haleiwa, shark's cove

Meet our instructor, Hank-probably. No, seriously, this is not a joke, he truly was The Man orienting us. Get ready. 

Thanks, Hank, or whatever your name was. 

(P.S. His beard was real. I asked.)

North Shore, baby.

windswept has always been a favorite word. now i know why.

we waited in THIS line...

for THIS, the famed Matusmoto shaved ice.

It was mosdef all it was talked up to be!

Okay, so I realize I post a lot of photos with food. I don't know why that is. I do, however, know that this--coconut fried ice cream--was to DIE for! Has anyone ever had such Thai delight before?

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We spent our day today at Shark's Cove. What perfection for both snorkel- and scuba-ers, what with the mild waves, the warm depths, and the hoards of fish schools. Easily. Just normal Perfect stuff, like always.

t.m.a.i., right?

(t.d.f., right? ha)

And again, food. This is another widely-acclaimed dish Mallos and I were told we must sample whilst on Oahu: the Açai Bowl: all of my favorite essen components--smoothie, granola, fresh fruit. Give it a whirl (pun), I'm sure it wouldn't be terribly difficult to recreate. Just toss some açai dream in that frozen delight. For sure.

tight like unto a dish

Thank you to a young kyle grey for that.

Friday night i stole my own egg-mattress off my own bed, dragged it out to my own lawn chair on our patio, and set up my own camp for the night. 

I've been wanting to sleep out for... ever since I got here. I had my pillow, sheets, and blanket perfectly and precisely positioned, and I wrapped them closely around my curvature as my brain whizzed in fear about those gigantic cockroaches looming near, awaiting fresh loitering ground. But I was tightly taco-wrapped, and slept mostly roach free (i hope). It was a perfect night for this; a slight breeze, no clouds, shooting stars, an obvious milky way, and an early sunrise. I'm only telling you this because it was one of my highlights thus far. Apart from my ever-present roach trepidation, it was perfect. The waves lulled me to sleep and I wanted to take a picture for my much-neglected blog; but, alas, my securely wound body and tired brain relented. Ha. That explains this description. 

It's been a perfect weekend. I overuse the word perfect, but any and all other seemingly fitting words avail me; we'll stick with Perfect, capital P. For Mal's Twentieth and Jessica's GOLDEN Twenty-second birthdays, we treated ourselves to a weekend getaway to Waikiki. We beached, we ate, we slept, we laughed, we loved every moment of it! It ended nearly better than it began as Danielle (a sweet semi-roomy) had space in her car,  so we got a ride home--which is such a TREAT! Bussing takes forrrrrrrever here. Let's put it this way--what was a 2.5 hour bus ride from Laie to Waikiki was 53 minutes in the reverse direction. And it was a beeeeautiful route, so I took plenty of pictures for your enjoyment (and mine; I busied myself the entire Perfect car ride with different shots of normal Perfect beaches along this normal Kamehameha highway in normal Perfect Oahu. The habitual things, activities, and scenery here sometimes boggle my brain).

Waikiki!

the gang

we had a fancy shmancy birthday dinner at cheesecake factory, oh joy. 

(And ps--random. I brought my sheets because I thought i'd be sleeping on the floor; when I found out a bed would be available for me, I didn't want to have brought my sheets for nothing...so fashioned them into a dress. Ha ha ha.)

ahhhhh let the breeze-filled, windows-rolled-down CAR ride back home begin. :) best day.

And now, here are the shots collected from our journey back. Isn't the standard scenery here ridiculous?

way out yonder--china man's hat

as promised

This is it kristen: my panorama from The Point as we chatted last Sabbath--stunning, no?

...and as the conversation furthered i wound up in my backyard:

featuring:

--fire dancing world championship

--polynesian cultural center (pcc) day

--swap meet:

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we managed to get some freeeee tickets to the world fire dancing competition; w-o-w.

see the video below for a taste of this...sport? what is fire dancing classified as?

amazing?

the champ...

after the championship we explored that marvelous stage-like performance arena. magical.

(stage? its ginormous and enshrouded by shrubbery!)

just a few splices of the night show...

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ward day at the pcc= enrichment and joy.

canoe show: dancing on moving boats? what a genius cultural experience for all.

man, i loved this.

village presentations and what not

"That was a real fire, this is a real leg, and I am in real pain."

shaving coconuts like it aint no thang

lo siento: our hand-crafted leaf fish are kind of hard to see.

a gorgeous tahitian exhibiting pure talent

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buses, suns, odd faces

fresh pineapple with an unknown hawaiian spice that everyone raves about.

it was tasty but, ow, it hurt my tongue after a time.

so we went to the swap meet in honolulu and look at the street to turn on!

i felt reminiscent of that one time i was in slovenia looking at

those mountains and thinking only one word:

UTAH.

here we are again, same idea.

no place like home!

our weekly sunday meal, except this time we moved out to the patio for the ocean vista. why didn't we think of that weeks ago?

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Above are videos from the PCC.

The first is from the new zealand village; this was one of my favorites!

The second is from a fire dancing section of the night show. Hilarious.

Both of the above were a part of the night show--Tahiti section, I believe. Serious talent here.

Segments from the world championship fire dancing competition. BAM! How classy is this guy?