Hawaii Honeymoon

So, it was actually on our honeymoon that I had the idea to start a blog to document all of the memories that happened to us in Hawaii.  So we left our reception and headed up to Salt Lake to stay at the Grand America Hotel before heading out in the morning to Oahu, Hawaii.  When we got there, we found a pleasant surprise from the staff of the hotel.  It was appreciated, and so was the sparkling pink lemonade we received as a parting gift in the morning.

The next day found us in airports all day long as we traveled from 

SLC to Portland to Los Angeles to Honolulu!!!

At the gate we were met by a representative that presented us with a traditional lei greeting.  Walking out of the terminal into the beautiful 75 degree weather was refreshing, and Cory stopped to ask someone what "Aloha" meant.  Gosh that word is everywhere in Hawaii, and we didn't bring a dictionary.  I guess it means "Welcome" or something. (Ok obviously a joke, but just making sure...I have never attempted humor over a blog so I'm going to have a few clunkers.  We actually learned that E Komo Mai means "Welcome".)  We also saw a couple with matching Hawaii shirts that were so cool.  Later on in the post we will re-visit this topic.

From the airport we hopped on the Hertz shuttle to go rent a car and after attempting to persuade us into upgrading to a convertible for a discounted $40 extra dollars a day, the Hertz guy was disappointed when we firmly stated that we had no interest and just wanted to get our car so we could go.  So we hopped into our Nissan Versa and headed north out of Honolulu.  We stayed on the North Shore which was about a 45 minute drive from Honolulu.  About halfway we stopped in Wahiawa to take a bathroom break and discovered that NO GAS STATION IN HAWAII HAS RESTROOMS!!!  We stopped at three places and all they said was, "You can go to Zippy's"  Zippy's is a restaurant...we ended up going to McDonald's, which will always have a bathroom!  We couldn't really see anything the rest of the drive because of how late it was, but we finally made it to Turtle Bay Resort: True Hawaii!  

It was a great stay and a great view.  We were totally isolated from all the hustle and bustle and huge crowds of Waikiki down in Honolulu.  Hence they call the resort "True Hawaii".  This big resort seemed very out of place in rural North Shore.  Which brings me to a topic of conversation that came up pretty much every single day of our honeymoon.  How in the world do you pronounce "rural"?  It is so hard to say.  We spent many a time in the car driving around the island saying it over and over again but it always comes out, "ruul" or something similar.  Anyway, there is a big movement that is very noticeable there calling to keep North Shore rural country.  I guess they don't want more huge resorts coming in and turning it into another Waikiki.  We saw a lot of bumper stickers and signs calling for downsizing of the resorts and hotels along North Shore.  Turtle Bay is offender numero uno I'm sure... but I will say that we LOVED our time on North Shore.  It was a completely different experience than the few hours we spent down in Waikiki on our last day.  Anyway, we ordered some room service that night because we were starving, and we had never done that so we both were excited.  We got a pizza...I know, super exciting.  It was pretty good though.  The next day we relaxed, and explored the resort a bit.  Here are a few pictures of the view from our room!

It was always a very calming atmosphere on the balcony of our room.  The resort didn't seem too crowded, so there wasn't a lot of noise down by the pool and we could hear the sounds of the ocean pretty clearly.  We took a stroll around the grounds and enjoyed "true hawaii".  We can tell you one thing:  You wouldn't be able to walk around on the beach practically alone down in Honolulu!!!

Seeing as the resort was called Turtle Bay, naturally the turtle theme was common in the decorating, which included but was not limited to the gigantic turtle murals on each facade of the hotel.

So if you noticed from the picture above, the resort is out on a rocky outlet which creates the inlets on both sides for the beaches.  Our stroll took us out there where the sand meets the rock, and the rock meets the ocean.  

While traversing our way over the rocky terrain towards the beach we stumbled upon a little friend...and by stumbled upon I mean Cory let our a scream that made me think a tidal wave was coming.  As I was running away screaming "GET TO THE HIGH GROUND!!!" she told me to calm down, that it was only a crab, but it startled her.  Upon further investigation, we realized it was dead...maybe the resort staff placed it there to add to the ambiance...probably not though or it would have been a dead turtle.

