Hiking up Kealia Trail

This past weekend James and I decided to go on a hiking trip.  There are tons of hiking trails around Oahu, especially with the beautiful mountain ranges!  James took me hiking up a trail he did with his unit a couple months back called Kealia Trail.  We entered on the northwest side of the island, but supposedly you can enter on the west side as well.  One of my fears of hiking in Hawaii is the mosquitoes.  Yuck!  Get them away.  Thankfully, this trail had no mosquitoes and another plus is that it was shaded throughout most (if not the entire) part of the trail. 

We parked our car over by the glider port area and then walked 10 minutes to the head of the hiking trail.  From there, we entered "military training area" and began our hike.  Since it was the weekend and relatively early, we didn't encounter a lot of people which was nice.  We hiked for about 1.5 hours up the trail....and it was up....all the way till we reached a view of the valley.  I love seeing all the green.  Of course, it was a lot easier to go back. :)  All in all, I think the hike was about 6 miles round trip. 

Next time, I want to go over to the west side of the island and run the trail to the lighthouse and back.  They say it's a 10 mile round trip run.  Should be fun! :)

On our way to the trailhead

View of the glider port below and North shore area

Hiking up

Pretty, but not to the top yet!

View of the Valley

   

Ko'Olina, Kayaking, Chinatown

First real weekend back in Hawaii.  We thought we wanted to relax, but that usually doesn't happen!

I think I'm so used to waking up 5AM, that 6:00 is now sleeping in.  That's what happened on Saturday morning.  6:00AM rolled around and I was wide awake!  I laid in bed for a little while and then decided it was time to get up.  James and I decided to go running.  We didn't make it too far.  I'm not a fan of running in the humidity!  Yuck!!! 

We ran over to the park, did some ab workouts, and then lunged (yes, lunged!) all the way back home.  It was probably a good 400 meters!  I didn't feel it at the moment, but man were my legs burning the next day (and today!).  

We've been saying that we want to go to Ko'Olina for a while.  Since it was still early in the day, we decided to go.  Ko'Olina is a man-made lagoon.  It wasn't a particularly beautiful day, but it's never that bad in Hawaii!  There are actually four different lagoons.  We stayed a while at lagoon #3, then decided to walk to all four.

James at Lagoon #1


Lagoon #2

We haven't really explored the west side of the island, so we took a drive along the coast line.  The west side of the island is known for it's poverty.  As we were driving down, it was sad to see all the shacks built  by locals who can't afford homes.  The road doesn't exactly connect all the way around the island, so we had to stop once the road ends.  Apparently, it's another 5 miles (dirt trail) to the very tip of Oahu.  If only we brought our running shoes!  James and I want to do that run eventually.  I think it'll be fun.  

We wanted to go kayaking, but it was too windy, so no kayaks were being rented out, so we decided to go on Sunday.  Before we moved to Hawaii, I got this book called Oahu Revealed.  It's a pretty cool book that tells you all the insider secrets.  We read there are some great kayaking places on the windward side (near Kaneohe Bay, so we drove over there Sunday morning.  When we got there, the guy said it was going out was really easy, but coming back, since we're going against the current, it will be really hard.  It kind of scared me since I haven't gone out in a while.  Actually, going out was hard, but coming back was super easy and fun!  We kept crashing into waves and getting super soaked!  Next time, I think we'll rent the kayaks, strap them onto the car and drive out to Lanikai, or a river and paddle out to the "sandbar".  

Getting ready to paddle out

After kayaking, we decided to check out the Chinatown in Honolulu and we discovered a GREAT dim sum restaurant called Legend Seafood.  So yummy!  Reminds me of San Diego, and the prices are pretty reasonable!  We walked around like tourist, bought some veggies, and then called it a day.  I think we did pretty well this weekend exploring.  Not sure what adventures lay ahead next weekend!  James has Veteran's Days off, so I might take off as well.  We shall see....:)

Acting like a tourist in Chinatown

 

Typical Asian market