This morning we had nothing planned on our itinerary so we headed towards The North Shore of O’ahu, known for it’s beautiful beaches, huge waves and lots of surfers.

To our surprise, The Dole Plantation was on our way, so why not make a stop, take a train ride through the working plantation, walk through the gardens, browse the gift shop, and enjoy a Dole Whip, which is exactly what we did.  Granted it was very kitschy, as expected, but a fun little stop off nonetheless.  We got some snacks to bring back with us, an assortment of pineapple covered nuts, sold to us by the lady in the stand outside the ticket booth, who basically threatened our lives if we dared to go inside to buy from that vendor.  

We then made our way up to The North Shore beach, and spent time watching the surfers ride the waves before heading out to find the much talked about food trucks, which sit in a parking lot right outside of the town center.  The town of Haleʻiwa Town was full of little shops, various food trucks, mostly shrimp trucks and people.  We decided to try Giovanni’s which came recommended by a co workers of Nick’s, and I had seen mentioned on line as well.  Unfortunately, I don’t think that we enjoyed it as most did, but it was okay, we shared the shrimp scampi, which is their best seller.  I think the issue was, since it’s their best seller they have it plated and ready for quick pick up – which I believe sitting there allowed the shrimp to continue to cook, so they were a little overdone.  Nick also picked up some pork skewers at a truck in the same lot, which did not disappoint, they were yummy.

After a quick lunch, we made our way back to the beach, we went to Billy & Peggy Paty Kaiaka Bay Beach Park, the waves at this end were absolutely stunning, sitting there watching them crash in was so relaxing.  This park also serves as a campground, which would have been an awesome experience, although you are pretty much camping in an open field with the ocean ride behind you.  We didn’t have much time to spare before we needed to get back to Honolulu, as we had reservations at 3:30 pm for Pearl Harbour, but we were not leaving The North Shore without a stop at Matsumoto Shave Ice, the most talked about Hawaiian Shave Ice.  I am glad that we made the stop and stood in the what a first seemed to be a daunting line, it went fast and it was delicious, we shared a cherry/lim/strawberry with condensed milk on top – it was a definite must stop.  

Pearl Harbor – USS Arizona

The list of things to do at Pearl Harbor were really daunting when I was looking into it, and I really did not want to spend an entire day or even half day of our trip there, so we had decided to do the USS Arizona Memorial, which was a very sobering experience.  The complex at Pearl Harbor itself is very large, so we went through two of the museums first before making our way into the auditorium where we received a brief introduction from one of the Park Rangers and then we boarded a boat over to the War Memorial.  The memorial was built over top of the sunken USS Arizona, where more than 900 men lost their lives.  There are still parts of the ship that you can see and the ship continues to leak oil to this day, 83 years later.  The Memorial had a wall with all of the crews name, those that served in the Navy and Marines.  They also had a nice detail of what the ship looked like prior to the attack, and present day, showing you how large it was with different markers in the water.

After spending sometime at the Memorial, we made our way back to land where we roamed around the rest of the grounds, learning more about the attack.

With no plans for our evening, we made our way back to the hotel and walked a few blocks down the street to enjoy one more O’ahu sunset before we depart tomorrow, it was beautiful with the exception of the ship that happened to block the sun as it was going down over the horizon at just the right time.  Regardless, it’s as beautiful, we then headed to downtown Waikiki where we enjoyed dinner on the outdoor patio at Waikiki Brewing, we both had burgers and beers – I am hopeful on the next island we won’t be eating at much meat – I am not sure what that has been about.