Hawaiian Food

One of the things I was most looking forward to and a little nervous about was Hawaiian food. I really dislike tropical fruit, especially pineapples and coconut, but I love seafood, so I had mixed feelings. I was determined to try whatever I could though, and I did, including a bite of fresh pineapple (better than I was expecting, but still tasted like pineapple). My favorite things were the shrimp trucks though, I could have eaten lunch there every day, no problem. Our first day, we just stopped at the first one we saw after leaving Hanauma Bay and the only shrimp on the menu was garlic shrimp. There was SOME garlic on it.....but sooooooooo good.

When we were in Haleiwa, we stopped at Macky's, which was recommended to us by a friend. K got garlic shrimp again, but I got the lemon pepper shrimp and it was amazing. And the shrimp were enormous!

On the day we went to Pearl Harbor, we stopped in Kapolei on the way home and had lunch at a place called Aloha Salads. They use all local ingredients. I had an ahi tuna wrap that was vaguely Greek tasting, and really good.  

 Because we were on a budget, we only ate lunch out each day, and ate breakfast and dinner in our room. This meant that we went shopping a couple of times. Of course, since we didn't want to spend money on good knives, and only brought carry-on luggage, it presented some interesting issues. We bought the ingredients for sandwiches, then realized that plastic knives don't really work so well. This is our ghetto cutting board.  

We also didn't have bowls for the cereal, so we used the coffee cups. They only held about 1/4 cup of cereal, but it worked!!

 Overall, I really liked almost everything I had in Hawaii. I didn't like the macaroni salad that came with the plate lunches and there were a couple of things at the luau that I didn't care for, but overall, great.

Flora and Fauna

One of my favorite things about Hawaii was the massive amount of animals and plants we saw. There were birds EVERYWHERE (but, oddly, no seagulls), more tropical fish than I have seen anywhere, including in an aquarium, and everywhere you looked were animals that reminded me that I was on an island in the middle of the ocean. We saw a little squirrel-like thing that we couldn't identify and didn't get a picture of (and I can't find on google), that we named a Haweasel, since we couldn't figure out what it was. Also, the resort had at least two peacocks, although we only saw the smaller one once. This one ripped a piece of bread right out of my hand. I took it back. I can pin a 16 year old boy to his seat with a glare, I can handle a stinkin' peacock. However, I may or may not have thrown the last piece of bread far away and then locked the patio door..it was kind of a large bird.

This is a bird, sitting on a bird of paradise plant.

This is a crappy picture of a really cool bird with a red mohawk. He came and got food from our table when we ate outside at the resort, and stalked me at the pool a few times.

These are plumeria blossoms, which were everywhere, in a hundred different color combinations. They were so cool, and I love them.

The mountains on Oahu go straight up for 1000 feet or more. This is the north side of the Makaha Valley, where we stayed. The building at the bottom looked like a Soviet apartment building, but we think it was some kind of resort (not ours).

Of course, one of my favorite flowers, the hibiscus. I used to grow these in Texas, but I think it is too cold here. They are huge in Hawaii, some are 6 or more inches across.

I've seen palm trees before, of course, having lived in Texas, but these were so perfectly perfect. And they had these weird feathery things growing out of them below the fronds.

Blue flowers, seen in Haleiwa

Yellow tree...those are all blossoms, but I don't know what it is. So pretty against the blue sky though!! Also seen in Haleiwa, although I did see these here and there all over the island.

In Haleiwa, we stopped at a shrimp truck and saw these chicks running along after a hen in the parking lot. They were so cute!

Lotus blossom, seen at the luau

And of course, the amazing sunsets. This is one of about 30 sunset pictures I took over 5 days. This one was taken from the restaurant at the resort.

Honolulu

On our last day in Hawaii, we didn't have to get to the airport until about 6 pm, so we spent the morning by the pool, then went into Honolulu. It was raining off and on, and kind of humid, so we tried to find something to do indoors. We ended up at the Aloha Tower, which was cool for a while. I don't really know what this tower is for, but it overlooked the harbor and looks pretty. Also, there is a mildly decrepit outdoor mall at the base which was interesting to wander around for a while.

