Aloha -Part II-Oahu
3 nights:
Pacific Monarch Hotel, Waikiki.
Good location for walking downtown.
Adventures On Oahu:
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- The Majestic Circle Island Tour wasn’t worth the money. Just rent a car and let your Gypsy app guide you around Oahu.
- Waimea Valley is different than the rest of the Island. Rolling hills with tree-lined mountains and large open pastures with lots of cattle and horses, thus it’s also called cowboy country. Take Highway 250 that connects Waimea to North Kohala for beautiful scenic views.
- Visit the USS Arizona Memorial in the morning. Reservations are required. They fill up fast so get your tickets ahead of time (we got ours before we left home). The programs run daily, every 30 minutes from 8am-3:30pm. Tickets via recreation.gov are free.
www.recreation.gov/ticket/233338/ticket/16
We took a shuttle bus that leaves the Arizona Memorial Visitor center to the USS Memorial. Get tickets in advance. Runs every 15 minutes.
- USS Missouri tickets cost $34.99 when we went. Worth touring this historic battleship. The battleship is the site of the surrender of the Empire of Japan.
www.tiqets.com/en/battleship-missouri-memorial-tickets-l184260
There are a few food vendors outside the battleship, so we had our lunch there.
- Dinner at Shorefyre. Don’t miss happy hour (4-6pm). Best Mai Tai around! Located 2446 Koa Ave,
Flew from Oahu into Hilo (Big Island), rented a car at the airport and drove to Kona (Big Island). Takes 1 hour and 30 minutes and rather boring.
Chuck’s Almost Famous Mai Tai Recipe
Premix these ingredients in a pitcher. The pitcher will NOT be full. Makes roughly 6-7 drinks.
Ingredients:
1 ½ cups Gold Rum—I use Bacardi
1 cup Triple Sec—I use Juarez
¼ cup Lime Juice—fresh squeezed lime taste best
2 cups Pineapple Juice
½ cup Orange Juice
¼ Orgeat syrup—I use Bar Smith Mai Tai Orgeat
Stir until thoroughly blended.
Fill Hurricane glasses with ice then pour in above mix from pitcher until about ¾ full in glass.
Squirt Grenadine syrup around inside of glass and watch it settle to the bottom. Do not squirt grenadine into middle of glass, you want it to settle at the bottom creating a nice red layer at the bottom of glass. You will see the grenadine ease down the sides of the glass.
Lastly, take a bar spoon, turn it upside down and slowly trickle dark rum over the spoon until a nice dark layer forms on top. (about an inch thick) You don’t want this to blend with the pitcher mix either.
Now you will have a nice three-layer Mai Tai. Red, yellowish, and dark.
Garnish with a slice of pineapple on the rim of glass and a straw. Add a tropical umbrella or tropical flower if desired.
ALOHA