USA Part Two - Maui

The whole reason we went to the USA this year was to attend the wedding of our friend Val that  we met when we were teaching English in South Korea - I mean if you get asked to a wedding in Maui how can you turn that down?

 This is a photo of Val and I hanging out at  the beach for her bachelorette party (fun fact in New Zealand we'd call it a hens party). I'm not really into boozy party times and fortunately neither is Val.

Her party included fun times with her friends, Mom and sister - eating pizza, hanging at the beach, having a little ritual for well wishes on her big day and going to a LAVENDER FARM!

Rich and I did have some time to explore Maui by ourselves as well as hanging out with Val, Jessie and their family and friends.

The wedding was held in Lahaina and we spend most of our free time exploring the area. I found this cemetary (I think its called Puuphia Cemetery) fascinating. Firstly its built on sand and secondly most of the headstones are from Japanese settlers.

Across the road from the cemetery is a Buddhist temple, its obviously still being well used as when we were looking around the locals were tidying up for an upcoming festival.

The temple and cemetery were linked to the Japanese heritage on Maui, our next stop was  a look at some of the Chinese Heritage.

 Wo Hing is a museum in an old Chinese community hall, most of the Chinese who settled in Maui were hardworking people and the guide told us due to this its a pretty plain building. I thought it was really beautiful.

I was a little surprised to find this guy here Sun Yat-sen - we learnt a lot about him when we lived in Taipei. He even has a hall named after him and appears on the $50 New Taiwan dollar. He's a fascinating guy if you're interested in the Chinese revolution. As it turns out he spend around seven years in Hawaii - amazing.

The top story of Wo Hing house was my favourite, with its lovely balcony and shrines.

When we bought our tickets for Wo Hing house we were told that if we paid a few dollars we could also go and visit the Baldwin Home Museum, the home of an early missionary. So we decided we may as well check out both.

When  we arrived the guide asked us where we were from, we said New Zealand he was like "I'm glad, the last people here were from Germany and they weren't at all impressed with how old this house was!". How old is the house you may ask? It was build between 1834-35, making it five years older than New Zealand, so we were impressed.

The most interesting things about the house? Firstly the building materials include coral that the locals mined to build the house, secondly the missionary who built the house was a doctor who treated both humans (he also did dentistry!) and animals in his home (some of the medical tools used were brutal). The final thing that was interesting was by the time Rev. Baldwin finished his time in Hawaii the church decided there was no need to send further missionaries as the local population had largely converted to Christianity and learnt to read and the church felt that their job was done and moved missionaries elsewhere. The home was abandoned until the 1960s when the restoration began.

Final stop before the wedding itself - the banyan tree! So I've seen a lot of banyan trees traveling through South East Asia and the pacific. This one was bigger than most, in fact it was a whole block of tree and it had a craft market happening underneath it - fancy.

 After some exploring it was time to head back to the hotel and get ready for Val and Jessi's wedding. There's one thing I didn't tell you about the wedding, it was a WHITE WEDDING - not in the regular sense, but the sense ALL THE GUESTS WERE ASKED TO WEAR WHITE! I usually wear EVERY COLOUR - except WHITE!

I told Val the fact I traveled 8 hours to attend her wedding wasn't really proof I loved her - the real proof was that I was willing to wear white.

The celebrant was wonderful, his other talents included being the "band" for the evening. We also had hula lessons and the brides looked lovely of course!

Our time in Hawaii came to an end with the wedding - next stop? Seattle, Washington.

Ross & Shelley's wedding in the Naki

If you follow my blog regularly you will remember that a couple of weekends ago Rich and I went to Taranaki (the Naki) for our friends Ross and Shelley's wedding.

A whole group of us stayed near the wedding venue in this beautiful house my friend Diane booked for us - isn't it amazing? I think it has to be the best kept secret in Onaero , just look at those views!

We had beach access and I went swimming three times (actually in my case less swimming more paddling or "frolicking") and we had a spa pool as well - so fancy. Just look at the views we had!

Here's some pre-wedding photos, we all look pretty good, it seems that Ross and Shelley have some pretty good looking friends.

I didn't realise this last one was going to be a full length shot - so I don't have my shoes on. I actually wore heels so I wanted to limit the amount of time I had to wear them so I didn't put them on until just before we left.

On the left are Kai and Diane, our friends from Germany, the are New Zealand citizens now. We met them when we first arrived home from overseas at Ross and Shelley's engagement party and so glad we met them, they are a whole lot of fun.
This is me with one of my oldest friends Sue! She lives in the UK now with her fiancée Conor - I want them to come home to NZ, or at least to Australia - I would even accept Hong Kong or Singapore. Sue, Conor, Ross and I have all known each other since we started university (in 1998). But Conor, Sue and Nilanka (the handsome man in the third photo down) have all known each other since high school - or even possibly primary school.

Here's the beautiful bride walking down the isle looking like an absolute stunner in her frock!

Ross and Shelley have both lost some very important people over the last few years, so they lit candles at the ceremony to remember those who have passed on, I thought it was a really touching gesture.

Some more shots of the ceremony - the celebrant was a bit of a hoot!

Then it was time for the signing of the register, followed up by the drinking of bubbles and congratulations to the bride and groom! Whilst Ross and Shelley went to have their official photos done, we hung around and took photos of ourselves, because we're awesome.
I met Nilanka through Sue and Conor when we all lived in Hamilton and Nilanka came up for a visit, now we live in Wellington we get to hang out lots which I love because both Nankz and his partner Paul are such a blast. I love having coffee and brunches with these guys.
As you can tell from the photos it was a hot summers day at one stage Sue got a lemon, lime and bitters and then we all wanted one...Here's the set up at the dinner table, that little silver container is some tea which was the wedding favour - very cute. Ross and Shelley didn't have a buffet - they had table service which I think is so much better.

I had the salmon for my main and it was amazing - yes it did taste as good as it looks!

Here was the dessert- chocolate deliciousness - I can't remember what it was called but it was awesome!

Ross and Shelley didn't have a wedding cake - but they did have wedding cupcakes. How cool is that? They even had a big cupcake on the top so that they could still "cut the cake" together.Here's the first dance of the evening and it turns out Ross and Shelley can really dance - it helps that Ross did ceroc for years though!

A photo of Conor and I - he can be a little silly at times.....................

That's why we have been friends for FIFTEEN years!!

Finally here's a shot from the plane on the day we were flying back to Wellington - you can see the outline of the North Island pretty well. Being a map geek - I always love stuff like this.