Hawaii Day 7 - Bishop Museum and Hickam Beach

I thought I was ready to leave Hawaii. I'm not. Before giving a brief synopsis of my last day, I want to take a moment and reiterate how unbelievably grateful I am to Jill and Cliff for sending me to Hawaii and sacrificing their time, energy, sleep (and money!) to give me an unforgettable week. Jill stepped outside of her comfort zone to give me amazing outdoor experiences and Cliff forewent several activities to watch the minions while Jill and I explored. I hit the jackpot in the siblings category. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Hawaii Day 7

Jill, little man, and I spent my last morning in Hawaii at the Bishop Museum, the Hawaii state museum of cultural and natural history. From the website:

Bishop Museum was founded in 1889 by Charles Reed Bishop in honor of his late wife, Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, the last descendant of the royal Kamehameha family. The Museum was established to house the extensive collection of Hawaiian objects and royal family heirlooms of the Princess, and has expanded to include millions of objects, documents and photographs about Hawai‘i and other Pacific island cultures.

Mr. Bishop built the magnificent Polynesian and Hawaiian Halls on the grounds of the original Kamehameha Schools for Boys. The Museum and School shared the Kapālama campus until 1940 when a new larger school complex was opened nearby on Kapālama Heights.

Today, Bishop Museum is the largest museum in the state and the premier natural and cultural history institution in the Pacific, recognized throughout the world for its cultural collections, research projects, consulting services and public educational programs. It also has one of the largest natural history specimen collections in the world. Serving and representing the interests of Native Hawaiians is a primary purpose of the Museum. (Bishop Museum website)

In short, the museum was lovely and rich with interesting artifacts and information that gave a historical and cultural context for Hawaii's development. I loved learning about the nautical history of the islands as well as their spiritual belief system.

The political side of Hawaii's recent history (post-1898) is tragic. Basically, the USA annexed the islands a la the Galactic Empire. I'm proud of being an American and I'm grateful to live in this country, but folks living under the delusion that we are always "the good guys" need to check their facts. Even though Hawaii is a state, Jill has said on numerous occasions that she feels like a visitor/guest despite having lived there for 2 years. She recognizes that it's a privilege for her to be here, but the island does not belong to her.

We watched a short presentation in the planetarium and had lunch at the museum cafe (more poke--yum!). We ended our tour of the museum with a lava demonstration. One of the science educators heated rocks to 2000° F in a furnace and voila! I don't care how old you are--getting to see lava pour out of a cauldron was really cool!

We picked the girls up from school and took everyone out for ice cream. I indulged myself with one last shave ice and tried Jill's halo-halo, a popular Filipino dessert with ice cream, sweet red beans, a few different fruits, crunchy rice, shave ice, coconut gelatin, and the list goes on...

The final stop of my tour of Oahu was Hickam Beach (on Hickam Air Force Base), the closest beach to Jill's house. The weather was perfect and the water was blue and calm--a perfect sendoff. The kids ran around of a little while and we returned home to say our goodbyes.

I'm sitting aboard my flight now. 7 hours, 9 minutes to go. Until the next adventure...cheers!

Hawaii Days 5 & 6 - Manoa Falls, Polynesian Cultural Center

Hawaii Day 5 - Manoa Falls

Jill and I dropped the little ladies off at Montessori school in the morning. Afterwards, she, little man, and I drove into the Manoa Valley so that we could complete what Jill referred to as "the one jungle hike on my trip." Most of the parts of the island that we've seen thus far have been relatively dry; the Manoa Falls hike looked and felt more like what I experienced in Costa Rica. Lots of lush, dense vegetation. Little man did an AWESOME job on the hike. The terrain was rough at points so he rode my shoulder chariot for about half of the trek, but nevertheless, I was impressed with his 3-year-old moxie. And I'm not entirely sure why I wasn't cast in the LOST pilot.

After the hike, we grabbed some Chun Wah Kam noodles and manapua (think fancy Chinese/Hawaiian hot pocket--every culture has 'em) and picked the girls up from school. We stopped by the Navy Exchange for a macaroon/boba tea treat and called it a day.

Hawaii Day 6 - Polynesian Cultural Center, Laie, Kualoa Regional Park

After five days, I think I have progressed from Kid Competent: Level 0 to Kid Competent: Level 1 based on the following evidence:

• I know all the lyrics to the Moana soundtrack
• I'm not grossed out by sticky kid hands
• I can cook eggs-to-order and know individual sandwich preferences
• I can carry all various and sundry odds-and-ends that are collected throughout the day (coloring books, bracelets, miscellaneous lego pieces, crafts, etc.)

We started the morning at the Aloha swap meet (located outside of the Aloha Stadium) so I could pick up a few specific gift items for family and coworkers. I hate, hate, HATE souvenir shopping, which is why I take an obnoxious amount of pictures and blog incessantly when I travel (it's about the memories, man...), but there are a few folks back home who have held the fort down while I'm gone, so what sort of a-hole would I be if I didn't bring back some thank-you presents? With that being said, the swap meet is similar to el mercado artisanal in San Jose--overwhelming, tons of cheap tourist goods (most of which probably come from a factory overseas), but it is THE place to buy Hawaiian shirts (or "aloha shirts" as they are called here). Shirts on shirts on shirts. Okay, here's a test to see if the OBS actually reads my blog. I bought three identical aloha shirts...guess who gets to coordinate their outfits next week?? :) :) :)

We left the swap meet and drove out to Laie to spend the afternoon at the Polynesian Cultural Center. The drive out to Laie was probably the most beautiful drive of the trip. The road hugs the north-eastern coast of the island and the other side is surrounded by mountains. Jill and Cliff are doing an ATV tour in the Laie-area this weekend and apparently they get to drive through the valley where the gallimimuses romp in JP1.

