Today we woke up later than usual. After a nice breakfast in the condo of Cheerios and fresh pineapple left over from the fancy pineapple Mai Tai Amy had gotten at the cheeseburger place our first night in Maui, we drove a few miles south to world famous Wailea Beach. The beach was beautiful. The sand was incredibly soft and the water was crystal clear. Any dirt stirred up by the water hitting the beach quickly settled and was clear again before the next miniscule wave came in. The water was calm and quite refreshing. We floated and played in the water for a few hours before returning to the condo.

In the afternoon we drove over to Lahaina to hang out in the quaint little beach town before the luau. Lahaina resembled a newer St. Augustine in terms of little shops, but these were right along the beach. We stopped at a few shops to pick up some gifts for friends and ourselves - well, Amy - before continuing on towards our final destination - the Old Lahaina Luau. We had chosen this luau because it was consistently rated the best luau on Maui and is supposedly the most truly traditional of all of the different luau's in Hawai段. It was very well put together. We were greeted with fresh orchid leis and drinks as we waited for our seat assignments. The ladies also received flowers for their hair, to wear on the right if single, the left if spoken for. There were a man and woman playing ukulele and singing Hawai段an songs for some soft entertainment. The man had the most beautiful falsetto voice. Prior to the show there was plenty of time for wandering around, looking at some Hawai段an crafts, gazing out at the ocean (we were on the west side of the island, right on the beach, ideal for a sunset luau). We even did a little dancing to some of the Hawai段an music playing. At one point an announcement was made that the Kalua pig would be unearthed from the "imu," a traditional Hawai段an underground oven. We watched and took pictures, then made our way to our seats. Our reservations were for traditional mat seating, which is on a couple of flat pillows on the ground, right in front of the stage. The food and drinks were excellent and we both stuffed ourselves. Amy tried poi again and it was actually good (she had tried it at the hotel in Honolulu and didn't love it), and both of us raved over the pork.

We sat at a table with some other nice people and we all enjoyed the food and drinks and show together. After the show was over we even ran into someone we knew! As we were browsing through the gift shop, there was Maryanne, the woman who sat beside Amy in the van going up to the top of the volcano for the bike ride the day before. Go figure, here we are, vacationers from 6,000 miles away, in Maui for only four days, and we already run into someone we know. Imagine how often that would happen after living on that small island for ten years. Alas, the anonimity of living in New York awaits us...but that will be a different journal.

Back to Hawai'i: the luau show was entertaining and informative, taking us on a wondrous journey of Polynesian culture. On numerous occasions Amy had tears in her eyes.

After that we stopped again on our way home to watch some more falling stars before returning to the condo.