taking in all the hawaii we can

thanks to that same time difference that knocked us out early the night before, our first full day in hawaii got off to an early start.  by 7am, the hub was already up and out of the room, enjoying some coffee and taking care of some work emails and phone calls while standing on the beach.  it was wonderfully uncrowded and quiet at that hour.

he'd managed to secure a cabana for us to use that day, even though the surfrider only has four of them available.  FOUR.  crazy.

with grumbly empty bellies, we decided to hop in the jeep and head out for some food.  not to mention, it started raining...which surprisingly turned out to be the only rainy day of our trip.

going off of an article from eater.com, the hub had created a list of restaurants in the area that he thought we would enjoy.  we'd reviewed them before we left and narrowed it down to about 12 spots, and we were excited to start checking them off.  first up, jack's restaurant for delicious hawaiian-style breakfast:

eater had raved about the special biscuits with honey butter, and the praise was definitely well-deserved.  we ordered them split and grilled as suggested, and they were fluffy and buttery and delicious:

their pancakes earned the girls' seal of approval - with eggs and grilled spam, of course.

the hub opted for the portuguese sausage 2-egg combo:



and i'd gone with a typical hawaiian breakfast - eggs, spam, rice.  so good.

after we'd stuffed ourselves silly, we piled back into the jeep to do a little sightseeing.  we spotted this mountain near hanauma bay, and it was fun to torture the bean with the idea of getting up early the next day to climb it like so many others were doing:

even after we told her we were kidding, she stayed in the jeep just to make sure we didn't drag her up right then and there.

we stopped here for a few seconds just to take in the gorgeous view:

and came across one of the three blowholes in the world:

 it was so pretty here.

next, we drove up to the pali lookout.

there were lots of chickens and roosters roaming around.

after all that driving around, we decided to hit up another spot on our list - waiola shave ice.  it's been around for 30 or so years and while we're pretty big fans of matsumoto's on the north shore, i think my loyalty has shifted to this place.  it's a no-nonsense, no-frills kind of place where the employees bark at you through the window and you kind of feel like a little kid being berated for doing something wrong, but then they hand you a cup of shave ice that's so finely ground, it melts as soon as you can shovel it into your mouth.  there's snow cones, there's shave ice, and then there's waiola's.

i know this doesn't look like much, but it's so good - refreshing and sweet, with ice cream on the bottom.

back at the hotel, we finally headed out to the beach to hang out in our cabana.

the bean waited just long enough for me to douse her in some sunscreen before grabbing her floatie and heading out to ride the waves.  we joined her for a while before coming back in to order some grub from the beach bar.

i don't even know how long she was out there, but when she finally decided to come in and have some lunch she got nice and comfy and passed out cold for a good hour.

lazy days on the beach in waikiki...does it get any better than that?
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