HAWAII!!!! Monday

MONDAY

Up at 4:30am. Say wha??!! Don't know WHAT my deal was with wake up times. But it did mean I got to watch the sun rise out our window!

Now for the worst part of the trip.

The night before, when we booked all our activities, the hotel let us know that if we wanted $150 off our cruise tickets, we could watch a 2 hour Wyndham presentation. Travis's dad has a Wyndham time share so we've heard of these, but never done one before. We thought that since we'd be in the area anyway for this hike we wanted to do, it wouldn't be too big a deal to spend 2 hours doing this. Oh were we EVER WRONG.  Now, I don't want to get too into it, because it was a waste of time then, I don't want to waste more time describing it, but let me just warn you that you should NEVER do these. They are piranhas. Happy, smiley, want to know all about your life and family, piranhas. I think I said "no thank you" 10 different ways and they still wouldn't let us go. First they had to get their supervisor to persuade us, then show us some condos, then have us look at some more booklets... that I mindlessly leafed through without looking down. When the last "final survey" lady came to cheerfully ask questions, I let about 10 pass before I said in a stony voice, "I'd just really love to leave right now." I don't think she was prepared for that. I was just soooo cranky that I was wasting precious Hawaii hours listening to their manipulative nonsense! FINALLY we got to sign our name and leave!

They also gave us a free breakfast at.... can you guess???

Shorebird!

Ha. The irony is too funny to me. So we had all the Shorebird had to offer for 3 different meals this trip. I wanted to eat as much as possible to try and get something back from that dumb "presentation", but I was still pretty full from yesterday. 



 

Finally, at 11am we were ready to start our day! I had heard that Moana Falls is a great hike. It's not too far from Honolulu. We lucked out because it rained pretty hard while we were driving there, but not a drop the rest of the day!

This hike is 0.7 miles to a waterfall, through the most gorgeous "jungle". The vines and trees and greenery everywhere was amazing. It looked exactly like you'd expect a "Hawaii" hike to be. It was nice and cool and easy "hiking". (You just have to pay $5 to park.)

 

 

Online, it said this wasn't a waterfall you should swim in because of possible bacteria, but there were lots of people doing it anyway. I hope bathroom time for them went ok the rest of the week. ;) We decided not to jump in for the chilliness more than anything. Sure was pretty though!

OK, tell me this doesn't look just like ones of those singing flowers from Alice in Wonderland?!

♫ "You can learn a lot of things from the flowwwers! Alllll in the glorious afterooooon!" ♪

Next, we decided we'd just make it a hiking sort of day and do Diamondhead! It was about a half hour drive. Diamondhead is a crater on the island with a great view at the top. This hike was in stark contrast to Manoa! It was a little more like hiking in Phoenix, haha. I forget how far it is to the top, but the brochure suggested it taking an hour to go up and 1/2 hour to go down. Travis laughed and said we could do it much faster. I honestly didn't think so, but he was right! It took us 1/2 hour to get to the top. You can sort of see how it is made up of switchbacks behind him. I suggested we play the alphabet game, hiking up, just to be funny, but then we ended up doing it! We got all our letters from signs or people's clothing, but we got stuck on Q. Bummer! ;)

The view is honestly incredible. I'm really glad we did it! It was absolutely gorgeous to take in. You always think of water being blue, but at the lake or even in California, it's not all that blue. Well, in Hawaii, boy is it BLUE!! 

 I love this shot of Honolulu in the background. Looks like a postcard to me!

We all but ran the way down and I know I was doing it to get me a snow cone from one of the food trucks in the parking lot! It was nummy. Trav passed. He said selling snow cones for years as a kid, sort of took the appeal out of them. Sad!

It was probably around 2pm or 3 by then and we decided to hit up Lanikai Beach to finish our day. Lanikai beach is only 1/2 mile long and located in the town of Kailua on the east side of the island. Kailua is a town that Barack Obama has taken winter vacations in. Fancy. ;) I only knew about it from my sister. It's been consistently ranked among the best beaches in the world. WORLD! The beach is public property, but it is not state land so it is not a county beach park and there is no public parking or restrooms. Since it was a weekday, we didn't have any trouble finding parking on a neighborhood street and walking across to an access area.



