Hawaii - Day 4

Nathan went and picked up our rental car first thing in the morning. We started the day off by going to Leonard's Bakery, well known for their Portuguese donuts called malasadas. I wasn't impressed with them, but Nathan liked it. After our bakery stop, we continued on to the Dole Pineapple Plantation. We arrived just in time to take the first tram ride of the day at 9:30. The ride was about 25 minutes and took you through the pineapple fields and buy some other crops as well, including bananas, apple-bananas, macadamia nuts, sugar cane, and more. I never know what type of plant pineapples grew on and was surprised to see it was a low bush. I figured it would be some type of big tropical looking tree.

After the Pineapple Plantation we continued on to Turtle Beach, which is just north of Hale'iwa, a small surfing town on the north shore. Unfortunately there were no giant sea turtles sunning on the beach, and Bryce was having a bad attitude about sand in his shoes, so we went into Hale'iwa and had lunch at Jameson's on the Beach. Lunch was decent, but nothing to write home about. After lunch everyone was in a better mood so we stopped to see if we could see turtles before going to the Polynesian Cultural Center. There weren't any on the beach, but we did see a couple swimming close to the shore.

We got to the Polynesian Cultural Center around 2:15, just in time for their big canoe pageant, where people from each of the villages put on a show in their river on the back of canoes. Bryce loved all of the dancing, especially when it was done by pretty girls. We then went village to village seeing their individual shows, model huts, and other cultural things. Our favorite two villages were the villages of Samoa and Fiji. The main performer in the Samoan village was very funny. Bryce sat on Nathan's shoulders to watch the show and was cracking up every time the rest of the audience laughed at a joke. At one point, I think more people were watching Bryce and listening to his wonderful giggles than the performer. In the Samoan show the main performer started a fire using sticks, and another climbed a coconut tree. In the Fiji village we were taught some songs and played with stick instruments. The kids also were invited to the front (some adults went up to) to learn a dance.

We didn't leave the Center until closing, which was about 6 o'clock. Once again we were tired and hungry, but much to my dismay we decided to wait until after we drove to the Pali Highway lookout to get dinner. We didn't want to miss the sunset. Unfortunately, we got a little lost along the way, and by the time we got to the turnoff for the lookout, the sun had set and we decided to just go back to Waikiki without driving to the lookout. When we got back to our hotel it was about 8:30. We decided to go to an all you can eat buffet, but when we got there after a much longer walk then anticipated and looked at the food we changed out minds. We finally settled on IHOP, and after requesting to move to a new table when the one we were originally seated at smelled like throw-up, we ended up having a decent meal - breakfast for dinner, yummy. It was well after 10 before we got back to the room.