Kauwela By: Kristen Bradish

The majority of people reading this indubitably aren't from Hawaii. So when you see the title you think, "does she not know how to use spellcheck? What does that even mean?" Kauwela is
Hawaiian for Summer because this August granted me with the experience of a lifetime.
August 1st, we crammed our luggage into the Sparta Limo Services car and readied ourselves for the adventure ahead. Getting a direct flight from NJ all the way to Maui isn’t always accessible, so we had to pitstop along the way. Six hours on a plane lead us to Los Angeles for the longest layover of my life. We got to the LAX airport thinking maybe we could hang out in a store for a few hours but to our luck, none of the stores were open. Why wouldn’t the airports’ restaurants and boutiques be open?
Well, you see, it was four in the morning. The only souls in sight were my family members and the cleaning crew crawling around this deserted location. Things got better after a few hours as
people were pouring in for an early six am flight, I was getting a second wind, and our plane would be boarding in three short hours.

tee minus 4 hours till Maui

The hotel lobby

The "Blowhole" formed when the bottom of the rock formation eroded over time from water always running over it. Now, when water pressure builds up, it shoots out and reminds people of a whales blowhole. 

We also rented a car for a day and they gave us a Mustang because apparently, that's just a
casual car over there? I was freaking out a little.

Our car rental with the fabulous Maui license plate

We went on a helicopter ride around the island

The hotel penguins

Our Submarine excursion

One of our first nights was spent at the best-ranked luau in all of Maui. Right before the show, a rainbow sprouted high above us in the rainforests.

Many people don't realize that they are more types of Penguins are from near the Equator rather than the Arctic. We were fortunate enough to stay at a hotel that had their own penguins. One of my favorite parts of our hotel was the location. The average Penguin lifespan is approximately 25 years which is why I was so shocked to learn that one of their Penguins there was 32 years old. Every morning we roamed out to the lobby to see them get fed. It was as if their internal clock knew it was time for breakfast because they would all line up in front of where the feeder would stand before the person even arrived.

There was a little beachside walkway lead you from the Hyatt Regency hotel down a 15-minute walk to Whalers village. This village was more or less a tourist attraction that shouted, “Western civilization with a Hawaiian twist.” You had all the classic American stores like Pandora and Kate Spade but there were also Hawaiian dance lessons in the green space and Hawaii stationed businesses like Hawaiian
Shortbread Cookies and little boutiques with authentic souvenirs. The restaurants there served traditional Hawaiian food with marvelous beachfront views of the sun setting.

If I wasn’t already obsessed with how gorgeous these islands were, I was certainly convinced after the helicopter ride. We flew over Maui and a smaller island right next to us that had tremendous waterfalls cascading down the lush green mountains.

Mahalo no ka heluhelu. Aloha!
(Thank you for reading. Goodbye!)