The North Shore

Today we drove up to the North Shore, an area renowned for its legendary beaches. On the drive up, we passed by Dole Plantation and its 11,500 acres of pineapple fields- this can grow as many as 350 million plants! It looked very different from the rice, cotton and corn fields of southern Arkansas, but still beautiful. You can stop and take a tour, but Spence and I deferred when we saw the huge number of tour buses and cars in the parking lot.

Past residents have supplied our apartment well, so we borrowed snorkeling euipment and stopped in Waimea at Shark's Cove. This small spot is reportedly one of the best places to snorkel on the island. As you can see below- it is very rocky, but this is what attracts all of the beautiful fish to congregate in this area.

I am also including a few pics of just a few of the fish we saw from what I can identify in a book here. No, I did not take these pics- they are courtesy of the internet. I loved the snorkeling, Spence is not as big of a fan- he says it freaks him out a bit.

After getting a workout snorkeling, we were craving some beach time. We headed furthernorth to Turtle Bay Resort. Some of you may recognize this name from "Forgetting Sarah Marshall"- I assure you we spent a good deal of time quoting different scenes as we chilled on the sand.

For dinner, we found the well-known Giovanni's Aloha Shrimp Wagon in Kahuku. I think that the economy of Kahuku must rely on shrimp trucks and shacks. There are 3 choices at Giovanni's. I chose Shrimp Scampi- delicious with a huge amount of freshly sauteed garlic (my fave!). Spence as always adventurously chose the Hot n' Spicy Shrimp. There were some choice words used in describing his dish, and I'm pretty sure it burned the entire way through his GI tract. You'll have to inquire with him about his exact thoughts- this is a PG blog.

Seriously- look at all of those red pepper flakes!!

And, immediately he needed a fruit smoothie in order to cool off.

We ended our night relaxing in the apartment watching another beautiful sunset. Another fun filled, yet relaxing day....

Aloha!

HAWAII

After a full day of travel, Spence and I made it safely to Honolulu. We just keep telling each other- "I can't believe we are here for a month!"

Day 1 started with Spence going to Queen's Hospital to get oriented to the Emergency Room. Then, we drove out to Pier 38 to a restaurant called Nico's. It's located on the pier next to all of the fresh fish brought in daily. The head chef walks over at 0500 every day to pick out his daily supply, and we had some delicious ahi tuna plates for lunch- freshest fish I've ever eaten!

We then walked around Ala Moana Park and watched a ton of surfers taking advantage of some great waves. The water here is just beautiful, and it's amazing to look out and realize how far away we are from the nearest land!

We took a gorgeous scenic drive along Tantalus Drive and Round Top. It's a 10 mile long trek through a stunning preserved forest that gives some spectacular views from ~1600 ft. Below are some pictures from the drive- unfortunately, they don't come close to showing what we saw in person.

Our apartment overlooks the Ala Wai Yacht Harbor on Waikiki (pic below). We spent the remainder of the day cleaning, unpacking, and going to Wal-Mart to stock up on supplies for the month. I can't think of what I enjoyed more- watching Spence grocery shop for the first time in years (he was in shock of how quickly things add up), watching him help clean the apartment (he even mopped!!), or watching him cook his specialty, spaghetti, for dinner. Way to go Spence- I'm super impressed!