The Polynesian Cultural Center is difficult to describe. I expected a museum. When we drove up, I immediately got Disney vibes. But it's not really contrived like Disney. I'll do my best to summarize:

The PCC was founded by the LDS Church in 1963. The Church's missions were already well-established in many of the Polynesian islands (Tonga, Tahiti, Hawaii, Samoa, Aotearoa (New Zealand, Fiji) and from what I understand, the Church wanted to create a space in which native Pacific Island people could share their culture, history, and art with the rest of the world. I'll spare you my ramblings and you can read about it here. The folks that work and perform in the PCC are all native to one of the aforementioned islands. Many of them are students at BYU-Hawaii (also in Laie) who work and/or volunteer at the PCC in addition to their studies. 

So you get what I mean when I say that the PCC has a bit of an Epcot vibe. It was certainly more touristy than anything else that I've done since arriving, but the PCC's mission and purpose feels more educational than Disney. There aren't any rides. Folks aren't trying to sell you stuff. You can walk around to the different island centers and listen to their oral histories, learn how to weave baskets out of coconut palms, make coconut oil, learn the process of wood carving, etc. The value of the PCC is in the exchanges that take place between the employees and visitors. If someone wants to go in and just have a song and dance show, cool--you could do that, I guess--but I personally feel like I know a little more about Polynesian culture (and specifically Hawaiian culture) now than I did before visiting the PCC.

After the PCC, Jill drove me over to see the LDS Hawaii temple. I'm not active anymore (and haven't been for about a decade) so I couldn't go inside the temple, but it was nice to see the grounds and I had a nice chat with a few missionaries. Fun fact: the female missionaries get to wear awesome muumuus. I love muumuus. I own a muumuu and wear it unrepentantly.

We ended the evening at 7 Brothers, home of delicious burgers that fill you with self-loathing after you eat one. I should have picked up on the fact that 7 Brother is *also* an LDS establishment by 1) the "bar" was a dessert bar-only and 2) it's called 7 Brothers (for non-LDS folks...LDS families tend to be pretty big).

On the way back to Honolulu, Jill let us stop at Kualoa Regional Park so I could snap a few pictures. For those of you who are not Facebook friends with Jill, JRP is where her family took her awesome Jurassic Park-y family portraits.

Hawaii Day 4 - Lanikai Pillbox Hike, Manoa Chocolate, North Shore/Shark's Cove

I got to see the windward side of Oahu today. The drive out to Lanikai was my first "whoa" moment since arriving to Hawaii. I was honestly a little taken aback on my first day on Oahu because it didn't feel or look like the Hawaii that I expected--Honolulu is very crowded and industrial and it looks like just about every other major city in the US. The drive to Kailua gave me the views and terrains that I hoped to see, which I would describe as "Jurassic Park-y." In fact, the family indulged my request to listen to the JP soundtrack on the drive.

Cliff and I left Jill with the minions and we hiked the Lanikai Pillbox Hike. It's a good moderate hike that gives hikers great views of the Mokulua Islands, Kailua and Lanikai beaches, and some expensive-ass houses. Most hikers stop after the first or second pillboxes, but the trail actually extends another few miles to along the Kaiwa Ridge. We didn't want to maroon Jill with three small humans for too long, so we just hiked to the pillboxes and turned around.

Since today is MLK Day, I wanted to do some sort of service while we were out--I threw a few extra garbage bags in my day pack and spent the return hike cleaning up trash with Cliff. I will say that for the most part, the trails and beaches that we've visited in Hawaii have been very clean and the Lanikai Pillbox trail was no exception. However, if you are really committed to picking up trash, you can find trash. Most of what we collected was micro trash, toilet paper...and poop. Dog poop. Human poop. All of the poop.

We met up with Jill and the kids and spent another half hour on the beach before driving to Cinnamon's, a cute little breakfast nook in Kailua known for its guava chiffon and red velvet pancakes. The place was packed and had about a 40-minute wait, so Saint Cliff watched the kids while Jill took me upstairs to Manoa Chocolate, a local bean-to-bar chocolatier. This experience will definitely go down as one of my most favorite impromptu moments in Hawaii. We did a full chocolate tasting with Tammy Butterbaugh, one of the owners (her husband, Dylan, is the founder and primary roaster). Check out their story here. She brought out single-origin chocolates from Hawaii, Vietnam, and Ecuador and also provided us with samples of some of their bars with inclusions (honey, sea salt, cocoa nibs, etc.). And tea. I'm really getting into this afternoon tea thing. After the chocolate tasting, Jill and I split a delicious kalua pig eggs benedict and caught the scraps of the kids' leftover pancakes.

After a short intermission at home, Saint Cliff once again volunteered to watch the minions so that Jill and I could drive out to the North Shore. If you're not particularly familiar with Hawaiian cultural geography, the North Shore is where surfers from all over the world come to visit/live. It's definitely got a different vibe than the rest of Oahu--a little more laid back, a few more "sweet, bruh!" types milling around. We drove to Shark's Cove--a location near the Bonsai Pipeline known for prime snorkeling. The water was a little too cold to interest Jill and me in snorkeling, but we waded into one of the tidal pools and watched the waves break. On our return trip home, Jill and I stopped for Matsumoto's Shave Ice (note the absence of a "d"--in Hawaii, it's "shave ice"), a must-eat while on the North Shore.

We concluded the evening with a delicious mediterranean feast. Needless to say, I am eating really well here.