It is Saturday, we’ve got nothing special planned, even decided to ditch the Upcountry Farmer’s Market, because truly, what do we need? Nothing, that’s for sure. So we decide to stick close to home. And oh, what a good decision that turns out to be!

We are, as usual, up early, so we strike out on our traditional Kalama Park walking route. But, wait! It is early, but it is PACKED with people. I mean packed. We have never seen this many people here in all our years coming to Kihei. It is nutso. The beach is jam packed, you can barely find space to launch your board, whether surf or stand up. The path is like a traffic jam – people in all directions, passing you right and left. Wow. Just wow.

We manage to make the circuit, then stop at Foodland just to scope out any extras we may need, ending up with some garlic and soy sauce – garlic for the shrimp we got on special at Safeway and soy sauce for the poke. We strategize sauces for the Kalua pork, but figure we’ll wait to see what we think we need later. Then it is back out on the sidewalk heading home…and oh my God! There is a line at Kihei Caffe that stretches into the parking lot all the way back to Three’s restaurant. For breakfast? At the diner? Where seriously, there isn’t anything special, just typical breakfast diner food? We are honestly dumbfounded. Virtually all of these people are staying in condos with full kitchens. Going out for breakfast is fine, for sure, but to stand in line for an hour and a half or longer when cooking in is so simple? Dunno about that. We have to take a picture. What can I say???

Dodging people on the way back to the condo we decide we are not coming back out again until our afternoon walk and to pick up dinner. It is just too crazy busy out there. And it being the weekend, working Hawaiians are also out, so, no. We’re hanging! We’ve got all week to do whatever we want, we can chill from the cool balcony all day long. Plus, we have to cook our Kalua pork – perfect day to stay in and tend to business.

We walk south for our afternoon stroll, mostly because we want to see if there are more park paths that way (there are not), to scope out the restaurant parking lot situation for tonight’s take out dinner and to see what other food trucks are on the street a block away from our condo (Kinaole Grill, which we already knew, and Thai Fusion, which we didn’t but is redundant with tonight’s food selection). Ok. Scouting session done.

Later, we order my birthday Thai dinner – figuring if we wait until 6:45 we should be between the dinner reservation seatings. Maybe, maybe not. We order online and get a 40 minute pick up time. Wow. But, ok, we’re not doing anything. We head over to the restaurant a few minutes early and the sweet girl inside says, oh, it will be at least 25 minutes more but she’ll text us when it is ready. Okie dokie. Thankfully there is a space in the lot, so we just hang out for the next 25 minutes until we get the text. As we sit there, there are also 2 other couples waiting, plus more inside, and a big group of adults and kids shows up, leaving right away saying it would be 45 minutes before they could be seated. Crazy time. We are so glad we don’t have anywhere we are really dying to eat or want to go. And all that food we just bought? Totally justified now! We’re eating in! Why bother with the hassle.

The meal, though, is definitely worth the wait. Fresh crunchy papaya salad. About 4 pounds of Pad Thai (we’ll be eating on that all week!). Excellently prepared crispy mahi mahi paired with drunken sauce/veggies. Not the most elegant plating (why dirty plates when we can eat out of the containers?), but all in all an excellent birthday dinner on a lovely evening on the balcony.

Couldn’t ask for more.