We headed out of the rocks and onto the beach to dip our toes into the ocean for the first time on the trip.

The beach was totally uninhabited.  It was very relaxing, and though we didn't actually get in and swim, it was just as nice to sit on the beach and talk while we laid in the warm sand.

We asked some people walking by to take our picture, and although we both seem to be closing our eyes, I love this picture!  I feel like it doesn't quite capture how scenic it was though to be there.  I took a number of pictures during the trip and then thought when I looked at the camera, "Oh, it isn't quite the same."  Nonetheless, I think this is one of the few pictures of both of us together.

After thoroughly exploring the resort, we decided to take a drive and explore North Shore.  We set a goal to find some reasonably priced food and maybe map out what we would do the next day.  We headed first to Laie, which was only about a ten minute drive away, saw the temple, and made sure we knew how to get to the Polynesian Cultural Center, which we would be visiting the next day.

From Laie, we headed back towards the resort, passed it, and kept on down the road as we continued to look for some food.  We ended up in Hale'iwa, which turned out to be one of our favorite places we saw.  Once we got there, we found a little place called "Breaker's" to grab a bite to eat.  Cory had the pulled pork sandwich, and I had the Loco Moco, which was a hamburger patty on rice, covered with two eggs and smothered in brown gravy.  It was awesome.  

While in Hale'iwa we walked around the shops and looked at all the cool potential souvenirs.  I was especially interested in the Tikis, but we decided we had plenty of time to decide what we wanted so we didn't impulse buy anything.  However, we did walk into one art gallery, and I thought, "How cool would it be to have a nice piece of Hawaiian art hanging up in our house?"  While in the gallery we saw a ton of paintings of a bridge we drove over to get into Hale'iwa that said, "Historic Rainbow Bridge".  The art was pretty pricey and not blowing my socks off, so I abandoned the idea.  We headed over to another gift shop and saw a bunch of shirts that said , "Life is better in Hale'iwa".  We slowly started to realize that the town we were in might have been a big deal.  I looked it up on my phone and we discovered that "Historic Hale'iwa Town" is the commercial center for North Shore and a large tourist attraction, even though the town is home to a little less than 4,000 people.  We would be back to Hale'iwa later in the trip, but for now we had enjoyed our little outing and headed back to the resort.  

The next morning we ate some breakfast at the hotel before starting our day.  When we walked in, they informed us that we could have continental breakfast, or something off the menu.  I naively thought continental breakfast meant free breakfast...nope...it was like $18 per person, and we could get cheaper and more delicious things off the menu, but it wasn't all you can eat.  Cory got the french toast, and I got banana pancakes with a Hawaiian flare.  The butter was Macadamia nut butter, and the syrup was Coconut syrup.  It was pretty tasty.  That morning we also learned the resort's Hawaiian Word of the Day was "Ku'uipo" which means sweetheart.  We almost immediately incorporated it into our vocabulary.

After breakfast we headed for the Polynesian Cultural Center in Laie!  It opens around noon and we were planning on being there until about 8:30 or 9:00, so we wore some walking shoes, brought our sunscreen and headed out.  

The cultural center was a really cool experience. It is basically a open outdoor park/museum that features performances and demonstrations from six different Polynesian nations.  They represented Samoa, New Zealand, Fiji, Tahiti, Tonga, and Hawaii.  We were able to visit all six villages in the park.  I wasn't sure how entertaining it would be, but it turned out to be a great day.  We got to the park, snapped a few pictures and realized the camera didn't charge the night before.  So I took pics with my phone the rest of the day.

This was our first stop of the day in "Samoa".  This guy was SUPER funny and showed us some daily chores and tasks he would do while living in Samoa, while cracking jokes left and right to keep us entertained.  His buddy then climbed up a coconut tree with absolutely no equipment like it was no big deal.  It was pretty impressive.

