72 hours in Oahu: Day 2

On Saturday morning, M woke up much earlier than me and went downstairs to beg the front desk for some leis. Because the previous afternoon, while we were enjoying the hula dancing performance, I noticed that there were loads of people with similar leis and that's when I realized that we'd missed the lei making demonstration and I was so sad. What a cute sister I have!

We got ready pretty quickly - there isn't much to do to get ready when you're island living - and headed out the door before 7AM.

It was our intent to hike Diamond Head that morning but it was so busy we realized we should've been there much earlier if we wanted to be able to enjoy it so we postponed our hike to Sunday. So instead, we hopped on the highway towards the north shore.

As we were driving through fields and plantations, the lovely Hawaiian ukulele music we were enjoying on the radio paused and we heard the emergency alert about the missile. And soon thereafter, my phone started blowing up with warnings as well. I learned that in a crisis, I don't panic. I was pretty calm and apathetic about the whole thing. Honestly, my mindset was that if a missile was headed towards these tiny islands, we were doomed anyway so I might as well enjoy whatever time I had remaining. So, we just kept going.

WAIMEA VALLEY
By the time we made it to Waimea, we were pretty confused since I had tried googling the missile alert and came up empty handed. Shortly after we parked, we were informed by fellow tourists and the rangers that it was a false alarm. Everyone seemed in good spirits after that.

We paid the $16 admission into the park to walk around and enjoy a bit of curated nature.

WAIMEA BAY BEACH PARK
After the park started to get busy, we just drove across the street to the beach. The waves were out of control; I heard they were almost 9 feet high, which was almost a record.

We just sat in our beach chairs (borrowed from our hotel) watching the waves crashing.

ALI'I BEACH PARK
Just to get a taste of something else, we drove down to Ali'i beach park to watch the surfers.

AJI LIMO
For lunch, we went to a little food truck spot. We experienced a bit of that famous Oahu traffic on our way.

We shared the spicy aji poke and marlin fish tacos. Everything was fresh and delicious.

NORTH SHORE SHRIMP TRUCK
We were still a little peckish so we decided to get a plate of garlic shrimp, which is a famous dish in Oahu. Even though neither of us are huge fans of shrimp, we loved this dish. M especially loved the butter-soaked rice.

WAIOLA SHAVE ICE
On our way back to the hotel, we stopped at Waiola Shave Ice for some more. This time, we got POG (passionfruit, orange, and guava), lychee, and coconut. It was yum.

After that, we went to our hotel to shower and get ready for dinner at my cousin's house. He's been living in Oahu for a few years now (he moved from Korea) and I hadn't seen him for years. His younger daughter is currently enrolled at Cornell and she's enjoyed the past two Thanksgivings at our house so it was pretty fun to see her in Hawaii. We wanted to be polite guests so we brought a half a dozen malasadas from Leonard's with us. We actually bought a seventh donut to enjoy in the car on our way there.

I didn't take any photos of family time (c'mon, it's family time) but it was really enjoyable. We ended up leaving shortly after 9PM so we could get a good night's rest for our last day.

xoxo.