Lanikai beach

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Okay so a bit late, but Ive been busy getting sick and doing too much homework. 

Last weekend! On Friday we met up with a friend of Gina who was here for a few days before heading to South Korea where she was studying, and her boyfriend who was studying in Japan. We decided to go to The Cheesecake Factory, which we had heard a lot about both before getting here and after coming here. We were warned that the wait to get in was long, and they were not exaggerating! We waited for 1.5 hours to get a table, and hunger kicked in for full! We were 8 people, so I suspect that didnt help us in getting in early either. I ordered a Pizza Margarita, and it was pretty good, much better than some of the other pizzas Ive had here so far. In addition, I ordered one of the best Mojitos Ive ever had. At $11 it wasnt cheap, but it was well worth it!

After a nice dinner we all went out, and ended up having a great time. We didnt get home until almost 2AM, and tumbled straight to bed, because the next day we had big plans of doing very little!

 We went to a beach on the Windward side (like north-east of the island, about 40 minutes by bus maybe) called Lanikai. The weekend before the others went to the beach next to it, Kailua beach, pictured above, to watch a kiting competition, but this time we went solely for the relaxation. We spent the entire day just tanning, reading and swimming, on one of the most amaaazing beaches Ive ever experienced. Someone on Facebook compared the beach to walking on marshmallows and we thought it simply was an analogy for a really soft beach, but it turns out it actually literally feels like walking on marshmallows. The beach has such fine sand that it feels fluffy and it gets everywhere. The water was completely clear, with large formations of coral (I think it was at least), although it is, sadly, only the boring grey kind, not the colorful kind, Ive yet to see that! I brought my new snorkeling gear to practice a bit, because for Sunday we had scheduled a boat trip through school which would take us out to a place called Turtle Canyon. Being a total noob with snorkeling, I felt I needed the option to place my feet on the bottom the first time doing it, before going out in 6-7 meter deep water. I also finished up the Hunger Games series, and started the Mortal Instruments series (a young adult fiction series about demon hunters, just up my alley!), so its fair to say I got nice and relaxed! 

Some pictures, obviously. These are all taken with my phone, my camera doesnt get to join in such sandy affairs, which is good because everything I brought was covered in teeny tiny sand grains when we got home.

This is Kailua beach, we're definitely going back to both of these beaches later! As you can see, they do get pretty full, this was just after noon on a Saturday though, obviously not the ideal time to arrive.

Clear skies and blue as far as we could see.

Another shot of Kailua, as you can see this beach is pretty long, and the waters are shallow and clear.

After arriving in the small town near the beaches, we decided to walk to the beach because the next bus was a while away. We ended up walking past Kailua, and saw a myriad of houses plucked straight out of movies and TV shows. The beaches are very animal friendly, in fact it seems like most of Hawaii is, there are dogs joining their owners pretty much anywhere. We saw one owner trying to teach her pooch to swim, but she ended up just sitting in the water with the poor puppy clinging to her instead haha!

We passed Kailua and went further down the coast to Lanikai. We went down towards the water a bit too early and ended up on this rocky bit, below, with fishes and crabs everywhere!

The islands in the background are apparently called the Twin Islands, or Nã Mokulua, and are a protected sanctuary for birds, supposedly off limits for humans but it seems people sometimes do go on there.

Finally we found ourselves a spot and relaxing commenced!

 Another view of the Twin Islands. Quite idyllic! And you can see how fine the sand is here.

You kind of ended up looking like you were wearing dust slippers because it was so fine.

This little fellow kept investigating our stuff, the entire day it kept coming back whenever one of us went to swim, to scour our towels for crumbs. 

So the entire day, the clouds were in this sharp line just behind the mountains behind the beach, keeping the beach in clear skies with sun, but at the end of the day, sadly, they crept in over the beach as well. It created the most amazing light, but also meant that our stay was coming to an end.

A sign its time to head home. 

Red-nosed and happy, a perfect day off in paradise! 

On the way home, we stopped to get pizza, realizing that none of us felt like making dinner after so many hours in the sun. The pizza was perfectly greasy, the best one Ive had here so far! To be honest, I dont find the pizza here very good, so this was a pleasant surprise!

And that was our Saturday! And part of our Friday :3