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Hawaii Day Five: Green Curry and “Swimming”
This might be kind of sad and pathetic to admit but you know what the highlight of day five was for me? Finding a Thai restaurant and ordering some green curry. Sure, I know we have Thai restaurants all over Orange County and I could probably even find some green curry within walking distance of my house… BUT when we are at home I usually cook and we don’t order take-out much. Also, Toby does not like curry. So that means I don’t have it much.
I LOVE green curry. I know it isn’t the prettiest dish to look at but it is yummy! Basil, bamboo sprouts, slightly spicy curry mixed with sweet coconut milk. Mmmmm! I could probably do without the cabbage but it doesn’t really harm the dish. I probably need the fiber anyway.
Baby Bug had chicken satay and even ate it! I was surprised since peanuts are sort of iffy since she went her whole first year without eating them. Getting her to eat anything while on vacation has been challenging. I think she’s been existing on goldfish crackers and Nemo gummy treats alone. She must get her energy out of the air or something.
Of course I had a Thai iced tea. That’s sort of a prerequisite. I was very happy indeed… until Baby Bug decided to dump my ice water down her front. Sometimes because I want to eat and not listen to the endless stream of “I want…I want…I want…” I let her do things like play with the ice cubes in my drinking water. Thankfully, we were dining outside and the dress code here is very casual so I stripped off her overalls and let her finish the rest of her dinner in her diaper.
THEN she decided she wanted to go potty and take her diaper off. This is a fun game we play at home as we run to the baby-potty but in a restaurant before I’ve paid the check, it’s a whole other story. Not to mention I didn’t even know where the restroom was. Somehow we made it through that little adventure and I’m just glad to say that the owners of the little Thai restaurant are very kind and understanding. I left them a big tip.
My next highlight of the day would be following Baby Bug around. She definitely has her own ideas about what we should do and where we should go. Most of her plans involve finding the sand or the water. Or both.
Some of her “tours” have lead us to some pretty amazing spots.
Some of them have lead us to precarious places where I had to extract her screaming and kicking because I was afraid a crab or a sharp shell might hurt her.
Baby Bug’s favorite place to be has got to be the pool. I think she could hang out there all day long. Which would be fine with me except I am so afraid of her dunking herself that I have to hover over her like a hawk. This means I’m getting my daily work-out because she likes to go from the kiddie pool to the big people pool and back again, over and over and over. Phew! It’s tiring!
Sometimes she’ll take a side trip through the open air bar right next to the pool which tempts me to order a mai tai while I’m cruising through. But I don’t because I’m supposed to be watching Baby Bug like a hawk and I need my wits about me.
You’d think that the bar patrons might be annoyed that a wet baby keeps running past them over and over but so far most of people I’ve come across here have been super nice. I think the warm temperatures and the endless ocean on the horizon just mellows everyone out.
So yeah. We’ve been spending a lot of time at the pool “swimming”. Which is technically not really swimming but standing on the step talking about swimming or me running after Baby Bug telling her not to run and talking about swimming at the same time. Good times, I tell you. If it wasn’t for the warm temperature and the endless ocean, I think I might have lost my mind by now.
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Hawaii Day Four: the girls go adventuring
Bug and I did some “adventuring” downtown yesterday. I’m so glad we decided to pack the stroller at the last minute. It was a bit of a pain in the neck at the airport but it has paid for itself here when we cruise up and down the main strip.
The main drag is right along the ocean with patches of sidewalk here and there between a retaining wall that keeps the ocean out and the road that is pretty much a “cruising scene”. Some parts are narrow and if you wanted to, you could stick your hand out and give some gangster a high five as he rolls by in his lowered truck with the bass booming so loudly that his door, that is twisty-tied on, rattles to the beat.
Most parts are totally safe but I am very glad to have the stroller because as you know, Baby Bug does not like to walk in a straight line and if I let her loose she’d be picking up cigarette butts from the gutter and running out into traffic.
There is definitely a bit of “Spring Break” atmosphere here in Kona. (And why not?!!) It reminds me of Mexico except more expensive. There aren’t any kids selling Chiclets and you can’t get a margarita for a dollar but there are definitely drinks flowing and lots of people just out to see and be seen.
Even though it can be scary at times to walk the streets of an unknown city, I really do love exploring. I like being somewhere long enough that you start to feel less like a tourist and more like a local. The woogies (what Toby calls tourists) are so thick here, it’s hard to see what the locals see. But if you look between the shops selling imported shell necklaces from the Philippines (that I’m totally going to buy anyway because hey! they are only 39 cents!) and the bars crowded with people drinking way too much tequila, you can start to see a glimpse.
Or maybe I just like exploring.
We did something really fun yesterday. I had passed this Weaver Man a couple of times and I was intrigued by the funny palm frond hats he was making. I was a little afraid to stop and buy one since he often had a pretty shady crowd of people who looked like they had meth mouth hanging around him. But I finally got up the guts to inquire and I’m so glad I did.
He was a very nice guy and ended up making a custom hat just for Baby Bug. She thought it was grand and wanted to try on all his bowls he had out on display. I was worried about her getting in his way (and even worse in the way of his knife) but he said she was fine. He told me that she was actually good for business.
I guess you don’t have to have a permit to sell your wares along the highway here in Kona but the police do harass you if you seem to be there just to sell drugs or something. So he was very happy to have a mom and daughter hang out with him for the half hour it took him to make Baby Bug a hat.
When he was done, he wanted me to take a picture of him and her together because apparently these palm frond hats last for 40-60 years and she will probably have it long after her little two-year-old memory of him making it has faded. I thought that was a sweet sentiment and of course I was happy to oblige since after all everything is bloggable!
I think the hat is pretty cute and I will definitely try to keep it for a long time. I might even have to go back and get one for myself. Who knows maybe I’ll start a new trend back on the mainland.
That pretty much sums up our day of adventuring. I left out a lot of parts (like the little beaches we discovered and the drunk guy sleeping under a giant palm frond) but you can sort of figure them out from my flickr pictures. Later we met up with Toby for dinner and ended our day the usual way with a slice of sunset for desert.
