Kaua'i
The Garden Island

After a week exploring the diversity of the Big Island, we flew on Aloha Airlines (yep, people do actually say Aloha and Mahalo all the time) to Lihue on Kauai. Now some of these names can seem kinda hard to pronounce, but I was able to deduce several good rules of thumb to aid the average non-Hawaiian (notice I said "average", now since I am, of course, far above average, I had no such difficulties. However, I felt that many of you may benefit from these guidelines). When speaking Hawaiian, use the following key for pronunciation:

letter = sounds like:

a = "ah"

e = long a, as in "Ahab"

i = long e, as in "freak"

o = anything you want it to sound like

u = sounds like when you point at something and go "ooooo!"

au = sounds like "ah-ooo"

aa = "ah-ah"

ei = think Fonzy: "aaay"

ua = "wah"

' = puts a break in the word (ex: Kaua'i = Kah-wah-ee, each part is spoken with its own accent)

Ok, now that you are all completely comfortable with Hawaiian pronounciations, here are a couple of words for you to practice on:

Honakapai'i

Ok, now try a short sentence:

A he nani kou hulu ke lei 'ia, Mukiki ana 'oe i ka pua lehua kahea ana 'oe i ka nui manu.
(translation: "Look at that neat bird. I need a burrito. I don't speak Italian.")

Anyway, this was our alarm clock practically every morning on Kaua'i. I guess the polynesians brought these chickens (also known as Red Jungle Fowl) from Asia to feed themselves. Apparently the pigs they brought didn't do enough damage to the islands.

This is probably the best picture I have ever taken! I mean, the blend of light and color contrast so beautifully with the slight shadows in the background.

The Na Pali Coast Trail is a world-famous trail that leads 11 miles from the beach where they filmed South Pacific to the valley where they filmed Jurassic Park. It was hot.

Sonja thought it was hot, too. This is the entrance to the Kalalau Valley at the end of the trail.

Since it was hot, we decided to sit on the beach after the hike. There is a waterfall that you can't see to the right of the photo where you can rinse off and dodge fist sized rocks that come hurling down the cliff.

This is a White-Rumped Shama, an introduced bird from China. Of all the birds we saw in Kalalau Valley, only 2 of them were native to the islands. This one came and sat on a branch and sang to us while we packed up camp. It even flew down to eat a big centipede.

It was hot when we hiked out, too.

BACK
This page hosted by Get your own Free Home Page

letter	=	sounds like:
a	=	"ah"
e	=	long a, as in "Ahab"
i	=	long e, as in "freak"
o	=	anything you want it to sound like
u	=	sounds like when you point at something and go "ooooo!"
au	=	sounds like "ah-ooo"
aa	=	"ah-ah"
ei	=	think Fonzy: "aaay"
ua	=	"wah"
'	=	puts a break in the word (ex: Kaua'i = Kah-wah-ee, each part is spoken with its own accent)