Hawaii Eleven-O: Day 5

Day 5 started out with another lazy morning, after our late night at the luau and show the night before.  Not entirely sure what I did, probably read my book and played with kids. Eventually, we headed out for lunch from Fumi's Shrimp, one of the various shrimp shacks along the highway north of Laie.  The ponds where they raise the shrimp are right out in the field next to shack, and they even have a tank of live shrimp next to where you order.  We got ordered a variety of shrimp (garlic buttered, spicy garlic, tempura, and coconut) and I was able to sample some of each.  They all were great. I ordered coconut since no one else had and I was the last one choosing. If I had to choose again, I'd have a hard time picking as they were all so good. Probably try to convince whoever I was with to get something different and then share with me.

Fumi's!

Remains of the shrimp

After lunch, we headed up around the end of the mountains and back into the middle of the island to the Dole pineapple plantation.  They have a few different things to do there (Austin would get really excited every time he heard the train whistle), but we settled on doing their maze (not a maze made of pineapple plants though as they're only a few feet high).  George suggested that some us use the maps provided, and another group just try to work through the maze without a map and see who would get done first.  To make things more fair, the no map group consisted of just George, Ben, and Lucy, so not much dead weight in the form of old folks, babies, or pregnant ladies to hold them back. :) I took it on myself to head up the map group.

I took Austin on my shoulders for most of the time, and he enjoyed being up high, reaching out to touch the hedges, spotting helicopters, and bouncing up and down while I was trying to read my tiny map. :) Completing the maze consisted of reaching each of 8 checkpoint stations where there was a stencil for stenciling in a station-specific shape into a corresponding square on the map card.  Austin and Elise really enjoyed coloring in the shapes.

The team with maps

Elise completing a checkpoint

In the end, we completed the maze in just about an hour. George's group got done a little before us, although to be fair, George had done the maze before and had a general idea of where the stations were, so they weren't working completely blind.


The winning team

After the maze, we fed fish food to the koi, shared a pineapple ice cream sundae (I sat this one out), and watched a pineapple cutting demonstration.

Austin reported that the ice cream "tastes good!"

After the pineapple plantation we headed back to Laie, with a brief stop at Shark Cove because Natalie spotted a whale as we were driving past.  We saw a few spouts and I think some people saw more than that, but eventually we loaded back up and finished the trip to Laie.


I thought this service station had a charmingly run-down feel

Happily, not too much later, another whale was spotted from the back patio. And this one put on a show for us, repeated slapping its pectoral fin, probably 10 times or more while we watched.

Mom and Natalie put together a nice dinner of swiss cheese chicken, and then the grown ups (the two married couples and myself) headed over to the nearby temple for a session while Ben and Natalie babysat the grandkids.  Probably the smallest temple I've been to, to date.  Impressive when you think that it was one of the earliest temples built.  A nice end to our night.

More photos from Day 5.