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April 03, 2007

More or Less

Ok, so I wasn't very goodabout keeping up with the blog while we were in Maui...nor when we got home but now that we are back in Seattle for the week, maybe I can catch up.

::::::::::::crickets:::::::::::

Hmmmm, I seem to be having a little trouble coming up with something to talk about. More about Maui, I guess

Maui was great and of course I could do with a lot more beach time but the majority of the people I was with perferred something like this:

However, I did get in some beach time and snorkeling at 14 Mile beach on the way to Lahaina..here are my flip flops as proof:

One of the highlights was a trip upcountry to Kula to see Shim's Coffee Plantation and Botanical Gardens. Mr Shim was more than we expected and we ended up spending nearly 3 hours with him on his 1 hour tour. He was a facinating 70ish man of Chinese decent who's grandparents came from China to Maui to work the pineapple fields 100 years ago. Man oh man did they ever pick a prime piece of property to build on back then!

Mr Shim was really a botanist. He seemed to have lots of fun tending /pruning and experimenting half the year in Maui and the other half he teaches in CA. He comes to Maui in Jan to pick his coffee beans:

It's an on going process for several months because as you can see in the photo the beans don't rippen all at the same time. he cracked us up with his explanations of plants that seem to want to do whatever they want instead of what he wanted and of course there were also the "volunteers" - plants that just seemed to show up on their own.

He also has glorious flowers and fruit trees allover his property with orchids growing out of rocks and fruits that are a little weird:

I forget the name of this strange citrus..someone's palm or hand or gnarly something: ( update: Buddah's Hand

Of course we bought the last of his coffee - he takes his beans to a roaster so what he had was last year's crop. Obviously he is more into growing than roasting and drinking his coffee. WE panic if our roasted coffee is older than a week........hhhmmm but we enjoyed him and I would have liked to have had some of his fresh roasted coffee since I didn't find his year old stuff all that bad.

Oh yeah - the whales. There is still nothing better than watching the whales. Anytime you can see water, you are little to see a whale or 5 and it's truely more fun to "see" them with someone who has never seen them before as well. ...pppsssttt Auntie Anna was very excited to see them. We did have one guy who slapped his tail a good 50or more times just for us - ok, maybe he was really chatting with the cow and youngun who seemed to be breaching just for us as well.

Magic.........and as if we didn't have it all in paradise, we got an apology for the sudden rain shower on our excursion to Lahina:

Aloha....

Posted by frani at April 3, 2007 11:33 AM

Comments

let's see..Maui...Seattle...Maui...Seattle? It's a nice week here, so far, but given my druthers, I'd druther choose Maui!

Posted by: bunnybeth at April 5, 2007 01:48 AM

I'd choose Maui too BUT I have admit Seattle is looking pretty darn good today compared to Burlington VT with SNOW! blech! I do have remind myself it may be april but it's still winter in VT.

Posted by: Fran at April 5, 2007 11:39 AM

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