Day 3, part 5

Part 5 already??? Whoa. I wish I had taken a picture of the sign that's posted right in front of this large rock. It states, (and I quote) "WARNING - Jumping/diving can cause serious bodily injury or death. For your safety, please stay off rock."
Here's one of waimea bay on the LEFT of the rock. I also saw a sea turtle while I was in the water, but the sea floor must be about 30 feet down and because of the strong surf, there was a lot of sand being tossed in the water which is why this picture didn't turn out that well. It was a blast though to see all of the fish. They were MUCH clearer than this photo.
I love underwater photos like this one of Karen. She took one of me and I'll post that one later because it was when we were at Hanuama Bay later in the week.

Day 3, part 4

Karen's LOST pose at the end of the road where LOST was supposed to be.
relaxing on our own LOST island.
Now, between the above picture and the ones below, we headed to Waimea Bay for some snorkling and swimming, but we didn't use the digital camera for those. We used our underwater camera. I'll post those in the next post as the last post for Day 3! For now, here's Karen at the entrance to the hotel
Karen hates it when we go places because I'm the one with the camera and camcorder and we end up with NO pictures of me and no video of me--just her. So here is a picture of me before we went out to eat at L&L's (I ate there at least three times while I was there)
This is by far, the best place to eat on O'ahu--hands down. We always went to the one in Wahaiwa (just south of the Dole plantation by like five minutes drive).

Day 3, part 3

Matsumoto's!!! This has got to be the biggest sugar rush I've ever experienced.
Here's a sweet chopper at matsumoto's. There was a big inflow of bikers this day--all sorts (ninja's, harley's, and choppers).
After all of this, we decided to try out Jon's story of continuing on down to the end of the island to see the LOST set. It was a big fat pharse. There's MUTTIN' down there at the end of the road but a bunch of ATV's and dir bike trails. I corroberated this with Charmane Wells too! She's also tried to find whatever it was that Jon did, but never found anything. It's all good. It was still a nice drive and we got to rest on a beach and see some DANG cool wind surfing! Here's Karen taking a quick rest on the sand. It was sweet because there was NO one on these beaches.
Here we are napping on the beach in Hawaii. This, is paradise.

Day 3, part 2

Here's some of the coral we were walking on as we went along the beach to see the tide pools after touring the hotel some more. This coral is SHARP!
I saw a bunch of these nuts holding on to dear life. I think they're some sort of muscle or something.
Here is a shrimp jumping golby! There were a TON of these and they jump from one pool to another when yuo sneak up on them. It's the funniest thing to watch. Look at these little MINI crabs near this one! This is the closest up picture I think I've ever taken with my camera. I was right on TOP of this water/fish.
All of this walking around made us hungry--so we headed up to Haleiwa to get a burger and some shaved ice! (not shave ice like in Utah)

Day 3, part 1

continued pictures of our hotel
This is what a plumeria plant looks like when its much older. Karen and I bought one of these when we first went to Hawaii but then let my in-laws take care of it for a while where it had the treat of being thrown into the trash can only to be later saved by my father-in-law. Over the three year period we had it, it did bud a few flowers, but only my father in law was able to see them. Karen and I never did. So when we finally got it back, it ended up dying because Utah is way too dry, too hot, and our cat broke a couple limbs by trying to climb it. Darned cat. You'll be glad to know we bought two more in the airport on our way back home and have already planted them in our back yard. In one more year, they'll have leaves, and in two more years, they'll have flowers. lol. I found out today that they sell these WITH leaves at walmart for 2 dollar cheaper than we bought them in the airport in Hawaii. Oh well. ; )
the view from our hotel room
this is the morning sunrise

Day 2, part 5

We didn't actually eat the muffins on day 2. We saved them for breakfast in what Karen calls our "bed of clouds" or what one hotel calls its "heavenly bed" (Westin). Basically, its a nice plush down filled comforter and 6 down filled pillows--all white on a king sized bed. But after the dole plantation, we still had some sunlight time left in day 2, so we took our first stroll around our hotel and saw its sights. The following pictures are of our hotel, the bed mentioned above, and the sunrise we ate breakfast to from the spactactular view of our own hotel room the very next morning (may be breaking this into two posts)!

Day 2, Part 4

We also took a couple funny pictures

While at the Dole Plantation, we saw some weirdo out of place frenzy of fish you can feed (not sure what that has to do with pinapples).

And we bought some DANG spanky tasting coconut and pinapple breakfast muffins!

Day 2, part 3

After hiking Diamond Head, it gave us a large appetite. So we headed down to Waikiki and ate at the Wailana Coffee House Coctail Lounge. And oh my, oh MY was that not the best breakfast I have ever had in my entire life. We got the all you can eat coconut pancakes with coconut syrup, two piece of bacon, and two eggs cooked to order. All I can say is YUM YUM YUM!!!!!!!!! I cannot tell you in words how good it was. But if anyone is ever in O'ahu, you MUST MUST MUST try them!!!! Karen and I actually went to an ABC store in Waikiki later in the week and bought TWO bottles of coconut syrup for when we get back home.

At any rate, after our best breakfast EVER, we headed back to the north shore and on our way there, stopped by the Dole plantation. I've never seen the Dole plantation nor a pinapple plant. I know they didn't grow on trees, but rather, on bushes, but I had never seen one with my own two eyes. Well, that is, until day 2 came along!

Just some interesting pinapple facts.
Is he trying to compare himself to a pinapple?!!??!

Day 1, part 1

Well, I'm going to try to keep the words short and the pictures plentiful. Here's us arriving with a couple different views from the airplane ride into Honolulu.
First thing's first--head to Romy's Shrimp Shack. This prooved to almost be the death of me as it gave me HORRIBLE hives and sent me to the ER later that evening. Not before we got to go stop by McDonalds to get Karen some dinner, then La'ie Point for some great pictures and a nice view, the grocery store to get a few snacks and some water bottles for our traveling days on the beach, and to also head to the hotel to check into our wonderful room! ; ) Doing all of those things before we went to the ER gave my hinves just enough time to really start to manifest themselves. And OH how they manifested themselves!!!!! Too bad I don't have any pictures of THAT chaos all over my body.
ALthough the after effects were horrible, it sure did taste good at the time.
My only real complaint about the shrimp is that its so much freaking WORK to peal the shrimp! For 12 bucks a plate--at least take the shells off of the shrimp!

Day 1, part 2

More history on Romy's
Checking out the temple (hives are just beginning to set in)
Karen needed some dinner since she was smart and didn't eat at Romy's.
La'ie Point

Day 2, part 1

We woke up early and headed over to Diamond Head. Here's a view on our way up.

This is the first set of real stairs.
Followed by a tunnel.
Here is a look back into the crater we parked in and started climbing from.
and this is Karen and I on our initial accent up the last set of stairs. Only 300 steps or so total on the trip up--its not that bad.