Wavelet Blog

Everyone comes to Maui has to drive to Hana – How can you miss the highway of the paradise?

We tried our best to get up early. We had the breakfast at MacDonald, so we managed to pass Kahului before 9AM. The guidebook marks all attractions by their position to the mile markers, but I forgot the marker starts counting at Pa’ia on highway 36. It restarts from 0 on highway 360. While driving on highway 36, I was confused because I couldn’t see anything at the mile marker of the first attraction, and there was nothing on the 2nd either. This never happened to this guidebook, so I started getting panic and drove back and forth on highway 36. It took us almost an hour to get highway 360 then I realized this was where the highway of paradise starts.

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Maui island is made by two volcanos, Halemahina (House of the Sun) and Haleakalā (House of the Moon). Today, we were going to circle the West Maui. Halemahina is the older volcano of the two. The mountain is covered by heavy forest. Although there are many drainage caused by erosion, there is no path to reach the peak, Pu’u Kukui, which receives more than 400 inches of rainfall every year.

Our first stop was Papawai Point. The outlook is popular for whale watching. We did spot one in the far distance. One guy at the parking lot was making and selling the hand-made clay statues of island creatures, such as turtles, fishes and lizards. We almost bought one before we heard the famous Hawaii myth for the first time: you do not suppose to bring Hawaii rocks back home because it will bring you bad lucks. I’d believe the origin of the superstition is to preserve the nature of the island. Anyway, we left with the empty hand.

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We arrived at Maui at noon. It is not as hot as we thought. When we went to Oahu 4 years ago, the first impression once we got off the plane was it is very humid. Not here in Maui.

After an hour, we checked in Marriott hotel in Wailea. The resort district in Wailea is heavenly beautiful. The palm trees, the golf course, the ocean view. Everything make you feel as a different world. After some effective arguments, we got a room with gorgeous view. Totally ocean-front, we could see Molokini from the balcony. Since then, “Gorgeous” became our most-used word everyday.

After checking out some beaches, such as the Big Beach, we had a dinner at Nick’s Fishmarket in Kea Lani Resort. First time, we understood how pricey that Maui could be. The soup was OK, the noodle tasted really good, the service was wonderful, (just like the guide book says, they don’t check you every five minutes, but instead keep a watchful eye on you so they know when you need them), but price was at least 25% higher than the mainland place with the same quality of food. I guess I have to count in the view.

Although it still feels chilly at night, and it still rains occasionally, Spring has indeed come to the Bay Area. Last weekend, I suddenly noticed a newly opened rose blossom (red one) in our backyard; then I saw a pink flower sprouted out in the front yard. There are tens of buds on the bushes, looks like a full bloom is not far away.

After having lunch at Koi Garden last weekend, we went to Mt. Diablo State Park. Mt. Diablo offers open mountain view and many choices of hiking trails. It is perfect for family activities.

At different overlook locations, I took a series of pictures with my PowerShot A590. Came back home, I stitched them together using PTGui. The result looks satisfactory to me. Creating a panorama is pretty easy actually. Just make sure to overlap every successive frame with the previous frame by 20~30% when taking pictures. Then all you need to do is to drop these pictures to PTGui. Software can automatically put them together in the correct order and adjust brightness and contrast for you to make the stitched image looks smooth. Besides the typical image processing functions, PTGui also supports HDR (High Dynamic Range). But, I didn’t take tripod with me so I was not able to take pictures with different exposure settings. I will try next time.

The following is a 360-degree panorama I took at the summit. More pictures can be found in my gallery.