Entries from June 22nd, 2009

Waimea Valley

June 24th, 2009 · 5 Comments

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Waimea Valley, Haleiwa, HI

Remember when I said that the Waimea River empties into Waimea Bay and if you follow the rive up you get to Waimea Valley? Well, there’s a park there called.. ahem.. wait for it…. Waimea Valley. Its mission is to “preserve and perpetuate the human, cultural and natural resources of Waimea for generations through education and stewardship.” In addition to having a beautiful botanical garden, they’re all about Hawaiian culture and resources and sustainability and have many education programs.

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Dallas Pointing to Hibiscus :: Waimea Valley, Haleiwa, HI

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Waimea Valley, Haleiwa, HI

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Waimea Valley, Haleiwa, HI

Dallas’s friend Hoku works at Waimea Valley as a Cultural Specialist and Field Educator. This seems like an awesome job. He’s required to spend 75% of his time outside where he teaches people, anywhere from kindergarten age up through college students, about Hawaiian culture, native plants, folklore, wildlife, sustainability, conservation, and all sorts of things. Hoku and Dallas used to be great friends in school and hadn’t seen each other for 15 years. When Hoku met us at the gate there was a lot of man hugging. We walked through the gardens a bit and then Hoku got us a golf cart and took us straight to what we came for. At the back of the park there’s a small waterfall and swimming hole.

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Waimea Valley, Haleiwa, HI

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Waimea Valley, Haleiwa, HI

Dallas and I didn’t need much encouragement to jump right in and wash off all of the salt water and sand that had accumulated on our skin while hanging out at the beach. So refreshing and crisp. Waimea Valley provides life vests or kickboards, but we both just swam out to the waterfall and swam back.

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Rachelle & Dallas :: Waimea Valley, Haleiwa, HI

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Hoku & Dallas :: Waimea Valley, Haleiwa, HI

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Waimea Bay Beach

June 23rd, 2009 · No Comments

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After lunch Dallas and I headed over to the beach at Waimea Bay. This is a beach we went to last time we visited Hawaii. Like last time, there was no parking in the parking lot. This time we parked at Pupukea Beach and then just walked for about 10 minutes down the road to Waimea Bay. There was a well worn path all the way, I think a ton of people do this.

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Dallas selected a place for us to claim as our own. We hung out at the opposite end of the beach as we did the last time we visited.

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Looks good to me.

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During the winter months there are crazy waves here, up to 30 feet tall. When we visited, the water at Waimea Bay was so aquamarine and still. You could see clear down to your feed no matter how deep you went it. Great for playing around in the waves like Dallas here-

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The Waimea River flows into the ocean at Waimea Bay. Here you can see the cars going over the river. If you follow the river up it goes into Waimea Valley. More on that later.

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After playing around on the beach for a while Dallas and I went back to Haleiwa and got some shave ice at Matsumoto’s. I thought it was just as good as last time. Dallas, a far more seasoned shave ice eater, thought they were packing the ice too tight. One of these days I’ll try the azuki beans in my shave ice.

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L & L Drive Inn

June 23rd, 2009 · 2 Comments

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On our 5th day of vacation we went to the North Shore. We stopped in Hale’iwa for lunch at L&L Drive Inn, one of Dallas’s favorite places to go for Hawaiian plate lunches.

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Dallas had the L&L Hawaiian Barbecue with beef, chicken, & short ribs. I had the L & L Seafood Mix with fried shrimp & Mahi Mahi barbecue chicken.

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Sansei Seafood Restaurant and Sushi Bar

June 22nd, 2009 · 6 Comments

Dallas and I decided to go to dinner at Sansei because ever since we went there a couple years ago we have been talking about Chef D.K.‘s delicious dungeness crab ramen. Also, I’d been emailing with Chef Carol Wallack about what restaurants she recommends in Hawaii (she splits her time between Chicago and Hawaii) and she said that Sansei was one of her favorites too.

This time we sat with all the locals at the sushi bar. Many of the things we tried were specials or things the sushi chef just gave us to try, so I don’t have the full descriptions, but everything was delicious. Eating seafood is one of my favorite things to do in Hawaii!

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Hawaiian Moi (a type of Threadfin) with Maui onions and truffle oil.

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Cajon seasoned Escolar (also marketed as “Butterfish”)

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Dungeness Crab Ramen with Asian Truffle Broth: Ramen with a black truffle butter dashi, julienne Thai basil, cilantro and diced jalapeno peppers with dungeness crab

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Hamachi Kama (neck of the fish)

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Kampachi carpaccio with thai pepper sauce

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Panko Crusted Ahi Sashimi Sushi Roll: Sashimi grade Hawaiian ahi, arugula and spinach wrapped into a sushi roll, panko-crusted, flash-fried and served with Sansei’s mild soy wasabi butter sauce

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Nigiri: Mackerel, Maguro, Escolar

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Kirin Light (me), Orion (Dallas)

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King Kamehameha

June 22nd, 2009 · No Comments

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Hey, look! There’s King Kamehameha standing in front of Ali’iolani Hale.

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Hey, there’s me standing in front of King Kamehameha standing in front of Ali’iolani Hale.

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Kamehameha the Great is the monarch who first established the unified Kingdom of Hawaii, consisting of the Hawaiian Islands of Ni’ihau, Kaua’i, O’ahu, Moloka’i, Lana’i, Kaho’olawe, Maui and Hawai’i.

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Kamehameha Day is June 11 and is a state holiday. On that day this statue gets draped with lei at a special ceremony. We were in Hawaii for Kamehameha Day, but by then we’d moved on to Kaua’i. Otherwise it would have been cool to come back here.

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