Today’s Topic

The island of Oahu appeared to us after hours of nothing but deep blue water visible from the windows of the plane. It had been a long trip from the center of the U.S. mainland to Honolulu, but well worth the trip.

Like most people, we were aware of some of the sites that make Oahu a beloved travel destination and were intent upon visiting Pearl Harbor and the Arizona Memorial, seeing the Dole Plantation, getting pictures of Diamond Head and going to the North Shore, home to the famed Banzai Pipeline. We had also been given a list of lesser-publicized attractions compiled by someone who visited the island often so that we might get a bit more from our Hawaiian experience than we might have otherwise.

My husband and I collected our luggage and had it stowed in the trunk of our rental car in short order. We didn’t want to waste one precious moment of our vacation so we were soon leaving the hustle and bustle of Honolulu and driving along a highway lined with thick vegetation and verdant sugar cane fields. Our final destination was Turtle Bay Resort on the North Shore of the island, some 40 minutes from the city.

The resort sits on a small point and has been constructed in three wings so that most rooms offer a visual of the ocean. Our room was on one of the upper floors and near the end of the wing closest to the ocean. The view from our balcony was spectacular. If I close my eyes, I can still see the deep blue of the ocean, feel the cool night breeze off the water and hear the surf crashing against the shore.

As great as the view from the room was, we realized there was a lot more of the island that was worth seeing. One of the first things we did was to visit the Dole Plantation. The Plantation as it stands today grew from a humble fruit stand that came into existence in 1950. The great “Pineapple Experience” as it is billed now hosts over a million visitors annually. One of the most popular attractions is the “Dole whip,” a creamy frozen concoction made from unbelievably fresh pineapples. Visitors can also tour the Plantation on the Pineapple Express, a narrated train tour that spans two miles of spectacular scenery and provides a history of not only the Plantation, but the pineapple industry in Hawaii. There’s also a self-directed walking tour though the eight gardens of the Plantation and the Plantation is home to a maze recognized in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest in the world. Of course there is also a gift shop, where visitors can buy various Dole logo items or have fresh pineapples shipped from the Plantation directly to their homes on the U.S mainland. Many of the items offered in the store (including the fresh pineapples) can be ordered from their on-line store as well.

One of our favorite stops on our tour around Oahu was Giovanni’s White Shrimp truck. The area around Kahuku is known for its mobile shrimp eateries and Giovanni’s has been in business longer than most of the rest. We found the Giovanni van parked in an open lot not too far from our hotel. The once-white van has long since been covered with the graffiti of well-fed visitors who are encouraged to leave a signature or a message. We ordered the garlic shrimp, served with a scoop of steamed rice, and sat at the picnic table that had been set up under a tarp and near the truck. If you have never eaten locally grown shrimp in the open air on a beautiful Hawaii day, you’ve missed one of life’s greatest pleasures!

We also found a restaurant that was memorable, not so much for the food as for the ambiance. The Crouching Lion Inn is located in the small beach community of Ka’a’awa, with its back to the Ko’olau Mountains and its front facing the ocean. The Crouching Lion was built in 1927 as a private residence and named for a rock formation that resembles a crouching lion that can be seen in the mountain behind the restaurant. Legend has it that the lion was once a god that was tasked with watching over the area below. When he heard the daughter of Pele singing, he rose to try to join her, but turned to stone before he could stand, frozen forever into the crouching position as punishment for trying to leave his station.

We had dinner in the veranda dining room, the front of which opens almost completely and provides breathtaking views of the Pacific. A roaring fire burned in the huge rock fireplace along an adjacent wall, providing warmth against the cool night breeze. Above the fireplace was an oil painting of the Inn that captured the romance and mystery of the place, the Crouching Lion standing vigil in the background. Palm fans attached to the high ceiling slowly moved to and fro, pushing the rising warm air downward. In the dimly lit room, it was easy to imagine that we had stepped back in time to another era in Hawaii’s history. We so fell in love with the place that we returned the following afternoon to purchase a print of the oil painting from the Inn’s gift shop.

On our last night on the island we drove to Honolulu to have dinner at John Dominis restaurant, an establishment that came highly recommended. The restaurant offers views of Waikiki Beach and Diamond Head. We were shown to a table next to the window, as we had requested, and were told it was the best seat in the house. There was no doubt in our minds that that was a true statement. We watched surfers riding waves into the beach and saw the sun set cast its amber glow over Diamond Head while we had dinner. A stream of water flowed through the restaurant from an opening in the wall, allowing the ocean water to spill in. Within that stream swam several species of saltwater fish and a pair of small manta rays. The food was fantastic, the wait staff superb, and the views unbelievable. John Dominis will be on our list of stops whenever we visit Hawaii in the future.

I’ve left out many of the other great attractions Oahu offers, like the Polynesian Cultural Center and the Arizona Memorial. It’s impossible in this short space to cover the impressive list of things to do and see – just as it was impossible for us to get through our entire list of sites to see in the short time we had on the island. That’s okay…we’ve still got plenty to discover on our next visit!

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