Oahu Trip | Day 6: North Shore

On Day 6 (Thurs, 12/15) of our weeklong trip to Hawaii’s Oahu island, we hiked to the top of Diamond Head to see the sunrise. (Blog post here.)

After our Oahu Nature Tours tour guide Jeannette dropped us off, we walked over to Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center to have a "second" breakfast at Island Vintage Coffee, because we were so hungry after the hike.  I got a raspberry white chocolate mocha and a croissant, while Todd got a smoothie.  We found a t-shirt for Fred (our neighbor and catsitter during the trip), which was very exciting.  After that we walked back to our hotel and showered. 

At around 10:30am, we headed out to the Dole Plantation.  The GPS had some trouble but we made it there. 




Dole Plantation boasts the world’s large maze.  We were there in December 2000 and went through the maze a couple of days after I ran the Honolulu Marathon, which means I hobbled around in there!  Due to time constraints, we didn’t do the maze this time.

We both got a Dole Whip (pineapple soft serve ice cream) on a cake cone.  This is a must-eat if you go to Dole.


Right after this “Todd Shot”, we noticed a woman nearby asking her boyfriend to take the same photo of her eating her Dole whip!  Ha ha, another “Todd Shot” imitator!

It was delicious!  I bought some postcards.  We walked around the garden, enjoying the pineapple plants.

We saw the koi fish going nuts when people fed them.

And we got to take head-hole photos as pineapples. 



Alas, our time at the Dole Plantation was short, because we were meeting our friends Lara & Rupert at 12:30 for lunch!  I went to high school with Lara and she just moved to Oahu from San Diego.  We got back on the road and made it to Haleiwa just at 12:30pm.  They were in line at Giovanni’s Shrimp Truck already and called me and took my order because the line was getting long.  This shrimp truck is very famous and I had been wanting to go for a long time.  I got the garlic shrimp scampi.  You get 12 large shrimps and rice for $13. 

It was so good!  Better than I had imagined. 



We hung out and ate and talked a lot.  Todd is not a shrimp-eater, so he got fish & chips from another truck. 

After Giovanni's Shrimp Truck and photos, we headed down the street to Matsumoto's for shave ice.  For those keeping track, this was the 3rd time on the trip that we’ve had shave ice. :p





I got the Hawaiian (pineapple, coconut, banana) with ice cream.  I didn't like it as much as the other shave ice I've had so far!  I judge shave ice based on if the ice cream stays un-melted and hard in the middle, because that's my favorite part of shave ice.  By the time I got to the ice cream in Matsumoto's shave ice, it was all melted.  I didn't get to eat the ice cream at all, it was all melted.

Lara, Rupert, the kids, and Todd in front of Matsumoto.

 
After Matsumoto's, we all drove a few miles to Shark's Cove in Waimea.







This is Lara's favorite snorkeling spot on the island.  It's protected and shallow water.  We waded in for a while and saw lots of fish already. 



Todd stayed on shore and watched our stuff, because he had socks and shoes on. 




Trekking back to the road…


After we got out and cleaned up, we drove further north to Banzai Pipeline to watch some big wave surfing.  This area of the North Shore is famous for very large winter swells.  Sometimes as big as 30 feet waves!  They hold the Van’s Triple Crown of Surfing competition here, as well as the Eddie Aikau Memorial Invitational, in December.  Yup, the waves here were much bigger than at Waikiki Beach (south facing)!


The beach there was wide and beautiful.



The little dots are surfers!


Lara’s kids having fun on the beach.


These guys caught waves.



There were a ton of photographers on the beach, probably taking photos of famous surfers that we don’t recognize.


After that, we parted ways with Lara & Rupert and the kids and went further north to Kahuku.  We stopped at Kahuku Superette and I bought some of their "Famous Shoyu Ahi Poke". 


It was pretty good but not as good as the spicy ahi poke on Kauai.  Then we wanted to go to Ted's Bakery for the chocolate haupia pie, because several friends had recommended it, one of them being Kym.  However, we had to backtrack 6 miles because we didn't know it was in Sunset Beach and we had driven on to Kahuku already. 

At Ted's, we bought a slice of chocolate haupia (coconut) pie, a piece of pineapple cheese pie, and a brownie. 

We ate the chocolate haupia pie right away but saved the rest for later. 


We drove on north and then east and then south, circling the island.  The views along the way were spectacular!


Then we headed south on the 63 and got back to Honolulu streets, where it took us a long time on city streets to get back.  We dropped our stuff off and headed down the street to Marukame Udon (again) for dinner.  We loved it so much the first time we knew we would be back for more!  There was a short line and in 15 minutes we were in.  I got the lighter colored broth (kake) this time with my udon. 

I got shrimp, squid, asparagus, and sweet potato tempura. 

Todd got the curry udon again because he loved it the first time.



He also got karaage (fried onion and sweet potato shoestringed together), sweet potato, and asparagus tempura. 

We loved it again, so good!

Another relaxing and wonderful day in Hawaii.  This day was even better because I got to see my good friend Lara again.  :)  After dinner, we went back to the condo, had some Coke, and watched end of "Finding Nemo" and beginning of "Beauty and the Beast".