Hawaii 2nd Visit : Part 2

For Part 1 go to

http://myendeavours.blogspot.com/2019/12/hawaii-2nd-visit.html

Dec 10th 2019:
We lazily woke up at about 6:30 am which is 10:30 am our time and then started looking at the guide books on where to go. Finally we decided to go to the Napali Coast as that is near the North Side where we were.  As we left I was reading the books and realized that since the flooding in early Aprile they had day passes to enter the park which had to be booked well in advance. Everything for December was sold out.
We quickly stopped at a juice stop nearby , got some yummy local juice and asked the server for some good locations to visit.
She suggested the Kokee State Park and some falls. We decided to go to the Kokee State Park which was 2 hrs to the other side of where we were. We started driving, on the way packed some fish and shrimp tacos and took them with us.
Soon we were at the bottom of the mountain and then it was a uphill ride with the weather getting very pleasant, there were lots of lookout on the way and we stopped at a few and went in like the Waimea Canyon Ridge.
The color of the canyon were beautiful, red and green shades. We even saw a local Hawaiian there who gave us some information about the area.
We then stopped at the Park and visited the small museum there, had lunch, took a small trail hike and then drove back.

On the way we stopped at a beach as the kids were insisting but there was no swimming there, so they played in the waves for few minutes and then we went for the Luau ceremony that we planned to visit.
Luau is one  food, lively music, energetic performances and displays of Hawaii's native culture and across Polynesia. It's where friends and strangers unite to become one ohana (family) as is customary in Hawaii today.

The charges for the 4 of us were $230. We reached at 5:30 and were greeted with flower garlands and Mai Tai's and fruit punches.
Then there was the imu ceremony where they had caught a wild pig and buried it underground in a clay mould with some spices and banana leaves. At 6pm , after 8-9 hrs they took it out and salted it and was ready for the buffet. The buffet was served with a lot of local dishes like rice noodles, chicken teriyaki, salmon salad, macroni, pork(which was delicious), desserts like coconut pudding, pineapple cake etc.
After we were done we had the performances which were spectacular. There was even a fire dancer which the boy enjoyed a lot.
All said and done we were out by 8pm and back to our resort to rest for the day.

Hawaii --2nd Visit_Part 1

Year 2019 and once again we booked a trip to Hawaii, but this time it was with the Kids.

Hubby did all the booking. November we all got sick with flu and then we had work like crazy so there was no time to plan or prepare for anything.
One nite before Dec 8th Sunday we packed our bags.
Monday morning we took the kids from school by 1, went to the airport to Sun Country for a 3:40 flight which left at 4:40 and had a 3 hr flight from MSP to SFO.
It was 6pm PST when we reached SFO, took our rental car, drove to San Jose and checked in the Wyndham.
Baby girl thought this was Huwaii (pronounced by her)  and was not impressed with the hotel room, she wanted to go back immediately.
We went out to dinner, and at first stopped at an Indian place where all they had was buffet, I couldn't eat so heavy at night and we ended up going to Denny's. We had pancakes and eggs and chicken burger, came back and slept off for an early morning departure.

9th Dec 2019:
 We woke up and left to airport by 7am. Did all the check-in and waited for the 9 am flight Hawaiian airlines flight to Maui Island.
It was a 5 hr. flight which went pretty good with breakfast served and finally at 12 pm island time, we were at Hawaii. We took our baggage and got ready for our next flight at 3:40 to Kauai Island.
We reached Kauai by 4:30. Took our convertible and went out in the sun for a 1 hr. drive to the Princeville Resort.
We were welcomed with traditional Lei's and Hibiscus Tea and then we went to our room which was beautiful. We again ventured out for dinner to the top Fish serving restaurant at Dolphin's and had Ahi Tuna and some calamari.
Kauai does not have any street light as they believe in natural surroundings and night is dark which does make driving difficult for first - timers.
By this time we were very tired as it was way past our bedtime and we came back and slept off.

 

Carmalized Banana ice-Cream

I saw this this simple recipe in one of the food blogs..still searching for it and will definitely put it as a link..for now will also put my measurments in preaparing this yummy and simple ice-cream.

Ripe Bananas - 3

Sugar - little

Butter - little

Milk- 1/2 cup

Condensed milk- 1/4th cup.

Walnuts

Here is what I did:-Sliced bananas in a oven sprinkled with sugar and butter and then kept in oven at 400F for 30 mins.

Once they were carmalized and cooled took them out in a bowl, added condesed milk,milk and whipped them.

Garnished with walnuts and went right into the fridge for freezing.

Voila! your yummy ice-cream is ready

The Hawaii Vacation - Part I

Point to be noted is that I am writing this post after almost 6 months after our Hawaii Trip, so obviously I will not remember all the place names clearly but will try my best.

We had left our baby in India for the winter and as soon as I returned back I knew we had to have a vacation. Hawaii was the top contender as I had heard lots of praise from my manager. So after booking our flight tickets and making reservations we finally set out on Jan 13th 2011.

Firstly we had a 3 hr flight to Seattle and after a wait of 2 hours another 6 hr flight to Honolulu. With the time difference by the time we reached there at 9pm it was already 3 am for us. The first thing when we came out of the airport was the tall coconut trees alongside the road and ofcourse the pleasant weather. We were coming from the winters of Minnesota so obviously the weather was beautiful. We picked our convertible from the rental and drove to our hotel. Immediately noticed the expensive gas price(yeah, we are cheap that way). The room in the hotel(a 4 Star one) just had the bare necessities, like a bed, tv, something you would see in a very normal hotel .We were so tired, we both slept off immediately.

Next day morning after getitng ready we checked out the view from our balcony and it was like any Indian city :)(yeah, I am hard to impress)
We decided to go to Pearl harbour also known as USS Arizona. After buying the tickets we could visit the musuem which gave us a brief on how the US was atacked by the Japanese. We were then taken in a boat to the middle of the sea where we could see the submerged naval ship. By the time we left there it was noon. Now the hotel did not give us any complimentary breakfast unlike US hotels so we were very hungry and the heat was killing us.
After grabbing a sandwich we decided to drive around the island.
We went to Diamond head and along the way stopped at various spots to click pictures. It is very picturesque what with the blue ocean and the green trees lining the roads. We wanted to go to Hanuma Bay as that spot is very famous for snorkelling. but it was full and so we did not get parking there. Moreover we did not have any snorkelling equipment with us, so we just drove along the entire stretch. At one of the beaches G changed into shorts and went into the water but I did not. After a while it got boring seeing the beaches(the same blue water, blue sky, though you may ooooh- aaaaah the first few times) and the heat was unbearable.(I know I am repeating this, but I was coming from -20F, what did you expect?) We decided to go and visit the Byuodo-inn Temple. This temple had a huge Buddha statue and the place also had small ponds with ducks and fishes in them. A very calm and peacful place. If you watch the series Lost, one of the episodes has this temple where the Chinese/Japanese couple gets married.

Evening we decided to go to Waikeki beach were there are fire-works every night. There was traffic rush to reach there but once we got there we noticed the posh shops. We wandered around the beach and finally the fire-works started. It did not feel all that spectacular as we both missed our baby a lot. From there we drove to the Makaha Resort Golf Club that we had booked for the night.
This place had little cabins which were very cozy. When I woke up I went outside and there was this huge golf area with the mountains in the background. We did click a lot of pictures here. We decided to explore the other beaches and just rode around the entire island stopping here and there. We did visit the Dole Plantation which is famous for the pineapple facility. We bought a Pineapple icecream but I think a pineapple fuit would have tasted much better.
Evening we drove to the airport as we had to catch our flight to Maui Island.

More in Part II