Day 1 -- Maui, HI

06/02/2017 Friday

Itinerary:

• Lunch at Thai Mee Up
• Check in at Hyatt Regency Maui Hotel
• Haleakala National Park Sunset Tour

We took the early flight and arrived in Maui before 10am.

After picking up our rental car, we drove to Thai Mee Up for some lunch. It has good reviews in Yelp and is located about 5 minutes away from our rental car location.

It's basically a food truck in a parking lot where there are a few other food trucks. We ordered the Lemongrass Fried Chicken, Grilled Chicken Satay and Pad Thai. The food was pretty good.

After that, I went to one of the other food trucks, Mo Ono Hawaii and ordered their Acai bowl as I saw many people queuing up. It was delicious especially on a hot day.

After lunch, we started heading to our hotel as we have a sunset tour planned for this afternoon. We arrived at the hotel about 45 minutes later and we were given leis for the girls and seashell necklace for the boys.

After checking in to our hotel, we went to our room to put our luggage and freshen up before heading down to check out the hotel pools. The hotel also gave us a box of chocolates, water bottles and beach tote.

The hotel is very well kept and is right on the beach.

There are also penguins, parrots, koi fishes and swans on site which the kids loved watching.

Soon after, it was time to head to the trolley station right outside the hotel for our bus tour. Once the bus arrived, the driver gave us a menu to select our dinner for tonight and also the map of the Haleakala National Park. We picked the Mahi Mahi while the kids picked the chicken dish.

The bus driver was a local and gave us a history of the island. Our first stop was in Waimea to pick up other hotel guests. Next we headed to Kula Marketplace for a bathroom stop and snack time since dinner will be served pretty late around 9pm.

After staying here for about 45 minutes or so, we continued on our journey to the volcano. The driver made an unplanned stop as it was a nice day and we could see the ocean.

Since the weather changes frequently and the winds get stronger in the afternoon blowing the clouds to higher elevation, he wasn't 100% sure if we could have a good sunset view today. But as we get to higher elevation, he was having a good feeling and told us that we should be able to get a good view.

We stopped by the visitor's center, however it was already closed, so we just took some pictures. The driver told us that we should always stay on the trails and not step on the silversword plants that lived on the volcano.

We then continued on to the summit.

We waited for the sun to set and it was one of the most beautiful sunset that I have seen in a while.

Once the sun set, we made our way down and it was a long 1 hour drive to our cafe. The road was windy and I started to get motion sickness.

We reached our cafe close to 9pm and were served dinner immediately. I wasn't feeling well at this time, so I only took a few bites. Anthony said that the food was delicious.

After dinner, we were split into small groups based on our hotel location and took the smaller bus back to our hotel as it has been a long day for our original bus driver. After we reached our room, we took a quick shower before heading to bed. It's been a long day for all of us.

Land's End Trail

May 28, 2017 Sunday

Today, we decided to check out Land's End Trail in San Francisco. I googled the best hike for kids around bay area and Land's End Trail came up as one of the top choices. I looked at the pictures and the views looked amazing, so decided to take the kids here today for an easy hike.

First, we parked in the parking lot next to the visitor center. Once we parked our car, we went to the visitor center to get a map.

Then we went to check out the Sutro Bath's which is a landmark there.

You can see the Cliff House in the background of the picture below.

There was a little cave next to the Sutro's bath and we went inside to check it out. There weren't much inside except it leads closer to the ocean at the end where the ship wrecks were.

After checking out the cave and Sutro's Bath, we started our hike. Along the way, we could see the ocean and Golden Gate, which was an amazing view. The winds were strong, so even though it was end of May, we had to wear our jackets.

Since it was Memorial weekend, there was an event going on and we stopped for a few minutes. We are so grateful to our armed force for protecting this land that we love and keeping us safe. Thank you.

On the way, Maddie was asking me if there was an restroom at the end, I thought there would be and told her. Unfortunately, I was wrong, so make sure you use the restroom at the visitor center before you start the hike as there is no restroom along the hike which is about 3 miles roundtrip.

The hike was pretty flat besides the steep staircase to climb in the middle of the hike.

After about 30 minutes or so, we finally reached the end of the hike. You can go further towards Baker's Beach and Golden Gate but we didn't. Some people also start their hike from here as it is near the Legion of Honor.

On our way back, we passed by beautiful Cypress trees near the end.

Since it was around lunch time, we decided to go to Cliff House for lunch.

Dipsea Hike

May 13, 2017 Saturday

Today, we plan to hike from Mill Valley to Stinson beach to celebrate Mother's Day. I have been told that the hike will be a hard but beautiful hike. So, we didn't bring the kids to the hike. It's about 9.5 mile one way.

We met up with our friends at the start of the hike in the Mill Valley downtown. After parking, we started off the hike by taking a group picture before going up 166 steps.

After these steps, there were more steps to climb. We passed by the redwood trees in Muir Woods before continuing onto Stinson Beach. The weather was initially cold but started getting warm after some time.

Along the way, we were able to see the ocean and the view was amazing.

After about 9.5 miles, we finally reached Stinson Beach. It was a long challenging hike which took about 3.5 hours. Even though it was hard, the views made up for it. It's one of the best hike that I have been to. We bought some sandwiches from the cafe and ate at the beach. We decided not to hike back as it was too tiring. Instead, we took the bus at the beach to go back to the Mill Valley downtown. We still had to walk about 1 mile from the bus stop to where we parked.