our last hawaiian hurrah

on the last morning of our hawaiian vacation, the hub hit up yelp again to find us some delicious grub.  he took us to a little hole in the wall called sam sato's out in wailuku, known for their housemade noodles served "dry."  when we arrived there was a good number of folks waiting to be seated, and it looked like they were all locals.  that's when you know it's gonna be good, right?  you always want to eat where the locals do.

our server was funny and friendly and more than happy to help us figure out what we wanted to order.  she gave us the lowdown on all the best stuff, and we happily followed her instructions as we ordered the dry noodles, plus their famous saimin, won ton soup, chow fun and meat sticks.

everything was as tasty as we'd hoped, and the old lady was extra ecstatic when she asked for some hot sauce and was handed a bottle of the chili water she'd been dreaming of since we arrived in hawaii.

as we left we saw one of the helicopters that was working hard to put out the brush fire that was still raging.

we had two goals for our day - to find the ocean vodka distillery for a tour and tasting, and then to hit up the surfing goat dairy to do a tour and try our hand at milking a goat.  except that when we arrived at the distillery, we pulled up to find all of their staffers getting into their car.  turns out that they'd all been dismissed for the day to let them get home in case the roads were closed again due to that fire.  bummer.

but we did manage to make it to meet the goats!

i'm 12, so i thought this was funny.

there were lots of things to look at and read to learn all about the farm.  the owners were from germany, having fallen in love with the island during a vacation, and decided to open a goat farm to produce cheese.  super random, but hey - to each his own.

we checked in for our tour and were handed these stickers to wear as we followed the guide around the farm.

baby goats!  so cute.

there were several other families on the tour with us, and the kids all loved getting to feed the goats through the fences.

 this guy looked like a unicorn, with one of his horns having broken off years ago.

and this one with the tiny ears was a certain species that i've already forgotten the name of.  heh.

lots and lots of goats.  the hub and i weren't into the feeding part, but we had fun watching everyone else do it.

 this dude was kind of like the king of the castle.  he fathered a good number of the goats on the farm.

lube.  heh.

the goats all scampered into place once it was time to be milked.

 and of course...selfies with the goats.

at the end of our tour, we were given samples of the different variations of cheese they produce here.  they provide it to local restaurants and hotels, and the flavors we got to try were all delicious.  when the tour was over, we were directed to a seating area where they served us with the charcuterie and cheese flights we'd preordered along with our tour tickets.

and then we went off in search of some sushi to satisfy the bean's endless craving.  the first place we went was closed for a private event.  the second spot said they didn't have a table to accommodate all of us.  and so we ended up here:

turns out guy fieri visited this place too.

and we tried one of their specialty rolls - the TNT roll, stuffed with crab and shrimp tempura and topped with ahi poke and unagi sauce.  the server raved about how big this thing was and said that it was what guy had featured on his show.  while it was pretty damn tasty, it wasn't necessarily as hefty as he'd claimed and we ended up ordering several of them.

it was after we were all done eating that i finally managed to present the hub with his new wedding band.  i really hadn't thought through exactly what i was going to say, and i definitely didn't think it was going to be so unceremoniously done at a random sushi restaurant.  but it was our last night on maui, and i ended up blurting something lame out and just slipping it on his finger.  i think he was pleased with it, and it had come out of left field and was totally unromantic, but there you go.  i'd hoped that it was going to be more meaningful and memorable, but it didn't turn out that way.  blah.

considering all of the other things that hadn't quite gone right during our time on maui - the sailboat, the dinner reservation, the fire, the crappy condo - i guess it was fitting.  sigh.