This Friday 5 is about dream destinations. I had an opportunity to get out of the cold for a little bit in December and visit Hawaii. Here are some highlights of my trip. I know this is longer than usual but I wanted to fit everything in. We didn't do any sight seeing before Sunday because we wanted to save our legs.
- Sunday – Ran the Honolulu Marathon in the morning (Recap here). That evening we went to a Hawaiian Luau.
Here we had a buffet filled with traditional Hawaiian food and mai tai cocktails. During our dinner we watched a show with ladies hula dancing and men throwing fire torches.
- Monday- We drove up to visit the Dole Plantation.
We took a tour of the plantation and learned how they grew the fruits. Afterwards we enjoyed a dole whip. While shopping in the gift shop they were handing out keys to see if yours could open the treasure chest. Luckily my key opened it and the ticket I picked inside was for a free oyster pearl….score!
After the lady opened up my oyster I ended up paying to set it in a ring because it was a black one which means adventure.
I thought it was very fitting. Afterwards we headed up to the North Shore to see some massive waves during a surfing competition that week. We stopped for lunch at the famous Giovanni shrimp truck and tried the spicy shrimp. There was even a note on the menu that said no refunds on this item (it must have been hot) but we like hot food so we were willing to take a chance. And oh my, it was really spicy and made our eyes water! After we ate that, we were really looking forward to cooling off with some Hawaiian shaved ice.
- Tuesday- We decided to take a day trip to Maui. After our 20 minute flight we met our tour guide to take us around the island.
During this tour we saw many waterfalls and stopped at a state park for lunch. The road was one very narrow lane and very bumpy. The tour was fantastic and we learned a lot about the island .
- Wednesday- We wanted to go zip lining so we went to a place we found online. When we got there we didn’t even think it was opened because there was so much construction going one. Turns out, they had just opened 2 weeks ago. That should have been our first clue.
It was fun and we did several zip lines, but none of them were up very high and our views were nothing but some trees. We wished we would have done the tour packaged ones that offered the scenes from Jurassic Park. That tour would have been a bit more expensive (and I never saw the movies), but I think that would have been more exciting!
- Thursday- We got up bright and early to head to Pearl Harbor. Again, this was another tour package we could have done but thought we would try to do it on our own since we had a car. We were told if we were not there super early we may not being able to do the tour because they only let the first 4,000 people tour.
We arrived just after 6 and were already the 4th people in line. The first people in line were sitting in lawn chairs they brought. I wonder how long they have been there waiting. Closer to 7 am the lady that worked there walked down the line and gave us some brochures and showed us some packages we could purchase. We thought we would decide what tour we wanted to purchase once we entered. After we entered we were given tickets and were told the show starts in 20 minutes. We lined up in front of the theater and watched a 25 minute video about Pearl Harbor and then exited out to get on a ferry to take us to the USS Arizona observatory deck. Inside listed everyone’s names that was lost in the horrible tragedy on the wall. On another wall the survivors that have since passed are listed. Their family members bring their urn and a professional scuba diver takes it down to the Arizona and releases it back with their shipmates. After the ferry brought us back we walked through the museums and saw pictures and artifacts of Pearl Harbor. When we were ready to leave we wondered what the packages included that you could have purchased because we saw and did everything we wanted to for free. As long as you go early enough you will have no problem doing what you want. After we were done visiting Pearl Harbor, we took a hike up Koko Head Trail which was quite the experience so I'm going to share that in a separate post since this one is already long.
This was an amazing trip and I’d definitely go back. If I ever do, I would like to visit the other islands. This is a place that should be on everyone’s bucket list!
Thank you if you read to the end.
Have you ever been to Hawaii? L