Turtle Bay

Poppy came to visit! He got into Honolulu late on Thursday, then Friday after work he and I headed up to the North Shore of Oahu to the Turtle Bay Resort for the weekend. It was my first time driving up there, and I was amazed by a) how huge the waves were compared to Kailua and c) how many "Shrimp Trucks" we passed. Why would anyone want to buy shrimp from a truck by the side of the road? Obviously there's a demand because we saw a LOT of those trucks.

Anyway, we got up to Turtle Bay which was lovely. It's an older resort but very open and airy and stunning views from all over. (It's also the setting for "Forgetting Sarah Marshall.")

There was a turtle friend waiting on my bed, which I loved, because I'm about 8 :)

This was the view from the balcony, of the two pools and Turtle Bay. Once I saw the size of the waves out there, I started to chicken out on the surfing idea.
Friday night we decided to try out the Hawaiian buffet dinner. I thought it'd be a good chance to finally try some "real" Hawaiian food without having to commit to a whole meal of it. So I was brave and tried both poke (chopped up raw ahi with sea salt, soy sauce, and some other stuff) and poi (mashed up taro plant, looks like purple goo.) Well I took a small taste of poi, and that pretty much tasted like dirt. I tried to segregate it from the rest of my plate but the goo kept spreading into my salad, it was pretty unfortunate. Then I tried the poke... I don't even know what to say, except it was awful. Horrendous. Once I tasted it I realized I couldn't stand to bite into it, so I swallowed the chunk of fish whole which was just terrible. The taste was like a mixture of fishiness and astringent. Anyway then I chugged my entire tropical drink, which I previously had thought tasted too strongly of vodka, but was much preferred to the poke. Sadly, there are no photos of this experience, but so it goes.

On a happier food note, on Saturday night we decided we needed some sweets and found out that we could take dessert carry-out from the one restaurant. They gave us a box and for $6 said we could fill it up from the dessert bar. This might not sound like a big deal, but in Hawaii, and especially at a resort in Hawaii, this is super cheap. So we filled the box with carrot cake, brownies, chocolate mousse, chocolate cake, and bread pudding. Then we ran out of the place like we got away with stealing something. We were way too excited about this.

So since I decided to forgo surf lessons to instead get a massage (it was cloudy and actually chilly that day, so I have an excuse) on Saturday, I needed to do something more adventurous while I was there. Poppy was kind enough to agree to go horse-back riding with me on Sunday morning and it was so much fun. This is me waiting to picked up to go to the stables...

We ended up being the only people on this horse ride along with our guide, so it was really cool. I guess Turtle Bay is the only place on Oahu where you are allowed to ride horses right on the beach, and it was lovely.

We rode through a huge banyan tree that is apparently has been used for a filming location on Lost.

It was a really cool ride, despite the fact that I hadn't been on a horse since I was in Girl Scouts. I couldn't believe how one minute we were on the beach and the next it felt like we were in the rain forest. Then our guide led us back to the barn and we headed out.
The trip to Turtle Bay was a great mini-vacation. Maybe sometime I'll work up the nerve to go back and try surfing...