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Maui Part 1

Hello! I’m blogging from Maui, Hawaii! Lots of delicious food and scenery to share today!

Also-shoulder update-it’s feeling better each day but it’s definitely not near where it needs to be. I can now raise my arm above my head, but I have problems rotating backwards. I’m hoping I’m healed enough for Crossfit on Monday!

The plane ride here was pretty painless. I woke up early and ran 3 miles before leaving for the airport at 7, and had plenty of plane snacks, including my banana bread. I used guava syrup as the sweetener-there wasn’t much so I’m not sure it was noticeable but it felt festive!

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When we stepped off the plane, this was the view:

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However, it was HOT. 90 degrees and 80% humidity. Yuck. Our first stop was the local mall that we have gone to every time for many years. There was a mini farmer’s market going on on the ground floor and we picked up some tropical fruit and some avocado! Lunch was eaten at the food court-we went to a Korean place and I got BBQ chicken+sides.

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After exploring a bit, we were able to check into our hotel.

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But then it was time for ice cream. I had banana salted caramel.

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Followed by exploring the property. My dad is here for a conference so we’re staying in a much nicer hotel than I’ve stayed in before!

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Dinner was at the hotel restaurant. It was tapas style, so we ordered several dishes for the table-highlights for me were mahi mahi with mashed purple sweet potatoes and passion fruit, miso kale salad with dried figs, goat cheese balsamic beet salad, and gooey mozzarella tomato salad.

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For dessert, we shared breadfruit lilikoi cake (breadfruit gives it a similar texture to cheesecake!) and a dish that was fruit with caramel sauce and chocolate that was then broiled and topped with ice cream.

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The view over the infinity pool at dusk:

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The next morning began with a slice of banana bread and a 5 mile treadmill run. Normally 4 is my treadmill limit but it was HOT so I just broke it up and did it. Post run, we ordered room service breakfast, and I got a beautiful fruit platter with maple yogurt. We also split gluten free pancakes, which were so, so good! I can’t remember the last time I had real pancakes!

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Then it was beach time!

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On the way back to our room, we stopped by the hotel’s water slides (!). When I was younger, we’d always pass the fancy hotels with water slides and wish we could go on them, so this was our chance!

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After cleaning up, we headed out to lunch at O’Lei. I had blackened mahi mahi with papaya salsa, served with rice and caesar salad.

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After lunch we headed to a nearby ice cream shop for some tropical ice cream. I had mango ice cream with mango sorbet swirls, and in the heat, this hit the spot perfectly!

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After a grocery stop and some time to cool off in the room, we headed to the luau hosted by our hotel!

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(Do you like my tan line? The sad thing is it’s not from wearing a t-shirt, it’s from only sunscreening my shoulders this morning…cute)

When we arrived, we grabbed drinks (piña colada for me) and got a glance at the pig they were pulling out of the emu pit. To cook the pork, an entire pig is buried underground and cooked all day.

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After a bit of a wait, it was time to eat! I was pleasantly surprised at what there was for me to eat given my dietary restrictions!

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Salad, pineapple coleslaw, roasted purple potatoes, fried rice, teriyaki chicken, lomi lomi salmon, and poi. The lomi lomi salmon is the salsa looking thing. It’s essentially pico with chunks of salmon (that look a lot like tomatoes!). Poi is a pudding like food that is made from taro. It has a bit of a sour flavor, and is often eaten with lomi lomi salmon. If you’re less legit like I am, you eat it topped with sugar!

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For dessert-key lime squares, chocolate cake, a pineapple chunk, and haupia. Haupia is sort of like creamy coconut jello.

Then-the show began!

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The fire dancer was especially impressive! I cannot imagine sticking a flaming stick in my mouth.

After a fun start to our trip, we have lots of adventures ahead!

Fruit, Fitness, and Family

Hey guys! As I’m sure you know, I’m in Hawaii! I hope you are enjoying the fabulous guest posts! I don’t want to do a TON of vacation recaps so I’m going to stick to some of the highlights of the activities, food, and workouts. 

The first night I went to a luau with my family. I showed you guys some of the delicious food in WIAW. I wanted to highlight some of the other cool non-food things as well though. 

ImageTiki carver!

This luau had some of the best dance performances as well-there was humor integrated as well as some really impressive fire dancing. During one part, the dancers (men) put out fires with their grass skirts. Ouch.

ImageCheck out that aerial dancer-how impressive is that??

Sunday morning began with a 6 mile run. It was…not terribly fun. hot. I had been on my feet a lot the day before-it didn’t feel great. I’m SO not used to heat and humidity. I’m pushing this week’s long run back until I’m home!

The activity of the day was zipling-something DEFINITELY new to me!

ImageWe went to the Maui tropical plantation-somewhere we’ve visited many times in the past. The zipline was new to us though! It was really terrifying at first-we were up high and it was windy so the whole tower was moving. We were hooked in the whole time though, so it was totally safe. It ended up being a ton of fun!

The tropical plantation was beautiful as well.

