Malasadas are Portuguese donuts, I’ve posted them before talking about visiting Leonard’s. It’s a really popular thing here for some reason, so I bought some for Erin to try as a post hike snack. This time we tried Agnes’ food truck in Kailua. These are traditional, no fillings like Leonard’s has. I don’t have pictures of them, but they tasted ok. I think I preferred filled ones.
We made our way up Makapu’u Lighthouse trail starting at 8:45am. There was plenty of parking. Some of these pictures should look familiar. That’s Diamond Head.
The lighthouse.
Us at the top.
View missing beautiful ladies.
I wish I had my polarizing lens for these… next time! It would reduce the glare
This hike is the best.
We were done by 10am and it was so hot I wasn’t really hungry yet, so we drove to Hoʻomaluhia Botanical Garden to eat at the pinic tables surrounded by pretty mountains. (OK, we’re always surrounded by pretty mountains, but these are a lot closer). As I had been there before and we didn’t want to spend too long there, I took her to the highlights.
Brian’s in port! His boat pulled in to San Diego for a port call. I knew this was happening, but it’s something I have to keep relatively on the down low. I was even given the wrong date anyway, but it all worked out.
I booked the flight from Honolulu to San Diego my friend who was visiting was taking, thinking Brian was getting in the next day. Instead, I get a call from him while I’m at the airport that goes something like this:
Him: I can’t wait to see you! It’s going to be a little while before I get to.
Me in my head: Yeah, like 24hrs or so
Me out loud: That’s ok, I’ll be glad to relax after a busy week!
Him: Where are you?
Me: At the airport
Him: In San Diego?
Me: No, Honolulu.
Him: Oh…
Me: Where are you?
Him: On the pier in San Diego.
Me: WHAT??
And that’s how it ended up that he met me at the airport instead of me meeting him at the pier. I had already made plans with our mutual friend to have her pick me up and go to In-N-Out, because neither of our husbands like it… but anyway Brian tagged along on our date and it all worked out.
The next day Brian’s parents came and brought us to lunch. I don’t have many pictures because I have honestly become a little tired of carrying my big camera around and forgot to snap an iPhone photo. But later we ran some errands with them and then took the rest of the day to explore a bit. We’re in a hotel on Mission Bay and very close to Mission Beach. He is in port for a little while, so I will get to see him almost every day for a little bit.
Manoa Chocolate Factory tour was way less a tour than it was a chocolate tasting. For $15, we were able to taste something like 15 chocolate bars. This was heaven.
She did start out by educating us on how cacao is grown, harvested, and processed to make chocolate. We were able to try the seed of the cacao pod. It was pulpy, kinda like a pomegranate seed, and inside was the “nut” that would make the chocolate. Then we also tasted the roasted “nut” that would be considered 100% dark chocolate. We could also see some of the processing through windows. They make something like 3,000 bars a day, and manually wrap them all. The tasting associates wrap when the store is quiet!
Finally we got to do our tasting.
There isn’t enough Hawaiian grown cacao to source all of their chocolate, but they have bars that are specifically only Hawaiian grown. It is amazing the difference between the flavors of the chocolate grown in Oahu vs. Maui. They don’t do anything differently in growing them, like they don’t feed the soil. It’s just how the nutrients in the ground end up making the cacao taste.
I ended up buying a few bars of chocolate to take on a trip to visit Brian’s parents in San Diego. I also learned they do subscriptions, and so if anyone is looking to get me a Christmas gift this would be it. Although please coordinate so I don’t get three boxes of subscription chocolate.
The fruit infused ones were my favorite (specifically Lilikoi, Mango, and coconut) along with the 70% Hawaiian Chocolate and Mililani. They have a rum infused one that I thought I’d like more, but I don’t. There’s some partnership with Ko’olau distillery where they use the rum for something? or sell that rum? Not a lot of online evidence.
Anyway, tour was cool, but you could easily skip it and go in just for the tasting.
Dangerous for this to be located in Kailua, for sure!
After Haunama Bay we made a quick stop to see the Hālona Blowhole in action. At first it only spit a few times, and then it really blew!
Here’s the view looking left.
And the view looking right.
I didn’t get great pictures the first time, so here’s pictures from The Hibachi which we went to once we made our way home. (second time coming here, third stop this trip for poke. Erin tried Foodland).
I get half Thai Chili half spicy tobiko. I love them both equally. I love The Hibachi better than Foodland. You can get smaller portions. However, the hours are very limited, so if I did it for dinner with Brian I’d have to go pick it up before he got home.
