Surf Lesson? Big Island arrival

Spent the morning having a leisurely breakfast and packing in prep for our commute to the Big Island later in the day.

Made a stop at Leonard's Bakery for a malasada. These are basically fried dough balls, but oh so much better! You can get them with cinnamon sugar, powdered sugar, and some other kind of Asian sugar. You can also have it filled with custard, chocolate custard, or a coconut custard. Mike got the chocolate. Yum! They are almost like the little sugar doughnuts you get on a Chinese buffet, but bigger, fluffier, and tastier. These ethnic treats were brought to the island 60 years ago by a Portuguese family, and caught on. They are now a landmark bakery, much like the Mike's Bakery of Boston.

UPDATE: Click here for an authentic Malasada Recipe!

Mmmmmmaladadas!

To kill some more time before our surfing lesson at noon, we drove up the coast a bit and stopped at this amazing overlook. We jumped the wall (you're not supposed to, of course...) and walked out on the rock ledges and discovered all of these amazing lava tubes and crevices where the ocean eats away at the coast one wave at a time. Quite incredible, the power of the ocean.

We get to our surfing lesson and check-in at the harbor, and it turns out the reservation lady only booked one person for the lesson instead of 4. I know when I booked this in January that I told her I had the Groupon for a surf lesson for 4. The boat only holds 6. One of us could go, or we could reschedule. Luckily we were able to reschedule for when we come back to Oahu before for our final trip home. Unfortunately though, it means traveling back from the North shore in order to do that. Oh well, what can you do. The kids were pretty disappointed, but we made the best of it by getting a chocolate dipped cone at McDonald's. I know, we went to Mickey D's while in Hawaii...!!? We don't even go at home. I hate to say it, but it was our second trip to the golden arches already. I tell you though, this Mickey D's had the best view of any I've ever been in!

Being that we were all greased up for the sun and had our suits on anyway, we decided to try our hand at getting into the Hanauma Bay nature preserve to do some snorkeling - Big... Fat...no go. The parking lot was full the first time we drove by, and still full at 1pm. We were on limited time, so didn't even entertain the "park at the bottom of the hill someplace and walk up" option. Whew...dodged that bullet.


Instead we headed back toward the airport and decided to spend an hour at Waikiki beach, seeing that we never went in the water when we arrived the first day. The kids walked the barrier wall (I thought they were going to get washed off, but I guess the waves weren't that big), and Mike did some exploring on the other side of the wall. However, sea urchins everywhere, so he and the kids beat it back to the other side of the wall. I hung out on the burning hot beach, but dipped in up past my knees when I could bear the heat no longer. I didn't want to be all sandy and gross for the flight in an hour.

The view of Waikiki Beach from the top of Diamond Head Crater

Fast forward to arrival at our hotel, the Hilton Waikoloa Village - OMG! This place is AMAZING! It has an electric tram to take you to your room - that's how big it is. Think of a Disney World resort - amazingly landscaped, adorned, decorated, and lush. Streams twist throughout the property, with paths and bridges that you can take to the different areas. There are various pools, some connected by 'natural' water slides and a lazy river. They have their own snorkeling cove with sea turtles, and there is an area where you can swim with the dolphins (for a fee, most likely). You can even take a boat from the main lobby back to your hotel complex if you don't want to wait for the monorail. We are on the 4th floor and have a lovely view of the ocean and the lagoon, statuary, mini golf, and the rocky lava coast.

The inside view of our hotel

 You never have to leave this place! - the resort has daily fitness and health classes if you want to partake, as well as evening activities, happy hours, movies at the beach and other fun stuff. We've decided to spend our down day on Wednesday checking everything out and taking advantage of all the amenities. The best part is, the kids can go explore on their own.

To Top it all off, the hotel delivered us a bottle of champagne, chocolate covered strawberries, some dried fruit with chocolates, macadamia nut brittle, and macadamia nuts to help us celebrate our anniversary and Austin's graduation. How nice! Tonight we will enjoy that champagne!







//.l