From Samoa, we headed to the "Hawaii" village, and that is where my camera died...and it had not yet occurred to me to use my phone, so we have no proof of being there, other than the hula dance that was taught to us while we were there.  In case you ever want to see Cory dance it, I will write the lyrics so that I can sing for her while she dances.  So the hula lyrics were:

Along the beach,

at Waikiki,

that special someone,

is waiting for me.

They have nice eyes,

and lovable charm,

and a little Hawaiian hospitality!

I couldn't DRAG Cory away from the hula lessons.  Just kidding.  From there we headed to "Tahiti" which is famous for the super fast hip shaking dancers.  We got a little tutorial on that as well, and I was REALLY upset we didn't have a camera because we were pretty good at it.  That is when I realized that I had a dad gum smart phone that was fully capable of taking pictures and videos...but alas, it was too late for Tahiti.  They next event on our schedule was a river pageant where all the six nations were showcased on floating platforms on the little river running through the park.  

It was mostly just dancing, but still pretty cool.  We enjoyed some ice cream as we watched.  Right before this we had a little time so we stopped by a little house that had a sign that said, "Early Missionary Settlement".  The Polynesian Cultural Center has strong ties to BYU-Hawaii and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which we belong to, so we totally got the pioneer-church history feel when we walked into the little house.  There were some nice ladies milling around, and HUGE beautiful hand-stitched quilts that Cory fell in love with.  We thought it would be awesome to get one as a souvenir, until the price tag convinced us otherwise.  Dang, you would think their huge ice cream revenues might be able to subsidize the quilt costs, so we just admired and headed to the pageant.

I don't remember which nation it was, but a pretty funny part of the show was when the dancers were rocking the platform so much that the poor worker on the back guiding and pushing it with his large bamboo pole actually fell off into the water...we aren't sure if it was planned or not...but it was entertaining.

So from the pageant we headed to Tonga.  We heard that the Tongan drum shows were the most popular in the park, and we figured out why.  They were hilarious.  They invited people from the audience to come up and participate, and basically made fools of them, but everyone who went up there were good sports.  About halfway through I started taking a video that you can see below.  The first part is a guy from Tennessee playing the drums with the Tongan dude, and then a guy from Japan plays with him.  It had us laughing.  Side note:  There were so many Asian people in Hawaii.  Cory made a very interesting and accurate stereotype when she commented to me, "Asians are always on vacation".

From Tonga we headed to Fiji, but first stopped by the Easter Island exhibit.  There weren't any shows there, just some statues and stuff.  We learned that those statues on "Rapa Nui" (Easter Island) are representative of deified ancestors who have passed on.  I told Cory to take a picture so that our children would know what kind of statue they need to build of me when I die. Kids: Bring me honor!!!

So we headed to Fiji, and got a fifteen minute history lesson.  I actually say that with a positive connotation.  It was nice to sit in a shaded hut and relax while a man with a very soothing voice explained a little about the history of Fiji.  During his spiel, he asked if anyone had been to Fiji.  A few people raised their hands, and literally all of them were Australian, which surprised me that so many came all the way to this little town in Hawaii, but the brochure did say that the Center attracts millions of guests from all over the world.  After the informative portion of the program, we heard a musical presentation from Fiji that we participated in by striking bamboo poles on the ground.  After that there was a thirty minute lull that we spent by exploring some of the park.  The video below shows one of our adventures.

After seeing the fish, we were hungry and had tickets to the Luau dinner show, but it didn't start for some time so we took a look at the gift shop and browsed for some souvenirs.  We knew that we would have some time after the Luau to actually buy something, so we just briefly scanned over everything and headed to dinner.  Walking in to the Luau, we were greeted with a small lei, and seated at a table with some other guests.  I was sitting next to Priscilla...my friend I made from Sweden.  Her husband/boyfriend/travelling companion was sitting across from her by Cory, and they basically conversed in Swedish the entire night.  On the other side of us was a cute little southern family that we made some small talk with before the festivities began.  They started with a little ceremony to honor the "royal family" who was hosting the feast.  Some workers came out in their traditional Hawaiian royal wardrobe, and then they explained what was on the menu.  I don't remember much of the menu except the KALUA PORK which was like the best food I ate the whole trip.  I seriously would have paid to get in there just to eat that pork.  It was delicious.  They also had sweet taro bread rolls that were purple and amazing.  They also had some type of fish, and a poi sauce that we didn't care for, but we tried it.  Cory has reminded me that they had some jerk meat and chicken long rice (which I loved and Cory hated).  It was a pretty good meal, and the whole time we ate there were hula dancers up on the stage doing various dances.  Our favorites were the "keiki" dancers. Keiki is Hawaiian for child or little one.  Every so often the keikis would get up there and do there own little dances.  It was amazing how good they were, too!  Anyway here are some pictures of us right before we started eating.  Cory was soooooo excited to finally get her hands on some grub.

