In January of 2010, I spent four days visiting some friends
on the island of O’ahu in Hawaii (
http://www.gohawaii.com/oahu).
Hawaii is a 5-6 hour time change from the east
coast of the United States where I live and they don’t observe Daylight Savings
Time (hence why I say 5 or 6 hours).
In
order to keep me awake when I arrived in the afternoon, my friends and I walked
Waikiki Beach on the south part of the island where I watched my 1
st
Hawaiian sunset – BEAUTIFUL!
As we
walked the beach, we saw surfers, smelt all the delicious smells coming from
the various beachfront restaurants, I stuck my feet in the water, and marveled
at all the luxurious hotels on the beach.
We ate at a wonderful burger place (can’t remember the name) that had
anything you could want on a burger and more.
I got pineapple on my burger and it was pretty good.
The next morning, my friends went to work.
They thought I’d just sleep in and take it
easy by their pool.
Instead, I woke up
early, jumped into my rental car and was off to explore as much of the island
as possible.
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| My Sweet Ride! |
The island is fairly easy
to get around even with the traffic in the city of Honolulu. My friends live on the southwest part of the
island, outside of the tourist area. My
route for the day was interstate H1 east to Rt. 99 north (Kamehameha Hwy). I drove Kamehameha Hwy around the north part
of the island and down the east coast. Then,
I turned back around at Rt. 61 (Paul Hwy) and took interstate H1 back to the
house. I covered a GOOD piece of the
island that day.
During the day, I drove through the quaint town of Hale’iwa
(
http://haleiwatown.com/), and stopped at
various state parks along the north part of the island.
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| One of the cute parks |
The waves were huge and the surfers were everywhere. At one park, I saw a small surfing
competition so I sat for a while and watched.
It was really cool.
While I was gallivanting around the north part of the island,
I saw this food truck with TONS of people flocking to it.
It smelt so good, so I knew I had to
stop!
It was called Giovanni’s Original
White Shrimp Truck (
http://giovannisshrimptruck.com/
and someone’s blog post about their food -
http://onokinegrindz.typepad.com/ono_kine_grindz/2004/05/giovannis_shrim.html).
Word of warning: they use a lot of yummy
garlic and yummy butter!
It was so
good.
Plus, the smells of the beach
mixed with Giovanni’s food smell was so wonderful!
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| Picture from blog post (link above) |
For the rest of the afternoon, I just drove along with my windows
rolled down listening to the Hawaiian music on the radio.
I was in paradise!
Needing to get back for a luau, I decided to
cut down Rt. 61 to get to the interstate.
Awesome decision!
On Rt. 61, I
found the Nu’uanu Pali Lookout (
http://www.aloha-hawaii.com/oahu/nuuanu-pali-state-park/),
which has A-MAZING VIEWS!
It was really
windy, but I’m so glad I stopped and checked it out.
That night, we went to the Paradise Cove Luau (
http://paradisecovehawaii.com/) in
the southwest part of the island.
It was
a lot of fun.
We started off with
drinks, taking pictures with the dancers, getting henna tattoos, paddling a
canoe, and seeing a man climb up a coconut tree.
Then, it was time for dinner and watching the
Hawaiian dancers.
I highly recommend
Paradise Cove.
Over the weekend, we drove all over the island seeing other
sites.
In Honolulu, we visited the
grounds of the ‘Iolani Palace (
http://www.iolanipalace.org/),
which was the official residence of Hawaii’s monarchy and was built in 1882.
We also passed the state capital, which
replaced the ‘Iolani Palace as the seat of state government 43 years ago last
week (March 15
th, 1969).
 |
| 'Iolani Palace |
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| State Capital |
My friends and I visited Pearl Harbor, the USS Missouri
Battleship Memorial (
http://www.ussmissouri.org/),
and the USS Arizona Memorial (
http://www.pearl-harbor.com/arizona/arizona.html),
which are all together.
Some of it was
under construction at the time, but it was still a wonderful visit.
I thought it was such a well done memorial to
the fallen, and amazingly enough it was really quiet.
I thought they provided a great tour with a
great recap of all the events leading up to, what happened during, and what
happened after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
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| The USS Missouri (The Mighty Mo) |
 |
| Inside the USS Arizona Memorial |
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| The USS Arizona Memorial floating over the USS Arizona |
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| Part of the USS Arizona under water |
We also visited the National Memorial Cemetery of the
Pacific (
http://www.fmschmitt.com/travels/Hawaii/punchbowl/index.html)
where military and government leaders are buried.
It reminded me of Arlington Cemetery in the
Washington, DC area.
It is known as the “Punchbowl”
because it’s in the crater of an extinct volcano so it looks like a - punchbowl.
Amazingly enough, this was the only place I
saw a rainbow – in the reflection of the sun in water that came from a
sprinkler at the cemetery!
That’s
horrible!
So many people have left
Hawaii, which much cooler rainbow shots.
My friends and I hiked up Diamond Head (
http://www.gohawaii.com/oahu/regions-neighborhoods/honolulu/leahi-diamond-head),
which is another extinct volcano.
It was
a lot of work to get to the top, but it had beautiful views and we had a lot of
fun together along the way.
 |
| We were warned! |
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| Basking at the top |
One of my favorite places was the Polynesian Cultural Center
(
http://www.polynesia.com/), which is
owned and operated by the Brigham-Young University – Hawaii Campus.
The center is on 42-acres, and is divided up
into 7 Polynesian villages – Fiji, Hawai’i, Aotearoa, Marquesas, Samoa, Tahiti,
and Tonga.
In each village, there are
native Polynesians that teach you about the country they come from.
The center also has a canoe pageant daily at
2:30 p.m. where native Polynesians from each of the villages come and dance in
traditional costumes on top of canoes out in the lagoon.
It was really neat to learn about the various
Polynesian countries.
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| Fiji |
 |
| Hawaii |
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| Tahiti |
 |
| Samoa |
 |
| Aotearoa |
I got a lot of my souvenirs and gifts at the Aloha Stadium
Swap Meet (
http://alohastadiumswapmeet.net/).
It’s only open Wednesdays, Saturdays, and
Sundays though.
My other souvenirs came
from the Hawaii ABC stores we passed during the weekend.
In the southeast part of the United States, we
have ABC stores that sell liquor.
These
ABC stores however sold tourist souvenirs at a good price.
Hehehe.
On Sunday, I visited my friends’ church and afterwards, we
went out for brunch but I can’t remember the name of that restaurant either. However, I do remember having a bowl with
spam, eggs, and rice in it. It was
great! But, Hawaiians are obsessed with
it and even McDonalds has it on their breakfast menu! My friend Terry had some coconut syrup for
something he was eating and asked if I wanted to try it. It was DELICIOUS! I decided to be a little creative and pour
some into my coffee with a little milk.
WOW! That was YUMMY! I brought some back home and poured it into
my coffee for awhile after that trip.
Right before my flight, I got to see the sunset from the
north part of the island. It was a
perfect way to end my wonderful Hawaiian paradise vacation.
These are just the places I visited on the island of O’ahu
and recommend you visit.
If you know of
anywhere else on O’ahu we should check out, please leave a comment below.
Later this week, we’ll explore some places
I’d like to visit on the other islands of Hawaii someday.
Then, next week, we’ll explore what’s just
round the corner in Idaho.
** Photos taken by me or my friends unless otherwise noted**
