Braking all the way down.

I would say I was a pretty organised person and every time we go on holiday I take a folder with itineraries, phone numbers, maps and booking references. This holiday was no different except the folder was significantly bigger than previous trips. For a start there were 2 trains,7 flights,3 accommodation bookings, 2 rental cars and numerous other restaurant and trip reservations. Such a folder comes in very handy when you have to get up at ungodly hours and drive through the dark to make it to an early morning activity. Take for example our sunrise bike tour from the top of Haleakala.

We awoke from the warmth of our bed at 3am and drove down to the tour company office to join up for the tour.Smiling and brimming with enthusiasm while everyone else lurked sleepily in the corner,we approached the desk and gave our names. "No" the receptionist said, our names were not on the list. He asked did we have a booking reference with us, heck no, we'd left the folder at the house. He trawled the bookings and announced yes we had a booking but it was made for the NEXT DAY. And the moral of the story is, a folder is all well and good but it's no use unless you check it!

Despite the fact that they were one short of being full to capacity they managed to sqeeze us in and off we set on a great adventure. We piled into the mini buses to get up to Haleakala before sunrise and then we would make our own way down on the bikes. Our bus driver was most informative and plied us with a couple of anecdotes that made me laugh all the way from the bottom of my heart. Here are my favourites.

At the top of Haleakala and just before her 38 mile cycle down a woman approaches the bus driver.
Lady to bus driver - "Do I need to be able to ride a bike to do this?"
Bus driver - Blank stare of disbelief
Lady - "But my husband said I would learn on the way down."
Bus driver - "Lady, I think your husband's trying to kill you."

Haleakula is situated well above the clouds which makes it pretty dramatic but for some it's all a bit too dramatic. On seeing the clouds one woman said " Oh no, we had real bad turbulance on the flight over, there's no way I'm riding my bike through those clouds". Overcome with fear, her bike was taken away and the woman rode down on the minbus. On the way down and through the mist the driver let go of the steering a little bit giving the effect of turbulence. Apparently she had an absolute conniption.

I know you may be a bit skeptical but I firmly believe these stories are 100% true. I don't know what it is about humans but whenever we become tourists we seem to lose all rationality and common sense. When we go on holiday do our brains have a break too?

It was freezing cold but watching the sunrise from Haleakala was really spectacular, Mark Twain said it was "one of the most sublime spectacles ever seen."

At first everything was pitch black and you couldn't see a thing but slowly...

an array of colours appeared.

Little by little the sun popped its head up and over the clouds

and a little bit more...

until this!

It looked like Mars and it was really hard to gauge the distance but apparently it is 2.5 miles from one end of the crater to the other.

We got our bikes from the van and took a leisurely few hours to make our way down to the coast, stopping to take in the views, have a picnic breakfast and check our map. I say leisurely because I was a bit cautious of some of the 66 switchbacks and I braked practically the whole way down. This caused a bit of cramp in the hands but there was no way I was wiping out. After a few hours I asked Martin when the rest of the hills were coming up but he said it didn't matter as we appear to be going up the hills faster than coming down them due to my cautiousness!

Not a flattering photo I know but Martin thinks it best illustrates the lack of speed and constant braking. Anyway, you have to wear the helmet so we both looked like dorks together.

After a wonderful trip we safely returned to base and were happily told by the receptionist that we were the last ones back, not that he wanted to make us feel slow or anything. Poor Martin, I'm sure he would have been finished in no time but he happily stayed with me. In the afternoon we gave our hands a rest and had a lovely time browsing the boutiques and galleries in the wonderfully artsy town of Paia.

Cheers from the speed demon until the next post.x

Sunrises and star gazing

After Kauai we boarded the "Ford Escort express" one more time for our short flight to Maui. Thankfully, there were no handbrake turns this time and a cheery "Aloha" replaced "Yee Hah".

About the same size as Northern Ireland, there is so much to do on Maui that it's just like one giant water park with an adventure playground in the middle. Boasting some of the best beaches in Hawaii, you can frolick with dolphins and sea turtles in crystal blue waters, spot whales playing with their calves while driving along the coast roads, go horseriding in upcountry ranches and explore the Mars like volcano at Haleakala.


We stayed in a beautiful old plantation house in upcountry Maui. It was miles from anywhere and so quiet that the silence was almost noisey. Situated on a protea farm as soon as you got out of the car it smelled as though you had arrived at an open air flower market, if only I could have bottled that sweet smell and taken it home with me. At night the stars were so clear it was like a planetarium.



