We have not been over to Japan to see my wife's parents since before my son was born. Alex has never met his grandparents or any other family members from Japan other than skyping on the computer. We all decided to meet in the middle for a family reunion. My father in law has severe rheumatoid arthritis and cannot make the 24 hour trip to us here in Ohio. Since Hawaii is only a nine hour flight this made it a possibility to meet there.
We stayed at the Hilton Hawaiian Village in Waikiki for the first week of our stay. The view was amazing! The only downfall to all the beauty was the fact that it is so built up as a city that you could not hear the ocean even though we were so close to it. The village was a beautiful place with plenty of stores and entertainment and was very busy and packed.
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| The view from our 29th floor balcony at the Grand Waikikian |
They had a beautiful Banyan tree in the center of the one shopping area. This was on the morning of our second day in town.
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| My wife next to a large Banyan tree in the Hilton Hawaiian Village |
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For lunch on our third day everyone wanted to try out the local food shops at the big Ala Moana Shopping center down the street. We managed to get a pic of everyone except my wife's sister while waiting on the bus. From left to right is my brother in law Takayuki, Alex, Lisa, my Mother in Law, Me, my nephew Gen, Natsuko, and my father in law.
We started the farm a few years after we got married so none of my wife's family has ever had any of our home grown pork or beef. So we packed a small cooler with steaks, some ground beef, sausage, bacon, and pork chops and took it with us. We had several wonderful meals with everyone together and everyone loved it.
One morning my wife and her mother fixed a more traditional Japanese style breakfast. I was very excited as the raw fish and fresh cod roe are very hard to come by out here in the middle of Ohio.
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| Traditional Japanese style breakfast. |
Here is a pic of my wife and I on the balcony while enjoying our breakfast. What was even better was getting to enjoy an ice cold Japanese Sapporo Beer with my breakfast!
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| My wife and I with Honolulu in the background |
Now, growing up I watched Hawaii Five - 0 quite a lot. I never knew where it was filmed other than in Hawaii or much else about it till I heard about it on our one trolly ride from the driver telling us about the area between stops. The top floor and to the left point of the hotel in the picture is the place that the main character had his apartment. The hotel name is the Ilikai hotel and it was neat to see something in real life that I remember from my child hood.
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| The Ilikai hotel, Hawaii Five - 0!! |
Just beyond all the pools and the lagoon was the beach and ocean. It was quite nice. By noon the water was warm and the sand was hot and so was the sun. We left shortly after this pic because the top of my head was getting burnt as I forgot to take my hat with me!! In the background is the rest of Waikiki beach with Diamond Head right behind me! My son was sleeping back at the room with Grandma at the time, he was still quite jet lagged.
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| On the beach at Waikiki |
The pool in front of the Grand Waikikian was awesome. Whomever installed it did a great job of making it look like all real rock. However, I could tell what was real and what was not but it was hard to do!!!
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| My wife at the paradise pool at Hilton Hawaiian Village |
My son was finally awake when we got back to the room and was already dressed for the pool complete with his snorkel and backpack full of other stuff!
Later in the week my wife's family took all the kids and my brother and sister in law to the zoo. This gave my wife and I time to take her dad for a walk to see the park and then after taking him back to the room we walked all the way down the Waikiki beach to the park by the zoo. Everywhere was so crowded. It was neat to see all the places you hear about as a kid but thought would never see.
We stopped for a rest in the park to wait for the kids to get done at the zoo. While sitting down and relaxing under a coconut tree I realized I was seeing something else for the first time in my life. I have never seen a trees shadow come straight down under the tree. Because of our position to the north they are always to the north side even in the highest point of the year. It was neat to see this for the first time!
Since I am a plant guy I was amazed to see this massive tree outside of the zoo. It was another banyan tree and we saw several big ones in Waikiki but this was the largest!
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| Giant Banyan Tree outside the Zoo in Waikiki |
I had an opportunity to introduce my wife's family to something else they have never had before......Reese's Peanut Butter Cups! They are not sold in Japan and my wife didn't think anyone would like them as Peanut Butter is used sparingly there.
They were a hit!! I also believe that her dad was the first one to ever eat one with a pair of chopsticks! He was actually quite good at it and didn't have to worry about getting chocolate all over his hands!
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| My father in law eating his Reese's with chopsticks. |
On Thursday my Mother and Father in law stayed at the hotel and the rest of us drove up to north shore to spend a day snorkeling. Along the way we stopped at the dole plantation for some Dole Whip Ice Cream. It was very pineapplely!!
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| The Dole Plantation |
We then continued on north to Shark's Cove stopping once more to get some fresh garlic and butter shrimp to eat at the beach. I had never been snorkeling before in my life so this was big step for me. As a kid I used to love the water. However, since I never got to spend much time in it I have never learned to swim and never go where I cannot touch bottom. It took me about an hour of messing around in the shallows before I could calm down enough to use the snorkel correctly and enjoy myself. Once I was able to go out to the deeper area I could see all the stuff I have heard about in the tropical ocean. I swam over the deeper areas and I think this was the closest thing I can think of to flying! Now I know why the hawks float so high in the air in the summer. It is such a peaceful and amazing feeling!
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| Shark's cove on north shore. |
We then stopped for the famous, and original, Hawaiian shaved ice! Then sat and ate it on the beach while watching the sun set into the ocean.
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| Sunset in Haleiwa |
After the sun disappeared my nephew Gen took us out on the point and showed us a couple of sea turtles that were swimming around the rocks. I thought that this would be the closest I would get to them during our trip....I was wrong!
