Today, we left Oahu to fly to Kauai. It's our first time to Kauai and I have heard a lot of good things about this beautiful island.
During our checkout from our hotel, Madison saw a bowl of beautiful orchids on the table and we asked if we could have 1 for her, the front desk was very nice and asked us to take as many as we like.
Madison looks so cute with the beautiful orchid on her.
We took Hawaiian Airlines and the flight was about 35 minutes. It was very quick and we had a small drink on the flight.
While at the airport, I took the picture of the Hawaiian Islands. A little history lessons here as I was reading while waiting for the flight. The Hawaiian Islands are made up of many different islands, there are 8 main islands but only 6 are allowed visitors. The 8 islands are:
1. Kauai
2. Oahu
3. Niihau (Visitors are not allowed as it is privately owned)
4. Maui
5. Molokai
6. Lanai
7. Kahoolawe (Visitors are not allowed as it used to be U.S. military target)
8. Hawaii/Big Island
We went to pick up our rental car after we arrive in Kauai. This time, we rented the car from Dollar Rent A Car.
The car that they gave us was Nissan Altima. When we saw the car, we were shocked because the exterior of the car was full of dents. When we turned on the engine, the odometer read more than 20k miles, unlike the Jeep that we had in Oahu which had only 50 miles. We were asked to fill out the damage form where we draw the scratches on the car. We were kinda at loss on how to draw since there were so many scratches and dents. So, we asked the lady there if we needed to draw all the scratches and dents. She took a look at the car and told us that she would give us a much better car. She in turned gave us an upgraded Dodge SUV which had about 3000 miles. It was much better than the car earlier.
Based on this experience, I probably would not rent from Dollar anymore but go to Alamo which was the one that we rent from in Oahu. Alamo had better selection and newer car even though they are a little more expensive.
Once we got the rental, we started our trip to Wailua Falls.
One photo tip: We were lucky to get a really tall person to take this family picture for us. As you can see, he was able to capture the waterfalls in the background. However, for most other pictures, I would not recommend asking a tall person to take the picture because the last time we were in Cancun, we asked a tall person to help take a picture and we looked like dwarfs in the picture.
After Wailua Falls, we continue to Opaekaa Falls.
Both waterfalls do not require much walking to be able to see a bird's eye view of the waterfalls. We basically just parked our car in the parking lot and walked a couple of steps. It's great for people with little kids as the kids usually don't like to walk too much.
At the Opaekaa Falls, we crossed the street and was able to view the Wailua River. It was beautiful there.
We also saw our first chicken there. There are many wild chickens in Kauai and based on what we heard from the locals, the main reason for the wild chickens is not because of the hurricane that happened in 2006, it was because there was no predators in Kauai, thus the chickens population is growing. Also, the chickens are protected in Kauai.
It was about lunch time, so we decided to drop by Chicken in a Barrel for lunch. It was the best meal that I have in Hawaii these last 5 days. The chicken was well seasoned and moist. The chilli was very tasty and I normally don't eat chilli as I don't like beans but I finished the chilli this time.
Below is a picture of the barrels where the chicken are cooked. Thus the name "Chicken in a Barrel".
After a good lunch, we went to the beach right next to the restaurant. I don't know the name of the beach but it's in Kapaa. It was very windy and the waves were huge, definitely not a place to swim. We saw many children playing there and a school was next to it. Can you imagine going to school there every day where you can look out the window and it's the beach? The kids are so lucky.
After that, we went to our hotel for the day, St. Regis Princeville. The hotel is about 38 miles from the Lihue Airport which is about 1 hour and 15 minutes ride. We planned the stopover along the way so that the journey there will not be long and boring. The hotel is in the North shore of Kauai which is the most lush part of the island and also the wettest.
The check in time is 4pm and the check out time is 12 noon. It was before our check in time but the kids were tired as we woke up early for our flight this morning. We were welcomed with necklaces of seashell for the girls and beads for the boys.
We had to wait a little bit while the room is being cleaned. So, we waited at the lounge area and it was so comfortable. Anthony even took a little nap there while I was engrossed in the beautiful ocean view.
Finally the room was ready around 4pm and it was worth the wait. We were close by the pools and had a very nice view of the ocean and mountains. The weather was cloudy though.
The kids quickly changed into their swim suits and went to the pool. There wasn't a lot of people there.
After the swim, we decided to venture out to have dinner and buy some fruits. We first stopped by a grocery store (Foodland) and when I saw that they had fresh Lychee, I had to buy some regardless of the price. It was the sweetest fresh Lychee that I have in a long time.
We also bought some local bread for tomorrow's breakfast.
We went to a local restaurant called The Dolphin which was recommended by our bellman and the food was good. This concludes our first day in Kauai.
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