When you get inside the base of the tower, there is a free elevator to the top of the tower, so we went to the top. The tower is situated on the northwest side of Honolulu, not too far from the airport, so on one side you can see Waikiki, one side is downtown Honolulu, one side is the harbor, and the other side is Sand Island. This is the harbor as seen through the "A" of Aloha.

This is a working harbor, so this is a view of Sand Island, with a ship being towed out to the channel.

One of the things I REALLY wanted to see was the statue of King Kamehameha that stands in front of Ali'Iolani Hale (today, Hawaii's Supreme Court). When we got there, we only had 6 minutes of street parking, so we made it the fastest tour EVER. This was shot from across the street. When I go back to Oahu, this area will be one of the things I spend a whole day doing.

Across the street from the statue is Iolani Palace, the former palace of the Hawaiian kings (and queens). This is the plaque on the front of the gate. The inscription is the state motto of Hawaii and reads "ua mau ke ea o ka aina i ka pono," which means "The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness."

This is the palace itself, which looked really cool. Again, we had no time (down to 3 minutes by this point), so we just took some quick pictures of the outside. The cool thing about it being kind of late was that there was no one on the grounds.

We had only about one minute left when I looked over and saw this really cool building (summer house?) over on the lawn of the palace. I don't really know what it is, but it looks really awesome, and I think the juxtaposition between the delicacy of the palace and the hard modern building behind it is really cool.

We ended our day at the airport, where Hawaii sent us off with a beautiful, intensely colored rainbow arching over downtown.  

 Aahhhh...Hawaii, how I miss you.....

Paradise Cove Luau

When we initially researched Hawaii, K and I thought that a luau would be too expensive, so we were going to forego it. But we eventually changed our minds, and after some research we settled on the Paradise Cove luau at Ko'Olina, just down the coast from our hotel. We got tickets for Monday night, which was our last night in Hawaii. One of the reasons we chose this luau was that there were a lot of activities to do before the meal and show. This is a picture of me getting a "tattoo" on my left arm, while the girl and I talked about Seattle. =) I was sort of hoping to freak out my mom when she picked me up at the airport, but it wasn't like henna, it was oil based and was gone by the next morning. =(

There were also stations to learn to dance the hula, play traditional Hawaiian games (which we didn't attempt), have your picture taken with parrots that would lay down on their backs in your hand, and make your own wrist lei or crown out of orchids

They also had demonstrations of various traditional (?) Hawaiian skills, like climbing palm trees (he is throwing down orchids), rowing a traditional Polynesian outrigger canoe around the lagoon, and throwing/collecting hukilau fishing nets. These were cool to watch.

It was about this time that my camera announced that it was about ready to die, and it was too dark to take good pictures with my little point and shoot, so I didn't get a lot of pictures of the show itself. It was pretty decent, all things considered, with a good mix of dances from Samoa, Polynesia, and Hawaii. Dinner was pretty good as well....they had green salad (good), pasta salad (disliked, I don't like mayo), salmon and tomato salad (too strong for me, salmon was raw), poi (weirdest stuff ever), purple potato rolls (good), fish in cheese sauce (my fish didn't taste fresh...sad), fried chicken (good), and of course the main dish of steamed? pork. I normally really dislike pork, non-grilled meat, and barbecue, but this was AMAZING. I could have had an entire plate of just that and been perfectly happy. They also served some kind of white jello (really, we had no idea what it was, it just tasted white, and looked and felt like jello...), coconut cake, and chocolate cake. Just as they served dinner, the sun set, and it was a beautiful sunset. That's a sailboat out there in the center of the picture.

I really only have one picture of the show, which was really cool. The dancers were really good, and it was really awesome to watch them. I wish we could have sat a little closer, but we still had decent seats and it was worth it to go. All in all an excellent end to our Hawaiian adventure.

