Recovery

First, Bali Hai. It was a picture I couldn't find yesterday. 

Friday was mostly a recovery day. After breakfast we went on a walk. Then we headed back to the complex, and I went and worked out in the gym. I have hip and lower back things now that really respond well to me doing strengthening work. John went and got us more poke for lunch and we spent lunch on a Zoom meeting with Jet. He was on campus and talked with us via his phone until he ran out of charge and ran off to his board game evening get together. 

We went on another walk and scouted out bakeries, coffee shops, and found another place that actually sold Kaua'i grown, medium roast coffee. The darker the roast for coffee, the more the roast profile takes over the taste of the whole cup. If you want to enjoy the varietal, then you really want at worst a medium roast that doesn't go too far into the second crack. Yes. We roast our own coffee for Reasons, which include knowing what varietal I have and where I want the roast profile for the coffee involved and if I really want to taste the varietal. Hawaiian coffees, like Blue Mountain coffees are notorious for the fact that they don't actually have a lot of varietal character. They're MILD. People loved them for the fact that they have no taste. It's so funny in some ways. 

Dragonfruit is also bemusingly mild. Creamy, the tiny seeds don't intrude, and this startling red beauty was no exception. We cut this in half for breakfast and were amazed by the color, which is actually why dragonfruit commands the prices that it does, honestly, it's beautiful. 

But it didn't actually taste of much. It was entirely unassuming. Juicy, tender, not very sweet or... well... fruity. It was almost like the perfect texture for fruit but the flavor of very gently sweetened Jello. 

I would not go so far as to say that Kaua'i grown coffee tasted like Jello, though. It's still coffee. And the medium roast makes for a very gentle, unassuming cup that does a good job of waking one up in the morning. Its price is worth paying for supporting the local roasters and growers. All the walking out meant that we could have a treat because we'd have to walk all the way back, so we headed back to Wailua Shave Ice.

This time we got Da Mango. It was lovely. Mango syrup, a mango cream, mango chunks all over the top, and lovely little mochi bits all around the edge. They added chew. It was so good, and even better when we shared it. 

While we ate, an old man sat down next to us and asked us how we liked the shave ice, and he said that it was pretty much the price of a meal for him. He said he was a local, and started off with an apology for the bad weather. We said we didn't mind it too much, and he said that most of the tourists said that, but given that he lived on the beach he really didn't care much for it. For all that, he was pleasant enough company while we finished our snack. 

I went and did my painting class in the room.  It was nice having had enough experience to have packed everything I needed, but I thought the "gold" paper was the one that was colored pale gold with flecks of gold, when actually it was the one that was butternut colored, which wasn't the "butternut" paper. Lol. 

I ended up enjoying the paper I'd packed enough that I didn't regret it. John wandered in and out, doing the laundry and exploring as was his wont. I usually stayed mute on the Zoom call for the class, so he wasn't disrupting anything. The class was supposed to go until 7 pm, but it ended early, so we headed off to dinner at Napali Brewing. We had a wedge salad, mixed regular potato and sweet potato fries, Huli Huli chicken which was a butter and oyster sauce sauced chicken thigh, and roasted brussels sprouts. 

The salad, fries, and sprouts were all amazing, the chicken was so so. 

After dinner we headed back to the room and out to the resort's hot tub. It was a nice meeting place for other residents, and we all talked while we soaked. Then back to the room to shower and write. I was finally able to catch up for the last two days. That felt pretty good, especially considering that I used a twenty minute timer and stretched when it went off. 

And given that Thursday night had been really painful, Friday night ended up being much much better.