Day 3:

So we woke up early... Hell'a'early... 5am early... which was what, almost 10-11am for our deluded brains? Who knows. Time changes give me headaches. I picked up my budget rental-car today, a cute little blue Corolla type thing that reminded me of the Subaru I learned to drive on, very amusing. We promptly headed for the unknown (the north shore) in search of the 'famous waves' cute surfer dudes, and this really great shaved-ice place that Baka was told was a stop that was necessary in order to achieve Nirvana in his next life. We calmly rationalized that if we spend the next 4 days driving... we won't have to worry about where to park this thing in the urban-terror that is Waikiki. (It ended up that we were able to sneak into the Hotel lot every night without hitch so never had to pay a cent on the meters... sweet.) My hair is /very/ pink... we're talking neon-pink... well dark neon... but I digress. I declared Baka "Chief Navigator and In-Car-Entertainer" for our voyage, mainly because all radio stations die once you leave Waikiki (too many mountains), and we all know men have better spatial-reasoning skills... that and I don't like reading and driving... yadda yadda yadda. We went to Waimea.

People talk about Waimea as a surfer's paradise, I guess it has to be because there's /nothing/ else there... we drove the whole of the north shore, there were 3 restaurants, 10 surf shops, the occasional fruit stand, and beaches, lots of beaches. There were also tons of these /tiny/ beach-front homes w/ big "no-trespassing" signs. They were the only evidence of what these surfers did when they had to eat, or sleep, or use a bathroom. We didn't find this mythic shaved-ice shop so we parked ourselves on Sunset Beach, took some photos and goofed off. Baka dug a hole, I drew a picture. Baka dug his hole deeper; I made a sand sculpture. Baka sat in hole, I took photo... a very satisfying day. On the way back, we swung by the 'town' next door Haleiwa, which was in actuality a Town, despite our anticipation of another 'Waimea'. There, resting between a surf shop, and another surf shop, was our little slice of heaven in a paper cup; Mashimoto's Shaved Ice (Japanese style). I wish I had had the presence of mind to take a picture... but I was too busy eating. I chickened out ant got a small combo, vanilla ice-cream on bottom, melon flavored ice on top. (For those of you who haven't experienced a shaved-ice... think of it like a snow-cone, but with the consistency of the ice roughly that of packed power snow, really really fine and soft... no crunch at all... just melty-yummy-fun). Baka of course, got the mondo. It came with shaved-ice, red-beans, ice-cream, coconut (?) and several other things and was roughly the size of my head. (Red-beans are those sweet beans that Japanese people put in their desserts so much). So we were much contented with the guarantee that yes, heaven can be bought for $2.50, and will last much longer if you eat it in the shade.

On the way home we went to the mall and bought some 'elite hacker equipment' i.e. a splitter and some extra phone cord. This way we could dodge our hotel's shoddy connection times by dialing "9" the old fashioned way and letting the modem take care of the rest... never get between a geek and their internet... we can get dangerous.

Thought for the day... driving to the north shore of Hawaii "across-country" is both easy and offers some truly surreal views of the island's landscape.

Next Adventure!