Last night, we met up with our friends Jerome and Lisa. They're getting married here in a couple of days! After a nice breakfast at the hotel, we plan to rendez-vous at Pali Lookout after lunch.
Neda and I check out the most twistiest road on Oahu, set right in the city, a bit north of Waikiki. Tantalus Drive/Round Top Drive climbs uphill to a state park that overlooks Waikiki Beach. Although the road has beautiful tight turns, the pavement is broken and patchy in sections which limits the speed we can travel. Anyway, we stop at many places along the side of the road to take in the scenery and snap some shots, so it doesn't matter too much.
After riding down Tantalus Drive, we had an hour for lunch before we met up with Lisa and Jerome at the Pali Lookout. Not a lot of time, so we spotted a YMCA at the beginning of the Pali Highwa. For those of you who know Neda and I very well, you'll know that the YMCA has special meaning for us, as that's where we met for the first time, playing volleyball at the Scarborough Y. So we thought we'd poke our heads in and check out the cafe, and to our surprise the menu had an amazing selection of fresh seafood. I had seabass and Neda had mahi-mahi and it was delicious. The Honolulu Y could teach the Toronto Ys a thing or two about culinary offerings!
We decided to return to Pali Lookout again this afternoon because we could really see much last night after the sun set. There's also a nice trail that leads down from the lookout which made for a nice hike and some time off the bikes.
From Pali Lookout, we got back on the bikes and ventured north across the mountains to the other side of the islands and made our way along the south shore. Many beaches line this side of the island as well and the ride was very scenic with plenty of places to stop and take some pictures.
What's neat about the Halona Blowhole is that there is a natural hole in this shelf of rock, so when waves crash against the rock, it gets redirected up out of the hole and it looks like a whale's spout. Here's an animated picture of a wave crashing undeneath the shelf and pushing up a spout of water. This is actually one of the smaller spouts, the blowhole can shoot water up to over 30-feet in the air from a large enough wave!  Got back to the hotel and had a great dinner at Roy's, which is a great sushi restaurant started by Roy Yamaguchi, who was on Iron Chef USA. We then headed out into town to do a little window shopping. We've been having problems at the airport because one of our suitcases weighs too much. So we're looking for an additional suitcase for the return trip home after Neda finishes shopping in Honolulu! :)
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