Day 14: Cloudy Day in Paradise

January 2, 2025

Welcome to our first full day in the Maldives!!! While we are ecstatic to call such a gorgeous place home, we'd like to have a word with someone about the weather here. It's been cloudy, hazy, and humid enough to bring my hair to full Mia-Thermopolis-before-the-makeover status. Nevertheless, we persist. Today consisted of getting to know Hurawalhi, our resort home, and making ourselves comfortable in our glam over-water villa.

We started our morning with coffee on our back deck, overlooking our private pool and the beautiful Indian Ocean. The water is extremely clear and filled with tons of fish, much to my nature-loving husband's delight. After spending a good amount of time peering into the water (and making me quite nervous), we were finally ready to head to breakfast.

The entire island where our resort is located is quite small -- you can walk from end to end in less than 20 minutes. That being said, our villa is one of the farthest out. From our door to the end of the boardwalk takes about 6.5 minutes to walk, and that's at our relatively brisk New York City walking pace (yes, we timed it). We made a mental note to build in some extra time to get anywhere else on the resort property. And we were off to breakfast!

The breakfast buffet was at the same place where we had dinner last night and did not disappoint. We picked a range of different options including made-to-order eggs Benedict for Max and eggs over easy with bacon for me. Plus our coffee orders arrived with no issue! It's the little things in life. In addition to a wide variety of typical breakfast foods, this buffet is unique in its selection of at least 10 different types of honey. Max swiped a bunch of different kinds onto a piece of toast. They were pretty good!

After breakfast we wandered around, exploring more of the property and the beach. We checked out the gym (unlikely that we will actually go but it was nice and overlooked the ocean) as well as the spa, game room, and other loungey areas with hammocks and swings. Too bad it was so cloudy and foggy! At least I had my huge sun hat.

Next we returned back to our villa (6.5 minutes later) to do some snorkeling. Afrah, our attendant, had dropped off snorkel gear for us so that we could just pop into the water any time we wanted. Max was VERY excited about this and immediately dove in, or rather carefully tiptoed down the extremely slippery stairs. He was thrilled to see so many different types of fish in the crystal clear water! Meanwhile, I was working my way through a particularly thick book (All the Colors of the Dark, which I am loving so far).

All that snorkeling (and supervising) had us hungry so we headed back to the main part of the island for a late lunch at Junk Food Kitchen, or JFK, one of the other restaurants on the property. We each got tacos as well as a tuna tartare app. I had my first of what will likely be many pina coladas and Max had a tropical cocktail that he really liked.

A bit more wandering around led us back home, where we decided to stay inside for a bit. It had started to drizzle so we decided this would be the perfect time to pop the champagne we had been given upon arrival and finally watch our full wedding video, which had landed in our inbox a couple of days prior!!

It was so magical watching our whole day again and we could not stop smiling. It was just as beautiful and fun as we remembered. And yes, I obviously teared up watching it.

Before long, it was time for dinner! We had a reservation at Koshibo, the generically "Asian" restaurant on campus. We hiked on over and enjoyed a delicious dinner including multiple types of edamame, sushi, curry fish, steak for Max, and a few lackluster desserts. The sushi was surprisingly good! We were SUPER distracted during the meal by an extremely loud and weird couple sitting 2 tables away. They were complaining to the manager about something (we're not quite sure what) but we simply could not stop eavesdropping!!!

Having strained our ears to hear this couple's insane conversation, which may have had something to do with a bar fight and the wife getting punched in the face, we were pretty wiped out. We finished up our dinner with some tea (loose leaf peppermint, my fav and a nice reminder of home), and meandered back.

On our way back to the room we were stopped by some interesting sounding music. The Maldivian Culture Show, put on by members of the staff, was raging at the poolside bar. We stopped in for a few minutes to watch the singing and dancing, but despite the staff's best efforts we were not pulled onto the dance floor. Lots of other guests were dancing though! It was fun and very very loud!!

Finally we were ready to head home. The villas look so gorgeous lit up at night! Today was a great day but we are really hoping for some sunshine tomorrow! Fingers crossed :)

Miss us? Same here! We've been gone for so long, can you believe it's 2025?! Don't forget to leave us a comment!

Love, Em xoxo