Nothing But Words

Maria’s Conference, Makapuu Beach, and Sea Life Park

Today was the day for Maria’s panel (presentation) at the conference. Similar topics were clustered around each other in the schedule, so Maria also attended most of today’s panels. As her friend and co-researcher Jen put it, “having the conference in Hawaii means overall attendance is high, but attendance at most of the panels is low.” But Maria was very happy with her panel, and even got a new idea for an article out of it. I’ve also noticed she’s feeling a heck of a lot better since we got here. Something tells me it’s no coincidence that her morning sickness happened to subside just as we arrived in Hawaii…

Since Maria was at the conference all day, Kai and I were on our own. The Oahu buses go just about everywhere, so we didn’t rent a car. We took the 45 minute bus ride out to Makapuu Beach and Sea Life Park. The pictures below are all from Makapuu Beach (Kai took the picture of me - he’s getting good with the camera!). I really liked Makapuu - it was beautiful, and since it was early and it’s not the easiest beach to get to (you have to wend your way down a rocky slope to get on it), we had it all to ourselves for a while.

Makapuu is across the street from Sea Life Park, which is where Kai and I spent most of our day. It’s essentially a smaller and slightly run down version of Sea World, so I’d only recommend it if you’re traveling with kids. Kai had a ball (he particularly enjoyed the very silly sea lion show), and that’s what matters.

We finished the day at a moderately ritzy, somewhat cheesy “authentic” Thai restauraunt (it was to Thai food what Benihana’s is to Japanese food) with a group of Maria’s friends from the ISA conference. Looking around our large table, I noticed that the conference attendees who had significant others brought them, and those who didn’t brought their mothers.