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| Large sea turtle in Haleiwa |
On our last day I got suckered into going shopping with all the ladies. My wife got a beautiful new dress for her and my daughter to wear on their cruise that evening, and a new shirt for me and my son. This is the first time I have ever seen my wife with a paper back from a high end store....I am ok if it is the last time also! For the last evening everyone but me went on a dinner cruise, I get motion sickness so I stayed behind. I got to see some pics and heard all about it when they got back. They had a great time!
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| Natusko (my wife) and Asako (sister in law) |
Saturday we packed everything up and took everyone to the airport. I was very hard to get a picture of everyone together as my kids were getting antsy having to wait for a while for them to get all checked in for their flight. I hate goodbyes and wish we lived closer to each other so we could see each other more often. Takayuki and Asako are telling me they are coming here next year.....they better be!!!! I can't wait to show them around where I call home!
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| Family Picture at the Airport in Honolulu |
After a tearful goodbye we got in the car and headed back to Haleiwa for the rest of our stay. My wife found a small cottage house for rent for two nights at the top of the hill from Shark's Cove for us to stay in. The woman who owns it used to be a professional surfer and grew up in Japan and my wife found her through her blog. It was so peaceful and relaxing that I immediately fell asleep right after lunch and slept for four hours straight. So delightful!
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| The cottage in Haleiwa |
While walking the property we found that the owners also planted lots of fruit trees. Now, to me that means apples, pears, and peaches. In Hawaii that means coconuts, durian, avocados, passion fruit, and many others. So, after getting permission, my daughter and I picked a couple of ripe passion fruit for my wife's breakfast.
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| Lisa holding her freshly sliced Passion Fruit. |
For our last day at the beach we drove to the bottom of the hill from the cottage and crossed the street and parked. It took longer to get the kids in the car than it did to get there! I do not remember the name of the beach but it was awesome. There was sand out far enough that you could walk and play in the water without hitting any rocks. As soon as you got out a little bit you could start snorkeling and it turned into reefs and rocks and all kinds of cool looking sea critters! What was nice is that there were large areas of rock out about 100-150 feet that the waves broke over so there where waves for the kids to play in but no rip currents or large waves to hurt anyone! You can see Shark's Cove to the top center of the photo, that is where we were a few days earlier. To the top and slightly left is where all the big waves happen in the winter months.
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| Panoramic of the beach |
Here is a picture of the kids playing in the surf. It was just awesome!!!
My wife and son coming back from snorkeling.
If you look in the back of the photo above you will see a rounded rock in the center back of the photo. Shortly after this photo my wife informed me that there was a pair of sea turtles feeding around those rocks. I swam out and found them and spent more than an hour swimming with them. At one point the biggest one spent almost thirty seconds swimming face to face with me just checking me out. I was one of the most amazing things ever!!!!
The kids were enjoying the beach as well as the ocean. I went to the store and found them smaller gardening shovels to use at the beach because I didn't bring any with us. So Lisa and I spent the first part of the day excavating for beach glass for Mommy and then in the afternoon we all pitched in and built a sand mound. She dressed it up with a large piece of Lava rock and seaweed. I then helped built a partial moat around it that the waves would push up into and get them all wet! They were having a blast.
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| Lisa and Alex playing at Haleiwa |
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| A picture of the volcanic rocks at the beach |
The picture below was taken on Monday morning while we were eating breakfast. I could not believe we were about to leave this all behind to come back to gloomy ohio. It was so beautiful when we got in the car to leave that we almost needed the bolt cutters....I was threatening to chain myself to a tree so I couldn't leave!!!
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| The view from our pool house of the ocean in Haleiwa |
For our last day we visited Waimea Falls located at the bottom of the valley literally right over the cliff from where we were staying. It was awesome! It was filled with lots of huge trees and boulders the size of our house.
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| Wife and kids at Waimea Falls in Oahu Hawaii |
Here is a pic of one of the awesome boulders that had came down of the enormous cliff so many years ago!
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| Lisa next to a huge Volcanic boulder |
A view of the falls as we were coming up to them.
If you click on the photo and look closely you will see a little dot next to the bottom of the falls that has a blue safety vest on. That is my wife. The other two dots to her right is Lisa and Alex. They loved it.
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| The wife and kids right at the base of Waimea Falls |
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| Our last family pic in Hawaii!! |
This was also the first time for me to ever see a bird of paradise flower blooming in its natural habitat. There were a bunch of them!
Since we were done at Waimea Falls with plenty of time before our flight left we decided to make the loop around the Island so we could see the other side of Oahu. This pic was taken on the East/Northeast side of the Island. The waves were awesome and so was the breeze. Wish we could have stayed but we had to keep moving after a short time to take pics!
Just one of the many pics from the drive. It was amazing to be driving with the ocean filled with waves to the left and hills a thousand feet tall to the right! Shortly after this we passed one of the two large ranches we saw on Oahu. If we ever get to go again I will be spending some time visiting them and learning how they do things there!
Lastly I would like to show you a men at work sign I saw in the airport as we were rushing to get to our plane. I informed my boss that this would be my new uniform at work.....he was not feeling it!
This was the most awesome vacation that we have taken so far and it was great to spend much needed time with our family members across the sea. I look forward to seeing them again soon and can't wait for that day to come. It really put into perspective everything we have been working on here at home and why I put so much effort into everything I do. If I could wave a magic wand and make the distance shorter I would, but I cannot. So instead we have to make the best of every minute together and not waste a single one!
We are looking forward to getting to host everyone here for a couple of weeks and getting a chance to show them our home and every thing we are working toward!!!
I also have a quick update for the farm before I depart tonight. My newest girl Black Eye had a beautiful and quite big girl just at dusk. She was just looking like she was starting when I got home at 6pm and when I went back out at 8pm to see if she started she was already done!!!
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| My Hereford x Maine Angus heifer!! |
Have a great night everyone!
Talk to you soon!
Kenny