ImageImageImageImageMy favorite day overall was probably Wednesday though. It began with a visit to Lahaina Crossfit. They were so friendly and welcoming. I met a few other visitors from California as well, and it was fun to visit a different box. Plus, it felt so good to get a tough workout in. ImageSooo now this vacation is turning into a game of “how many Crossfit boxes can I visit on one trip.” Tomorrow we’re touring a pineapple plantation in the middle of nowhere, in a tiny town, and there just happens to be a box there. So you better believe I’ll be there before the tour!

On Wednesday, while in Lahaina, we visited a pet/plant store. Let me start by saying that I’ve been to this same store a few times when I was much younger, and those visits are precisely why I stopped eating pork. 

ImageOMG TEACUP PIGS. They are sooo adorable. I’ve wanted one as a pet for years. Since we had been in the store for kind of a while playing with birds, the owner of the store let me sit in with the pigs and feed them from my hand.

ImageThey were so sweet! They behaved just like dogs- they had wet little snouts and made little snorting noises.

ImageThey eat an entirely vegan, organic diet. 

The birds were super friendly as well. This guy-Prince, is 27 and has never bitten anyone. ImageAnother parrot was so funny-my mom and I would say “hello” to her, and she’d say hello back. When my dad said hello to her, she let out the LOUDEST squawk right in his ear, and then proceeded to laugh. A girl after my own heart.

ImageI don’t want this to get too long, so I’ll stick to those activities for now. But since this is supposed to be a food blog as well, I guess I should add some of those as well.

ImageHalf of a chicken teriyaki plate (shared with my mom).

ImageThis is my dad’s-it has pork so I wouldn’t eat it-but I wanted to share it with you since it’s a traditional Hawaiian dish, and my dad’s favorite food ever. It’s called lau lau- it’s pork wrapped with ti leaves. 

ImagePineapple ice cream with an oatmeal papaya cookie. This was soooo good. The cookie was PERFECTLY chewy. Yum. 

ImageDo you see the SIZE of this avocado? We don’t make ’em like that in CA! That makes a LOT of guac! While these are definitely fun, the California ones still have my heart. The island variety is a little starchier and less flavorful-definitely less creamy. It was a little hard to mash, and made for some chunky guac. We paired it with a nice salad-chicken, salsa, cheddar. The dressing was olive oil and lime juice, plus salt and pepper. Yum!

Sooo I guess I don’t have NEARLY as many fruit pictures as I thought when I named this post…but don’t worry-lots of tropical fruit is being consumed. Mangoes, papayas, passion fruit, coconut, and guavas. 🙂 I can’t complain!

Have you ever been to Hawaii? What did you do there? What should I EAT here?

Aloha!

Aloha from Maui! I wanted to pop in really quickly today-I have a few minutes before my 6 mile training run!

ImageImageYesterday was a looong day thanks to a 4:30am wakeup and a 3 hour time change. Our flight left at 7am, so we were at the airport at 6. 

Starbucks for breakfast-I actually didn’t want any caffeine since I wanted to sleep on the 5 hour flight as much as possible. A chocolate smoothie did the trick-plus it is one of the less sweet options at Starbucks.

ImageAs expected the flight felt long. And the plane was FREEZING-and I was wearing pants and a sweatshirt. Sleeping didn’t happen much, but what are you gonna do? And get this-you had to PAY to even watch a movie. Whattttt. So I did not do that!

Upon landing, our first stop was a local swap meet (crafts plus farmer’s market). We had a couple of hours before my sister’s boyfriend’s flight landed so this was perfect. I loved looking at all the exotic fruits. And look at the size of those avocados!

ImageI’ve never seen non-CA avocados! I can’t wait to try them! Another highlight was freshly pressed green juice. Soooo good.

ImageThe perfect start to a tropical vacation!

Once we picked up my sister’s boyfriend, we headed out for some traditional Hawaiian food for lunch-one of my dad’s all time favorite things. 

My mom and I split a giant papaya seed salad and teriyaki chicken.

ImageImageWe then visited our hotel and shopped around at a very touristy but awesome Hawaiian store-Hilo Hattie. Fact: my dad owns 10000 Hawaiian shirts. 

ImageWant to know what’s sad? When my family has come to Hawaii in the past, it’s usually in the winter or spring. It’s HOT in the summer. And….my weather at home is nicer. Like a lot nicer. Not hot or humid-it’s been in the 90s here and humid, and THIS California girl is drowning in her own sweat. #spoiledCAgirlproblems

This evening, we attended a Luau. ImageImageMore pictures on that for another post! My Internet is slow so uploading takes a little while, and I only have about 3 minutes until I have to run. It was tons of fun-and I was SO ready for bed at 9pm. What’s weird is that my ankle swelled up kind of a lot yesterday-and I don’t usually swell much. It’s the one I sprained a couple of months ago that is still kind of stiff. I guess a lot of being on my feet plus flying contributed to that…weird. 

Hope you all are having a fabulous long weekend!