Hawaii - Part 2

Have you been waiting with bated breath for the second installment?? Good

DAY 4

Justin and I (well, mostly Justin) purchases a number of Hawaii Groupons in the months before our trip. One of them being a tour of Pearl Harbor and historical Hawaii. The tour left at the ungodly hour of 6:30 am. Uggghh. Our tour guide was a lovely little native named Tony.

Pearl Harbor

Admittedly, I am pretty dumb. I don't know much about most things and it turns out this is true of Pearl Harbor and its history. Well, I know the basics but it was interesting to learn much more. Pearl Harbor consisted of a museum, video presentation and ferry boat to the memorial over the USS Arizona.

Historic/ Modern Hawaii

This portion of the tour was a little disappointing because we didn't get out of the bus to see anything. Kinda lame, but still very interesting tour. We stopped outside of 'Iolani Palace, which I'm sure is just as lovely inside as it is outside. We then drove up to the Punchbowl Cemetary that overlooks Honolulu. I'd love to have such a good view when I'm dead. On the way to Punchbowl we passed government offices and the home of Dog the Bounty Hunter - not sure why he hasn't upgraded the office...

View from Punchbowl

 

On the way down from Punchbowl we passed by Barak's high school and the apartment he grew up in. Pretty modest digs for a future president.

After our tour we went to the very large Ala Moana mall for lunch. Then it was off to Diamond Head State Park. Diamond Head is basically a very large hill with a trail and stairs leading to the top. It was once a coastal artillery observation platform - built in 1908. Event though the trek wasn't very treacherous, it was very humid, so we got were sweaty and tired.

 The view at the top was more than worth it!

 On the way down it started to rain. Very, very hard

We ended our busy day with a few beers at Kona Brewery. I'm pretty in love with this brewery because their beer is delicious and...well that's about it.

DAY 5

On Saturday we started the day off right with breakfast at Big City Diner where Justin had another Loco Moco and I had delicious macadamia nut pancakes.

We then decided to use another Groupon for kayaking in Kailua. I don't think we could've picked a worse day to go since it was raining quite a lot. We kayaked out to a small island and got out to walk around. We tried to snorkel off the island, but I ended up floating around in a fit of laughter over the impossibility of walking on rocks with flippers and the ridiculous rain situation.

After kayaking I think I took a nap and then we rode bikes to a local surf bar - Boardriders. The special was Kamakazi shots! After the surf bar we rode to the Kailua Pub. You can definitely be too drunk to ride a bicycle. Haha. After we got home we took a rest and then headed to The Shack for $1 wells. $1 wells...on a Saturday night. A Saturday! That was a sloppy night.

DAY 6

On Sunday we ate breakfast at a lovely crepe place called Crepes No Ka 'Oi. We then headed to a more secluded beach area down in the Southeast corner of Oahu. Beautiful!

In the evening we drove to the west side of the island for the Paradise Cove Luau. The night was filled with lots of activities, entertainment and food. I wish the food had been better and there were unlimited drinks, but the entertainment was great and an overall awesome experience.

 Gorgeous!

 My Polynesian tattoo

 I had a crush on this guy

DAY 7 - The End : (

Our last day in Hawaii. Awwww. We had breakfast at a popular Kailua spot called Cinnamon's. Justin had...shocker...Loco Moco.

We packed up and headed toward Honolulu/ Waikiki. Went to the same beach we went to our first day and then another beach. Trying to soak up as much sun as possible! We went back to the Kona Brewery for happy hour and ate dinner at BluWater Grill. I had a couple of delicious passion fruit mojitos and filet mignon.

We then made our way to the airport. Justin insisted we finish the rest of the rum we bought from Costco earlier in the week, which led to a less than sober trip through security and on the plane.

These birds were everywhere. They are terribly awkward looking

Passion fruit mojito. Yum

Airplane back to Bellingham. Rain. Cold. Sadness

Sigh.

Moving to Hawaii in 2013 : )