After our meeting, we drove to Kalaheo and ate at the Kalaheo Cafe & Coffee Company. It's another restaurant that had good reviews and is reasonably priced, so we decided to stop off there to pick up some breakfast. The restaurant is like a little cafe with a full service menu. Alexis ordered an egg white omelette with cheddar, mushrooms, and Portuguese sausage, and a soy chai. Shin ordered an egg scramble with eggs, cheese, tomatoes, green onion, and Portuguese sausage and an ice coffee. We also shared a chocolate raspberry scone (see picture). We really enjoyed our savory dishes, but the scone was just ok (Alexis' scones are much better :) ).
Now that our stomachs were satisfied, we drove over to the Kauai Coffee Company to tour the plantation and to taste test the coffee. The Kauai Coffee Company takes up over 3,000 acres of land, and is one of the largest producers of coffee in the United States. We took a short tour of the plantation which was similar to taking a tour of a winery. The only significant difference was that they were growing coffee beans instead of grapes. We taste tested a number of the different types of brewed coffee, and we purchased a few bags from the store's visitor center.We headed back to our hotel in Poipu, and stopped off in Koloa to check out Sueoka's, a local grocery store. Koloa has a small downtown area with about 15 stores. We walked along the street and came across a kiosk with someone who was selling Kauai island adventures at a discount. We spoke to the salesperson, and she offered us a great deal on a snorkeling tour if we were willing to attend a timeshare presentation. We weren't too excited about attending another timeshare presentation, but they were willing to take off about $150 off the total cost of the snorkeling trip. We couldn't pass up a good deal, so we signed up. After our purchase of the snorkeling trip, we dropped by the snack shop which is attached to Sueoka's. We picked up a plate lunch and saimin to share for lunch. The food was good, but it was a bit salty.
Then it was time for our Starwood timeshare presentation. We met with our salesperson, and she gave us the overview of the different hotel lines under the Starwood umbrella and she introduced two of their newest hotel chain lines, Element and aloft. After the presentation, she brought us up to her office which happened to be right next to our hotel room, and she tried to sell us one of the timeshares. After a long conversation, she brought up her sales manager to try to seal the deal. Starwood timeshares are very nice, but at $57,000 and a $2,200 maintenance fee every year, it was way too expensive. They managed to hold our attention for 2.5 hours, but we managed to walk away without making a big purchase and our free gifts.
We had a few hours of sunlight left in the day, so we borrowed tennis equipment from the concierge and played tennis for about an hour. It was a good workout, but we both learned that we need to work on our game. It had been many years since the two of us had played, and we both could use some practice.
After our little tennis match, we washed up and got ready for dinner. We decided to try the hotel's Japanese buffet. Every Saturday evening, the hotel has a Japanese dinner buffet that included items such as sushi, sashimi, tempura, tonkatsu, soba, and curry. Alexis ate a lot of her staples, and Shin went right after the sushi, sashimi, and other fresh seafood. For those of you who are wondering, we did not stuff ourselves until we were ready to explode. It was a bit over-priced, but the quality of the buffet on a scale of 1-10 (1 being low and 10 being high) was a 7.5.
We are really having a great time on this trip. Here is a picture that Shin took this evening at sunset. Goodnight.
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