Hawaiian Days --- Part 2

From my other travels, I have learned that trying to take pictures of landscapes almost never works out. So much of what makes Hawaii fabulous is the actual environment, and I refuse to bore you (or myself) with bad pictures...

FRIDAY we woke up semi-early. After a Kona coffee and a delicious muffin, we headed up to Manoa Falls for a nice little hike. It was AMAZING! I have never seen individual leaves quite as big as I did in the jungle-like undergrowth in the tropical forest. It was super muddy, super slippery (I watched a little old Asian woman totally bite it down a muddy hill), and super awesome. :) I really enjoyed the hike.

After some lunch at Fresh Cafe in the business district (famous for their parking lot murals... including a fairly inappropriate one of Mark Twain and a pineapple... I'll let your imagination figure that one out), we headed back to Waikiki for some beach time. I spent most of that building a sand cake, not castle, as I was in need of water shoes before actually playing in the ocean. Dinner on our condo's boardwalk gave us a great view of the Friday night fireworks and a super cliche hula show. :)

SATURDAY we headed down to Chinatown and explored their markets. I question whether they pass US health inspections, but we did see some interesting produce and.... "meats". :) Following Adventures in Grocery Shopping, we had a lunch at a really great French restaurant called Du Vin. We made a Target run for snorkel gear. Much needed nap time and salt water pool time filled most of the afternoon, and we ended the day with spaghetti at home.

SUNDAY I had my first snorkel session! :) We got up crazy early (I would say before the sun came up, but there is quite a lot of light at 5:30am), downed some cereal, and made the short drive to Hanauma Bay - touted as one of the island's best places to snorkel (more on that later). We arrived well before the visitor center even opened, hoping to avoid the throws of tour buses that would assuredly arrive later. One of the center's guides met us (with a booger in his nose that I could not help but look at...) and told us that unfortunately we would have to get in for free since no one was there to take our money. :) It was GORGEOUS! Unfortunately, I didn't bring my good camera since there wasn't safe storage for it, so this picture is a random one I found online. When we got to the beach I suited up in my snorkel gear and borrowed some fins from Kim and Dave. I realize that you are supposed to put the fins on IN the water, but that seemed more difficult that waddling out to the surf. I was sooooo wrong. I also discovered that I have absolutely no control of my body in fins and kept them on for probably 5 minutes before I gave up and just used swim shoes. The first moment I put my snorkeled face in the water was FANTASTIC!

For those of you who don't know, let me take a moment to describe my personal history and opinion on fish. They are evil, disgusting, meat-eaters that are simply waiting for the opportunity to attack and devour. When I was 8 or 10 I had a run in with one of these (below), a rope, and a sail boat on Canyon Lake.

nasty needle nose gar

Or how about these, that my sister and I found spawning in the shallows at our lake place growing up on Lake Buchanon.

more gar

Or perhaps even worse, because they are seemingly mild-mannered and "non-threatening", tasty even:

the evil that is bass

Anyhow, the fact that I am voluntarily getting in the water with fish is a feat in and of itself. It really is incredible to see these fish though. Perhaps the bright colors make them seem less vicious or the fact that I can see for my own eyes that they are not particularly interested in dining on my flesh in the clear, blue waters. You'll just have to take my word for how beautiful these fish were as my T2i is not waterproof.

By 8am we were all shivering and ready for food. We came back into Waikiki for some breakfast and a LONG nap.... like 3 hours of nap. :) At 4:00 we headed over to a local theater to watch a production of Jane Austen's Zombie Apocalypse that Kim took part in and finished off the day with dinner and drinks at Side Steet Inn, another Anthony Bourdain approved diner.








MONDAY, the kids started a week of YMCA splash camp, so Dave and I went off to explore on our own (Kim is having to actively work while she's in Hawaii). First thing's first: breakfast at Leonard's. As you can see from the sign, they are known for their Malasadas, a Portuguese donut-like object that is spherical, fried, super rich, and topped with sugar. We got cinnamon sugar on ours. One was MORE than enough and ridiculously delicious.

We started our trek around the island, this time making our way counter-clockwise to the North Shore. The Oahu North Shore is famous for amazing surf and is frequented by the likes of Laird Hamilton. I'm sure the waves were cool, but the scenery was amazing.






First stop was the Nuuanu Pali Lookout. Every guide book and website warns about the strong winds up there, but I've been to the Cliffs of Moher on a day when the wind swept a tourist off their feet to their death... I KNOW strong winds.

This was crazy strong.

Oh my goodness, it's beautiful! I'm not even sure what we were looking at, but who cares! My hair looked absolutely disgusting by the time we left. My eyes were watering like mad from the wind, and all I could think about was getting a couple of shots to prove I was there. :) At one point, there was a couple that asked if I could take a picture of them, and Dave had to stand behind me pushing on my shoulders to keep the wind from tossing me around! It was crazy but, again, breathtaking.

As I promised before, I won't bore you with pictures of landscapes that don't photograph well with my basic of basic lenses, but we stopped several times on our way to the North Shore. Sunset Beach looked like a nice spot to spend a couple of hours working on your skin cancer. I found a lovely, sand-smoothed shell that I jacked. The Banzai Pipeline, home to some of the biggest surfing waves, wasn't overly cooperative when it came to trying to catch one of those big ones on film, but the sand was hot enough to make you not want to stay out there too awfully long.

some random park with a random island

The highlight of our stops was Shark's Cove. Someone had told me that was a fabulous place to snorkel and scuba dive, so now having discovered that snorkeling is kinda fun, I wanted to check it out.

Whoever says that Hanauma Bay is the ultimate snorkel spot on Oahu is a pyscho hose beast. By the time we made it to Shark's Cove it was already pretty hot for Hawaii standards, and the sweat on my back really made me want to hop in the water, even if just for a few minutes. Dave and I literally took a 30 minute snorkel (in shifts as we had not planned on where to put the car keys while we took said snorkel) which was long enough to know that this place far exceeded the awesomeness that was Hanauma Bay. The water was deeper. You weren't maneuvering reefs. The were plenty of huge rocks that both created crevices for a plethora of new types of fish and gave swimmers places to regain their bearings. We decided that we'd return with Kim and the kids on the 4th, and with that headed out again.

JJ's Irish Pub pizza (strange, I know) and some wine rounded out a great day.