{Hawaii Day 4}

Today we headed North. The North Shore Beaches are fantastic. I can't wait to go back one winter to see the 30 ft. waves come crashing in. First stop was Waimea Bay. This is a pretty big space. Apparently people like to come here to jump off this rock. We didn't do it though.

Our next stop was all the way to the western point. We didn't actually go to the tip, you have to hike over to it, but we went to the Kaena Point State Park and walked part of Mokuleia/Army Beach. There was nobody there. This was also the most littered area we'd been to. It was still pretty though.

You can't take a trip to North Shore without stopping in Haleiwa for some famous shaved ice. There are two places that everyone recommended. The first was the world famous Matsumoto's. The second was Aoki's. We went to Matsumoto's. According to anyone we talked to the shaved ice is the same and the wait at Aoki's is not as long. However, we picked a good time to go because we didn't have to wait very long. I guess it's quite normal for the line to be out the door, but that wasn't the case. They serve their shaved ice with either azuki beans (Japanese red beans boiled in sugar) or vanilla ice cream. Annie got hers with the beans. She said they were too sweet. I tried them and they were OK. I like beans, just not with my icy desserts!

We went to a couple of other beaches along our way to Laie. Such as Sunset and Turtle Bay. There were a couple of others but I'm not exactly sure which beaches they were.

We went to the temple in Laie. When I was in primary and they would ask which temple was my favorite I would always say the Hawaii temple.

To finish out the day we went to the Polynesian Cultural Center. We got there later in the afternoon then we had planned. I would highly suggest to anyone going that they get there when it opens. Each country has a presentation/show that only is played a few times a day so we missed a couple of them. We stayed for the Luau. Not entirely authentic by any means. However the food was delicious and they did have a show for us while we ate. We also stayed for the Horizons show. Loved it! You have to stay until the end that's the best part.