Pineapple Princess (Day 4) [a.k.a. I Call The Big One Bitey]

Day 4 began with one of the better breakfasts we had on the trip. We went to the Shore Bird, a restaurant that is part of a hotel whose name I can't remember, and overlooks the beach. We ate there last time we went to Hawaii, for dinner. At dinnertime they have grills set up, and you order meat and then cook it yourself. Which is more fun than it sounds. But at breakfast, they have a fantastic buffet. With bacon. And fried rice. And coconut syrup for waffles. It was glorious.
The four of us at the Shore Bird. The lighting is pretty awful because we were getting a glare off of the sand outside. It's so hard to be us, eating on the beach like that.
Right outside of our window, these nice young men were setting up their boat.
We also had a very nice view of Diamond Head.
Inside the lobby of the hotel was this super cool mural. Tricia wouldn't swim with the dolphins, but she did stand with them.
And then I did butterfly with the sting ray. Don't I look like Michael Phelps?

After walking along the beach back to the Hale Koa, we changed and went down to our beach. This is where our friends the Beach Boys sit, renting out chairs, paddle boats, kayaks, and other fun things like that.
Today, we rented a giant raft in addition to the usual chairs and umbrellas. This is Tricia and me on said raft in the ocean. Note the difference in quality from the crappy waterproof disposable camera and my super cool new digital camera that I got for my birthday and used for all of the other pictures. I love my new camera.
Tricia and I had started to drift out to sea because neither of us wanted to carry the anchor that the Beach Boys gave us for the ramp, and I decided I didn't want to become shark bait, so I came in. This is a view from the beach after Katy and I switched places on the raft, and Mary joined them on one of the small rafts we had.
Floating on a raft in the Pacific is hard work, so we decided that we should get shave ice to reward ourselves afterwards. I believe this was watermelon and lime.
This was also the day that I saw the world's ugliest hat on the beach. Take a look - I belive it is made of banana leaves. Note the leopard print bathing suit as well.

**Taryn, bird alert. If I were you, I'd skip this next picture.**

We also had many visitors on the beach this day. We were surrounded by beach birds. As my mother says the nuns used to say as they would beat them with rulers, these birds were "bold bold bold." One of them tried to drink out of one of the ice buckets we had. And a couple of them settled down right in front of us. This was my favorite. I call him Bitey.

On the way back to the room, I took a few more pictures of flowers around the gardens at the Hale Koa. A hibiscus:
Something that looks like a gecko:
Something else cool looking:
A pretty orchid:

The banyan tree outside of the exchange:
After the beach, we went shopping. We started at the small exchange in the basement of the Hale Koa (see Tricia and Mary entering below), and then moved on to the giant exchange at Pearl Harbor. Giant, beautiful exchanges like that are the number one reason I miss being a military dependent.
After buying out the exchange, we headed to dinner at a tiny wine bar called Formaggio's, which was in the basement of this creepy shopping center. Well worth it, though - the restaurant itself was lovely, if a bit small, and I had the best freaking red (a grenache). No pictures because see: creepy shopping center, but if you really care, there is a website: http://www.formaggio808.com/wine.htm.

After dinner, we returned to the Hale Koa, where we visited one of the bars in the basement of the hotel. I had a vile drink called a Rainbow, and a really good mai tai. Tricia had a lava flow, and Katy and Mary had two cosmopolitans each. Note Katy with her empty glasses. And as usual, my hairstyle was enhanced by the cocktail decor. Pretty!