Kauai Day 6- Watch Me Do Some Awesome Tricks

Tuesday we hooked up with our friends again and went to this hidden little gem called Kipu Falls. This was by far my most favorite thing that we did. After hiking through some private property (in the book it said it was ok) you come to this hidden waterfall and swimming hole. I'm amazed that nature could make such a perfect place. I could have sworn this place was man-made. But I guess some locals put up a rope swing and ladder so you could jump into the water. This was so dang fun!! I have to admit, I'm not the adventurous daring type, so this was really out of my comfort zone. I'm so glad that I fell into peer pressure and was forced to do this. The rope swing itself was about 20 feet above the water, but when you got swinging up you were a lot higher than that. These pictures don't give it justice as to how high it was.

Here's Matt giving the rope swing a go.

When it was my turn I was scared half to death. But everyone around me counted to three for me and I just let go. I had a decent entry into the water, had a blast and was ready to do it again. So my second time I told Matt's friend Casey, who was helping me this time, that I was going to go for style points. He advised me against it because I might do something funky and hurt myself. I agreed and told him that I was going to go for graceful points instead. He gave me the ok on that one. So on the count of three I let go, swung into the air, and......ought oh.....I panicked, got tangled in the rope, swung to the side, didn't let go in time, and had a nice graceful side entry into the water. It stung pretty bad. When I came up out of the water I could hear everyone there laughing and saying, "Oh dude, that had to hurt!" If you click on the picture below you can see the beginnings of my side entry. Ahh, memories!

So, after my big debut on the rope swing, I decided to go on to something else. Next up was jumping off of the waterfall. So I said I was scared going off the rope swing.... let me take that back. Nothing compared to how scared I was to jump off that waterfall. With the rope swing all you had to do was let go and then your forced to jump into the water. There were just too many things that I thought could go wrong jumping off the waterfall. I could slip and jack myself up on the rocks, I could not jump far enough and jack myself up on the rocks, or maybe I don't jump in the right spot and once again jack myself up on the rocks. Here's me and my friend Angie sizing up the situation.

After a good 10 minutes of complete wussiness I finally made the jump. I got a good nose full of water on my rope swing jump, so I decided to plug the nose this time. Matt cracks up every time he sees this picture. For one, my nose plugging, and for two my skirt flittering in the wind. I don't know what's so funny about that?! After a successful jump, I don't know what I was so scared about. It was so much fun! But I had that same attitude about the rope swing and therefore decided not to tempt fate with a second jump off the waterfall.

Here's a picture of the private property that we had to hike through to get to Kipu Falls. Those are sugar cane plants. As we were walking back to our car through these fields, an oncoming lady mentioned to me, "Oh, such an elegant cover-up with such clunky shoes." Umm, thanks, I think?

Here's another self-took picture of me as I relax by myself and read my book.

For our last night there we decided to go eat at Kintaro's. It's a tempanyaki type place where they cook the food in front of you. Mmmm, is all I can say about that place. It was delicious!

Here's a picture of what my food looked like before it was cooked up. I told you I was trying new things while I was there. After years of watching Red Lobster commercials and salivating when they showed the lobster, I was finally able to try it and see if it lived up to my expectations. I'd have to say it lived up, plus more. I had lobster tail and it was really tasty. I didn't know it was going to have a chewy texture as opposed to other fish I had tried.