Kapaa

On Saturday I got to go to the wonderful town of Kapaa, which is the closest big town to Princeville. I had driven through it a few times before, but I had always wanted to take more time to explore it. I jumped on the trusty Kauai bus from the Princeville shopping center and headed to Kapaa (ka-PAH-ah).

I was dropped off at the local craft fair and got to explore all of the local crafts, including things like wooden bowls, different kinds of Hawaiian clothes/wraps, and a ton of jewelry. Kapaa is basically built revolving around the main highway (which is also its Main Street; reminds me a lot of Pullman), so I decided to check out all of the local shops and restaurants down the street. Of course being the incredible foodie that I am, I literally stopped and looked at every single restaurant’s menu. Half of the time they would have menus outside, but sometimes it would be a little café or local spot and you would have to go inside to look at the menu. When I did go inside to look around and then turn around to go back out, I think people must thought have that I was little looney. Oh well, food will do that to you. There was an interesting selection of restaurants, a bunch like your local burger shops (except you could get interesting add-ons like kim chee or spam), Asian restaurants, Mexican, specialty coffee shops, and even your all-vegetarian restaurant and vegan café. Kapaa also had a roadside fruit stand and you could get mangos, pineapple, ice cold coconuts (to drink out of), and sugar cane (as a snack). For lunch I went to the House of Noodles and got a good Saimin noodle dish that was excellent. After exploring a little more, I decided to head back to the bus stop and head back to Princeville. It was neat on the drive back, because they took a different route off of the main highway and I got to see some more of the inland towns.

It felt great to leave Princeville on my own and do things on my schedule and get a better feel of the island culture. I’m hoping to make it to other towns in the coming weekends as well.

Today was great too. For breakfast I had some papaya and tried the Taro pancakes with bananas and coconut syrup (what a surprise ;) ). Then I just bought some snorkel gear and hit some of the coral reefs right outside of the hotel. Great end to a restful/interesting weekend. Oh boy this week I’ll be working at the front desk! And wait till you see this uniform . . . you guessed it a muumuu.









Sittin' at the Noodle House