Haunama Bay is a state park and Nature Reserve. It is THE most popular Hawaiian tourist attraction (based on no polls but my rather my personal opinion). It’s been on my bucket list, but it’s logistically difficult to achieve, even for a local. You have to reserve tickets, which become available two days in advance. They only allow 1000 guests per day and are only open Wed to Sun. The parking lot is small and fills up quickly and costs $1 for military/local or $3 for tourists. The actual park is free for Military/local or $25 for tourists.
My friend and I hopped online a little before 7am, her on her phone and me on the computer. I had heard the trick was to aim for an off time, like 11:10am or 12:10am, so we tried those. I ended up getting us two tickets at 12:10AM. If you are military/local, you can go in any day without a reservation between 7a-8a.
The parking lot is small, so Erin and I headed over early to make sure we had time to hover for parking. We didn’t have to, and instead enjoyed walking the park a bit and enjoying the beauty of it as a whole.
Anyway, on to the fun part. After watching a 20 minute video putting the fear of God in you that you might be swept out by riptides and that you need to know how to swim, you make your way down a long pretty steep driveway to the bay. The fish were HUGE and there was a wide variety, so I saw a few I hadn’t seen in Lanikai. I could not believe how big they were, and then how close they’d get to us! The bottom left I didn’t capture fully because he was actually too close!
Erin realized she had heard the name of the Hawaiian State fish somewhere before (pictured top right, the Humuhumunukunukuapua’a fish) and it turns out it’s a song in High School Musical 2. As a going away present, she bought me a small fish identifier card. I don’t have it with me, but when I get back maybe I’ll label the fish above.
We had an awesome time.
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It was definitely murky because we’re getting into rougher water season and it was high tide. So I guess in the future I’d like to pick a calmer day, but it’s hard to be choosy with the logistics as they are. Here are a few miscellaneous pics from the adventure.
I think this next one puts into scale just how much reef there was to explore.
Afterward, I was evaluating the pros and cons of Lanikai vs. Haunama snorkeling. I definitely would go back to Haunama, especially with Brian, but I have to say that for the logistics as easy as they are in Lanikai, we have a great advantage. However, it is highly photogenic, especially with two beautiful ladies.
People of good enough health can’t come to Hawaii and not do the pillbox hike… so we did the Pillbox hike! I think I was a bit more nervous this time because of my recent fall and I didn’t have my pack mule (aka Brian) there to help. I definitely was a bit more careful this time, or last time the path was different and easier? I remember making fun of the ropes the first time thinking they were completely unnecessary, then using them a lot this time. Anyway, the views didn’t disappoint!
For lunch we got Banan, her first Acai bowl so far, and I was super proud I remembered reusable bowls.
Later that day we went and got massages (we were late due to Lanikai construction backup) and then to MCBH. I showed her secret beach and we went to another submariner’s house for dinner (She has base housing on MCBH.) She has the cutest 3 month old, Maeve. Not pictured to protect privacy, per usual. It was nice meeting her.
On Monday afternoon we received word one of our friend’s submarines was leaving. We headed to go watch at Missing man monument, except after waiting an hour we found out we’d be waiting another 45 minutes, so we left before we saw a submarine. But, we didn’t leave before seeing this wicked cool ship. The USS Germantown (LSD 42)
It was HUGE.
I found the contact information for the Ombudsman on the internet and sent her the pictures. This boat is stationed in Sasebo, Japan.
We then headed to Diamond Head to find parking for a yoga class and took a short walk to see the Diamond Head Light house up close and personal.
And then went to the diamond head lookout and saw some surfing, cool wave patterns, and pretty shoreline.
We went and relaxed at the Lē’ahi Beach Park for a bit before Yoga started. I don’t have any great pictures of the actual yoga, or the full park, but imagine people in a grassy park doing yoga and extremely picturesque palm trees. I was still hurting from the hike fall, but I did my best. The sun set while class was happening and I was a bit distracted that I wasn’t able to take pictures. All the same, it was a peaceful class and I was happy to explore a different part of the island.
We stopped for a quick bite to eat at Kalapawai on the way home. And by that I mean she bought a salad and we both bought an ice cream sandwich. (I ate real food I had at home first!) It was DELICIOUS.
After Dole Plantation, we parked in Hale’iwa and shopped the main strip. I was impressed by the quality of the stores. I thought it would be your typical, sea side, t-shirt shops. There was like, one of those, but the rest had great items from ocean gear to clothes to house decor to jewelry. I could’ve spent a lot of money, but I ended up only buying a book called “Surfing animals alphabet” for a friend’s child. We did a first pass through the stores and made mental notes of what we might like to return to after seeing everything.
We stopped at Stonefish Grill for lunch, it was conveniently at the end of the strip, and I had a crab cake salad that was PHENOMENAL. Erin was well pleased with the steak poke. Thankfully, at the beginning where we parked there was a general store, and I bought a SD card from there to hold me over.
