I suffered through all of the seasons of Lost with much of the rest of the television watching public. I really enjoyed the show andI loved the many beautiful places that were used during the filming. Although the show has since gone off the air, I still wanted to find a few of the filming spots while we were on the island of Oahu.
During our self-guided tour around the island of Oahu tour, we went all the way to the end of the road…literally. We drove until the road ended at a dirt road that is only for government use. A few minutes before the road ends, you will drive past YMCA Camp Erdman. It might look a little familiar…but then again, it might not.
I was excited that a couple of you knew that this was the home of The Others in LOST when I posted the picture on Photo Friday. It has since had a paint job so it might not look too familiar but they were indeed the homes of Ben and Juliet!
Things to Know Before You Go:
This is a working YMCA camp. There are families and children staying in the little cabins so you cannot just wander around at will.
The YMCA offers $5 self-guided tours of the camp. You must register at the camp Welcome Center.
You can take pictures while you are there but you are not allowed to include any of the camp attendees in your pictures.
I posted this picture on my Facebook page and asked if anyone could guess where I was while we were vacationing and I was so disappointed that only one person knew what it was!!! Obviously, my friends don’t have the same affinity for finding movie and television locations that I do!
Do you know where we were?
Here are two hints: It has recently had a paint job and we spotted it while we were in Hawaii!
On Tuesday, I shared the story of a few stolen moments in the middle of a stormy rainforest with my husband. It was romantic and fun and exciting all at the same time. I did want to share a few things we learned while on that hike. When we asked a local friend which hike is the best one for a waterfall, she immediately suggested Manoa Falls. She said there were a lot of other hikes but that if we wanted to see a waterfall, Manoa Falls would not disappoint. Another reason we chose Manoa Falls was because our friend said that it was a relatively easy hike and I was concerned about my freshly healed broken foot (the first broken foot!).
Here are a few things to know before you go:
Leave the small children at home. This is not a difficult hike, but I would not bring my four and six year old until they are older. I probably wouldn’t take my own children until they were at least ten years old and that might be pushing it. There are a lot of big steps to climb up and it is a true hike-no guardrails and in some areas it drops down VERY far!
Try to go on a semi-dry day. Although I talked about how wonderful our very rainy hike was, in retrospect, it was not very safe. As we were walking in, a local van driver waiting on a tourist group told us to be very careful because several people have slipped down the side of the mountain while hiking and had to be rescued. Sometimes it takes hours to get rescue crews in. He might have been trying to scare us, but it was definitely something to consider! By the time we were on our way back down, the hiking pathway was flooded and water was up over the top of my tennis shoes in several places.
The waterfall is blocked off and you cannot swim in the pool. It is a very small area and if it gets crowded it will be hard to manuever.
Watch where you step! There are tree roots in the path, rocks that can be slippery, and a few small wooden pathways.
Be sure to look around, too! You will see the Waihi Stream, wild fruits such as guava and ginger, as well as lots and lots of bamboo. We especially liked the giant ferns that reminded us of Jurassic Park!
Besides my ridiculous (almost obsessive) love for guidebooks, I also tear articles from magazines about our destinations, send away for brochures, and scour the Internet for information.
In September of 2009, my husband and I made our reservations for a 10 year anniversary trip to Hawaii. We were going to go at the end of October 2010. A few weeks later, my Everyday with Rachel Ray October 2009 issue arrived. I was so excited to see an article in there about shave ice from all over. One of the places listed was Wailoa Shave Ice in Honolulu, Hawaii so I tore out the page and taped it above my desk.
For awhile, it was the only thing I collected on our trip to Hawaii. Everytime I walked past or worked at my desk, I would look at that shave ice article and dream about our upcoming trip, a 2nd honeymoon if you will. After I started collecting other articles and brochures, I moved the shave ice article to the Hawaii folder and forgot about it.
A few weeks before the trip, I pulled all of the brochures, articles and guidebooks and started officially planning our week. For this trip, we just made a list of everything we wanted to do and made decisions on what we wanted to do each day once we were in Hawaii. As I was flipping through the pages, I got to the shave ice article. It made me smile thinking about how it hung on my desk over a year before we were going. It kind of became a symbol of our trip!
