Everyone had breakfast courtesy of my godson's father, complete with Portuguese sausage, cheese omelets and rice, and right after we all headed to the pool. While the kiddies were swimming about, I decided to take a bunch of pics throughout the property.
I took a few in the lobby area again, this one was near the front fountain at the entrance area...
This one near the same area, but facing the entrance doors...
This one at the base of the ocean side waterfall near the lobby...
I also found a couple of hidden Mickeys (Polynesian style, with two squares and a diamond)...
I then went ahead to the pool area and took a bunch of pics there, this one is from the pool area facing the resort's entrance...
For the lil ones, there's a play area reserved jus' for them...
Near the lil kiddie play area, there's a saltwater tank where guests can swim with the fish...
More poolside pics...
I took a quick pic of the resort's spa...
And my friend had a workout in their fitness room...
I also snapped this pic in the resort's store...
While my friend worked out, I was on a mission to take a bunch of pics of the huge art collection, so I headed on over to the Wai'anae end of the resort (where the spa and fitness room is located). As a briefly mentioned in my Day 1 post, there's a theme of balance to the resort. At the Wai'anae end, there's a male theme, as indicated in the lobby. This painting was done by one of my all time favorite Hawaiian artists Po'oloa, his chalk and oil paintings are SICK. I think this painting is of Kane and Kanaloa, god of the ocean and god of the freshwater...
So I went to every floor of the Wai'anae tower and snapped a pic. To kinda let you know how huge the artwork is, it's about 3-4 feet by 4-5 feet...
I friggen love this painting by Po'oloa because of the Wai'anae mountains (where I'm from) in the background, friggen stunning...
Another Po'oloa painting...
Yet another Po'oloa beauty...
More Po'oloa awesomeness, this one of bird feather gatherers...
SPOILER ALERT: If you don't wanna know some of the Aulani surprises, don't read any further.
After lunch, my niece and I went and did a self-guided tour which was prompted by a handheld device. There's a total of one indoor self-guided tour and 4 outdoor guided tours.
There's a story line to the tour, but what's cool is the Disney magic that's incorporated with the use of the handheld device. At our first spot, there was this rock, and upon "triggering" the handheld device, the rocks moved in and out, forming what was a menehune (Hawaiian mystical tribe of people)...
Another destination took us to Tutu's house, and upon peeking into the mailbox, it took our photo and it showed up on the device...
Another destination took us to this rock formation near the koi ponds...
And with the triggering of the device, it sank into the water, and the Hawaiian islands were seen, pretty cool stuff...
At another location it took us to an area where there were implements to kapa (Hawaiian bark cloth) making...
Upon triggering the device, the kapa lit up...
At this spot, a turtle rose in the pond...
The device also took us near the pool area...
And when the device triggered it, it lit up with fire...
There was also this rock that lit up to form a Hawaiian petroglyph of a turtle...
The outdoor self-guided tour took us well into the evening, and when we completed all 4 of the outdoor tours, the completist in me had to do the indoor one as well...
It started off in the lobby, and in the middle of the lobby, there's a compass, and in the middle of that is an 'iwa bird, a bird with great significance in Hawaiian navigation...
With the triggering of our device, it lit up...
Near the check-in desk, there's a kiddie waiting area, and this painting, which comes to life when you trigger it with your device...
Also near the lobby area there's a lamp and when you look up and trigger your device, the geckos start dancing around...
And my ultimate favorite was in the store, there's this photo of "Uncle"...
Which comes to life just like Harry Potter when you trigger your device...
Overall, the self-guided tour/scavenger hunt experience was pretty cool stuff. After that was said and done, we all met up in the hotel room and had dinner, which was a mix of Italian, Chinese and Filipino food. And the highlight of the evening was this birthday cookie I got for my godson. We all sang "Happy Birthday" to him and he opened his gifts, good times.
Day 3 coming up...
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