I am never happier than when I'm reading and drinking a good cup of coffee and every morning I did just that on the adirondacks with a book and a cup of Kona coffee.

When Martin finally dragged me off the adirondack we clocked up lots of miles around the island, some by car, foot, bicycle and horseback.


On Christmas Eve we went horseriding at a nearby ranch and a merry ride it was. My horse, "Abba", was certainly a bit of a dancing queen so don't be fooled by the gentle exterior. She refused to move when I wanted her to and then unannounced she would set off into a high speed gallup. In one particular incident she took off at great speed through some woods and I thought I was going to get my head chopped off by a large branch. Up on the hill the rest of the group could see a small blue dot whizzing by atop a horse and screaming "stop" very loudly. Then when she did stop all she wanted to do was eat, apparently she had been sent to the ranch on fat camp. Despite this it was a wonderful afternoon and Martin had a very relaxing time aboard his horse "Pegasus".


On Christmas morning we had a 6am start for a spot of whale watching with the Pacific Whale foundation. The weather was beautiful and the sea so calm that whenever the boat's engine was turned off you could have heard a pin drop - the silence only being broken by the splashing of baby calves and the blow of the whales.


In the afternoon we packed a picnic and headed to the beach for some fun, sun and snorkelling. It was just like "Finding Nemo" and Martin was so excited by the whole experience that he lay face down in the water for a bit too long without reapplying sun cream and now adorns some comical sunburn marks on his back.


I must go as last night's chilli with cornbread topping is being reheated for lunch and the smell is wafting through the house making me very hungry. I think if I were on death row my last meal would definitely include cornbread, ribs and coleslaw - I'd probably have a cup of tea and a traybake too! Anyway, I'll be back soon with the sunrises and star gazing (of the human form) so stay tuned.

We lived the same day twice

All packed up and buzzing with excitement we left our apartment at 8:30am on 19/12/06 and arrived jet lagged and tired in Hawaii on 19/12/06 at 8am. How weird is that?! Initially I thought that I would get to live a day longer than everyone else but then we missed out on 03/01/07 travelling back so I guess it's all swings and roundabouts.

We had an absolutely wonderful time and I managed to take a whopping 473 pictures in between sunning, reading, eating and drinking a few Mai Tais. First stop was Kauai which is the oldest and northernmost of the Hawaiian Islands and is also home to the wettest place on earth at Mt Wai'al'ale. Whoever made that claim clearly hasn't been to Strabane in Northern Ireland.

When we got to Honolulu we had to board an inter island flight to Kauai. The plane was so small and there were so few passengers that we had to be moved around in our seats to balance out the plane. As we took off the pilot shouted "yee hah" and when we landed he rallied the plane around the runway like it was a Ford Escort and even tried some manoeuvre that was suspiciously like a handbrake turn ! I appear to be prone to these runway adventures and endured a frightening road rage incident between the luggage carrier and the shuttle bus on the runway at Venice airport.

We made it safely off the plane and had a thrilling time exploring the island.


The Waimea Canyon may be dubiously nicknamed the Grand Canyon of the Pacific but it holds some pretty cool vistas and it's hard to believe such an immense canyon can be tucked away inside such a small island - the canyon alone is 3000ft deep.


If you come to Hawaii the Napali Coast on Kauai is a must see so we booked a rafting adventure to get a good look, in fact the only way you can see it is by boat anyway. We arrived at the harbour and saw a small rubber raft tied to the dock where our Captain told us this was "the boat" and not a boat used to transport us to another boat. The sea was quite rough that morning so for the next five hours we held on for grim life as we surfed 25ft waves and took in some amazing sights. Just as we left the harbour we were met by a pod of spinner dolphins, there were loads of them and they were so playful as they swam alongside the boat.

One of the big draws into going to Hawaii was being able to see whales and shortly after the dolphins we spotted a humpback whale. It was so amazing to see 50ft and 40 tonne of whale breach into the air that I will never forget it. It kept waving its pectoral fin at us which was really cool and before it went down for a dive it blew 15ft of water in the air.This is why the whalers coined the famous term "thar' she blows". Fortunately this was the first of many whale sightings throughout the holiday since humpbacks come to Hawaii to give birth and nurse their calves in the winter.


Being on a raft made it hard to get steady pictures but the coast looked really magical with the mist rolling in and I can see why they filmed Jurassic Park there, you half expect a dinosaur to appear any moment it looks so mythical. It's hard to imagine that up to 1,500 Hawaiians lived in the valleys between those cliffs at any one time and the last ones left in the 1930's - a school teacher had to be shipped out to the children every Monday and he was picked up again on Friday.


