Another Close Encounter

We had another close encounter besides the Koi fish while staying at the Grand Wailea. It was our last day, we were done swimming and heading out to our car for our hour drive back home. This egret landed on some bushes along the walkway and did not move as we stopped and watched. I actually had time to get my camera out and snap some pics.



At first I was not as close...so I took that shot and we watched for a while. But then we needed to get going so we kept walking and the bird didn't move..infact he was walking closer towards me as he walked along the top of the bushes. So I stopped right in front of him and took a few more shots. He looked at me....


then turned...




and flew away...



It was so cool! A fun note to end our little mini vacation on.

Quick video of the Grand Wailea Pool

This is just a quick vid snippet while I was relaxing by one of the Grand Wailea Pools...it was cloudy that day..but super hot when the sun would poke out.

The Pools at The Grand Wailea

These are just a few shots of the swimming pools at the Grand Wailea

This top picture is where the waterslides let out. There is another to the right..the smaller slide. A lot of hotels on the island have revamped thier pool areas and added waterslides, but still none are as fun as the one at The Grand Wailea. This one snakes back and fourth so many times you expect it to end around each turn but it keeps going! You pick up a lot of speed, so much that your body goes up the sides a little.

In between the two waterslide outlets is a water elevator. It takes people up to the small slide, or you can continue to go on to the other pools that all conect by mini slides and eventually take you to the rapids. When the water lets out for the water elevator the rock in the middle of this picture goes off like a volcano...a water volcano.



Here is the view from the rope bridge. You can take this into the caves for a shortcut through the pools rather then having to go all the way around. From here you can see part of the rapids and the beautiful torch ginger growing everywhere.



Here is another view above the rapids.



And this is in the caves...part of it opens up to a pool that you can get to from the other side by swimming through a waterfall. Across this pool is a jacuzzi. Around the other side of the cave accessible from another pool is the swim up bar



Here is the pool the rapids let out into. At the end of the pool is a wide rapids slide.


Here is a view from the other direction that I found online. It's a lot of fun!

Pictures of the beautiful tropical flowers from a walk through the garden grounds soon to come :)

Some Hawaii News...

Sadly we lost a couple of airlines here...Aloha and ATA. I'm not sure if ATA has other routes not going back and forth to Hawaii..but Aloha was one of our interisland airlines. Here is the latest on the airline situation from our Channel 2 News ..they say that there are more airlines expected to fall.

We watched on the news a report about the special job fair set up for all the empolyees who are suddenly having to look for jobs. Some of them have been employed by the airlines for 30+ years and don't even know how to begin to look for a job..let alone know how to fill out the electronic ways of doing it now. The article I just linked to brought out that a total of 190 private- and public-sector employers came forward during the week to provide potential jobs for displaced Aloha Airlines employees.

I feel so badly for everyone :(