Hawaii Living

This summer we have been trying to get out a little more and seeing and doing what the island has to offer. During the semesters, this seems hardly possible. But that past few months we get a week every month where we can only work part-time. So we try to take advantage of the extra time to play tourist a little bit.

One of the first places we visited was Waimea Falls. Its a beautiful walk (not really a hike) through a paved path of living plants from around the world. A living plant museum of sorts. Many of the plants are endangered but native to Hawaii, and there are many exotic plants from all over the world, like I said. The most memorable plant to me was the Mindanao Eucalyptus. Not only because it originates from the Philippines, where I served my mission, but because its bark peels off to reveal various colors underneath. It looks as though someone dumped a bunch of colors of paint from the top of the tree and they mixed beautifully as they ran down. I never saw these on my mission by the way. Here is what it looks like:

And here is some other pics of David and I on our "hike" to falls, and then at the falls themselves. Small falls, yet nice. I took a little dip, even though they were closed. We then caught a ride back with the lifeguards in their truck haha. They gave us little roses folded from leaves.

After our walk at Waimea Falls, we drove across the street to take a dip at my fave beach on the island, Waimea Bay. It started to pour on us, so we didn't stay long but we did manage to take this awesome pic of a rainbow and there is David in the background.

Our next adventure took us to the Macademia Nut Farm. On our way we like to sing and take pictures like this of ourselves.

The Mac farm was funner than expected....there was a little polynesian demonstration that was similar to the Samoan village at the Polynesian Culteral Center, complete with coconut sampling and fire made from the husks. We then boarded a little ghetto bus that took us around the farm, viewing areas that are famous scenes used in many films. There was even a little boat ride. The best part was sampling the fruit. The driver even chopped some sugar cane for us, and I chewed on that for a while, surprised how really sweet it was. The REALLY best part was the macademia nut sampling. If I would have known they had free sampling I would have dropped in there a way long time ago. Here are some pics of us sampling some of the fruit.

One afternoon we took ourselves around the bend to Kuhuku to take a little gander at the Turtle Bay Resort. Its a nice place to imagine yourselves staying, and to take a few pics, as follows.

Another place we have always heard about but never took time to visit was Temple Valley. I had no idea what was there. I was surprised to find a beautiful Buddhist temple hidden in the hills of the valley. It is interesting to note that it was built using no nails!

Before you enter the temple, you are supposed to ring this bell for good luck.

One day we found ourselves exploring the east coast of the island, starting from Kailua and through Makapu'u Point, Haunama Bay, and then to town. Here are some awesome pics we took,

And us in the car again...