The Farm of Hale: First Full Day in Hawaii

Yesterday (Thursday) was our first full day in Hawaii. As I said previously, we are staying with our friends Justin and Heather (for free!!!!!!). It has been really nice to see them and hang out again. We decided that while they are at work during the week, we would do touristy stuff that they have done before or don't care about.

So, the first thing we did this morning was go hike Diamond Head Crater. This is an old volcano crater right in the city. It is crazy to look out over the city and see a big crater. Inside the crater is like a whole different climate. It is hot, arid, and not windy. It makes me think I am in Africa or something. The climb up to the top is a little strenuous. At the top, you can look out over the city and ocean. There are also some old bunkers at the top from the war. We went early which we are glad we did because it started getting hot when we were leaving and it started getting super busy with tons of tourists as we were leaving.

After the crater, we drove around a little and then went to a Hawaiian shirt place called Bailey's. It has the largest collection of Hawaiian shirts in the world I think, 15,000. They even have ones worn by famous people in movies that are worth thousands of dollars. I found a couple that I liked and would actually wear but they were kind of expensive ($69-$99) so I passed on buying one.

Next we had lunch at the Rainbow Drive-In. Let me pause here to tell you that a big part of our vacations is food. We are especially excited about the food here because it is more unique here. We read lots of reviews and guidebooks to find local places and authentic Hawaiian places. Rainbow Drive-In is just a order your food at the window place. They have been around a long time and serve cheap authentic Hawaiian lunch stuff. We both had the Loco Moco which is a common Hawaiian dish. It is rice with a hamburger patty on top, a fried egg on top of that, covered in gravy. It was really good.

After lunch we went and toured the Iolani Palace. This was the home of the Hawaiian royalty in the 1800's. It was very pretty, with lots of neat artifacts.

After all of that we came home to take a nap. Then Justin took us on a drive up on a mountain (Tantalus) that overlooks Honolulu. It was an awesome view and was in some dense forest. It was really beautiful. We then went to the Punchbowl, a smaller crater in Honolulu, where the National Cemetery of the Pacific is located. The grounds of the cemetery were really nice. They had some war memorials and extensive displays of battles in the Pacific.

For dinner, we all went out to eat at Ono Hawaiian Foods. We originally saw this on Anthony Bordain's No Reservations but also every guidebook and website we read said it was the best authentic Hawaiian restaurant. It was a hole in the wall kind of place but the food was amazing. It has won the local Best Authentic Hawaiian food award for the past like 10 years. We had kalua pig, laulau (pork wrapped and cooked in taro leaves), rice, lomi salmon (a tomato salad dish), a beef jerky type thing, poi (taro root paste), and haupia (a coconut custard type dish). It was all really good (except for the poi). It was a fun experience, the waiter was really nice to us and told us what things were and suggested what we should order. He even gave us an extra serving of haupia to take home (this was Josh's favorite).

Here are a few pictures, there are more on our Picasa site.
Here is the view from Justin and Heather's apartment. Can you see the ocean?