Then the author of the article caught my eye…Kara Williams.
Kara Williams? Wait?! Kara from The Vacation Gals?!?! Is that the same person? I know her…well, not really but she is one of my imaginary Internet friends! I sent her a quick note and it was in fact her article. The whole thing made us chuckle and I made sure that I definitely made it to Waioloa Ice!
We sampled a lot of shave ice in Hawaii, but I think our favorite was Wailoa Ice. The shave ice was so thinly shaved that it really felt like snow. It was a very creamy texture, not icy. Our favorite flavor was Liliko’i, which is passionfruit.
Wailoa Ice is in Honolulu but it is not near the hotels in Waikiki. You will want to drive or take the bus or a taxi. There is a small parking lot on the side of the building that is hit or miss. We drove by it one time, and the place was packed so we decided to come back. When we returned a few days later, there was only one car in the parking lot.
The shave ice can be purchased in many flavors, colors, and sizes. You can also have it with ice cream or other additions. Prices start at just a few dollars.
To read about other shave ice places on the island of Oahu, stop by my article at Traveling Mom.
I have had a hard time going through my Hawaii pictures since we got home at the beginning of November. I think it is just because I miss it so much. Every time we leave a place we have visited, we always say things like “wow…we could definitely live here” or “I can’t wait to come back”. But Oahu…with its 70′s style buildings, laid back North Shore where we spent a lot of our time, hiking trails, waterfalls, island music…it got inside of us and hasn’t left. It was the first time that we really didn’t want to get on the plane to come home. I truly believe that if we had our kids with us, we would have hired someone to pack up our house, ship our stuff and we would still be sitting on that island! My husband has been listening to a local Oahu radio station on the computer, I have been comparing every meal out with the meals we had on the island and we are both trying to figure out how to get back there as soon as possible.
When a friend asked me what my favorite activity was, I told her that trip was so amazing that it was hard to pick a favorite activity. If I had to pick one, I think I would choose hiking Manoa Falls. It wasn’t just the hike, though. Sure, it was an amazing hike through a rainforest and bamboo forest ending at a pool at the bottom of a beautiful waterfall. It was the quiet moment that my husband and I stole together. It was the feeling of being completely alone in this wild part of Hawaii when, in actuality, we were minutes away from Waikiki, a university, and many neighborhoods.
We went on a very rainy day. As we entered the hike area, we watched two or three small groups come out and they looked like they had just taken a shower fully clothed. It was pouring! We decided to come back another day and did a U-turn in the parking. We drove about three minutes back into Waikiki where the weather was beautiful and my husband talked me into trying the hike.
“Don’t worry, honey. The rain will go away soon. Look how beautiful it is right now!”
HA! It is moments like these that remind me why I love traveling so much…moments where I am talked into doing something I would never do at home…like hiking a mile and a half in a torrential downpour. We would most certainly have stayed at home and scheduled the outing for another day.
And so we hiked.
It was wet and peaceful and wild and rainy. It was beautiful and muddy and romantic all at the same time. Except for one small group of tourists and a few college students, we were completely on our own. We held hands as we wandered up the slopes and climbed the rocks. We snapped a few pictures and just enjoyed the quiet, magical moments together. That was on the way up to the waterfall.
On the way down to the car, after it had rained and rained, I was hoping that we wouldn’t have a “Romancing the Stone” moment. You know, the moment when Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas get caught in a mudslide?
Go to :50 seconds to see the Romancing the Stone mudslide!
Luckily, this hike ended without any complications or mudslides. When I dream about Hawaii, I remember this moment. I remember how wonderful it was to spend time with my husband of ten years and enjoy the quiet moments without the worry of housework, bills, or kids pulling on our shirts vying for our attention.
It was just him and me. In a rainforest.
Stop by Mara’s at Mother of All Trips to see what other are dreaming about. Stay tuned tomorrow for things to know before you hike Manoa Falls.
