Monday in Paradise

Aloha,

Well, we've had a long day on Tuesday and I'll post more details about that in the morning.

Monday was our traditional first day activities. Breakfast at the buffet was how things started, which like last year was included with our room package. Afterwards, we stopped off a the room and something caught our eye. Moments later, after staring through our binoculars, we had spotted our first whale from the lanai at our room. It wasn't a major up close and in your face sighting, but it will still a thrill. Unfortunately, he was too far our to get a good shot with my telephoto lens.

We swung over to Safeway to grab some groceries (which we normally do the first night, but eh). After we returned, Cindy and mom went down to the beach and rented a few of those umbrellas and chairs while I finished my homework for a digital photography class I'm taking back home. While out on the lanai procrastinating with that, I spotted more activity out on the water, and this time, it was even more exciting. Looking through the binos, I was able to see full whale tail above the water as it came crashing down into the water. Amazing.

This time, I grabbed my video camera and was able to get some fairly decent views of the other whale (at least I think there were two) slapping it's tail in the water for almost an entire minute. I haven't had time to transfer it to my laptop yet nor upload it, but it will go up eventually. Upload speeds haven't been that great here with my Sprint mobile card, so I'll have to find a wi-fi spot nearby.

The day continued with our first stop in Lahaina Town, with a little shopping and dinner at Cheeseburger in Paradise. On the shopping end, Cindy and I found very nice matching Aloha Wear to add to our collection, and we'll likely be wearing it to the dinner cruise on Sunday. Mom also started her souvenir shopping, which was actually easier that she had thought.

The night ended with taking in the Cliff Dive Ceremony at Black Rock and then calling it a night. We're still adjusting to the time difference and jet lag a little, and having to get up at 5am to get ready for the Road to Hana tour on Tuesday didn't help the matter.

More updates on Tuesday's trip to Hana and our plans for Wednesday (my birthday) in the morning.

Aloha and Mahalo.

Google Maps - Function and Art

I've added a few more Google Maps to the site, in both the Beaches and Restaurants sections. Each of these additions utilize Google Maps in different ways, for both art and functionality, respectively.

Beaches
As mentioned awhile back, Google Maps was recently updated with new satellite imagery in the Ka'anapali area and in other parts of West Maui. Looking for ways to share this new aerial beauty relatively easily, I was inspired to use this new imagery as a different art form to showcase some of the beauty of Maui's beaches.

What you're find on the various beach pages, such as Ka'anapali Beach here, is a full bird's eye view of each beach zoomed in to the best range to fit the page layout. From here, you can see from up above what Maui visitors see from the sandy shores, and gain a better appreciation for the true beauty of these popular spots.

Restaurants
For the restaurant side of things, I was also inspired to add a little functionality with Google Maps. This particular inspiration came from a local portal site near home that I stumbled across while searching for a Chinese restaurant (I can't remember the particular site at the moment). Among all the basics, it featured a little map inlet that showed about a 2-3 block radius of where the restaurant was located. I thought it'd be easy for the Maui restaurants featured here.

So that's what I did, and actually took it a step further by adding two map inlets. The first follows the original idea, having a 2-3 block radius around the restaurant location, just to get your bearings. The second map is more of an island-level view to get a better idea of what part of Maui the restaurant is located.

To get a better idea of what it looks like, check out the Cheeseburger in Paradise page in the restaurants section, which happens to be the first restaurant we stop at for dinner when we visit Maui.