Oahu Adventure Day or Eating Our Way Around the Island

Answering a few Monday questions:

infinity pool: a swimming pool set up to produce a visual effect of the water extending to the horizon (infinity) or into the sea

Necco wafers: smooth, flat, circular type candy.

Tuesday, Nov 2nd

We‘re still on California time. The KimoBean Coffee downstairs opens at 6 a.m., not early enough for me, who wakes at 2 a.m.

We had to make coffee in our room. It’s a good thing we stopped by an ABC Store yesterday to pick up some milk. ABC Store is only found in Hawaii. They’re usually on every block here at Waikiki.

Our Adventure day is the perfect time to break in hubby’s new Adventure Hat.

Purchased at REI just before we left. His old (dog ugly) hat has been abandoned because of its unwieldy size and sheer fugliness. It’ll protect you from the sun but the trade-off is mobility… it’s big. I don’t see Indiana Jones wearing this.

His travel pants, which were not mentioned yesterday, are TravelSmith’s convertible pants

which go from long to short in two zips. Which makes for an easy change when going from the cold SF Bay Area to balmy Hawaii.

We set out at 7 a.m. to pick up our rental car and were on our way by 7:35. First stop: Leonard’s Bakery.

Malasadas… original, cream filled, haupia filled, chocolate filled, banana custard filled, and cinnamon-sugar coated. We walked out with one of each. Larger than the ones we get in Makawao but what I didn’t expect is that they had been cooked to order. They were hot!

We took H1 interstate up the middle of the island, past the Punchbowl, past Aloha Stadium, through Pearl City to the north side of the island. We had heard from the guy who works at Enterprise they were having big surf. Not being from Hawaii, we really didn’t understand what this meant.

Big surf=lots of surfers=lots of spectators=lots of cars

We pulled over to watch a bit then headed down to Matsumoto’s Store.

Matsumoto's opened at 9 am and there was already a line. Hubby ordered a raspberry and I got the “Hawaiian” which came in colors that one would not normally associate with the flavors. Coconut was purple, pineapple was orange, and banana was blue.

Just for the record… after consumption hubby’s tongue was blue, mine had no distinguishable color difference. That was a disappointment.

We continued driving north. Next on our list was Giovanni’s Shrimp Truck. We weren’t sure where it was or how long it would take to get there but hey… we were on an adventure!

Oh look! Waimea Valley! Detour!

Beautiful flora and fauna dotted both sides and the floor of this wide valley which was about a half mile in and ended at a spectacular waterfall that one can swim in. This waterfall and pond was featured in LOST season 1 where Kate and Sawyer took a dip and found a carry-on containing handguns.

But Guess What? Can’t go up there cause they’re filming something. We return to our car and head north, sort of looking for Turtle Bay. Shrimp must be a big thing here because while looking for Giovanni’s Shrimp Truck we come across: Fumi's Kahuku Shrimp, Kahuku Sweet Shrimp, Romy’s Prawns and Shrimp. Then finally, finally we find it.

The scent of garlic simmering in butter hit you before leaving your car. You step outside, find the end of the line to order your own plate of shrimp and rice. Hubby got the #2 spicy despite the “No Refunds” warning which happened to scare off many of the other patrons. Yes, there were a LOT of people. Yes, we waited quite a while. Oh, yes, it was delicious garlicy goodness!

We ended lunch by splitting a chocolate filled malasada. Now we were heading south, down the east side of the island. Kamehameha Highway was a smooth , two-laned road with a fair number of cars moving in either direction. We weren’t sure if we’d cut across and take the Pali Highway or continue down to Koko Crater and around Diamond Head. Oh look! Kuloa Ranch! Detour!

We took a tour that drove us into the valley. “Cowboy” was our driver and guide.

He told us, in confidence, that us Haoles’ pronunciation of Hawaiian words “suck.” In our defense I replied that we didn’t have much practice.

Kualoa Ranch remains privately owned by the Morgan brothers who are descendents from Dr. Judd who purchased the land from King Kamehameha III back in 1850. Presently they raise Angus cattle, have a herd of longhorns, and a couple of hundred horses. The valley has been used for movies such as Jurassic Park, Windtalkers, Pearl Harbor and recent TV shows: LOST and Hawaii Five-O.

Hurley's golf course from LOST.

Cooper Battery, built and used during WWII, remains fully intact. It was also used as DARMA station The Tempest in LOST.

The distinct and beautiful mountain formations are breathtaking. My Awesome Sight of the Day.

By the time the tour had ended, we had to head back quickest way possible. We didn’t know which way was the quickest, we had about four options, and we didn't know how long it would take. We let the Nav system in hubby’s phone lead us. It might have been a mistake but that’s all we had.

After returning the car, we headed out to the Moana Surfrider, built in 1901 and renovated in 2007.

We had dinner/drinks and puupuus at the most perfect table on the patio, situated between Diamond Head and the setting sun.

I couldn’t help but notice there were a few people hanging around, waiting to leave, guarding large pieces of luggage, in black tee-shirts with CREW in huge white block letters. Yes, they’d been filming something there. Thank goodness we missed it.

Tomorrow… leaving Oahu for Maui.