Exploring the King's Village in Waikiki

Joe, Allison, and I stayed at the Princess Kaiulani Sheraton in Waikiki.  I managed to not think about taking pictures of things like the hotel itself, our room or the pool, so I'll just say they were really nice.  Personally, I didn't spend any time at the pool other than passing a half hour with a beverage in my hand, but it had plenty of lounging room and lots of kids splashing around.  I mean if there's a beach two blocks away there's basically no chance I'll be at the pool.  As for the room, it was your standard hotel room, save the pretty view we had from the fourteenth floor.  It was lovely to wake up and read with a glass of tea in the morning and look out at our little peak of water.

oceans to the left

 and mountains to the right

The only drawback was our proximity to a particularly loud bar, or as we called it "pineapple-land" that played music until right around our bedtime.  Certainly not a deal breaker, but it could be a little bit of a hassle.

Our hotel was also right across the street from a little shopping center called the King's Village.  This cute little center is home to a handful of tourist shops with clothes, quilts, knickknacks, and shoes as well as a few restaurants.

there's not much cuter than baby-sized Hawaiian shirts and dresses. 

I seriously loved these quilts.  As happens with anything remotely crafty, I admired them greatly but refused to buy them with the idea that I could make my own.  But I did eventually buy myself a pattern to make it, so hopefully I'll follow through with this one.

 my favorite quilt

But by far the best part of the village was its farmer's market.  Several days a week vendors fill in the walkways with food stands for grilled meat, more varieties of peanut butter than you knew existed, and of course, tons of fresh fruit.  

More than half of the world's pineapples come from Hawaii, so they're obviously incredible.  But there's also mangoes, bananas, dragon fruit, and many more all grown fresh on the islands with the best weather ever.

One very hungry afternoon Joe and I went over and scrounged up a few snacks- mostly from the above food stand.

 lobster balls

fried rice 

teriyaki chicken, orange chicken, and barbecue chicken kabobs

barbecue chicken wing 

orange chicken

dragon fruit 

 check out that weird texture

the malasada- a Hawaiian donut 

 As should be apparent, we demolished our lunch.

If you're staying in Waikiki, it's well worth the stop.  Plus, we picked up fruit that we munched on over the next few days.  It's delicious and (important for us) reasonably priced for a nice late lunch. 

Stay tuned for a little more Hawaiian nature in my next post!

Afternoon with Ana

While in New York I was fortunate enough to catch up with some old friends- including my very oldest friend, Ana.  Ana and I became friends in the fifth grade when we both were cheerleaders together.  We've been friends through every embarrassing childhood phase imaginable. We started a band together in middle school (we even made music videos and signed photos- it doesn't matter if you can't sing or play instruments), built stuff in her dad's garage while blasting Nelly, and then made the harsh transition to black band t-shirts and a Slipknot/Slayer concert.  We even have a shocking number of exes in common (the perks of a small town). Despite our mutual inability to stay in contact from a distance, we always manage to pick up right where we left off.

the beautiful Ana!

Given the absolutely beautiful weather we were having, we were determined to spend the maximum amount of time outside possible.  At my dad's suggestion, we went to Aladdin's Natural Eatery for lunch.  It's right on the Erie Canal in Pittsford, and they have two stories of outdoor seating, so it's basically perfect for that one-in-a-million sunny day in Rochester.