I was excited to, but the starvation had taken its toll, also I felt like I had to balance Cory's emotion with my own.

Don't worry, I didn't look that down all night.  After we ate the MC asked for any couples celebrating a honeymoon or anniversary to head up to the stage.  We ran up there and introduced ourselves along with the other couples.  Everyone clapped and cheered when we said we were on our honeymoon, especially the little southern family from our table.  They were all about us.  After the introductions they played a song while we danced up on stage.  It was fun to be up there with some couples that were celebrating their 50th anniversary.  I joked with Cory that we should come back every year so that we could dance up on the stage at the Luau again and again.  The Luau ended and we only had one more event scheduled at the Center.  We had about an hour to kill before the big evening show called "Ha: Breath of Life!"  It was supposed to be pretty epic so I was excited.  We bought a few souvenirs, including a hand-stitched apron for Cory that was decorated with pineapple stitchings, a Christmas tree ornament of a hula dancer that says "Mele Kalikimaka" which is Merry Christmas in Hawaiian, and a mug.  I decided that because every gift shop has mugs, that will be my staple souvenir for the rest of my life.  Anyway, the show finally started and it was totally worth it!  It was really cool and featured dances and music from all the different Polynesian nations we had learned about during the day.  It was cool to recognize things we had learned.  The finale was pretty epic, too.  It featured fire dancers that had some pretty intricate and exciting moves.

After the show ended we headed back to the resort and crashed after a long day of fun at the Polynesian Cultural Center.  The next morning we took it easy and stayed at the resort all morning.  We headed to the beach and swam.  It was a little overcast, but probably five minutes after these pictures were taken, the sun escaped the clouds and we caught some rays.

Cory won't let me put up the pictures of me shirtless so as not to offend/tempt our readers...

Once the sun came out we laid out for a while on the beach. Ironically, probably the best day to swim/tan would have been the day before while we were at the Cultural Center all day.  It was sunny all day that day, but every other day was overcast then sunny and back and forth sporadically throughout the day.  It was never cold though, so I didn't really notice or care.  The rest of the day we spent at the resort, but we did take a quick trip back to Hale'iwa that evening to buy those souvenirs we wanted and get some shave ice.

Once we got there we went to the first gift shop we had gone into a couple days before and I bought us a Tiki of the Hawaiian God of Fertility.  I couldn't think of a more appropriate souvenir for us as we celebrated the beginning of our new family.  So if you go to google images and type in "Hawaiian god of fertility", the picture below is what pops up.  That is EXACTLY what now sits in our living room, greeting all of our guests who enter our home.  

From that gift shop we only had one thing we could think of that we still wanted, and that was matching Hawaii shirts.  We didn't really want the traditional floral pattern shirts that are common in retirement homes across America, and we had shirts we really liked on that couple in the airport.  They said "HI" with all the islands on it, and the main island dotted the "i".  The only problem was that our whole trip we hadn't seen them anywhere.  They weren't in any of the gift shops we had been in, and we had been in quite a few at this point.  We must have gone into every clothing store in Hale'iwa to no avail.  So we started to drive back down the way we came to get some shave ice when we saw a small...establishment...I don't really know what else to call it.  It had clothes of all sorts hanging outside, and we thought we might as well try our luck there.  The place was absolutely packed with clothes!  We asked the lady if she had the shirts we had been looking for, and she pulled them out from behind her counter.  Go figure...the absolute least established place we went to had them.  So we bought two and got talking with the lady who owned the place.  Her name was Cindy and it turns out she was LDS.  She gave us a business card with her email on it so that if we ever come back we can contact her and find a cheap place to stay.  Probably not going to happen, but the gesture was appreciated.

