Summer Catch-Up: Hawaii Part 2

On Friday, we got up and took a bus to the Polynesian Cultural Center. The PCC was SO COOL! It's kind of a theme park of Polynesian Culture. There's a river running through the center of the park, and villages representing different islands: Samoa, New Zealand, Fiji, Hawaii, and others. They had huts set up like they would in those countries, and they had demonstrations and shows in each village throughout the day. We walked around, trying to get as many of the demonstrations as we could. We saw how they harvest coconuts and use all the parts for different things, we saw how they make coconut oil, we watched a Tahitian wedding ceremony, we took a canoe ride down the river, and we heard lots of singing and chanting. It was so cool!

They had a cool fun show on the river, where all the players and dancers were on boats and canoes rowing down the little river, and in the early evening, there was a luau we went to, where they served a buffet dinner and had another show. When our dinner was over, basically all the villages shut down and the shows were done, but we walked around and looked at things, and we went back to the gift shops to find presents for our babies.

At the very end of the day, they had a big show, called Ha, the Breath of Life. We all gathered into a big auditorium and watched this show, the story of a family and the growing up of a boy, where different scenes were represented by the different island nations. It was incredible! Definitely a highlight of our trip!

Saturday, we went on a hike up to Diamond Head, which is a big crater on the south edge of the island. We took a bus to get there, and it dropped us off right next to a community college. It being Saturday, there was a huge farmer's market going that morning, so we decided to walk around and look at things before going on our hike. It was really neat! There were so many booths, selling all kinds of prepared food, produce and flowers, honey, hygiene products, smoothies and coffees and so many other things. There were a ton of people. And so much of the food looked so good and was so tempting. We decided to try a lemonade and a garlic shrimp bake (which was an oblong roll with garlic shrimp baked on the inside. It was pretty good.

After that, we walked up to the beginning of the hike. The hike was only a few miles round trip, and kind of dry and dead on the way up to the cliff edge. But when we got to the top, the view was incredible! It was right on the edge of the island, so we could see the beautiful beaches and the ocean, we saw all of Waikiki and Honolulu, the amazing mountains, and we could even see the hazy outline of some of the other Hawaiian islands. It was a fun little hike (though really crowded, there were so many people hiking Diamond Head that day), and so beautiful.

After our hike, we took a bus back to our hotel to eat lunch and get ready for snorkeling. We took a bus out to Hanauma Bay. Daniel had read that it was one of the good spots for snorkeling. And it was pretty cool. Our previous attempts at snorkeling in Hawaii left much to be desired, and Daniel was pretty disappointed. I was too. It didn't compare with snorkeling in Mexico. But Hanauma Bay was pretty good. The beach was amazing, so beautiful, and the water was so blue and clear. We went out with our gear and saw some pretty amazing fish! It was awesome!

We went swimming that evening before dinner, when we finally got back to Waikiki (it took us an hour and a half, the bus was so crowded we had to stand most of the ride back, and it was raining, yikes) down at the beach. The waves were so good, we had a lot of fun swimming in them. The water in Hawaii was wonderful, so warm and clear. It was amazing, so long as you didn't get any in your mouth. Ugh. We went out to dinner when we finally got back to Waikiki, and just walked around and hung out.

We went to church in Honolulu on Sunday. We took the bus to the closest chapel, which was only a few miles away. The ward there meets in this huge elaborate chapel; it almost looks like a temple. They call it the Hawaiian Tabernacle, and it was beautiful. Funnily enough, Brother Lafferty was sitting right there, in the chapel, by himself. We sat in the row behind him and chatted with him. He builds movie sets, so he travels all over the place for months at a time, and he just happened to be there right when we were. He sat with us for the rest of the meetings, and showed us around the building a bit. And then, we took a bus to the Snow Factory to get some snow, and he came along with us. I think he was probably happy for the company and we had fun seeing him too. The 'snow' was very interesting, but good!

For the rest of our Sunday, we mainly just walked along the beach in Waikiki, took a whole bunch of pictures (including our sunset picture), got one last dinner of garlic shrimp, and headed back to our hotel. On our way back to our hotel, we stopped and got a coconut banana smoothie from one of the food trucks right next to our hotel for a dessert, and it was SO GOOD! We both were shocked and dismayed that we hadn't discovered it before and been having one every single day for our whole trip! It was amazing. I should try to recreated it. It was just banana, coconut milk, and some kind of sweetener, I think. But, man! It was good.

We were due to fly home the next day, Monday, so we got up and packed a little bit, and then went to the beach for a swim in the ocean one more time before heading back, finishing packing, eating and making it down to the lobby to catch our shuttle. We also got another Coconut Banana Smoothie before leaving. We had to.

Our trip home was uneventful. We got to the airport with plenty of time to spare, waited for our plane, boarded and flew. We watched a couple of Marvel movies together while we flew, which made the flight kind of fun.