food and more on oahu

Besides the tours, I'd say that the food was another highlight of our trip.  Thanks to the great tips from J&C, we ate some pretty good food.  I have to say, though, I can eat tropical fruit, coconut and macadamia nuts all day. so the local food agrees with me!

We couldn't get enough of local fruit!  We got pineapples, avocados, mangoes and apple bananas from the farmer's market.  So tasty!  I'm still surprised (and sad) that I don't like papaya because there are not many fruits I don't like!  And the papayas at the market looked SO good.

J&C recommended açai bowls and Heavenly, so I had to have the açai bowl at Heavenly!  I found my new favourite breakfast.  I think I had a Heavenly açai bowl for breakfast every morning after!  Even when we came back home, I had to find Hawaiian açai bowls here.  Low and behold, I found alohabowls.ca!  Now, it's not Heavenly, but it's still worth the trek to find the food truck!

Another food highlight was Fumi's shrimp truck on the north shore. We are told it's one of the trucks that serves local shrimp.  Truthfully, I'm not sure I can tell the difference between local and non-local shrimp, but local just seems like it will be better all around.  The shrimps did not disappoint!  We had garlic shrimp, coconut shrimp and shrimp tempura.  All of it was delicious.

Best shave ice (Waiola) and best poke (Ono Seafood)

Aside from wanting IHOP, the kids were great about eating whatever we decided to eat that day.  Some of their favourites?  The gyoza and crèpes at the Japanese food court at Ala Moana (that's the Japanese food court, not the regular one!).  And, of course, shave ice.

Surprisingly, we tasted the difference between bad shave ice and good shave ice on this trip!  One night, we had shave ice at some random stall.  The kids didn't even finish them!  They said it was meh.  I tried some and it was, indeed, meh (who knew?!).  I think it was a combination of the quality of the shaved ice and the quality of the syrup.  The next day, we made the trek to Waiola Shave Ice (on recommendation) because I couldn't leave Oahu having bad shave ice.  Yes, this was definitely good shave ice!  And the kids polished them off just to prove it!

All this food went hand in hand with hanging out at the beach and pool.  I'm not a lay-around-at-the-beach/pool person, but I found myself able to relax with a book while the kids played.  I think the way they love the beach makes me enjoy it more.

All in all, I think our trip had a good balance of exploring/touring and relaxing.  I know I came back feeling like I was on a vacation, so that's a good thing.

Again, there were too many pics to post them all here, so here is a link to the last album - https://photos.app.goo.gl/nK9KE3rMFwJPSgZE7.  And here is one last one of the hukilau: