25th Anniversary Adventure - Day Three

Thursday morning our three day tour of Oahu began on a bus headed to the Dole Plantation. Yes, the home of Dole pineapples AND the home of the pineapple Dole whip (that I eat at Disney World all the time because it is a dairy free frozen treat). It should surprise no one that Daryl and I both had Dole Whip floats for breakfast. And then we took time to tour around the garden a bit. 

Standing at the entrance we could see mountains across the street. And everything between us and the mountains was pineapple fields, which we saw as we drove away. 

On the way to our next stop we drove up the coastline and saw the area known as North Shore for surfing. It wasn't prime surfing season, so not many people out. But it was still cool to see even from the bus. 

Our main stop of the day was at the Polynesian Cultural Center. We had lunch here first and then went inside. The PCC showcases the cultural traditions of the original Polynesian people on Hawaii and other Pacific islands. You get to see some of the village life, dress, traditions (like hula) and taste the food. It was a great way to get exposed to the culture of the islands. We started by taking a short boat ride from the front of the center to the back and then working our way around from there to the different island segments. 

We loved the hula demonstrations 

We watched a couple of guys climb the palms for coconuts. 

We taste tested all kinds of food. Daryl enjoyed the bread. 

We both got to eat the green bananas steamed in coconut milk. So delicious. 

Poi comes from taking this root vegetable and pounding it into a paste. 

And we got to drink coconut water straight out of the coconut and nibble on the coconut inside. 

Before we left, we stopped by the food trucks at the front and had crepes and they had allergy friendly ones for me. 

On the way back to the hotel we stopped off at for some pictures outside of the Iolani Palace and the Ali'Iolani Hale/King Kamahameha Statue. If you ever watched Hawaii Five-O you would recognize these buildings for sure. The Iolani Palace was the royal residence and was police headquarters and is now a museum. The statue of the former king is in front of what used to be the Legislature building and is now the Hawaiian Supreme Court. 

We got back to the hotel and rested for a bit before heading out on a few blocks walk to the International Market Place (which has a giant banyan tree inside). We decided to try our luck at the Kuhio Avenue Food Hall. We got a sampler platter from Chee-Hoo BBQ and it was so good. We wandered around the mall a bit and discovered our first cat cafe (these are popular and we found them on every island we visited).