The Memory Box: Hawaii - ticking off that bucket list (Part 1, Oahu)

It's been a few weeks since the trip to Hawaii and now I'm wishing I could be on holiday again. :D Let me feel the Hawaiian sun/breeze through these photos.

Day 1 - Honolulu City Tour

We took it easy the first day because we flew in to Honolulu and landed around midnight and it was raining non-stop overnight. When I woke up it was STILL raining - this is not the weather we thought our vacation was going to be like.... thankfully the rain stopped and the sun came out around 10am (I even remember the time because I was constantly checking the weather as the day/hours went by). We quickly got out of our Airbnb and made our way to downtown Honolulu. As it was a Sunday, it was deserted - and street parking is free on the weekend! Yeah!

This is King Kamehameha (below photo) who united all the Hawaiian islands, and there were actually a few other King Kamehameha's that followed as well. Also, it was quite difficult to read his name - at first I just kind of scanned all Hawaiian names really quickly because they look so long and you don't know where the pauses/breaks are. Like Kamehameha looks like Ka-me-ham-e-ha, but is actually Ka/me-ha/me-ha.

Across the street from here is the Ilonia Palace, but we didn't get to go in and there wasn't much to see. I have a photo of the palace from 2015, link below.

After that we drove through a part of what we think is Chinatown, because we saw street names that had Chinese translation and stores with Chinese names.

Then we drove down to the infamous Waikiki, where we made a stop at the DFS Galleria and then headed to Marukame for some Udon.

We walked around the Waikiki area and then ended up at Waikiki beach - which like I mentioned in this post, was a bit of a disappointment - it's not that beautiful and crowded with people.

Late afternoon, we made our way around the bottom of the island of Oahu and drove a bit up the eastern coast. On the way we passed by some famous viewing points. I thought they were "meh", maybe it has to do with the fact that it started getting gloomy again as we were traveling around a mountain peak so that caused all the rain clouds to gather.

We finally made it to Lanikai beach on the east coast, and the sand was a lot more fine than at Waikiki. The beach was really secluded, almost like a private beach for the residents in the area. Unfortunately the water was a bit murky and it just felt too chilly to be swimming..... when are we going to see the crystal clear blue-green water that we see in postcards and travel shows?!!??!?!

Day 2 - North Shore

In 2015, I visited Honolulu and enjoyed spending time with my friend on the trip, but we didn't get to make a trip around the island - this time I want to make it all the way around the island :D

We did the south east part of Oahu on Day 1; along the east coast all the way up to the North on Day 2 and then came back down south in the middle of the island; then drove up to the west for dolphin swim on Day 3.

First stop was Nu'uanu Pali Lookout, this is where King Kamehameha won the battle for the island of Oahu. It was in this spot where King Kamehameha's army pushed the enemies over the edge.

compare this with the illustration in the photo below, same outcrop, this is where it happened

As we were walking back to our car, we hear chickens clucking and squawking, we looked around and saw a lady throwing chickens out the back of her car.... she had cages in there and brought her chickens up the mountain for a bit of outdoor space.

Once we were back in our car, we headed up the east coast of Oahu and saw the crystal clear blue-green waters. The road was right next to the water, so the houses that we saw along our drive, they are so lucky to be living there with a beautiful view. One thing I didn't expect, was that our drive up the east coast to get to the North Shore took about 2 hours, and it felt really really long!

I wonder how those people who live there live? We didn't see any grocery stores nearby, and having to drive 1-2 hours to get to a grocery store is just too much..... (the same goes for Maui, we spent a long time on the road.)

The reason why we drove up to the North Shore (this is the name of the northern area of Oahu) is because there's a beach there - Laniakea, where you can often find sea turtles sunbathing and taking a rest. Lots of cars drive all the way up there to see these creatures, and there was even a volunteer there to help identify the sea turtle (because they often return to the same place) and make sure no tourists got too close.

He kept shoveling sand around himself to keep warm

below middle: volunteer in blue tank top was there to answer questions

below right: different information plates, ready for any sea turtles that come ashore

This turtle had been sunbathing for a few hours already, his name is Kulihi (means "hooked but got away"), 37 years old, weighs about 230 lbs. He got that name because when he was first found, he had a large fishing hook in his neck. One of the Turtle Rescue organizations took care of him and removed the hook and released him at this beach, and he's been a regular visitor ever since.

Along the way, as you get closer to the North Shore, you will start to see lots of food trucks - shrimp trucks, acai bowls, chicken etc. If you search online, you'll find a couple that are really famous but the addresses listed are kind of hard to search.... the location that showed up on google map would be down south or somewhere else - so next time I would just stop and eat! whenever you see the food truck. Don't think "I'll come back", or "I'll find it somewhere else".