Haleiwa and the North Shore

On Monday, K and I drove up through the center of the island to the North Shore area. During the winter, this is the area that surfers go for the really big waves, but during the summer, it is just a great place to see. The center of the island is where pineapples and sugarcane are grown, although we didn't see any sugarcane (not that I would recognize it if I saw it). We stopped at the Dole Plantation, although we had little interest in going on a tour (I hate pineapple and I have moral oppositions to Sanford Dole, the plantation system in general and the subsequent takeover of Hawaii...). I took a couple of pictures, but my friend Stacie has a much better description (and far better pictures) here. This is a decorative pineapple, by the way.

I did learn a few new Hawaiian words while I was there....Mahalo was one of them. It means thank you. We spent a grand total of about 20 minutes at the Dole Plantation, and continued on to the North Shore.

I took this picture just for my dad...this is apparently some kind of pineapple harvesting apparatus. There was nowhere to stop, so I took it out the car window as K was driving.

When we got to Haleiwa, we were a little early, and in Hawaii "open at 10" could mean 10, or 10:30, or 11, or whenever, so we just walked around from one end of the main street to the other. Haleiwa is apparently one of the main stops on the Japanese tours of Hawaii, K and I were some of the only white people there. This was especially apparent in this little coffee shop we stopped at, where the menu was in both English and Japanese.

Down the street a bit was a collection of buses that apparently belonged to Ron Artis and his reggae band. I do not know anything about Ron Artis, but he seemed to be quite famous on Oahu anyway. I thought the collection was interesting.

Down the street a bit more was a really cool, presumably old church, beautifully framed in a coral block (?)  archway. The archway itself was completely wrapped in blooming cactus (more on that later) and it was really pretty. Next to the church was the graveyard and if we'd had more time and it wasn't quite so hot, I would have liked to explored a little bit.

One of my favorite things about Hawaii is that it is so easy to see what it would have been like in the 1950s and 1960s, at the height of the luxury travel era. It is this fascinating mix of midcentury retro, hippie surfer, and ultramodern. We saw more than one bright pink, neon yellow, grass green, or sky blue car or pickup while we were there, as well as many MANY variations on the Volkswagon Bug or van. This is one of my favorite pictures from Haleiwa.

After we wandered around Haleiwa for a while, we went out to Mokule'ia beach, which was recommended by a friend (thanks Pseudo!) and sat on the beach and read for several hours. Of course, since we were still sunburned, we sat under a tree, but it was still really relaxing and awesome. There were several kite surfers out there, who were really cool to watch. 

I love sitting on the beach. I like watching the water, the clouds, the people, and the wildlife. This was a great beach and a nice, relaxing day.

Pearl Harbor and the Honolulu Swap Meet

K and I spent all day Saturday nursing a sunburn in the shade by the pool, but were feeling better by that evening, so we decided to go to Pearl Harbor on Sunday morning. Part of me didn't want to go, because sometimes going to a museum feels like work, but I am glad we went. Because we were on a budget, we decided not to go to the parts that you had to pay for, like the Bowfin submarine, the Battleship Missouri memorial, and the Pacific Aviation Museum. Also, I am kind of claustrophobic, in a way that makes the thought of going on a submarine intensely terrifying. The Pearl Harbor museum is free, and so is the USS Arizona memorial, so we just did that part.

The museum was pretty cool. They hand out free timed tickets to the memorial, on a first come-first served basis. We got there early enough that we got a fairly early appointment to go to the Arizona, so we had the perfect amount of time to go through the museum, which was pretty interesting. Pearl Harbor is still a functioning naval base, so while the Parks Department runs the museum, the Navy runs the boat that goes between the south side of Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona memorial, which is part of the base. The ship below was sitting at anchor just west of the memorial. The white thing floating in the water is the farthest tip of the Arizona.

 One of the things that kind of clicked for me while going through the museum and watching the video was that World War II was the war when the aircraft carrier became more important than the battleship. One of the reasons that this bombing was so destructive was that the ships were anchored in pairs right next to each other. The mooring posts are still there in the harbor, and the closeness of this one to the wreck of the Arizona shows how close she sank.

