Yes, that's what seasoned "Hawaiian-ers" call it: The Rock. And I can see why; it's just a rock, albeit a very beautiful one, in the middle of the ocean. It is so gorgeous there, of course, the pictures don't do it justice. Unfortunately, my picture taking was cut extremely short due to my lack of memory and overall short-sightedness (it's a long story). Anyway, this is what I have and I hope to be able to go back (soon) and get some more.
The first full day I was there, we drove about half-way around the perimeter of the island. We were staying in Ewa Beach (pronounced Eva, not like the goddess in Avatar) which is on the south side of the island, and we wanted to go visit Grandma Unga, who lives on the North side (I think). Of course, we had to stop in Haleiwa to get some shave ice from the famous Matsumoto's. Seriously, the BEST stuff I've ever had. I don't know if I'll be able to even eat the stuff here, hahaha.
Side note: that flower is real; they look exactly the same in foam, which is, I'm sure, why they sell them that way. :)
Haleiwa is absolutely gorgeous and pretty much the quintessential Hawaiian town. So, of course, it was packed with tourists, hahaha.
I felt somewhat legitimized because I was with a native, but still couldn't do anything about my blonde hair or white skin. Though I never felt more out of place than when we were at the little hole-in-the-wall Korean BBQ place right after I got off the plane. We were eating with a couple of Thomas's brothers, and his nieces and nephew; the waitress served our food and gave everyone chop-sticks.... except me.... I got a fork. I immediately started laughing, as did everyone else, but they made me eat with the fork, anyway. For the rest of the trip, Thomas made a joke out of pointing out all the white people that we saw.
Much of the trip was spent at the beach, although we never did stay long enough for me to need more than one application of sunscreen. And, I'm proud to report, I only got burned a little bit, on my back, on the last day at the beach. Good for me!
The waves were HUGE!!! So big, that somedays, they wouldn't even let me in the water. Which I was ok with; I had no interest in being swept away from this beautiful island. The person in the picture isn't anyone I know, but I had to get a perspective on the wave. This wasn't even one of the bigger ones.
Thomas spent most of the time in the water. He bought a body board as a Christmas gift to himself, so he had to break it in. Don't worry, he's not flipping me off; he's flashing the shaka. Duh.
On one of the last days there, we took the time to again drive all the way around the island. It took us about 4 hours, but that was because we hit the evening traffic coming out of Honolulu (it's seriously only that big). On the way, though, we saw beautiful beaches, mountains, rock formations, flowers, cities, towns, everything. This picture was taken at the top of a pass moving from the east side of the island down to the south.
I love the whole look of O'ahu, and I love that I got to see it with someone who knows the island, someone who could tell me why an entire town was built on stilts (it's for when there are tsunamis) and who knew where the 7-11's were (for ibuprofen) and who could drive us to the north shore without a GPS (ok, not that hard, there's only 1 real road) and point to all the swells and give them names (which is quite a feat). It was truly an amazing experience and I'm so happy that I got to go. It's totally worth being broke!
