West Maui Day: 03

So here's a nice shot from yesterday of the champagne flutes and champagne we were given for our honeymoon from the Westin. It is nice of them to give us something like this. I've already broken one of the glasses, though. It was too close to the towels by the sink, unfortunately.

On this balcony we get a variety of little birds that hang around looking for something to snack on. We've yet to begin feeding them, but ... it's only a matter of time. We were also surprised to find that there are cardinals here. I didn't think they made it this far out into the Pacific, but... shows how much I know about the matter.

We only ventured away from the hotel a little yesterday, and that was to pick up a few necessities that went missing over the last few days. First off, my wife forgot all of her soaps and shampoos at the Bed & Breakfast we stayed at (Branteaney's, which was awesome) so we were out of that for her by the time we were on the road back to Toronto on Sunday.

Also, my shampoo was squished in my suitcase while we were flying to Hawaii, so my pajamas were basically ruined (although nothing else was, so it's not so bad). Frankly, when I broke the champagne flute, it spilled champagne all over my PJs, too, so they're doubly no good to wear. So we went out to a Walgreen's to get some stuff. We also stocked up on some things for a picnic later in the week. That'll be good fun.

We also saw what appears to be the construction for a new aqueduct that's being installed around here. I can't find a link to it, but I'll try and get a picture later on today for the blog. It looks cool - but also like it needs some water, real bad.

Then we lounged around the pool, and swam in the pool, for a couple of hours - though no sunburn/suntan yet. Don't worry, I'll get a picture of one if it happens. The pools here are really awesome, and in several cases, there are actually big tunnels that go beneath waterfalls that connect one pool to the next, including a hidden pool that's located beneath the waterfalls.

I read some of Timothy Findlay's Famous Last Words, and I have to say, it's always remarkable to read an excellent author and watch him work. It's an incredible story already and I've only read about 10 pages or something stupid like that. It's remarkable what he was able to achieve with his words and ability to build a story structure. Absolutely remarkable.

We didn't get in the Ocean (yet) but it's only a matter of time before we hop in. Likely, it won't be as relaxing as the pool, but it'll be nice to get in and swim around a bit.

On the right here is a picture of a piece of art floating in the pond by the front entrance of the hotel. Underneath hides a big coy - and he's there most of the time. This happens to be a noticeably large coy, and he's always under that boat.

We took a few more photos of the hotel at night - and the lighting is really special. Everything looks very lovely - and again, there's something very special about the amount of space and peace there is when there are enormous crowds of people all over the place. It's so nice to have some peace and quiet. I can't really relax when it's like an amusement park at the buffet tables, or the circus by the poolside. It's been very, very nice here.

As for these evening pictures - these are the best of the bunch. It's a little more difficult to take good photos in the dark without a flash - but these seem to capture what it's like around here in the evening. It's really nice.

We'll have lots of good photos for you tomorrow. Have a good one.

West Maui Day: 02

I know this seems to be all at once - and there are a bunch of pictures for tomorrow's post - but here are some of the good things from this morning. First off, even though we slept for what seemed like an eternity, it was only 6 a.m. when we finally decided we couldn't sleep anymore. One of the advantages of being this far east. We may be closer to Japan than we are to Ontario right now - but I'm not geographer.

The hotel here is very nice - and we've only seen a small bit of it. Our breakfast buffet was fantastic, full of more than enough choices, and they were all very tasty. Tomorrow we'll have the Ocean-side buffet so we can see the water while we sip on coffee and eat Eggs Benedict.

Not unlike other hotels, there are plenty of nice birds and fish all around that fill the ponds and pools with life. The parrots and cockatoos will say "Hello" without much prompting, but also say "Aloha," which is cute. After breakfast we took a stroll along the beach for a while, and the water was fantastic. We didn't get in, I was carrying a camera and wasn't in my beach shorts, but we sure wanted to. On the right is a nice shot of our footprints in the sand.