The Arizona is really close to the surface...I think the harbor is only 45 feet deep. This is actually one of the reasons the US thought that the harbor was safe from torpedoes, which were unable to detonate correctly in water that shallow. The Japanese modified their torpedoes with wooden fins, allowing them to dive to a depth of only 40 feet, then rise to a depth of 10 feet before exploding. Combine the shallow harbor with the clear water and it explains the tropical fish swimming all around the wreck.  

 This statue, called The Tree of Life, is by the museum, and the shape is echoed in the top of the Arizona memorial in the harbor.

 Normally, I'm not big on flag pictures or rarmpant patriotism, but I do think this flag picture turned out pretty cool and the museum wasn't as western-slanted as I was expecting, which was a nice surprise. They had a nice balance between life in Japan in the 1930s and life in the US in the 1930s and were pretty neutral about almost everything, including getting primary source information from all sides concerned. It was a well done museum, in my mind.  

After Pearl Harbor, we went to the Honolulu swap meet at Aloha Stadium. This was one of our best decisions in Hawaii, it was really awesome and it is where we got all of our souvenirs. It was MASSIVE, with fantastic deals on everything. We weren't there super long, maybe 2 hours, but if it hadn't been so hot and we weren't still dealing with being sunburned, we would have stayed longer. It is definitely a morning activity if you can manage it. I spent less than $40 and got all my souvenirs as well as some things for me.

Because of the traffic around Honolulu (awful) and the driving habits we encountered (interesting, to put it mildly), we didn't spend a lot of time driving around Honolulu, but these two things were definitely worth it and I would recommend both activities, although not perhaps, for kids.

Hanauma Bay

It is surprisingly hard for teachers to go on vacation, at least cheap vacations. Because we are off when all the kids are off, it is hard to get away, especially if you are looking for a deal. However, thanks to websites like Living Social, Overstock, and Groupon, it is easier and easier to find vacation package deals, and websites like Bing Travel and Kayak.com are helpful when looking for flights and car rentals. As I wrote earlier, I found a deal to Hawaii a couple of months ago, and last Thursday one of my best friends and I met in Honolulu for 5 days of sun and relaxation.

We both had been traveling for a while, and I had been at the airport for 5 hours waiting for her (want information about the Honolulu airport??? I got it!!) and so after we picked up the car we just headed northwest along the windward coast to Waianae and then went up the Makaha Valley to the Makaha Resort. During daylight savings time, Hawaii is 3 hours behind Seattle, and 5 hours behind Lubbock (where she's from) and it actually worked in our favor in this case, since we were able to get up early Friday morning (5 am) and drive down to the southwest tip of Oahu to go to Hanauma Bay to go snorkeling. Hanauma Bay is one of the coolest places I've been. It is a nature preserve and full of fish and turtles. This is a picture from when we first got there. All those dark spots in the water are rocks and coral.

We saw a LOT of fish, from ones that were only about 1" long to one that was about two feet long. There were so many different kinds and I had only seen some of them before. It took me a little while to get back into the snorkeling habit and it took me a while to figure out how to float rather than swim. I highly recommend going here if you ever get to Oahu, but be aware that because it is a nature reserve, they close the gates when the parking lot is full, which usually happens by 9 am (this is why we left at 6 am...gates open at 7 am). On the other hand, it also means that it isn't as packed as the more popular beaches at Waikiki and so on. The day we were there the surf was really high and it was pretty windy, so the water close to shore was pretty murky...which is why when I saw a sea turtle about 18 inches in front of me not too far off shore that I choked on a giant mouthful of seawater. I do not recommend this, it was icky. I don't have any pictures of the fish, because I didn't buy an underwater camera, but it was very incredibly cool, definitely one of my favorite things we did while we were there.

However, the sun in Hawaii is pretty strong, and while I did put sunblock on twice, I didn't get it quite high enough on my legs, and forgot to reapply after the third time we got out of the water, so both K and I got really sunburned. This made the rest of the day (and all of Saturday) fairly painful.

It was nice to get back to the resort and chill out. This is the view from the restaurant at the resort. The resort itself was old, but clean and very quiet. It was really a great place to stay and I couldn't be happier with the deal we got. It was very relaxing and exactly what I needed. More to come....