So on our way out we asked Cindy for her recommendation on shave ice, and she sent us to Aoki's.  I told Cory that I had read an article on the in flight magazine about Hawaii and the Obama's annual visit.  I remembered it talking about a place they go for shave ice up on north shore, and since we were in the commercial center of North Shore I figured it had to be in Hale'iwa.  So we had seen three shave ice places in town: Aoki's, San Lorenzo's, and Matsumoto's Asian Market.  We figured Aoki's sounded the most Hawaiian, plus Matsumoto's was more of a grocery store and it was completely packed with Asian tourists.  No line at Aoki's!  So the decision was pretty easy, and we kept our eyes open for Barack and Michelle.

So as we were eating our shave ice, it dawned on me that I could maybe find out on my phone which place Obama goes to while he vacations here.  So I looked it up and it turns out he definitely goes to Matsumoto's...and supposedly they are like the famous place on North Shore.  Good job Cindy...but seriously we didn't care.  Aoki's was great and we felt more legit anyway because we had gotten a local reference.

After our successful trip we headed back to the resort for our last night of the stay.  I wanted to have a special evening, so I had called earlier to make a reservation for dinner on the beach.  It was great.  The resort actually has a small restaurant on the beach called "Ola" that we enjoyed our dinner at.  Great experience.

So remember when I said that the Luau had the best food we ate on the trip?  That was before we ate at Ola.  The food was seriously out of this world!  So good, and we had a pretty fun time.  There was a wedding that had happened that day on the beach and I guess they were having their reception at the restaurant.  We took a covert video explaining a somewhat funny story that occurred while we were dining. 

So we called it a day and woke up on our last day in Hawaii.  Our flight didn't leave until about 9:00 pm, so we had a whole day to kill after checking out at 11:00 am.  We decided to go find some food first so we said goodbye to a great resort.  We recommend it to anyone who wants a great Hawaii experience.  

From Turtle Bay we headed to Laie to eat at the Hukilau Cafe.  It was a small hole in the wall type place, but it was good.  I went to pay and saw the sign "cash only"...I definitely had to run to the nearest ATM while Cory chilled with the Hukilau crew, but it was only about three blocks away from an ATM so we weren't separated too long.  So we paid the ticket and headed to check out the visitor's center at the LDS temple in Laie.

They have a beautiful Christus statue in the visitor's center, as well as some other cool things.  They have a copy of the first edition Book of Mormon in Hawaiian, as well as a cool short film made by the members in the temple district about the history of the Church in Hawaii, especially in Laie.  Afterwards, Cory and I walked around and enjoyed our time on the grounds.

From Laie we started heading south towards Honolulu, but before we could get too far we saw some signs for "Scenic Waimea Valley".  We thought a nice drive through a scenic valley would be a great way to spend our afternoon.  We soon discovered, though, that you couldn't drive through.  It was more of a park and then hike, which we weren't feeling too much.  We did get out though and take one picture.  This is me in front of a tribal temple, which was ironic after we had just come from a modern day temple about 15 miles away.

From Waimea we headed further south and Cory took a quick nap in the car.  About 25 minutes later I was waking her up so we could go exploring the Dole Pineapple Plantation!!!  I was actually pretty excited to see this place, and was curious what it had to offer.  Here I am at the entrance with my HI shirt Cindy sold to me.

So we looked around for a little bit and discovered that they basically had three attractions.  You could pay to go into the world's largest maze, which was shaped like a pineapple, but you would never know that unless you were in a plane looking down from high above.  You could pay to rent a audio head set and take a self guided tour through a trail of some sort, or for a little more $ you could take a train tour through the plantation.  We asked the lady at the ticket office which was her favorite thing to do.  She of course told us the train tour, and that it was "very informative".  So we bought two tickets and headed over to the train station...if you could call it that.

