Day 8: Rounding Oahu (and my belly)

We get up kinda late today and pack up to explore the rest of Oahu. The plan today is to visit the northern beaches of Oahu, as can be seen in this map in blue:

Day 8 Route

Before that, we visited a place called Diamond Head Market that sells a bunch of tasty stuff and got some of their famous lemon crunch cake (for breakfast!):

Lemon Crunch Cake… for breakfast!?

We started to drive north and on the way, we stopped by the Dole Plantation:

Dole Plantation

I’m not actually sure if they still actually run a plantation here anymore, I’m fairly convinced that they converted most of the land into tourist attractions such as these:

Pineapple Attractions

Apparently the Pineapple Garden Maze here is the “largest pineapple maze in the world” (and as my sister pointed out, probably the only one).

If you go inside the main building, it’s a whole lot of shops selling pineapple and Hawaii-related goods:

Shops at Dole Plantation

This place seemed to have a bunch of fun gimmicks to get people to buy things. The jewelry store gave out small keys to the women and they could use it to open a chest in the counter that had… something to buy, I’m guessing. The store also had a food section selling pineapple juice, pineapple soft-serve, and other snacks.

Afterwards, we headed to the northern beaches in Oahu. We stopped by a small beach called Laniakea Beach which is popular with sea turtles for basking:

Laniakea Beach

There are a number of sea turtles that commonly stop by this beach to bask in the sun. Apparently, they have names and epithets and bios and everything, like Brutus aka Nalukai the “one who has endured the storms of life” here:

Brutus. Male. Likes long walks on the beach.

There’s also Kuhina aka “the ambassador”:

Kuhina. Male. Also likes long walks on the beach.

Kuhina 2: Revengence

This beach also has two volunteers who appear to maintain the federal and state mandated distance from the turtles using rope:

Turtle Volunteers

Kids respecting the turtle-viewing distance

There’s also inexplicably this toy just sitting there right on the beach:

Cowabunga!

Next on our tour of Oahu’s northern beaches, we stopped by a beach which is apparently very popular with surfers called the “Pipeline”.

Pipeline Beach

The waves there are crazy tall! It’s hard to convey in pictures, but for whatever reason this spot has some incredibly huge waves when compared to the other beaches. Apparently this spot is pretty dangerous because of that, giving rise to some awesome warning signs:

Warning; Chance of Death.

So, because it’s dangerous, you don’t really have a bunch of people playing in the water like in most of the beaches. Instead, everybody except for a few brave surfers are kind of just sitting or standing around watching the giant waves (and brave surfers):

Wave-watchers @ Pipe

It’s pretty mesmerizing, honestly. We all spent maybe a good hour or so just sitting there watching these huge waves and surfers attempting to ride them:

It’s hard to get pictures of surfers

A few miles away is Sunset Beach, which I think is also a beach famous for surfing. Though, the waves here also seemed dangerous so no surfers were there. Instead, like in the Pipeline, there were a whole bunch of tourists watching the waves and taking pictures:

Sunset Beach

If you keep going in this direction, there are a whole bunch of food trucks/stalls selling shrimp. Supposedly, this started with Giovanni’s Shrimp so we headed there to try it out. Apparently, the name means a lot because when we got there, there was a huge line to order from their small shrimp food truck:

Ridiculous line at Giovanni’s

I waited about 30min and finally got to the window to place my order. The menu’s pretty sparse: they have 3 different shrimp dishes and a garlic hot dog to choose from:

Giovanni’s

I made my order and then waited another 30min for my food to be finished (my number was 27 and when I ordered, they more or less just rolled over back to 1).

Though the wait was hella long, my shrimp scampi was amazingly buttery and garlicky:

Shrimp Scampi

I’m pretty sure it was really bad for me, but there was something sinfully delicious about sauteed shrimp that’s been drowned in garlic and butter and lemon.

We kept driving and eventually made our way to our lodging for the night: a home in Kailua with a converted apartment that we’re renting out for 3 nights.

Apparently in Kailua on Thursday nights there’s a market that’s partially in a parking garage near their Whole Food’s that sells a bunch of food.

Thursday Night Market in Kailua

There’s live music (a middle schoolish girl’s rock band? kinda cute) and a whole bunch of stalls selling meals, produce, ice cream, drinks, etc.

I immediately got a sata andagi (Okinawan donut) that was right at the entrance, mostly because it was in Azumanga Daioh. I didn’t take a picture, so this will have to do:

Sata Andagi!

My sister got a seared ahi steak plate (that I had a part of) that was delicious:

Seared Ahi Steak

One of the stalls had a bunch of soul food dishes that all looked kinda amazing, like chicken and waffles, jambalaya, and grits:

Soul.

I ended up getting a Loco Moco from him that substituted the rice with bacon mac and cheese.

Soulful Loco Moco

It was delicious, but super heavy. I might be good on Loco Moco for the rest of this trip now.

Overall, this day was… delicious. Also got to see a bunch of beaches with huge waves and turtles. Honestly, I’m all that sure what we’re doing tomorrow. We’ll see, I guess.