After lunch, we worked our way back through and committed to some purchases (after taking some time to mull them over). Then we made our way to Laniakea beach, which is known for turtles. This is a very narrow, picturesque bridge you have to pass through to get there. Some cars choose to wait for you to go through before attempting.
There’s street parking and I was excited we were able to grab a spot. I told Erin not to get too excited, I didn’t know how often turtles were actually there. Either it was our lucky day or they love this spot, but we must’ve seen at least five turtles on the beach and another five in the water. In this next picture alone, you can see three.
This whole day was the epitome of Hawaii, but this certainly was a highlight.
You are supposed to stay 10ft away, but there were a lot of people who definitely weren’t. We stayed off this coral/rock, because it was super slippery anyway and I was still recovering from my butt fall. The pictures are very cropped, I am pretty confident we stayed 10ft away. This is a picture of the beach where you can see the section of reef/rock and how much space there is between the ocean and sand.
There were a ton of fun to observe eating and letting the waves just take them back into the water and push them back up. I loved this stop.
Since Sunday was her only full weekend day here, we decided to make a day out of visiting the North Shore. We started by going all in at the Dole plantation and doing the train ride, garden, getting dole whip, and pineapple maze.
Well, we actually started by running into construction on the main highway there and having to take a detour. I was really nervous we’d need to go the long way around, but it was a short portion and we got on the highway a bit later. It was a bit serendipitous because we encountered a couple rainbows. (Erin believes this was all part of the plan 😉 ) (p.s. these are all Erin’s photos from her phone, RIP SD card)
I swear the plantation opened at 9am, so we aimed to leave the house at 8am. I was having a slow morning, and then there was a detour, so we ended up arriving at 9:15am. Which was perfect, because Dole doesn’t actually open until 9:30am. We were first in line for the train, which can have waits up to 2 hours. It was pretty rainy in the morning, but again we timed it perfectly up to this point to be in the car or on the train. Later it rained when we were in the garden for a bit.
The train lasts about 20 mins. Here’s us in the garden in front of a full blossomed hibiscus plant.
I would say if I were to go back with Brian, we do the train and dole whip and call it a day. Each activity costs money. They have a combo pass and I think it was $23, but not really necessary to get the full experience. The dole whip was SO GOOD. I think it has been under hyped. I definitely will be returning just for dole whip.
Fun things we learned: Pineapples don’t ripen any further after being picked. It can take almost two years for one plant to produce a pineapple. Dole bought the island of Lanai to grow pineapple.
So happy I knocked this off the bucket list, even if my SD card crapped out while taking pictures.
After the eventful morning, I came home, showered off the mud, took some ibuprofen, and headed to the airport to get my friend Erin who is visiting me for the week!
This was my first time picking up a visitor, so I asked a friend on the hike what the deal is with getting leis. Turns out, there’s a whole section of the airport dedicated to this. I left a little early to scope it out, and found the lei stands. I had pictures… but, well, they’re gone. I picked out a traditional plumeria. I missed the entrance the first time and ended up turning into to the parking garage, but finagled my way to a close parking lot and grabbed a lei. When I left, the lady didn’t make me pay which was very kind.
So, I welcomed her with a lei and we were on our way for our first stop… poke! We tried “the hibachi“. I think this is way better than foodland, and it sells them in “mini” bowls, which is helpful for smaller capacity stomachs. I got thai chili and some other flavor. Erin got citrus. Both were delicious.
Unfortunately, it’s more of a lunch place, so we might need to save it for weekends when Brian is back, or I bring home some to store in the fridge.
I showed her the apartment and had her settle into our guest bedroom upstairs. Then we had reservations at Lulu’s in Waikiki. It’s been on my to-try list. We were fortunate enough to have a mutual friend, Evan, come eat with us. Before we got there, we took a stroll down the main strip. Erin has been here once before and the memories were coming back to her. Waikiki was as busy as ever, it seemed.
The deck of LuLu’s overlooks Waikiki beach. I parked in the zoo parking lot and found a spot with relative ease.
I think the food was just ok, but my drink, the “guavalicious”, was incredible. Waikiki is always an adventure, and this night was no exception. There was an anti vaccination passport protest/rally pretty much right outside. They also chose to test the Tsunami warning… at 7pm on Oct. 2nd, which was very odd because it’s usually in the morning on the first of the month in Kailua. Then there was some live band somewhere, it felt like right downstairs. Anyway, Erin had another friend from grad school that was also in Hawaii and met us for a quick drink. They connected because Erin posted a picture on Instagram that she was here. Social media is such a funny thing.
Anyway, I thought it was on OK experience. Not my favorite Waikiki hangout. Glad we got Waikiki out of the way for this trip.