Driving through the island there was always something to stop off and look at like the patchwork of taro fields and meandering river at Hanalei.



As always we like to try out the local eateries and we had a beautiful lunch at the hotel on Hanalei bay. Curiously, Martin came all the way from Japan and still had to have a bento box!


This is where Mitzi Gaynor washed that man right out of her hair in the movie South Pacific and it was my favourite beach of the whole holiday. We practically had the place to ourselves for the whole afternoon barring a few surfers and one lazy monk seal who was wise enough to lie there until the tide came in and washed him right back out to sea. Talk about an easy life!


Well that's it from Kauai and I don't want to bore you anymore so I'll be back soon with more from Maui.

Temporarily leaving the blogosphere

This is just a quick little post to let you know that we won't be around for a few weeks as we're going to Hawaii. I can hardly curtail my excitement. We have lots of fun things planned like cycling 38 miles down a volvano (you only have to pedal the last 400 yards!), taking a rafting tour of the Napali coast where Jurassic Park was filmed, snorkelling, horseriding and generally having lots of fun.We hope to return in one piece although I am a little worried about the man who got his hand bitten off by a shark in Maui in September - I think the baking, blogging and photography skills would be seriously hampered if that happened to me. Hopefully I'll be alright and return with plenty of pictures and tales from our adventure.

We took a brief interlude from the packing and whizzed down to Peace Boulevard this evening to snap some pictures of the fantastic illuminations on display. In true Japan style there are many wild and wacky creations but they look wonderful. Unfortunately, I didn't get great pictures due the fear of being run over by a cyclist if I stood in the same spot too long. Cycling in this country should be called an extreme sport. Anyway, the packing awaits me.

Lots of love, Martin and Therese,xx

PS. I hope you all get very merry and eat plenty over the next couple of weeks!

Just another ordinary day

Well I thought I'd better move on from the embarrassing discovery that my musical taste matches that of a NASCAR driver - Martin reckons it was all the Dixie Chicks and Gretchen Wilson CDs in my collection that did it. Not much happened today, we both got our haircut (not matching), went to the swimming pool (where I momentarily popped out of my tankini), cycled to the supermarket, then snuggled up on the sofa with a bar of Dairy Milk and watched ET in the afternoon. At the moment Martin is busy in the kitchen making some homemade burgers and wedges for dinner. So there you have it, just another ordinary but cosy Sunday in the McCloskey house. Now I must scadaddle as dinner is ready.
Love until I have something more interesting to post,
T,x

PS. The picture above shows the spider sculpture "Maman" by Louise Bourgeois outside of the Mori Tower, Roppongi Hills. There is also a copy outside the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa.

Hmm

Your Musical Tastes Match: Dale Earnhardt Jr.

See his whole playlist here (iTunes required)

What Celebrity Matches Your Taste in Music?

I'm not even into NASCAR.

Fish tales

Every morning at the crack of dawn Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo is alive with the noise of trucks ferrying boxes of fish around, fishmongers wielding knives like Samurai warriors and auctions selling Tuna valued at £5,000 per fish! One of the world's biggest fish markets, 2,300 tonnes of fish pass through Tsukiji every day and you'll be able to find salmon from as far away as Santiago, eels from Taiwan and crab from Brazil. The auctions start at 5 in the morning for the wholesalers and at 7am the restaurateurs of Tokyo arrive for their pick of the day. Most of the action is over by 8 so you have to get there early. Although we had been shakin' our stuff to U2 only a few hours earlier we still got up at 6 to see all this madness - the things we do in the name of food!


You can choose from over 400 different kinds of fish.

The tuna fish are frozen solid and look like shining silver torpedoes ready for action. At £5,000 per fish the bounty on the trailer below must be worth around £35,000!

The poor man operating the ice machine spent all morning lifting huge blocks of ice onto the conveyer belt, he wasn't even wearing gloves.

The market covers 56 acres of land so there are plenty of fish stalls to peruse...and plenty of ice to slip on too! I slipped once and almost fell straight into the path of oncoming forklift, from then on I held on tight to Martin.


Some of the fish were so fresh they were still moving. I got a bit of a shock as I walked by the squid and it was still moving around!

Outside the market there are lots of wonderful stalls selling some of the freshest sashimi and sushi in the world. Many commuters stop off on their way to work for a breakfast of fish and noodles. Apparently, the tuna sashimi is melt in your mouth good.

If you go to Tokyo you must visit this place but watch out for the men driving the forklifts - they're more concerned about the fish on the back than the people in front!