While waiting for the train to show up for our tour, we couldn't help but pose for pictures in these classic wooden pineapple backdrops.

Finally, it was time to board the Pineapple Express!  We were so excited!  Ok not really, we weren't quite sure what to expect, but let's just say if we would have set our expectations to zero...we would have still been disappointed.  To put it lightly, it was a JOKE!  Let me explain to you our experience:  We boarded the train, which had speakers in each bench to play the pre-recorded tour guide's monologue dissertation on the pineapple.  It was terrible.  Literally we rode along a track through the middle of nowhere!  It was dirt to  the left and dirt to the right.  The greatest part though was that we never even saw a pineapple!!!  At one point there was a field off in the distance, but we couldn't tell what it was or if it was even part of the plantation for that matter, so I guess that was the closest we came to sighting the elusive fruit

.  So on a normal tour you would expect the guide to tell you what you are actually looking at...but I guess they realized they wouldn't have much to say so they skipped over that part.  The narration just read what sounded like the Wikipedia page on James Dole.  So we got a twenty minute history lesson without once hearing the words: "To your left you see..." or "On the right side of the train you'll notice..." but whatever.  Two things I did learn on the ride: 1. It takes a pineapple two years to mature and ripen to the point of harvest. So next time you eat a pineapple just think that in a day you ingested two years of work.  2.  James Dole bought one of the Hawaiian islands and converted it into a gigantic plantation to accommodate his growing empire.  As terrible as the tour was, Dole did sound like a boss. 

Anyway, the most exciting part of the trip had to be when we looked out the right side of the train and saw two wooden cutouts of workers who were supposedly harvesting pineapples!  I wonder how long they have been there... So I actually didn't mind too much that our tour was a bit boring, but Cory was having a harder time handling it.  It was actually entertaining for me to see her get a little heated over the quality of our experience.  She was sounding like she could have a stand up comedy act explaining the Pineapple Express experience.  She even suggested that we write a letter to the Dole company because, "someone has to know that this is not acceptable.  Don't they know that their train tour is terrible?"  She even started to produce in her mind an episode of undercover boss in which the head honchos of Dole would be subjected to ride the train tour and see for themselves what an awful experience it was.  Ha, but I digress.  As we got off the train they had a worker standing there with tiny slivers of pineapple on toothpicks which we ate.  It actually was quite delicious, but Cory suggested they owed us a little more than that after what they put us through....like a free lifetime supply of pineapple.

The rest of our experience at the plantation was exponentially better.  We explored their awesome gift shop, but didn't end up getting anything.  Then we headed to get some Dole Whips!  So a Dole Whip is basically pineapple soft serve.  It is so good, and it reminds me of Disneyland because they sell it there outside the Tiki Room.  Cory got a cone, and I got a float with pineapple juice.  We had almost forgotten about our tour experience by the time we finished because of how tasty they were.

From there we headed back down to Honolulu and Waikiki.  We still had some time to kill so we drove toward Waikiki Beach, and the closer we got, the more it resembled LA or NYC.  There were designer shops EVERYWHERE.  There were people EVERYWHERE.  There were cars and bumper to bumper traffic EVERYWHERE.  I have to admit, it was kind of an exciting buzz, but at the same time we both agreed that we were glad we had stayed up on North Shore away from the hustle and bustle of all the crowds.  We did find a Disney store and I got my Hawaiian Tiki Vinylmation, so I couldn't complain.  I would definitely recommend at least spending some time down on Waikiki for the experience, but be prepared to share it with thousands more.  

Alas, our time in Hawaii was drawing to a close, so we headed to the airport to hop on a red-eye flight that put us back in LA at 5:00 AM.  We then had a five hour layover until our flight back to Utah, so I wrapped the straps of my backpack and the strap of Cory's purse around my legs as much as possible and we took a nap.  We made it home safe and sound and have been showing off our matching Hawaiian shirts ever since!

Hawaii was a wonderful experience for both of us, and we will always look back on our honeymoon as a fun, romantic, and exciting time.  Aloha!