So I know I haven't been all around the world, but I can absolutely see how this is ranked among the best. The sand was INCREDIBLE. I guess it's called "sugar sand" because it's so fine and white. Picture perfect. The epitome of paradise. I couldn't even believe it was real life. I'm not joking when I say that it's the kind of place I imagine heaven to be like. I could have stayed there for days and days. As it was, I think we got in 2 or 3 hours. The only downside was that it was pretty windy that day. As long as the sun was out, it was nice, but there were lots of clouds and when the sun was hidden, it was just chilly enough to make you want to burrow into the sand. It made me sad! I just wanted to bake in the sun on that glorious beach! Waaaaa! If I were to come back here, I'd want to spend at least a full day at this beach. It was that amazing.

Behind us are the twin islands of Na Mokulua.

I think these are called catamarans?? Help me out! A big group of boys came out at one point to put several in the water and start paddling. We couldn't figure out if it was a school sport or some local club or something? All I could think was, the kids are dang lucky they live here and get to spend their afternoons sporting in Utopia.

 

I was really excited about dinner. I'm smiling just remember it! Shelley found a place called Crepes No Ka Oi, just a few minutes from this beach in Kailua. The place doesn't look like much, but oh do they know how to do crepes!!

Don't make fun of me for taking pictures of the menu! I have idealistic hopes of recreating these someday. :)

I ordered The Hukilau and Trav got the Plantation Pulled Pork. Both excellent. We went splitsies on them and it was the perfect meal.



Not that we had room, but how could you not try at least two of the dessert crepes?! I got the Berry Heavenly a la mode and Trav got the Banana Split. I mmmmed and ahhhhed over every.single.bite. The crunchy Hawaiian sugar inside with berries and ice cream was divine. I was SUCH a happy camper. 

One commonality about eating outside in Hawaii??? The chickens! It's so funny to me. Not just birds or pigeons, but chickens! And all the places had signs posted saying not to feed them. It makes me wonder at the people that sign applies to. Like, why would I want to feed a germy chicken while I'm eating?!

Notice the man playing the ukulele in the background?! Ha! I thought it set the mood quite nicely. :)

So. Another odd thing about Hawaii. They are really funny about their bathrooms. When you ask to use a bathroom, employees always act uneasy, like you're asking to sleep with their spouse or something. And they're never inside the building. It's always, "go outside, take a left and it's your 3rd right." And this time, the toilet in the normal bathroom on the backside of the building was clogged! So I had to take their key, attached to a giant ladle (Am I in 7th grade English again??) and go to the next building, up an elevator and down a hallway. It was SKETCHY, you guys. ALL my nerves were on high alert. The building was like an office building so it was dark and completely empty, being it was after hours. Every scenario possible was running through my head. I had decided I'd call Travis the second I was done washing my hands for some reassurance. And then it happened. Exactly what I was afraid of!! While I was washing my hands, the door knob jiggled. Crap! My hands were still wet and I hadn't gotten to call Travis yet. I was going to die!!!! I literally sucked in my breath and froze for 1/2 a second. Then I did what any sane person would do, and grabbed the only weapon I had... the ladle!! I kid you not, with what I'm sure was a petrified expression on my face, I swung it behind me and turned to face my serial killer! The door opened and a startled lady sort of jumped as she saw me. I just as quickly, dropped the ladle and laughed nervously saying that she surprised me and that this place was giving me the creeps! ( I was so embarrassed!) She agreed and hurried into her stall. I would have laughed if I hadn't been shaky from the scare! I definitely laughed later, telling Travis. Poor woman almost got clocked on the head from psycho, paranoid Stephanie!

Driving home, I couldn't help but snap another picture of the beautiful mountains, this time enshrouded in clouds. It never got old.

The hot tubs were a blessed relief from the chilly afternoon!

It didn't start too well, but turned out to be a great day.