding day, it really is a unique feeling to be surrounded by all the people that you love and that love you and to just celebrate and feel special. We had a great time, we just wish we had more time to spend with everyone there. The setting was also gorgeous, a big THANK YOU to Chris's dear friends over there at Mill Creek Winery.

The food turned out crap, as did the cupcakes. Never trust a bakery to do a man's job. I have just become so spoiled by Chris's miracle cupcakes that no cupcakes can substitute. The ones we got were really no good, but not even crappy food and hard cupcakes could spoil a beautiful day. Here's a picture of them, they do look beautiful albeit a little melty. In the end, I really didn't care that much.

And the food I knew was going to be all wrong.  The caterer and I did not see eye to eye and it just became too late to change to find someone else.  We only had heavy appetizers and they just were not that good.  I won't post her company name here but anyone looking for a caterer in the wine country would be smart to avoid her (you can email me).

My dress turned out gorgeous due to the fact that my family uses who I think is the best wedding dress maker in San Francisco, Jin Wang, (seriously, she rocks). The best part? She designed it so that I wouldn't have to even wear a bra. Yep, the ladies ran amuck all day, yowza.

And although my shoes sucked, I had brought my Chacos and changed about 20 minuted into the reception. Ahhh...bliss.

Shwew.  Then it was all over and we went to Kauai!

That settles it.

It looks like the big argument over who invented noodles has come to end. Archaeologists in Western China discovered a pile of nearly perfectly preserved 4,000 year old noodles recently. Apparently, some guy had been about to sit down to a nice warm meal of yummy millet noodles when an earthquake of some magnitude hit, followed by a massive flood, subsequently burying the poor slob and his overturned bowl of noodles in 10 feet of fine sediment. The result? A 4,000 year old hermetically sealed bowl of noodles that turned to dust minutes after the discoverers snapped this photo of them.

I have to say that the settles the argument. China 1, Italy 0. Next thing you know, we are going to find out that Mama Celeste is not even Italian.

Listen to the story here. The most recent edition of Nature Magazine has the full scoop.

I love stories like this so much that it brought me out of my blogging void.