Lambs and legs

While waiting for dinner the other night I said to Martin,

"I'm so hungry I could eat the lamb off the leg of God."

Martin said I was wrong and claims that it should be,

"I'm so hungry I could eat the leg of the Lamb of God."

Can anyone clear up this trivial misunderstanding?!

Random Place Thursday:Tokyo Food Town

If you want to open a restaurant this is the place to go. There are streets upon streets of shops where you can buy sinks, plastic food,big knives, tills and menu signs. It's amazing. I bought a quiche tin, bun tin, mini muffin tin, a loaf tin, scone cutters and a glass cake stand all for under 15 pounds. Martin bought a plastic piece of brie which also doubles as a fridge magnet. (We are not opening an restaurant but I do like to bake. I also like quirky tourist attractions.) Everytime we walked past a shop full of empty display units I thought the shop must have just closed down. Then I realised that the shop was actually selling display units!

Apologies for the poor quality of the pictures, I had to be conspicuous as the shop owners get a little fed up with all the gaijin laughing and taking pictures of plastic pizzas and fake fish.


(Note how the forks are suspended in mid-air. I love it.)

Plastic food is a big deal in Japan. There were several shops in the area selling the stuff and it is really expensive, this is largely due to the fact that it is handmade and painted. Outside of restaurants there will usually be an arrangement of plastic food matching that written on the menu. When the food arrives at your table it is identical to the plastic food on display outside. I have always wondered whether the real food is modelled on the plastic food or vice versa.


The noodle bowl store.

Fancy buying a menu board?

Everything and the kitchen sink!

PS. It is really cold here today, it has rained heavily all day and it is so dark I've had the lights on since I got up. For lunch I treated myself to baked beans on toast with my friend Ailsa. (I'm not poor it's just that baked beans are seriously expensive and really hard to find-you'd think they were contraband or something!) Roll on the sunshine of Maui, Kauai and Oahu!

Part 1: Sensory overload

We got back from Tokyo last night feeling very, very tired. With only two days in such a fascinating city I think we are suffering from sensory overload. Everything was so much bigger, brighter and trendier than Hiroshima and all this made me feel very much the country girl. Looking back I think I was unprepared for how different it would be to Hiroshima, Tokyo is a world city just like London or New York. When we were having lunch in Roppongi the menu was in English and the radio was tuned to Virgin FM - I felt right at home. With all this familiarity I almost got reverse culture shock and it was lovely just to be able to read a menu in a flash and not have to worry about speaking Japanese.
Most importantly though I finally got to see U2. It was so surreal and as I was two rows from the front I felt like I was watching them on TV rather than in person!



The best things about the concert were:
1. When Bono asked all the Japanese people to sing Pride, 40,000 people screamed Pride. When he asked all the Irish people to sing Pride, a handful shouted Pride. It was nice to be among that handful.
2. Their performance of "Bullet the Blue Sky" was fantastic and the first time in the concert when I really felt I was watching U2 at their best.
3. Hearing thousands of people sing "Erebation" as opposed to "Elevation'', the Japanese have difficulty pronouncing the letters "V" and "L".
4. During "Mysterious Ways" the band brought three Maiko on to the stage. It was so cool and really fitting for the song. I will never forget the three of them dancing down the catwalk staring straight ahead, waving their fans and looking deadly serious. Then all of a sudden it got too much for the one in front, her eyes lit up and she flashed this big, bright toothy grin across her deathly white face. When they are dancing they shouldn't really smile or show too much emotion but I think the enormity of the situation and all the adultation overwhelmed the poor girl. They were so beautifully turned out, the colours of their obi and kimono were really dramatic and just looking at their perfect hair and makeup was truly amazing. For me it was the highlight of the concert.





I met with a Japanese friend today who asked what I'd been up to over the weekend. I told her I went to see U2 in Tokyo and when she found out that it was my first time to see them she laughed very heartily. I asked her what was so funny and she said "but you are from Ireland and the first time you see U2 is in Japan!" Indeed, life is very unpredictable sometimes but that's what's good about it. My friend Iddya has since reminded me that although she is Puerto Rican she only learned to Salsa when she came to Japan.

NB. In case you were wondering, Maiko are trainee Geisha and we can tell them apart because Maiko wear white makeup but Geisha do not. Maiko also wear a little red bun in their hair as a sign of their purity. If you want to know more I really recommend reading "Memoirs of a Geisha", although entirely fictional Golden's research is meticulous and the book gives you a great insight into an otherwise closed society. Unfortunately I can't say the same for the movie, it is beautiful to watch but it is also pure Hollywood.