Hawaii {part 3}

If you read Sarah's blog, most of this will probably be a repeat for you.  If you don't, you should!  Go! NOW!  I'll wait................................... =)  Ok, now that that is out of the way, we can get back to Hawaii!

Thursday was supposed to be the best chance for the Eddie Aikau memorial annual surf competition to be held this year.  Wednesday, they started setting up and everyone in the world Hawaii was tuned into the news to hear if the competition would be "on" or "off".  Turns out "it was big, but it wasn't and Eddie day", the competition was a no go.  Sarah and I decided that the surfers would probably still be surfing since they'd come all the way there and had been out there since before the crack of dawn, so we headed up to check out the action.  I am so glad we did.  After getting laughed at by a huge group of locals for not being able to maneuver my boat rental car, and forking over $10 to park we saw some of the most mesmerizing waves I'll probably ever see in my life! In order for the competition to be a go, they wanted consistent 20 feet waves.  I'm sure the waves were 20 feet, just not very consistent.  These photos do them NO justice and I didn't even think to take a video so it's the best I've got

just watching those guys was exhausting and made us hungry so we set off to Haliewa in search of lunch.  We settled on a Mexican/seafood restaurant and I ended up ordering a Spanish meal!  What can I say, I've had a hankering for paella for months now so when I saw a veggie paella on the menu,I had to have it!  SO YUMMY!

then we did a little window shopping before heading to Matsumoto's for some shave ice

I just couldn't get away from the Japanese!

I went against Sarah's recommendation and didn't get ice cream in the bottom (I was STUFFED from lunch) and mine was still delicious.  Plus, now I HAVE to go back to Hawaii so I can try it with ice cream...right??!!?

Then I was off to pick Jason up from class (yay for him getting out super early and us getting to spend some time together outside of the hotel room!)  I took this photo out of the window and I'm pretty sure it's become my favorite photo from the trip...I have a feeling it's going to be a canvas on my wall in the near future!

We stopped to see the Halona blow hole

 Where we saw this beach and decided we had to stop there before going to dinner

Jason spent some time playing in the surf

 
while I stayed on shore and took some photos of these guys

That night we had dinner at Haliewa Joe's near the Marine Corp base with some of Jason's classmates and I had to have my photo taken in front of this HUGE tree by the restaurant

I still have Pearl Harbor and the Dole pineapple plantation to show you, so there may be 2 more days of Hawaii ;-)