Kualapu'u East Coast Trip: Happy Motherʻs Day from Sunny NYC!

Happy Motherʻs Day from sunny New York! Wow, I canʻt say enough how amazing the weather has been. Easily been the best weather for an entire trip. Started off with breakfast at the same place as yesterday and we were off. Today we started on the west side of Central Park. We then meandered through exploring different parts of the park

Bethesda Fountain as seen in a trillion movies

Our guide Robert put the kids up to a photo contest to see who could come up his favorite photos of the day. We stumbled across this ʻragingʻ waterfall that drew the eye of many a student who tried to capture water photos.

Only a couple noticed this view right behind them. Amazing to see the photos all the kids took. When I have a chance Iʻll get a bunch from the kids.

For only the second time ever we explored the Belvedere Castle. The only other time was our very first trip with Robert in 2013. And that day was dumping rain.

We then got to explore the Metropolitan Museum of Art. More commonly known as The MET. We got to explore all of the artifacts inside for two hours. Many explored the Roman and Greek Wings. the Asian Wing, the rooftop, one of my favorite views of New York, the US wing, the sculpture garden, Monetʻs and more. Iʻd love to spend more time in the MET as two hours goes by so fast.

A little montage of Kaimana pointing to these paintings! Ha

I always love when kids see how large this painting is. They see it in books and only but never can imagine the actual painting is this large. When my group came around the corner there were audible gasps at how large it was.

We learned that with these landscape paintings if you rolled up your map and made a sorta telescope and focused on small areas the paintings looked 3d. Was super cool.

The Temple of Dendur was actually originally located in Egypt. It was taken apart brick by brick, shipped to The MET, and put back together like Legos. Crazy stuff. You can see ancient hyrogliphics on it and everything.

This room was an actual room from Italy where Mt. Vesuvius exploded and covered towns erasing the from history for a period of time. It was so well preserved the paint is still quite lush. The bars in the windows were twisted from the heat from the volcano.

Driving down 5th Ave.

It was then time to say goodbye to Robert. Heʻs now been doing Kualapuʻu trips for ten years. Time flies. Heʻs become part of Kualapuʻu School through doing our New York tours. Heʻs visited Molokai a few times and I hope he comes back for more. Amazing guy and a great friend. Always love when I see him for the first time but get bummed out when we have to say goodbye. Aloha a hui ho, weʻll see ya soon Robert!

We were then off for two hours to go explore 5th ave and all of the stores that front the avenue. Again, two hours felt like nothing and time flew.

Where they film the Today Show and 30 Rock stretching into the sky.

Nike Store had a deal to try their new running shoes on a treadmill that you dictated the speed with your feet not by pushing buttons saying how fast you wanted to go. Had a neat screen behind it as well. You could run through the streets or run in the park. Was pretty cool.

In the winter this is where they put the Christmas Tree that we see on tv and the ice skating rink. Today it was a roller skating rink.

Kaʻulunaʻe and Laʻie went roller skating!

We finished our New York experience with a trip to Johnʻs of Times Square. Iʻd read about this before and knew it had good reviews. It lived up to them. The pizza was fantastic. The building is located in an old church. Has a unique feel to it.