Over the last five years I’ve really come to love Hawaii, even if I only visit one or two week a year. As we were driving around Oahu for what looks to be one of my last times, we talked about trips taken and those to come. So many memories; but no way to share them with family, especially the little ones. They should hear the tales of their early adventures, even if they don’t remember them. So here is our Saturday around Oahu. I will relay a tale of meals, naps, and snacks; and also the sea (we saw it), weather (drizzling), a temple and pearly treasures.
We started out the morning at Hula Grill at the Outrigger Hotel. It’s in Waikiki, with a seating area that opened up to a great view of the ocean. Many restaurants with such a view would be satisfied serving mediocre food, but the kalua pork bao bun benedict was fantastic and they kept the coffee coming. Sully ordered pancakes but ate Boo’s. She ate eggs and sausage. She was going to eat one of the pancakes, but upon realizing he was about to lose a pancake to his sister, Sully decided he would eat the pancake. He ordered the POG, which the adults at the table believe to have been freshly made. Leigh ate a Portuguese sausage boa bun bendict, which she seemed to enjoy. Their father (we’ll create a pseudonym for him later) had eggs, I think, there also may have been breakfast meats involved. Anyway, mine was good and I liked that they mixed in sweet potatoes with their white breakfast potatoes. The service was very good and they were nice to the kids. Great experience all around.
Sully wanted to go to see the fish, so we decided that our next stop should be…the Aquarium! But first a small fit was had. Even though he initially said he wanted to drive there, apparently Sully really wanted to walk. Unfortunately, this realization came to him in the crosswalk of a major road, whereupon he decided to stop walking. This was confusing, because the outburst was apparently an effort persuade us that we should walk to the aquarium. I was already a little skeptical about walking there, and his refusal to walk across the street didn’t help the cause. We drove.
The aquarium was nice, as always. We were pretty early so there weren’t a lot of people and (maybe it was my imagination, but I felt like) the creatures were particularly active. The long-tentacled jelly fish were practically getting entangled with each other as they slooshed through the water and the sea horses were basically having a dance party – prehensile tails in full effect. Sully’s favorite was the Humuhumunukunukuapua’a. It is a pretty cool fish- colorful and active – but I think that he mostly likes it because he can pronounce its name, which is probably as a good a reason as any. I was sad to see the monk seal habitat closed for remodeling. They’re usually my favorites. On the way out we stopped to look at the merch. We finally found a Star Wars pun that Leigh didn’t nix, and Sully is now the proud owner of a Join the Shark Side hoodie. I think the sharks on it are various iterations of siths, or something. He also got a hat with the Marvel characters as sea creatures. Leigh is usually a pretty tough sell on such tom-foolery, but these were cute and clever, so I she rolled with it.
Next stop was the Byodo-In Temple in Kaneohe. The kids fell asleep on the way there, so Leigh stayed in the car. Brian and I walked around a little bit. It was very reminiscent of the Shinto and Zen temples I visited in Japan, appropriately so, since this one is modeled after one in Kyoto prefecture. The grounds were humid and serene with a backdrop of spectacularly lush mountains, peaks shrouded in mist. The scene made me remember why visiting the temples in Japan remain one of my lasting memories of that trip. I was reinspired to make my own zen garden in my yard in Tallahassee. We’ll see how that goes. Maybe I’ll start with a fountain?
Byodo-In Temple
Photo Credit: Brian Page
Back in the car, kids still asleep, we headed to the Turtle Bay Resort for lunch. The first day of my first trip to Hawaii, Brian brought me here so I could see the location of the filming of “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” I hadn’t seen the movie yet, but I had a new camera, so I took a bunch of really good pictures (honestly, they take themselves here) which are still all around their house. It makes me happy to have some of my thousands of pictures in use. I’ve since seen the movie and agree that it is a pretty good one. It’s probably my favorite movie with a dracula puppet opera sub-plot. I write all of that to say, I’m glad Jason Segel got to do the Muppet Movie reboot and also that it was a nice bookend to re-visit the resort on my last trip.
So, lunch. We ate at LeiLei’s, which is basically a golf club restaurant set in Hawaii. The sashimi was very good. Our meals were fine: I had tuna and Leigh had chicken. Brian had a chef salad, I think. It’s becoming apparent to me that I need to pay better attention to what he’s eating. Sully ate the requisite amount of rice to get ice cream, but since they didn’t have “red” – the only flavor he’ll eat – he was promised ice cream in the North Shore. Leigh and I shared the chocolate cookie and caramel sundae, which was very good. The cookies had just the right softness so that they kind of melted into the vanilla ice cream and the melted caramel drizzle on top gave it a nice snap when you bit into it. They gave us two extra cookies, which we brought home. It has been alleged that Brian ate the cookies, causing some consternation in the household.
The final leg of our trip was the North Shore to make good on the promised red ice cream. Leigh and Sully went to the gelato shop while Brian and I went to an art gallery with Boo. All she had on was a diaper and a blankee and she has been drooling like crazy, but she still got tons of love in the art gallery. She and I got distracted by a pearl jewelry store on our way over to the gelato. The lady at the counter couldn’t get over how happy Boo was; and Boo was loving all of the love. The lady gave her a small shell that was clasped together to form a box. I thought it was only to play with for a second, but she actually wanted her to have it. You can’t have a box without something in it, so I picked up some inexpensive pearl earrings for Boo (and a pair for myself, naturally). There are no plans to pierce her ears and these are a bit large for a baby, but hopefully one day she’ll enjoy the story behind them and the unusual chartreuse shade of these studs.
Everyone came into the store as we were checking out. The search for red ice cream was a success and red-lipped Sully was very happy. I’m told the raspberry tasted like real raspberry. They’re very good about using actual fruit out here and you really can tell the difference.
We’re home now watching Marvel movies I haven’t seen (Thor:Ragnarok and Dr. Strange). We ate dinner and then Sully and Brian built a spectacular train track network with a curly ramp going down one level to the floor. It was a feat of engineering and there were buttresses (?) involved. We’re getting up early in the morning to ‘run’ the Hapalua half-marathon but I’m mostly looking forward to eating more-and probably a nap- tomorrow.
Ramblin' On 