Picking off from second day we were in Hawaii. It seems it had something to do with these:

I’ll backtrack a little first. Hehehe.

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The first stop we made the next morning was to the car rental. We didn’t want to take The Bus (the transit system in Oahu is literally called ‘The Bus’) all the way up to North Shore, so the only way to get there was by car. After getting settled into our Chevrolet Corvette Aevo, we drove off towards the Dole Plantation.

[Side note: I should mention that driving in Hawaii is a little scary. I wasn’t so much worried about the one-way streets in Waikiki as I was the Interstate. First, I had no idea how fast the speed limit was, since everything was in miles. (I know I just multiple by 1.5, but I can’t multitask while driving). Two, because Hawaii has lots of hills and slopes, there were stretches on the Interstate which were really hard to drive on (think rollercoaster). I was probably a nuisance to all the drivers behind me because I had my foot on the brake pedal the entire time!]

We made it to the Dole Plantation about half an hour after it had opened. It was pretty quiet when we got there, so we decided take advantage of the empty Pineapple Express train for a tour of the plantation. The train was quite fun and we saw fields of pineapples throughout the ride. For some reason I always thought pineapples grew on trees. Well…they don’t! There were lots of other fruits and vegetables grown in the fields as well. There was also a reservoir towards the end of the tracks before it doubled-back to the station.

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The next thing we did was explore the gardens. There were many varieties of flowers inside, including an entire hibiscus garden. They also had fruits like mango, papaya and bananas growing inside the garden. Later on we decided to skip the pineapple maze (I”ve gotten lost in my share of mazes), and headed over to the gift shop. Nothing like sampling fresh pineapple to end the trip! We also had a pineapple float – it came in a commemorative pineapple cup! Heehee.

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Next stop on our list was Haleiwa. Haleiwa is a town famous for its surfing competitions during the winter. Since it was the summer, I didn’t really have any spots marked down that I wanted to see. However, our first order of business was to get lunch!

Afterwards we decided to abandon the car and head out on the streets by foot. There aren’t many shops in the area and most were scattered far from each other. I think I can categorize the shops by two kinds – one, surfing equipment stores; and two, shave ice stores. Since I wasn’t going surfing, needless to say I was paying more attention to the second kind. =P

There was one place my travel guide had recommended for shave ice – Matsumoto’s! (Not that Matsumoto.)

The line up at Matsumoto’s was a little insane. It seemed like it was the spot where all the tourists decided to converge upon. There were other shave ice stores on the same block like Aoki’s, but those only had a handful of customers. Matsumoto’s was definitely hopping.

I have to insert my little spiel on shave ice in Hawaii. Shave ice is nothing like the slushies from the local convenience stores. Aside from the usual rainbow flavours (strawberry, lemon & pineapple), they also have outrageous ones like pina colada, honeydew, guava & bubble gum. I’m used to seeing millions of flavours for ice cream, but this was the first time I”ve seen it for flavoured syrup!

Shave ice at Matsumoto’s was yummy. I ended up with a green tea, green apple, lychee flavoured shave ice with azuki at the bottom. Luckily I bought a plastic holder because it would have been really messy dealing with the leaks from the paper cups they served it on! Aside from the shave ice, I must say Matsumoto’s is very market saavy. They also sold a lot of neat graphic tees and a variety of souvenirs. I got a t-shirt that says “the freshest snow in the world”. ^_^

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That was about the end of our trip to Haleiwa. We snapped a few shots from the beach before leaving. I didn”t want to pay extra for overnight hotel parking, so we drove back to Waikiki and did a quick grocery run before returning the car. Then we took The Bus to the Ala Moana Center, which is the largest shopping mall in Hawaii. I think it was my first time at an open-air shopping mall, which was really an eye-opener. Of course, I couldn’t actually afford anything inside the mall (Gucci, Prada, LV, etc.) but we made use of the food court for dinner so it turned out to be a nice, relaxing evening.