Hawaii Day 6 (Wednesday)

Polynesian Cultural Center Day! We were super excited to visit the center that day. So excited in fact that Mark was a little distracted while getting ready, so his belt didn't turn out quite as he had expected...


We ate at the coolest McDonalds ever that happens to be right next to the PCC. So lush.


We arrived at the PCC right when it opened and spent every single minute running from thing to thing and probably saw on the bare minimum of things. Thank goodness their one-day village pass actually lets you come back and visit again for free within a few days.

Our day included visiting all the different villages, where you get to see a presentation and learn about the cultures. We also watched a canoe pageant that spotlighted all the villages. We visited the villages of Fiji (pictured below),


Tonga (with amazing drums), Samoa (the funniest man who taught us about fire and then the guy who climbed the tallest palm tree), Tahiti, Hawaii, and Aotearoa (i.e. New Zealand), where Mark participated in the royal guard and dancing ceremony (see below).


We did have to sit out in the heat at times, but it was fun to be outside.


Mark and I went back to Aotearoa village where we played the stick game and practiced with poi balls. Some of us were a little better than others (something I honestly can attribute to girls camp growing up)...



The PCC has beautiful grounds that we really enjoyed, especially as the evening started setting in.


We attended am awesome luau where dancers performed and they dug up a pig and we ate lots of yummy food... oh, and got laies.


After dinner we walked around the park until the night time show started, which had awesome dancing from all the villages. After such a long day, we were pretty tuckered out on the drive home, but Mark did a great job driving us back safe. He also had to deal with walking around on his hurt foot all day long. His foot ended up hurting pretty bad that evening. Such a stud!

Hawaii Day 5 (Tuesday)

• Headed up to the North Shore, stopping by Dole Plantation to get some pineapple ice cream and to buy some warm cinnamon roasted macadamia nuts
• Driving around Hawaii was one of my most favorite things. It was always nice enough weather to drive with the windows down, which we enjoy. During the day the wind felt nice and cool and during the evenings it never got cold enough to make the drive uncomfortable. I am a huge fan of wind, most especially in Hawaii. Which is a good thing because it is really windy in Hawaii. I absolutely loved driving around with the wind blowing in my hair. This is definitely the best picture I got of the craziness of my hair.
  

• Sharks Cove for snorkeling, where we rented lockers and one snorkel (I had bought one the first time I was in Hawaii and we continued to use it) and bought an underwater camera of very cheap quality. We snorkeled around and saw great fish. Near the end though, I did end up getting a small cut on my foot. Here's Mark, the most amazing snorkeler ever!
  

• We stopped by Ted's Bakery for some lunch and my much loved chocolate haupia (coconut) pie. I used to get this all the time and it is so good.
  

• Sunset Beach, where we sat out and read in the warm sun for awhile, only to have the shortest and warmest rain ever (you can see the raindrops coming down in this picture of Mark).
  

• After a few minutes the rain went away and the sun came out again, so Mark headed out to swim in the waves. However, he apparently got too close to some rocks, so when he tried to kick his foot to swim, he hit his foot and cut his foot pretty badly. I quickly gathered everything and we headed to where our car was parked, across the street. At our car we tried to clean out the cut with water. I know this picture doesn't show it too well, but he did have at least five pretty serious cuts/gouges.
  

• Mark was a stud though and didn't let that finish our day (he's amazing) so we tried to carefully push his flip flop over the cut and headed over to Hale'iwa where we walked around and bought some souvenirs. Now that I'm thinking back on this, I think I should have insisted that we went home immediately. I can't believe we just kept going on his hurt foot! We did have to stop by Matsumoto's for our most favorite shaved ice.
  

• This was the only day that I drove the rental car, because we only put Mark's name on the rental. But with the right foot being pretty hurt, I ended up driving home to our apartment.
  

• Once back at our apartment I thoroughly cleaned out Mark's cuts and we were able to use some antiseptic from the front desk. We then covered it up with, oh, I don't know, how many bandaids do you think that is, 5 or 6 different bandaids?? Poor guy.
  