I enjoyed the garlic shrimps and garlic-y rice and I loved the macaroni salad - lots of these food truck / Hawaiian food places will have a side of macaroni salad - all delicious! We also tried out Poke from a lot of different places this time - some very yummy and some were not so....

Then we headed to Dole Plantation. It used to be where they had the original plantation, but now it's a tourist attraction - with a train ride, maze and a garden - there are some trees there with colourful bark - looks like they have camouflage makeup on but it's their true colour. There's actually not much to do there, but the Dole Whip (whipped ice pineapple, so it's like sorbet/ice cream) is definitely must try. Although it's a bit overly sweet, so maybe get one to share and decide if you like it or not.

above: most of the plantation looks like the above...... and we're not allowed to walk around on the plantation

above left: mini pineapples; right: dole whip

below right: trees with camouflage coloured bark

Day 3 - Morning Cruise, Pearl Harbour

Although each Hawaiian island looks very small, and when you compare it to other places in the world it looks teeny-tiny, but traveling from one end of the island to the other end actually takes a long time. Maybe also because things are kind of spread out, like you only go to one place for one thing then you have to travel a long distance to go to something else.

Our third morning started off with us waking up before the sun even came up, we got out of the house just when it was breaking light and morning rush hour had already started, at 6am?!?!?!?!

After our long morning drive, we arrived alongside a small group of Japanese tourists. We all made a stop at the washrooms, and when I came out, all the people were GONE! It was unbelievably quiet as they all had run down to catch their boat. My cousin told me that everyone was running with the Japanese group not knowing what was going on. I can imagine the scene in my head.... :D

Our boat finally came and we boarded along with 8 other passengers - I like that they kept the group small. We were going to watch some humpback whales and swim with dolphins.

I was so excited for this because I've always wanted to swim with wild dolphins (I didn't want to swim with any in captivity) and thought it would be so cool if they just swam up to me and around me..... *daydreaming*

During the journey out into the open sea, the guide told us about the different types of dolphins in the area, that they have the second largest brains after us humans (in terms of body size to brain size), and also how they sleep with one side of the brain off and one side on - so they also sleep with one eye shut and one eye open to stay alert and continue breathing. She also told us how we should "swim" with dolphins and not at them or chase them. We were to blend in like we are a part of the pod.

We reached an area where they know from experience has dolphins (and I guess they use radars and also can tell as there were two other boats in the area) and we dropped into the water. Although the water is quite clear, it was very deep, and the dolphins seemed to sense that there were humans in the water so they swam very close to the bottom of the ocean floor.

Here's a video of the pod, I used a waterproof bag for my iPhone, but couldn't see what I was filming while in the water - plus I wanted to see the dolphins with my own eyes so the phone was just pointed in the general direction I was facing. (I also forgot that I could hold the phone landscape... I rarely take videos)

I wish I could have taken a high quality image like this video or these ones by National Geographic contributing photographer - Brian Skerry. These are the same types of dolphins we saw. Dolphins-1 Dolphins-2

After we swam with the dolphins, we followed the pod by boat, and the dolphins came up to the surface and played with each other.

After all the excitement over the dolphins ended, we decided to go look for whales and while we were going even further into the Pacific Ocean, a lot of started to get sea sick. By the time we found the whales, we were too sea sick to even look. :P Bad photos as I just held up the camera and pressed click, click, click - these were humpback whales, they are in warmer waters during the winter and in the summer months they go up to the waters around Alaska.

Although our boat trip didn't turn out to be as amazing as I imagined I am still happy that we got to swim "with" wild dolphins briefly. (*side note: if I were to do this again, I would find another tour that starts in Honolulu or has a service where they can pick you up in Honolulu, after the trip I did go online and search again and more companies came up with more competitive prices to consider)

As we were too sea sick to eat, we were quite hungry once our feet touched land again, so we drove to the Waikele Premium Outlet and had lunch there. We were also going to walk around, but by the looks of it the outlet wasn't very appealing.

It was here, that I tripped and scraped my knee pretty badly. This meant no more swimming for the rest of the trip. So I'm pretty happy that I did the boat cruise that morning.

We then drove to Pearl Harbour and visited the site. Unfortunately, as we went intending to just drive by, we didn't make any reservations. If you want to walk through the battleships and submarines and memorials, then you need to make reservations online. Although we didn't get to go on the battleships and to Ford Island, there are still lots of things to see at the Pearl Harbour Historical Site and Visitor Centre.