The next day we lazed around to prepare for our big adventure planned for Friday. We rode the trolley to Diamond Head, a volcanic crater which we had planned to hike, but upon arrival Sika declined to partake so we continued on to Leonard's bakery. On the way, the trolley driver let us know that there are two cheesecake factories on Oahu - a culturally relevant point. Leonard's bakery is famous for their malasadas but (don't shoot me) I thought the ones at Zippy's were better. (Maybe because against my better judgement I got a guava-filled one at Leonard's despite not being a big fan of squishy foods.)
On Friday, we rented a car to circuit the entire island and see all of the other ridiculous tourist items, starting with the Dole Plantation, Hawaii's Pineapple Experience. James Drummond Dole was born in my neighborhood in Boston in 1877 and was son of the minister of the Unitarian Church which I literally lived next door to. Dole went to Hahvahrd and then moved to Honolulu in 1869 and bought a 65 acre plantation which he slowly expanded as he mechanized production. (His cousin was governor after the 1893 overthrow of Queen Lili'uokalani so we're talking all sorts of imperialism.) Homeboy then bought the entire island of Lana'i which then became the largest pineapple plantation in the world at 20,000 acres. It eventually declined due to the advent of shipping by airplane, increasing the ease of competition from other producers.
The attraction was established in 1950 as a fruit stand and morphed into what it is now in the 80s. It hosts a model plantation, the world's largest maze, a bromeliad garden, a shopping center, multiplex theater, and conference rooms and ballrooms. We went on the Pineapple Express train tour of the plantation and meandered through the garden before eating the requisite Dole Whip ice cream which was just as gross as I had expected.
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| Not so delicious Dole whip. |
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| Sika made me purell myself after this photo |
Then we drove over to the Banzaii pipeline to watch the surfers on the huge waves for a bit before heading up to the North Shore to eat at Giovanni's shrimp truck (I much prefer the garlic shrimp to the BBQ shrimp but either way my gall bladder suffered hard core) and get some waffles on a stick. Oreo waffles!
Sika had a small mishap in a mud puddle and went back to the car to change her pants while I wandered around the food trucks looking for tea (failure) and admiring the industrial remnants of the site. She evidently had another small mishap setting off my car alarm so I came back to find her pantsless in the hot car...and angry at me for not responding to her frantic text messages that I didn't get until about an hour later.
Then we hopped from beach to beach...
...before checking out Byodo-In, a Buddhist temple in the Valley of the Temples cemetery.
We hit up one more beach but it was absolutely pouring so we took the scenic route back to the hotel. I passed on dinner with Sika's friends because I was still in gastrointestinal distress from the stupid (yet delicious) shrimp and waffles.
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