When I think of all of the amazing things that we did and saw in Oahu, Laniakea Beach ranks up there in the number one spot. Laniakea Beach is the home to the sea turtles, or honu, and if you are lucky, you might be able to spot them.
The beach is not difficult to find. It is on the way to the North Shore and once you get near the spot on the map all you have to do is look for the rows of cars parked along the side of the road. Pull over, make sure your car is locked and take all your valuables with you. We stood around for about ten minutes and didn’t see anything. It wasn’t very crowded when we first got there so we visited with the local volunteer, who was a font of information, and learned more about turtles, their behavior, and history of the area.
The volunteer told us to head down the beach a little bit and we might be able to see the turtles out in the water. We spent about twenty minutes wandering down the beach and watching one turtle’s little head bob in and out of the waves. As we were walking back to the main part of ”Turtle Beach” to head to the car, our patience was rewarded as one of the turtles decided to come up on the beach and catch a little sun.
The volunteer waited until the turtle chose its spot (this took about 20 minutes) and then she dropped a bright red rope around it so that people would know not to get close to it. I took most of my pictures with a 75-300 lens, which is why it looks like we were sitting on top of the turtle–I was nowhere near it. Even though it looks peaceful on the beach for the turtle, this is what it really looks like:
My silly husband was worried that I wouldn’t find anything to do with myself while he completed his two hour surf lesson!
While he surfed the waves of the North Shore, I settled down under the shade of a tree, listened to the surf roll in and read about 80 pages of my book. Alone. It was pure bliss.
I love peel and eat shrimp. Love it. If peel and eat shrimp are on the menu, that is what I will order every time.
My husband, however, is not a fan. The first time I took him home to meet my mom, peel and eat shrimp were on the menu. He grew up in a household that ate little to no seafood at all and he was horrified. Let’s just say that he probably drove through McDonald’s on the way home.
One of the things I was most looking forward to was the shrimp trucks up and down the North Shore. I definitely ate my fill of shrimp cooked up in little yellow, blue, and graffiti painted shrimp trucks. One of our favorites was the Shrimp Shack.
When we left for Hawaii, a friend left me a note on my Facebook wall that said “Go to the North Shore and look for a yellow truck that sells shrimp. Get it. Go next door and buy a beer from the convenience store and have the best lunch of your life!!” So we did. We drove to the North Shore, found the yellow shrimp truck, bought a drink and enjoyed one delicious lunch!
They have little tables lined up against the convenience store where you can sit and enjoy your lunch.
Or you can cross the street (watch out for traffic and use the crosswalk!) and look at this while you eat:
We visited the Byodo-In Temple in the Valley of the Temples Memorial Park while we were on Oahu. The Byodo-In Temple was established to commemorate the 100 year anniversary of the first Japanese immigration to Hawaii. It is a replica of a 950 year old temple in Uji, Japan.
As we walked the grounds of the temple, we felt a sense of peace and tranquility despite the fact that a tour bus had just unloaded its group. I wandered around looking at the red and yellow of the temple and the gardens with their Koi fish and was instantly transported back to a summer (or was it Christmas, mom?) around my 8th grade year when I traveled with my mom and my sister to meet my dad in Okinawa, where he was stationed for a year unaccompanied. I don’t remember too much about the trip except for the jewelry shopping (I still have several pieces still even today), the toilets that were so different from anything I had ever seen and the noodle dishes (which was about the only thing I would eat while we were there).
A friend of mine recently moved to Japan for work and following her pictures on Facebook has brought out a rather large green monster of jealousy! My husband and I have been talking about how great a trip to Japan would be but with four plane tickets to purchase and other travel plans it just isn’t in the cards for the next few years. Until then, I will look at the pictures from the Byodo-In Temple and continue to dream.
The Byodo-In Temple is open for visits from 9am to 5pm. There is a small admission fee of $3 per person or $1 per child. It is located at 47-200 Kahekili Highway in Kaneohe, Hawaii.
Stop by Mara’s at Mother of All Trips to see what other travelers are dreaming about for Monday Dreaming!
