Let’s not talk about how behind I am in blogging my travels. I was in Switzerland a year ago, and still haven’t shared the pictures from it! However, I’m trying to change my ways, so here are our images from traveling in Hawaii!
Chris and I had SO much fun in Hawaii in December. We went to Oahu, and had the most wonderful time staying on Waikiki beach! There were so much charming restaurants, the beach was simply stunning, and it was so easy to get around the entire island with the public transit system.
We stayed at an Airbnb a short walk away from the beach. It was so beautiful walking around and enjoying the palm trees and fun resort views!
We hiked Diamond head at sunrise, and came across this beautiful lighthouse! I can’t image how beautiful it must be living there, surrounded by the ocean and lush greenery. It feels like paradise.
One thing that surprised me about Hawaii is that there are rainbows every single day!
It was sooo wonderful spending the entire week in our swimsuits and comfy clothes. Complete relaxation!
We stopped by the famous Leonard’s Bakery for some delicious malasadas! These things are heavenly! Their warm and soft and sweet and delicious, fresh out of the oven. My favorite flavor was guava! It was fun seeing this local bakery. It opened in the 50’s, and still has the small town homey feel!
Another favorite food I tried was açaà bowls. They are so fresh, and so healthy! It felt wonderful to eat such fresh produce.
We also visited the Dole Plantation where the pineapples are grown. We tried their famous pineapple ice cream, and it was delicious! This is a great place to bring your family!
My favorite highlight from the entire trip was snorkeling. We snorkeled everywhere we went! Shark’s Cove, Hanauma Bay, Waikiki Beach, etc. Everywhere you snorkeled, there were so many beautiful fish to find and see. They weren’t very scared of humans, so you could get pretty close to see them! Hanauma Bay was especially stunning!
It was also amazing to see the North Shore and the Banzai Pipeline. This is where the Rip Curl Pipeline Masters (one of the biggest surfing competitions in the world) is held. We missed seeing the competition by one day, but it was still so fun to see the beach where it happens!
We saw sea turtles swimming right by these rocks while we were strolling on the North Shore. So incredible!
We also had the opportunity to see Pearl Harbor. This was a very sacred and beautiful place, and I’m so glad we could visit.
We also decided to go in a shark tank! This was SO much fun!
We went with a small local company to go out on the boat. We had two guides, who were basically local fishermen. It was amazing to see how well they knew the wildlife! They could recognize a fish just by looking at it through the water. We saw a mahi-mahi fish that followed our boat for a while!
We went out a few miles into the ocean, and stopped to do the shark cage. We climbed down in the water, and got to see lots of sharks swimming around! Here’s a video of us under the water!
These sharks were Galapagos sharks. They aren’t very dangerous, and usually follow fishing boats to eat the leftover unwanted fish that are tossed out of the water. We actually didn’t even have to put chum in the water, because the noise of the boat drew them! They know that they’ll usually get food if they follow the sound of the boat.
It was amazing seeing them in real life, close enough to touch if we wanted to (I definitely did not, and strongly discourage doing so).
We also went to the Polynesian Cultural Center, which was also an amazing experience! It felt similar to Disneyland, with delicious food and fun exhibits and performances. They were based around all the Pacific Island cultures, which were fascinating to learn about! We saw the evening show which was INCREDIBLE and I highly recommend seeing it! They had highly talented fire dancers perform, with pretty good food.
The chocolates were also delicious – the Hawaiian chocolates with macadamia nuts were SO good.
Overall, I am completely in love with Hawaii! It was so relaxing and slow paced, which was such a nice break from everything going on with school and work.
