Waimanalo Bay And Great Shave Ice!

On Sunday 6 of us went to Waimanalo Bay on the East shore of Oahu to check out the beach. We had been planning on going the previous Wednesday but ended up just hanging around looking at pics on the internet. Ben was searching online while Juanita and I were practicing Salsa dancing on the balcony (she rocks, I suck) when he made us take a look at some fantastic photos. There before us was what looked like an unspoiled beach, 2 miles long, where hardly any tourists (the plague of the earth) ever visited because they always get off the bus too soon at Hanauma and Sea Life Park.
We plotted and planned to make it on Saturday for a full day of beach going. Life doesn't ever work out how you want it though, and after a rather wild impromptu dance party at Jasmine's apartment on Friday night where there was lap dancing (much to James's joy) and cheese crackers falling from the heavens onto our lanai, no one was in any kind of condition to wake up early. Particularly not Ben, Rob, Jennifer and I because we'd gone swimming at 3am in our undies in Waikiki. We didn't think it was necessary to take the time to run to our separate apartments to change into our swimsuits. Can you blame us?
Saturday was spent with Rob and Ben running around between Sam's Club (great cheap pizza!!), Ritz Camera, and some other random stores in search of a camera for Ben. He had to have one before we went to Waimanalo so finally we found a really nice Fuji, he bought it, and we went swimming at Ala Moana Beach Park right across the street from the mall. Ok, bad idea. The water was warm but it was really dirty with a ton of algae and mossy gunk floating around. This is because there is a man-made wall of rock and sand that breaks the waves so nothing crashes on shore to wash the gunk away. We soon tired of it and took the bus back home.
Later that night a large group of us decided to have movie night as an alternative to going to the Hano Hano room at the Sheraton Waikiki. The club is called Skyline and incredibly worth the $15 cover you pay to get in, but most of us were broke and didn't feel like partying after the previous night so we rented the Lake House, bought Haagen Daazs, french fries, and Oreo cookie shakes and settled down for a nice relaxing night.
On Sunday morning we got up bright and early (10am) and sallied forth to the beach. The bus ride wasn't that long, about 45min, and when we got there it was warm with clear skies and a beautiful white beach with turquoise water awaited us. I took pictures with my camera but I've had some trouble pulling them off. Hopefully I can manage to do it and post them here because the pics I do have are all from later in the day.
All six of us made a rush for the water and floated around, dunking each other, splashing, and doing handstands until we got tired. I went to sit down and read and ended up waking up about 30min later and everyone had wandered down the beach without me! They came back pretty quickly though and we decided that plate lunch was in order. There was a tiny hole in the wall about 20min away so we walked over there and ordered pure fat for lunch. But oh! What good tasting fat it was! Then, being the pigs we are, we ordered shave ice. I had lilikoi, coconut, and pineapple with vanilla macadamia nut ice cream on the bottom. Jen had kona koffee ice cream only, Rob had exactly what I had (copy cat), and Ben had some nasty lime and lilikoi concoction that was waaaay too sweet for me.
After stuffing ourselves to the gills, the four of us went back, but this time to Waimanalo Beach Park. It's closer than Waimanalo Bay and we were too full to waddle back to the bay. We'd ended up losing Ping (Jennifer's roommate) and Chen-yu (Rob and Ben's roommate) after food which was too bad because Waimanalo is beautiful in the evening. The water was still warm at 5pm and we played king of the sandbar. There was a little sandbar under the water and each side sloped off into deeper water (we were still about chest deep even on the sandbar) so we (Rob and I) decided to fight it out. I ended up calling a truce and promising him half the bar but he tried to trick me in to shaking his hand so he could judo throw me off the sand. I wasn't stupid enough to fall for it :)
The last bus went home at 6.40pm so we had to cut our visit short. We showered off in the cold, clean water that feels so good after the ocean, changed, and hopped on the bus. It was such a fantastic day and the beach was so great that I know we're going to head back.
Living in Hawai'i has been one of the best decisions of my life! I've met so many incredible people, made great friends, and I've seen so so much of the island in just under 2 months. I can't believe that I've already been here for that amount of time, it just doesn't seem real yet that I live in Hawai'i. Hawai'i!!! I live here! Jennifer, Cristie and I always say that, almost on a daily basis. None of us can believe that we're living in paradise and we feel like we're the luckiest people on the planet :)