Oahu – Flora, Falls, Food, and Some Hiking

Oahu – Flora, Falls, Food, and Some Hiking

The Chinese saying「一言既出駟馬難追」means once a word is uttered, even a carriage drawn by four fast horses will not be able to catch it. Back in December, Joe, whether wondering out loud or not, asked if I’d wanted to go to Hawaii (if that’s not a rhetorical question then I don’t know what is). The next thing he knew, I was on Google Flights pricing out our trip.

After hunkering down in the SoCal winter for a month, we are finally in the land of 80° weather. Instead of hitting the beach, we went inland. Our first day was spent at Waimea Valley botanical garden on the north shore.

Golden chalice
Goethea
Heliconia bihai
Red ginger
Alpinia
Jungle queen
Pitcher plant
Crown flower
All the unique flowers in the botanical garden.
And this creepy looking shingle vine.
Waimea falls at the end of the botanical garden.
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A north shore trip would be incomplete without hitting up Giovanni‘s shrimp truck.
Lemon butter garlic shrimp – just as good as it had been back in 2005 and 2008.

Day 2 was spent at Pearl Harbor. December 7, 1941 – the day that changed the trajectory of WWII.

My first ever trip to Pearl Harbor was when I was seven, too young to understand the significance of the place. This time around, the visit to Pearl Harbor was much more meaningful, and emotional.

This morning we went for a short hike to Manoa Falls, an easy 1.5-mile out and back trail. For the first 10 minutes of the hike we were caught in a light rain.

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Looks like something out of Jurassic Park. In fact, some scenes from the movie were shot at the Manoa falls trail.
Initial part of the trail paved with crushed rocks made it easy enough for everyone of all levels to hike it.
The waterfall itself was underwhelming.
The side trail at the waterfall, however, was more interesting, and offered more solitude as few people were adventurous enough to check it out
The earlier rain made for a muddy trek.
Huge banyan tree (where is Joe?)
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Hiking down the massive tree root system.
This is where the trail paid off.
A bamboo forest.

Unfortunately, Joe was not having it with the mosquitoes, so I begrudgingly agreed to turn around after only hiking for half a mile. I’m starting to think that I need to find a new hiking partner who’s not so “delicate”.

After a quick lunch of poke and shaved ice back in Waikiki, we went off exploring the town of Kailua.

The best of Waikiki – poke at Maguro Spot and shaved ice at Ice Monster

Kailua was the original impetus for Joe’s Hawaii trip proposal. To be honest, we are concerned about California’s drought situation, and we have been toying with the idea of moving to a place with more water resources. Hawaii was one of those places, until we recently realized that it is also dealing with its own drought problem. So, back to the drawing board.

While in Kailua, we did a tiny bit of hiking on the Lanikai Pillbox trail.
A view of Lanikai beach at the top.
A view of Kailua on the flip side.

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