Waking Up in Eden: In Pursuit of an Impassioned Life on an Imperiled Island by Lucinda Fleeson


finished 03.07.11

Memoir of Lucinda Fleeson, a Philadelphia Inquirer journalist who gave it all up to move to Kauai and work at the National Tropical Botanical Garden. Lots of every day Kauai life, as well as history of the garden and the island. It even has ties back to Chicago and some little known history there. Lots about flowers and gardening, too. I loved this book!

Meeting Fiona

When we got to Chicago from Hawaii, we took a cab home, dropped our bags off and immediately walked over to Cozy Corner for breakfast. After filling out bellies we went home… and slept.. and slept. So tired. Long vacation, plus a red eye flight!

When we finally got up we went over to Killian & Liz’s house. They didn’t make it out to Hawaii for the trip because they were expecting their baby to be born.. and guess what? She was born on our wedding day! We will never forget exactly how old Fiona is. Also, we might never make it to her birthday party. haha.

So, it was fun to meet Fiona. She is only about a week old in this photo, although she’s over a month old now.

Professional Wedding Photos

We were lucky enough to have Steve Koo, an award-winning Chicago photographer (and friend), come out with us to Kauai and photograph our wedding. Steve did such a good job on our engagement photographs in Logan Square. I was excited to see what he’d come up with for the wedding.

We could not be more happy with how Steve captured the spirit of the day and all the little moments and emotions. We love Steve’s style, how saturated the photos are. It went really nicely in the tropical setting. I could not pick just a few favorite photos from the day, so I posted a whole bunch below!

For a more behind-the-scenes account of our wedding day, check out this post.

KOA – Kona International Airport


Lark Grey Dimond-Cates: Hula Kahiko (more on artist)


Lark Grey Dimond-Cates: Hula Kahiko (more on sculpture)

Leaving Hawaii. Sigh. Depressing day. I took a bunch of photos in the Kona airport, which is puny. I like the sculptures above. The movement. They’re beautiful.

I took this 28-second video of the airport. You’ll hear me say it’s the entire airport, but it’s only half. We were in the area with gates 6-10, but there is a second part that has gates 1-5. Still…. 28 seconds to view half of the whole airport is pretty crazy.


People walking off the plane, people waiting to board that same plane.


Kona Airport – Gate 9


Walking on the runway to board the plane.


Looking back at the aiport.


Runway


Hawaiian Airlines


POG and a book about Kiluea

Finally, a few last photos from the Honolulu airport, where we had a short layover. Dallas told me he was going to the bathroom so I went into a store. I thought he was taking a while in the bathroom and started to text him when he walked up with a surprise lei for me! That’s one way to brighten my day! So awesome. I wore it all the way home to Chicago.


Day brightened with surprise lei!

Finally, we ate lunch in the Honolulu airport at Kona Brewing.


Lunch at Kona Brewery in HNL

Sansei Seafood & Sushi

For our last dinner in Hawaii we met up with Cory, Chris, Danny and Caroline for dinner at Sansei. This is one of our favorite Waikiki restaurants. We even had gone to dinner there earlier in the trip. We were hoping that the Big Island restaurant would be as good as the Waikiki one, and it was. We gorged on all of our usual favorites as well as trying some new things. Dallas enjoyed a Japanese beer called Koshihikari Echigo. Us ladies were drinking lychee martinis. They were so delicious. I was on my third one when this happened:


Photo by Cory

I took a few sips and was going to eat my lychee when i noticed something in it. I thought it was part of a pit and was going to pick it out, when I noticed it was a bee!!!! After Cory took a few photos, our waitress was quick to apologize and brought out a complimentary replacement for the drink. So crazy!

Great dinner, though. I was sad that it was the last dinner of our trip, but we went out in style. I was so stuffed, and kind of drunk, by the end of that night!

Queens’ Marketplace Hula Demonstration

After a long day driving around the Big Island, we rested for a while before driving down to Waikoloa to meet up for dinner. When we arrived, we were a little early, so we watched this hula demonstration at the central pavilion in the outdoor Queens’ Marketplace. I wasn’t sure what the demonstration was, but I found two calendar listings (1, 2) online:

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Na Lehua E Liko No Kawailani (Hula Halau)
Queens’ MarketPlace
6–7:30pm

Hula tells Hawaii’s story with the graceful hands of talented dancers, some trained from childhood in this intricate ancient art of dance and chant. At the Queens’ MarketPlace Coronation Pavilion, we invite island halau (troupes) young and old, to take the stage and share their skills, from the ancient kahiko to modern auana style.

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I think they have a performance every week. Kind of neat. For the performance we saw, the kids cycled out and wore different costumes. I think they were demonstrating different cultures or time periods, but we didn’t really stick around too long to get the entire gist of it.