Hawaii Day 4 (Monday)

Monday morning began like any other Monday... with a hike in a luscious paradise. We hiked the Diamond Head hike, which is near Honolulu and a really big touristy hike. There were tons of people and lots of languages being spoken. Still a fun hike though, despite the oppressive heat of the day. The hike included several sections of tunnels and stairs, such as these...



The view from the top. You can see the ocean, Waikiki/Honolulu, and the crater that makes up Diamond Head.



Ah, here's an example of one of the tunnel sections.


Yay, we made it back!


We then headed back to our apartment, stopping for groceries and the famous and delicious malasadas at Leonard's Bakery. We made fried rice and eggs at our apartment for lunch and decided to take advantage of our close neighbor, the Waikiki Aquarium.



Then back to our apartment to change into beach clothes and off to Waikiki Beach before the sun went down. We also enjoyed walking down to see the Duke statue (big famous surfer guy statue). There are so many stinkin' people on Waikiki Beach. We decided that we liked staying in Waikiki because the atmosphere was really fun, especially at night. You probably shouldn't go wondering around the more isolated beaches late at night, but you totally could in Waikiki. However, Waikiki Beach itself is not that fun. Go check out the North Shore beaches. Much less people and much more beautiful.

Throughout that day we had noticed a large stage and seating going up on the beach. We didn't think too much about it until we noticed what it was for...



The new version of Hawaii Five-O was broadcasting the following Monday and they were doing a special premiere the week before. While we thought about our possible plans for the evening, we walked over to Teddy's Bigger Burgers (also a close neighbor) for the most amazing hamburger, fries, and shake.


We decided to go hang out on the beach again as the sun went down. It's just so peaceful and sweet. I think this was the night we saw a grandma/grandpa couple wade out into the water and watch the sunset holding hands. How sweet is that. Also, notice the flower behind my ear... Mark picked it just for me. :)


We then decided that we didn't have anything else going on and it sounded like fun, so we found a spot where we could stand and see the stage and screen for the Hawaii Five-O party. And guess who showed up?? Jin from Lost!! Nowhere near us of course, but up on the stage. There were hundreds of people sitting and standing on the beach, but thankfully they had the speakers turned plenty high and the video quality wasn't too shabby. Apparently they show movies or shows there on a regular basis. The show actually turned out to be pretty awesome and we have been seriously hooked ever since. It's especially fun to watch now and see the places we visited.

Hawaii Day 3

On our first Sunday in Hawaii, we woke up early (partly due to planning and mostly due to the time change), got ready, and went straight to Pearl Harbor. We opted to pay a few dollars to get the audio tour, which was really interesting but definitely not necessary. Before you leave to see the monument, you watch a 20 minute video about what happened during the attack. The area around Pearl Harbor is absolutely beautiful, which makes the realization of what happened there so much more crazy. Here we are on the boat ride over to the monument.


The monument is definitely awe-inspiring and touching, looking at the USS Arizona still underwater below your feet and reading the names of the men who died there. Before leaving Pearl Harbor, we got some ice cream because we were so hungry and hot.

We then drove over to the Swap Meet to see what souvenirs we could get. I know, I know, much less of a "Sunday appropriate" outing, but the Swap Meet is super close to Pearl Harbor and it's only open so many days of the week. It was fun wandering up and down the aisles, seeing all the different booths, despite the oppressive heat of the day. We got some fresh pineapple, which was delicious and cold, as well as some other souvenirs.

We then drove up north to the Dole Plantation, where we took full advantage of every activity they have available. We went on the garden audio tour...


worked our way through the pineapple garden maze, which in 2008 was declared the world's largest maze. We actually didn't make it all the way to all of the check-in points because it was going to close soon, but we got enough of it to be awesome.


We ran straight from the maze to the train that drove us around the plantation and told stories.


