Friday, March 29, 2013

Buses, beaches and shave ice.

Alas, our second month comes to a close. It's almost time to leave this island!

We recently visited Lanikai beach on the Windward side, which struck us as an idyllic slice of Polynesia.

 
Yeah, it was worth the 1 1/2 hour bus journey there. Maybe even the 4 hours it took us to get back. Pelted by the rain and wind waiting for the bus in Waimanalo. After stopping for a fabled plate lunch truck that wasn't even there. Okay, maybe not quite worth that, but it was a fun journey.

Most epic of all was our local food romp last weekend. We stopped at House of Pure Aloha for some gourmet shave ice and some good conversation with the folks there. (You should put this on your itinerary if you're ever in Honolulu - they'll love to meet you. It's as much about community as it is about food, so plan a chunk of time to hang out there.) The next Saturday, we hatched a plan to try a bunch of sugary sweet places back-to-back. We took the bus towards Waikiki and walked among the following fine establishments:

1. Leonard's Bakery. Amazing malasadas. Stuffed with Dobash, Mango, Haupia... wow!

2. Waiola. Softest shave ice, like a light fluffy cloud. Its texture is barely perceptible before it melts.

3. Rainbow Drive-in. Good old plate lunch (okay) plus a "slush float", which is like putting ice cream in a cherry slurpee.

4. Snow Factory. It's like shaved ice cream, but it's not. Confused us. Mellow flavors, milky. Lady J loved the little flavor beads (look like caviar) that burst open when you chew on them.

5. Ailana. Nice people serving a rockin' pyramid of shave ice. We've had the tropical trio and chocolate brownie before, but this time was peanut butter and caramel.


We haven't had that much sugar in a long while. What a stomach ache of a mistake, the likes of which will not be repeated on our wanderings. But it was another fun journey.

To atone for our follies, we took our hiking up a notch, doing Koko Head trail so often that we worked up to twice in one workout session last week. I got it down to about 17 1/2 minutes, she did it in in 18:24. Just to think that on one of our first hikes up here, some guy was talking about his 16-something time and we thought, "we could never do that!"

I'll leave you one more picture, this one from the top of Koko Crater.


Do you think our next stop will be this beautiful? Well, I guess that depends on what you know about a place called...

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