Today marks one year of living in Hawaii. I could go on and on about how awesome it’s been, but who wants to hear that? Instead, I posted pictures of our adventures in West Maui from last weekend.
May 2007 Archives
Last Saturday was Cinco De Mayo… so we had a picnic at Kam III! We had a BBQ, played Frisbee, blongo, and dodgeball. Pictures to prove it.
Kara and I went to Oahu for the three day weekend and we had fun playing tourists. We were going to rent a compact car (Hyundai anyone?) but were offered an upgrade to a Miata for $10/day more… we took it.
Our first stop was Diamond Head Crater, where we hiked to the top. The hike is pretty interesting because you get to go through some pillbox/bunker structures. The views of the coast and the city were great!
After Diamond Head, we drove along the coast, ate lunch at Portlock, and then stopped at Hanauma Bay. We did some snorkeling, but it was kind of wavy and we didn’t really see all that much. After we dried off, we laid on the beach and read… The weather was VERY nice and we just relaxed there for a couple of hours.
With the lazing out of the way, we walked back to our car and drove further around the island. I wanted to stop at Kailua Beach, but it was raining when we got there. We had to pull over and quickly put the top up on the car because we were getting poured on! So much for that beach!
From Kailua, we took the Pali Highway back to Honolulu and then checked into our hotel. We stayed at the Parkshore Hotel which was right on Waikiki Beach next to the zoo. We were able to see the beach and Diamond Head right from our lanai!
Once we were settled in the hotel, we left and started walking north on Kalakaua Ave. After a while we cut through a hotel and ended up on the beach. The sun was setting as we continued walking north for about a mile to the Ala Wai Boat Harbor.
We were tired from the walk (and all the rest of the activity from the day) so we didn’t really want to walk all the way back. So, we decided to take the bus back to our hotel… A quick ride back and then we were ready for a late dinner.
We drove out to Café Maharani for some much anticipated Indian food. There was a 25 minute wait for a table, but we didn’t mind since we’ve already waited 6 months… There are no Indian food restaurants on Maui so I’m sure we would have waited 2 hours if we needed to! The food was very good, but they were out of Kara’s favorite dish (Aloo Gobi). We got Palak Paneer, Vegetable Korma Curry and some Garlic Naan… YUM!
Back to the hotel with overfull stomachs where we read in bed and went to sleep.
The next morning we picked up some food at an ABC store and ate it on the grass next to our parked car. We decided to tour the north side of Oahu, so headed out via H1 to H3. It was weird driving on 5 lane freeways again, I actually had to get used to going so fast! After I acclimated to the speed I really started enjoying it. I got the car up to 75 MPH which is screaming fast in Maui terms... sad.
We saw lots of pretty sights driving all around. H3 goes right through lush valleys, so there was lots to look at as we whizzed by. Once we hit the north shore, we followed the coast to the west and stopped at a few beach parks. We also stopped at Sharks Cove to snorkel around a bit.
Stopped at McDonalds for lunch in Haleiwa then we continued on to the end of the road. We saw some cabins that looked ominously familiar, so we snapped some pictures of them. It’s The Others’ barracks on LOST!! Here’s a comparison pic of Ben and his papa in front of them…
Once we hit the end of the road, we turned around and headed back to Honolulu. That night we attended Germaine’s Luau which was a lot of fun. This was the luau that my family used to go to when we came to Oahu on vacation, so I expected to find things familiar… But like everything else on Oahu, it had changed dramatically since my last visit 10 years ago. The kalua pork was as good as ever though!! (I went back for seconds) OINK!
