More Stormy Times, and the Road to Lahaina

I told you earlier about the troubles between my wife and her mother at Disney World in March. Well, get ready for Part II. In Oahu and Waikiki, everything was fine. But almost from the moment we arrived in Maui, there was tension between my wife on one side, and her mother and sister on the other side.

I won't go into too much detail, since these are my family matters, after all. I will tell you this, though: my wife has different views on travelling from her mother and sister. My wife likes to go exploring, go driving, see as many sights as possible in the time that we have. My mother-in-law and sister-in-law, however, like shopping and relaxing, taking things at a leisurely pace. (If you are wondering, I'm somewhere in the middle.) That was the crux of the problem.

Things came to a head the morning after our arrival in Maui, when the three of them had an argument. To take my wife's mind off of things, we took a drive up to Lahaina - a beautiful drive, mind you! Take a look at the pictures below and tell me if I'm wrong.

Welcome to Maui

After spending a few days on Oahu, we spent the rest of our 2008 Hawaii vacation on Maui, my first time on the Valley Isle. A view of the airport terminal building is above.

Driving away from Kahului Airport, you are welcomed by this sign right outside the airport grounds.

Believe it or not, the very first thing we did after leaving the airport was stop at Krispy Kreme and grab some doughnuts. I think we're too crazy about Krispy Kreme. The bad thing was that the doughnuts we had were not "hot and now" - not made fresh and piping hot.

After our doughnuts, we drove across the big valley in the center of Maui on our way to the beach resort town of Kihei.

Du~de!

Driving around the North Shore of Oahu in April of this year, we stopped at this beach called Turtle Beach. It was recommended by a guidebook called Oahu Revealed. The book said that you are virtually guaranteed to see a sea turtle here, whether in the water or on the beach itself. So we gave it a try, and we weren't disappointed. There were two turtles resting on the beach.

There were "turtle volunteers" keeping an eye on the turtles (a protected species) and making sure humans didn't get their dirty little hands on them. There were signs and ropes around the turtles (including a bilingual English-Japanese warning sign, seen above - very necessary, as the Japanese tourists were trying to get as close as they could).

A close-up view of one of the turtles.

Upcoming Trips

Here's a list of some of the places I will be traveling to in the not-so-distant future (thanks to my beautiful wife for this idea):

• Miyako Island, Okinawa Prefecture (late summer 2008)
• Saipan (fall 2008)
• Hawaii (islands yet to be determined, winter 2009)

Look out for posts and pictures regarding those trips.

Costco: A Big Disappointment-o

After our journey to IKEA in Kobe yesterday, we decided to stop by Costco in eastern Hyogo Prefecture on our way home. I had heard nothing but good things about Costco. A lot of the foreigners I talk to said that Costco is good because you can get a lot of Western food. Also, my wife and I heard that because of Costco's wholesale format, you can buy food in bulk and save money.

When we went there, we found that neither of those things were true.

I went to Costco hoping to buy a lot of American things I usually can't buy in Japanese stores: American cereal, dry fruit mix, flavored coffee creamer. None of that stuff was at Costco. In addition, we found that buying goods in bulk at Costco didn't really save us much money compared with what we usually pay for single goods at the supermarket we usually shop at. It's not worth it to make the trip to Costco if we don't save money or if we can't get those American snacks and goods that we are looking for.

To top it off, the place was EXTREMELY packed. Yes, it was Saturday, but even with very wide, American-style aisles, it was very difficult to maneuver a shopping cart around Costco, making the whole experience unpleasant. As soon as we paid for the few things that we did buy, we went straight back to the counter where we signed up for membership, and requested our membership fee back. We do not plan on going back to Costco any time soon.

IKEA: Home Away From Home

Yesterday my wife and I went to the IKEA furniture store... for the third time since we moved in April. IKEA opened the first store in the Kansai area of Japan that month over in an area of Kobe called Port Island. It's the largest IKEA store in the world thus far. My wife just loves it. She likes the Western style of the furniture and goods, and a lot of Japanese people must feel the same way, because that place was extremely packed every time we went there.

When you enter IKEA, you are led straight up to the showroom, where you follow a winding one-way path taking you past displays of furniture, goods, etc. You take a pencil and a small form and write down the serial numbers of the stuff you want while you peruse. Next, you go downstairs where you can buy small stuff like curtains, light bulbs and lamps, dishes, etc. After that, you go to the warehouse where you get your unassembled furniture yourself, wrapped in flat boxes. You pay, then you go home.

I'm not as crazy about the store as my wife is. The furniture and goods are all European, so, for example, if you get a bed from there, like we did, you can only get bed covers that fit from IKEA. You can't get it from Japanese stores. Also, curtains may or may not fit Japanese-made windows. If you can get past that, though, they do have some good things. We especially like the comfortable pillows, IKEA 365+ FAST (pictured above). They also have a range of futons, from thin for the summer to thick ones for the winter.