Today, we woke up and got some breakfast before heading out for our first event of the day, the Movie Sites and Ranch tour at the Kualoa Ranch that we had found two days prior. Basically, this ranch has a huge amount of land and multiple movies shoot here, including Jurassic Park, Pearl Harbor, and Godzilla (and some episodes of LOST and the new Hawaii Five-O). This tour takes an hour or so and you get to see where many of the iconic scenes from these movies were films, including the dead tree that Doctor Grant and the kids hide behind during the dinosaur stampede in Jurassic Park. Cool stuff. After the tour, we got a snack and then headed out.
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| On the tour, awesome view in the background. |
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| This bunker was created when this was a military installation. Now, it houses a collection of movie stuff and was also one of the Dharma bunkers in LOST. |
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| The valley of the dinosaur stampede from Jurassic Park. |
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| This may be the most famous dead tree ever. |
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| Hiding from the dinosaur stampede! |
Our next stop was the Byodo-In Temple. This is a replica of the famous Buddhist temple in Japan, recreated in the Valley of the Temples on Oahu. I went here the last time I was on Oahu and loved it, so I wanted to bring Cin here. We sat in the temple for a bit, rang the giant bell outside, and took some awesome pictures of the animals on the ground, including some massive black swans, other birds, fish, and what looked like wild ferrets.
After the temple, we drove up to the North Shore, with the intention of spending a decent amount of time at a nice, awesome beach. We stopped at the Crouching Lion Inn for dinner where we both had perfectly decent meals. Pretty unremarkable place with regard to the food, but it had good service and great views. There was also a very small (maybe a dozen of people or so) wedding reception going on in the bar, which was pretty cool. Anyway, we then finished the drive up to the North Shore and spent a good hour and a half at Sharks’s Cove, which is a cove enclosed by rocks and some openings to the ocean. There are no sharks, but there are fish and other animals as well as lots and lots of rocks. It is hard to walk around in there, but the views are amazing and the water feels great. The area is wonderful and somewhat busy, but not the extent that Waikiki is. This is a great beach and a wonderful place to spend some time…I wish I had brought my snorkel to explore it more fully. If you’re looking for an awesome beach on Oahu, I highly recommend this one.
We headed back to Waikiki and on the way back, while driving down Interstate H2, we saw some wild boar off to the side of the road…awesome. We cleaned up and then, after a brief walk later, we were are the Yard House on Lewes Street in Waikiki, a place that prides itself on its selection of over 100 beers on draft (their website is here and their TripAdvisor page is here). This is even more impressive to see than it sounds. I ended up with a Hawaiian fish, salad, and rice dish and Cin had a good sandwich and great salad. Oh, and I ordered a yard of beer…which is a three foot tall glass that holds 32oz of beer. I had an IPA I have never heard of (and do not remember the name of) and drank it all. And then…I had a second yard of beer. I finished it all and was so glad we walked to this dinner. ;)
We walked back and watched some more TV before bed…our last night on Oahu.
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