james and i spent a wonderful week in maui for our 7 years anniversary and my birthday. we get to spent some much needed time together and explore one of the beautiful islands of hawaii.

we arrived on tuesday at 1:30pm, right in the middle of the mountain fire that had started the night before. that morning, the fire had spread out of control and therefore, the only highway from the kahului airport to lahaina was closed.

we turned back and did some stocking up on things like sunscreen and sandwiches at the local walmart and grabbed some late lunch at panda express. by the time we made it to the royal lahaina resort, it was after 8pm.

checked in was smooth. we reserved a room from priceline and was upgraded to a partial ocean view on the 6th room. the room was gorgeous and the view of both the cottages, lawn, and ocean were very relaxing.

we were so tired (the time difference had caught up with us) and we turned in for an early night.

the next day, we decided to just relax and see the island a bit. the hotel is next to kaanapali beach so we went for a swim, walked around had lunch and went to whaler’s village.

did i mention maui is just gorgeous?? well it is.

the next day we decided we would take the famed drive to hana. “the road to hana” was named one of the top 10 scenic drives in america. it truly is a most scenic and beautiful drive. the “highway” was carved along the edges of the mountain and had approximately 600 curves and over 50 one lane bridges. it is only about 57 miles but takes about 2-3 hours to cover that distance because you can only go 10-15 mph. we stopped a few times to see some of the beautiful spots on the way. one of that was the garden of eden. need i say it was just beautiful?? everything is! we spent about 2 1/2 hours there and could have easily stay another 2-3 hours but we want to do the bamboo hike at haleakala national park and get back pass the highway before dark. that means that was all the time we can spent there.

we finally made it to haleakala national park at about 3pm. we started on the 4 mile roundtrip hike through the bamboo forest up to the waimoku falls. what an awesome hike! the bambook forest is awesome!!! so beautiful!

and the fall! so magical! we have never been anywhere that close to a waterfall before. it was huge and from where i was standing, water was spraying all over. it’s like a mini shower the whole time you’re there.

after the hike, james was ready to take a dip in one of the “7 sacred pools”. he said the water here is not salty, unlike the ocean water. there were so many people diving off these rocks!

unfortunately, it was getting late and if we wanted to make it across the highway before dark, we had to get going. there is very minimal lights on the highway and since it was so curvy, we didn’t want to drive in the dark. we left at 5:30pm and made it just off the highway before the sun set.

it was late, we were hungry so we headed over to kobi, a japanese tappenyaki restaurant. this was the first time we tried a tappenyaki style restaurant and we were blown away. it was lovely, the setting was intimate (luckily, we had the table to ourselves because it was late), the dishes were fresh, and table cooking was fun. we had a great chef and he really really made us laugh. the food was just delicious! we shared shrimps, scallops, steaks, and chicken. it was so much food that we said we couldn’t finish it when he set everything in front of us. guess what? we finished every last bit of morsels on our plate. LOL it was that good and we must have been starving…or we could just really eat. i think it’s the latter.

ah….two days in maui and it was paradise! we managed to called and check on the kids 3 times a day. my sister is super wonderful; she came to stay with my kids for the whole week. sisters are the best!!