We woke up at 4:30 a.m. Wednesday morning to catch our flight to Salt Lake City. Everything went well and the plane left on time. We boarded the plane for Honolulu. The pilot came on the PA and said we would be facing a headwind, so the flight would take longer than scheduled. Then he came back on and said the A/C was out on one side of the plane and would take about 45 minutes to fix. Then 45 minutes later he came over the PA and said they didn't have the part in Phoenix to fix it. Everyone on the plane just wanted to go A/C or not, but the pilot said his opinion was the only one that mattered (Oh good way to talk to your customers). We deboarded and waited, and waited, and waited. They told us there was another plane in LA so they flew us there in the non-A/C plane. We hopped another plane and were finally off to Hawaii. Fastforward: Arrived at Turtle Bay Resort around 11:00 p.m. (Hawaii time-yeah, we've been up for 22 hours straight-sleeping).
The next day we met up with Julie and Preston and did breakfast at the Hukilau Cafe- YUM! Then it was back to the hotel for some snorkeling. It took me a while to get used to breathing through that snorkel, but I got the hang of it. That was a lot of fun. The water in the bay wasn't very clear, but we still saw some beautiful fish. We went to lunch at the Kahuku Grill-best hamburgers and fries we had in Hawaii. Then we hit the Polynesian Cultural Center.
That was a lot of fun. Samoa probably had the best (funniest) show. Tonga was pretty good, too.
The show in the evening, Ha - The Breath of Life, was really good (but Bret and I were dead tired by this time). I quite liked the fire dancers, er, uh, dancing. The pictures didn't turn out though. It was too dark with just blurs of circling fire. But here's the little I did get.
Friday we hit the Hukilau again. This place is like a converted house, hole-in-the-wall, but the lady there was so nice and the food was good and affordable (rare for Hawaii). We really liked the place. Anywho, then it was off to the Laie temple. Unfortunately the temple was closed for some major renovation. But we walked the temple grounds and went inside the visitor's center (which is much like the Mesa visitor's center by the by). We went back to the hotel and took a walk on the south side of the hotel up to a little cove. I didn't think to take a picture at the cove which was beautiful, but here is one from the southern shore.
We went to Matsumoto's for the famous shave ice (not a typo-they don't call it shaved ice).
I had seen a show on Food Network about it that said you just had to get the Azuki beans with it (much like Pinto beans, boiled in sugar water so they were sweet). My visiting teaching partner also recommended I get the beans. If you ever go I say do NOT get the beans. Kind of ruined the treat if you ask me. The ice was on top, so it was good, but it ruined the ice cream at the bottom. It wasn't yucky, the flavors just didn't really mesh. But I'm glad I at least tried it, I would have regretted it if I hadn't. Julie and Preston hopped a plane to the island of Kaua'i . Bret and I went back to the hotel to change for an ATV tour at Kualoa Ranch. We saw sights where LOST, Jurassic Park, and 50 First Dates, among other shows were filmed. I ate a wild strawberry guava as well as a regular guava for the first time. They were pretty darn yummy. We saw some killer scenery. Gorgeous place!
Saturday we went to Waimea Valley. We walked through the botanical gardens back to the falls.
We were told there was limited swim and we wouldn't be able to go under the falls, so we were feeling a bit bummed But when we got there the lifeguard said we could swim out there and sit under it and he would take our picture! I think it's because we were the only ones there at the time. As we hiked out, we saw quite a few more people headed in.
We went to Ted's bakery. It's another hole-in-the-wall joint but oh so yummy. They were out of the pie we wanted, so we got a chocolate eclair with our lunch. We went to the Hawaiian Internation Film Festival that night. They were awarding the writers and creators of LOST. I'll post pics from that in a later post dedicated all to LOST (have I ever mentioned my obsession with this show?).
Sunday we went to church. I wasn't to jazzed about this, but it was good. The first counselor got up and said, "Brothers and Sisters, Aloooha!", then the congregation all replied, "Aloooha!". I don't know why, but I found that interesting. Each of the speakers did the same thing, it was funny. One of the youth speakers, a white girl, seemed pretty nervous and she said, "Hola Brothers and Sisters". I had to giggle...when did we go to Mexico? Three other youth spoke and a newly returned missionary. They all did really well. Then Bret and I took a tour of O'ahu. We stopped at the Dole plantation, but only for the Dole whip. It's basically a pineapple ice cream, mmm so delicious. We drove around the entire island. We hiked through a rainforest to Manoa Falls.
This was probably my favorite place. Although it wasn't flowing very strongly, it was absolutely gorgeous as was the hike in through the bamboo. The wind was blowing and the bamboo was clanking together, it was neat-o.
We drove past Hanauma Bay and stopped at the blow hole.
Then we went to the Pali Lookout. It was a little foggy by this time but still beautiful. We wanted to eat in Laie, but it was a Mormon town so everything was closed. We went down to Haleiwa and ate at Ted's bakery. If you ever go, you have to have the chocolate haupia pie. Bret and I shared a slice then had to get a whole pie to snack on the rest of the trip.
Monday we drove out to try to see some sea turtles. We found the beach where a lady told us to look but there was nothing. We gave up and drove out to the beach where she told us LOST is filmed. As we were walking to the site (a veeery long walk in sand) we saw about 20 sea turtles! We kept trying to get a picture of the turtles as they came up out of the water every now and then and couldn't get a good one. This is the best we got.
Then we turned around to find this had been sitting about five feet behind us the entire time:
We must have thought it was a rock or something.
We gave up on getting to the LOST beach. I was starting to burn pretty good and we had to get back in time to pick up Julie and Preston from the airport. We saw another turtle had crawled up on the beach as we walked back.
After we picked up Julie and Preston we went to the USS Arizona Memorial tour. It was cool to see but what a tragic event. You could still see oil coming up from the sunken ship.
We went to L&L barbecue for lunch which was ick, I don't recommend it. Then we did the Diamondhead hike. Here's the view from the top out over Waikiki.
We found another shave ice joint that drizzled condensed milk over the top. I liked it, Bret didn't. We took Julie and Preston to see the blow hole and hung out on the beach for a bit. After dinner we dropped Julie and Preston back at the airport for their trip home.
Tuesday morning we hung out at the pool until we had to pack up for check out. We went to the Kahuku Grill again. Then we drove out to find the beach where the LOST plane crash was filmed. We weren't entirely sure we knew where it was but we happened upon the Dharma Camp I'll post pics of that later. We walked up and down the Haleiwa shops and tried Aoki's shave ice, this is the original Shave Ice place we were told. We went back down to Waikiki to walk on the beach a bit. We wanted to eat at Tony Romas since we don't have them in Arizona any more. But you have to pay to park EVERYWHERE in Waikiki and we didn't want to have to walk all the way down the street again (we weren't so sure how far we'd have to walk) so we scrapped that plan and settled for Giovanni Pastrami's and some very bland food. Then it was back to the airport for our return trip home.
Back to the daily grind. It's good to see the kids again, but I keep thinking; could Bret find a job that pays enough to support us in Hawaii?
Terry O'Quinn (John Locke)
Jorge Garcia (Hurly)
Yunjin Kim (Sun Kwon), sorry for the blur, she was clapping and this is the best I got.
And my most favorite, Michael Emerson (Benjamin Linus). This dude has some of the best one liners and he delivers them so well. He looks like he has a growth on his cheek and I'm not entirely sure why.
This is from the Jughead episode where they bury the atom bomb.
