Garlic Breath Is So Good

At the end of the last day I reported, we flew our butts to Oahu! We arrived at our first night's destination which was Waikiki. While this place is obviously one big gigantic Asian paradise, I really liked it. I'm the kind of person that is actually quite fine with tourist mania. Besides, it was a beautiful night and I had me some delicious food at Alan Wong's Pineapple Room. Can you say, "Mango Chutney and Macademia Nut Crusted Apple Curry Glazed Kurobuta "Berkshire" Pork Chop?" I can. Its in my belly. Mikey Smit recommendation of glory. That night we walked around and had ice cream and loved a perfect evening.

In the morning we sped over to Diamond Head. We weren't sure whether this would be worth it. I mean, really its just a very old volcano that is all filled in and dead, right? Whats the draw? We would find out.

We quickly learned that TONS of people go to Diamond Head. It is a very steep 1 mile hike with steps and crowds to surf around. Here we are stuck at one section waiting to get past the hoards of people. Finally we broke through.

Behold the view!!! Now I see why people come up here!

A bunch of tourists, pimpin' it like only they know how. I thought the hike was great and we actually had some solid bonding moments on our way up. We talked about family, high school, and the glory days.

The way down was just intense as the way up. We went down crazy spiral steps.

Through dark tunnels.

And down stairs that seemed to last forever. But we finally made it back to the car and we were on our way to the North Shore!

Does this look like LOST to you? It should...most of the show was filmed on this island. Totally awesome. Side note: which male LOST character am I most like?

Max did great on this drive - partly because he had awesome toys (like that tube of suntan lotion - only the best for my boy) but partly because his grandma and grandpa had been promising the best lunch of our lives.

These are the faces of people who are about to have an amazing meal of garlic shrimp. Shrimp so garlicky that you sweat garlic for 24 hours.

This woman held the keys to our happiness.

Lynn was happy to give her his money. He would have given her anything she asked to sink his teeth into those shrimps.

You can see why from this picture. HOT DANG they were good. This truck on the side of the road delivered. So amazing.

This is one happy group of shrimp eaters. But we were left with an overwhelming desire to have a treat, so we walked to the gas station next store for some sugar.

While there I found some Big Az pre-packaged burgers. That's a big-az burger man.

Again, Max was treated to something he shouldn't be eating. His first Tootsie-pop! Chocolate! Did he love it? Look at that face. He was obsessed with it.

He would have licked the entire thing if we had a couple of hours.

After doing some snorkeling at Sharks Cove, we found our final home for the trip. It was very quaint and right on the water. We had a quick pathway to the beach, some great lawn chairs and a beautiful view of the sunset.

Bek took advantage of the sunset to do some yoga. Did you know she is the yoga queen of the universe?

For dinner we gots ourselves some Thai food. This place was fantastic. I love Thai food already, but something about eating a delicious Thai meal after a long day of swimming and traveling felt just right.

I like this photo.

It was a cool place. Max was really tired though, so I had to put the poor guy to sleep while everyone ate.

I have to say, I was diggin' the North Shore and would love to do a vacation where that is the only place I go. So much to see and enjoy. More of our adventures to come! Watch me get my nips rubbed off as I try to paddle board!