As we finally went inside the actual Dole Plantation building, we walked by a booth where they were roasting macadamia nuts with some sort of carmelizing going on. We love free samples, so we took the sample offered and realized they were very yummy. We meant to come back and buy some that day, but totally forgot until too late. However, they were seriously good enough that we made sure to come back and buy them another day.

We then came to the "piece de resistance" of the Dole Plantation... the best ice cream in the entire world!! Their pineapple ice cream is worth traveling for. We each got a waffle cone full of pineapple ice cream and loved it too much to even stop and take a nice picture.


After a long day of walking around outside in the heat, we were super tired. We came home to find that our nicest housekeeper ever had actually done all our dishes that we had gotten dirty so far. We then ate homemade burritos in our apartment for dinner. We relaxed by sitting out on our balcony and hanging out on our bed watching none other than...


LOTR!


We are kinda nerdy, I know, but I love it. We also watched Malcolm in the Middle. We usually ended up watching two episodes of Malcolm in the Middle (from 10-11 pm) most nights, because we were so tired and most things shut down by that time anyways. The show seriously reminds me of Hawaii and is hilarious. Since getting back from Hawaii, we've started watching the show reruns regularly.

THE BEST VACATION EVER. PERIOD. Hawaii Days 1 and 2.

Mark and I went to Hawaii last September and had the seriously best vacation ever. I went to a spring term at BYU-Hawaii in college and thought I had the best time ever then. Turns out I was wrong. Going with the Mark-man just put it ridiculously over the top. Oahu will always be one of my most favorite places in the world and I had so much fun enjoying it all with him.

Day 1: Friday

• Shuttle ride to the airport (where we were very early and had lots of time to hang out)
• Airplane delayed by 1-1/2 hours after we were already seated (finished our airplane magazine crossword puzzle before even taking off)
  
• Long flight where we enjoyed watching the A-Team
• Landed in the evening and walked out to muggy lusciousness
• Picked up our rental car (after switching cars because the first one didn't have a working cigarette lighter... not for smoking, duh, but for our GPS)
• Followed the GPS directions to our hotel, ended up parking in a lot kitty corner from our hotel, which was cheaper and super close
• Checked into our awesome room and ate packed poptarts because we were starving before falling asleep

Day 2: Saturday

• Woke up super early because we weren't used to the time change yet
• Ate poptarts again out on our very own balcony

• Walked down the block to our first view of Waikiki Beach and enjoyed the view

• Gorgeous drive up to the North Shore!!! This view makes me so ridiculously happy... pineapple fields with the ocean in the background. Perfection.
  

• Waimea Bay, my favorite beach, where we snorkeled, laid out in the sun, read books, played in the surf, and even made up a silly game throwing rocks. The water is so blue and the sand is just so wonderfully sandy!
  

• Drove to Hale'iwa, one of my favorite towns ever, and went straight to Matsumoto's for the best shaved ice. Gotta get the plastic cup (worth not dealing with the mess for a mere 25 cents), a scoop of ice cream on the bottom, and condensed milk on the top! I cannot do it justice. Simply delicious.
  

• Speaking of yummy food, it was time to head out down to Giovanni's shrimp truck for the best garlic shrimp you have ever tried. Finger licking good!
  

• Then we went to check out my old haunts... Laie Tempe, BYU-Hawaii, and my old apartment
  

• Back to Halei'wa to eat at Cholo's Mexicano restaurant for some yummy eats
  

• Safeway trip to pick up groceries
• Long laborious walk with groceries, towels, backpack, sweatshirts, etc down three stories in the parking garage, across two traffic lights and then up 6 floors in the elevator
• Realized how super burnt we had gotten. Mark even made me sit in a bath of freezing cold water to bring out the heat (so cold!).
  
• We then realized that our bathtub wasn't the greatest and the water had actually leaked out into our bedroom, soaking the carpet. We decided we didn't care enough to actually move out and change rooms, but we did have to have the hugest fan on full blast during the next two days.
  

*Can you tell that I love Hawaii and I loved our vacation? Everything is the BEST EVER!!