Paradise Day#4

Tuesday morning we woke up pretty early and wanted to pack as much into our day as possible.

We decided we would go to the North shore and check things out there. We stopped at one of the beaches and watched the waves crash. The north shore beaches have crazy big waves! (20-30 feet during the winter months)

As were saying how crazy it would be for someone to get into the waves we saw snorkelers in the water. Luckily for us they got out of the water and we were able to ask them what they were doing. The snorkelers were locals and they said that they were looking for Sunrise shells. They are really rare shells and the best time to find them is when the surf is really high. Some of these shells sale between $100-1,000 dollars depending on there color.

The locals were super friendly and it was nice getting some advice on where we should go and to be careful of Hawaiian borrowing. :)

We are loving it!

We also saw some sea turtles swimming in a near by cove.

Before we left the little surf town-(Haleiwa) we went to Matsumoto's famous shaved ice. This little shaved ice shop is in all the Hawaii books and that it's a must go to. So of course we had to test it out.

We were pleasantly impressed with it. It was SO good. It tasted great too with the warm sun beating down on us. We still had some time to kill before we went to the Polynesian Culture center so we went to Waimea Beach and watched surfers and boogie boarders ride the waves. Pretty dang impressive if you ask me.

Oh and then we also stopped at Giovanni's famous shrimp truck-Bob and Ellen heard great things about the truck so they wanted to eat there for lunch. Steve and I decided we would pass.

For one, I don't really trust meat or food coming from a truck that looks like that. And two, I hate shrimp or anything in the sea. So we passed eating with them, but while they were eating We shopped around some little tent shops. And I found the cutest shell bracelet. They actually sale the bracelets at Kohl's for at least $15-20 bucks and I got mine for only $4. :) That made my day right there.

Next stop-Polynesian Culture Center. Well almost. We of course wanted to stop and take a look at the Laie Temple. It's so pretty. I wish we would of had more time to be able to go into the temple, but we didn't. So, we took some pics. This temple really means a lot to me. My parent's were actually sealed there and the last time I went to Oahu was with my family. Everyone who was old enough all went and did baptisms together. It was awesome.

Okay, after that we went to the Polynesian Culture Center. The Polynesian Center is such an awesome place. Everyone is super up beat and we learned so much.

We watched the Canoe Parade and watched the different island dancers (Here's some of the canoe pics)

After the Canoe parade we "traveled" to the different islands and learned more about each one. Such as how they dance, what it means when they move and dance a certain way, how they break a coconut, climb a tree..etc.

The Samoan part was our all time favorite. The guy above shaving the coconut is HILARIOUS! Our favorite line that the guy said was "If the coconut is brown- it's ripe. (He pauses.) As you can see I'm ripe, and most of you are not." Me writing it down doesn't do it justice. It was really so dang funny.

We also went on a canoe ride and was able to look at all the villages from the water.

And to end our night we had dinner and a show. The show was AMAZING. It is called Ha: Breath of Life. It had a cast of over 100 islanders performing Polynesian songs and dancing.

We had a great day and of course we crashed on our ride back home.