This may not be a peak vacationing time, which means that there are lawn chairs still available by the pool even though it's the middle of the day. How nice is to not be caught up in the crowds while you're on vacation. No lineups (so far) and nobody bumping into you. It's just the way I like it.

West Maui Day: 01

So here are some of the first pictures from our first day of travels on our honeymoon. Now, some of you may not know (or yet realize) that Hawaii is far from Toronto. Travel is like kryptonite to me and it basically will kill me if I spend too long exposed to it. Yesterday, I was almost dead after 20 hours. So it feels good to be alive.

Our first stop in the trip was in Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas, where I left a small blog post from a terminal in the airport while we had a 3-hour layover. It was an alright spot, and we even had a chance to have some breakfast.

On the right here, you can see my Texas breakfast. My new wife also had the largest Chicken Tenders I'd seen ever. They weren't that good, but it was lucky that there was so much left over, because we were in the 36th row of the airplane, and they'd run out of dinner's to serve by the time it was our chance to eat. We weren't happy with that. We were starving. It made the eight hour flight feel even worse.

So we had the left-over chicken tenders to satisfy us later on.

Flights also seem longer when the in-flight movie is Paul Blart Mall Cop. We mistakenly rented this a few months ago - and it's no better the second time around. Again, travelling slowly kills me, and so do inescapable bad movies. Grooaan.

But when it was all said and done, finding where to go next was no trouble. We were found by someone holding a sign with my name on it who then dowsed us both in flowered necklaces. These are heavier than you'd imagine they are, believe it or not.

Then we easily took a shuttle to where we rented a car from Dollar, and they gave us fine directions to our hotel.

To help you get the feel for where we are, this is a map of Maui, and you can see the airport we flew in to is on the North side of the middle of the island in Kahului. We drove south west from there to arrive on the West Side of Maui at our resort in Ka'anapali where we're staying at the Westin Resort and Spa [2365 Kaanapali Pkwy, Lahaina, HI 96761, (888) 625-4949 room 1053 if you'd like to come visit us. We're here all week!]

Ka'anapali is on the west side of Maui, near the "T" in "West" on the above map. On the drive up to the hotel we took these shots. We have a few photos of the water, but they were taken from a moving car (while I was almost dead from travelling, remember) so they are so great. Then we got our hotel room and slept for 12 hours straight - someone even showed up to deliver champagne - because we're on our honeymoon - and I can hardly remember it. The bucket of champagne on ice is now filled with only water, the bottle completely uncorked (for now).

More updates will follow during my wife's naptime. I'll keep you in the loop. See you all in a few weeks.

Honeymoon starts now

It may have technically began when we left my parents' house at 4 a.m. (EST) on Monday morning - but it actually begins now that we've woken up in our hotel room. We checked into our room around 11:30 p.m. (EST) which was only like 3:30 p.m. here.

then we fell asleep until about 3 in the morning, and slept some more until about 6 a.m. here. So we tried to get some rest with about 12 hours in bed. Now me, I was out cold, had absolutely muddle dreams and I think someone came into our room (sure enough, we not have champagne in a bucket of melted ice waiting for us) and was basically a walking zombie for the last few legs of our trip - I don't travel well.

Anyhow - we've got a breakfast to get to, so I'll leave you with two items. 1) a picture from our balcony of the resort below;

and (2), if the Leafs win while I'm in Hawaii, I guess I'll have to stay in Hawaii until the end of the season to ensure their success. I'll take one for the team.

Also, if you were in attendance at our wedding - drink lots of liquids, get plenty of rest, and have vitamin C while you have the chance. All those people from all over the place all suddenly shaking hands and hugging - don't get the flu!

More Extent promo stuff

See more at www.extenttv.com

Extent promo poster

Just click on this sucka to enlarge it. I'm getting excited about this. Won't be long now before we can start watching this.

Zombie Triceratops

I had this finished ages ago, but for some reason didn't post it.

Here's a Zombie Triceratops:

[Click to enlarge.]