We just returned on Sunday morning from our vacation in Hawaii! We actually hadn’t taken our honeymoon when we got married almost two years ago, and we’d always wanted to go to Hawaii since we had both never been. We took a little over a week off to finally go on a real “honeymoon” vacation — we thought it would be appropriate to go now, right before we hit the 2-year mark since our wedding and graduate from our newlywed status. We went to two islands, Oahu and Kaua’i, and we’d been diligently researching and planning all the things we could do for a couple months, collecting recommendations on places to go and things to eat from our friends. Thanks to their help and all the planning, we had a truly amazing and memorable trip!

Because we took so many photos and did so many things, it’s impossible to cover everything in one blog post, so we’re going to try to do this by each day… and Dan will most likely have some video footage to share here and there, too. 🙂 So here’s Day One!

We left San Francisco Airport in the wee hours or Friday morning on June 11th, and arrived in Hawaii in the late morning — there’s a three hour difference between California and Hawaii, which worked in our favor the way there (but of course, we lost three hours on the way back).

After landing and picking up our rental car, the first thing on our minds was lunch! We were pretty hungry from not eating anything on the plane, and we were ready to start getting our grub on with all the good food that we heard was in Oahu. We headed over to Andy’s Sandwiches & Smoothies, which my coworker-friend Tarrin had recommended.

It was a small eatery with a hole-in-the-wall atmosphere, and they are known for serving up fresh sandwiches and fantastic smoothies! They are especially known for their avocado sandwiches, but as I’m not a fan of avocado, I got the turkey sandwich without avocado.

Both the sandwiches and the strawberry smoothie we had were delish — big thanks to Tarrin for her recommendation. 🙂 But as if that were not enough, we decided to try some of the shaved ice in the area, too. Everyone who we’d talked to who really knew Hawaii well or had lived there in the past had recommended Waiola Shave Ice in Honolulu. Matsumoto Shave Ice in Haleiwa is of course the famous one that all the tourists go to, but they all told us Waiola was where it was at! So of course, I couldn’t wait to give it a try….

When I hear about shaved ice here, I’m usually very skeptical because I expect the rock-hard snow cones that are typically served here in the U.S., as opposed to the finely shaved ice that I grew up on (our family had a Japanese shaved ice machine that we’d bust out every summer). But the shaved ice in Waiola was the most finely shaved ice I’d ever seen! It was seriously the best shaved ice I’d ever had — I was blown away by how good it was! The flavors were great, too!

The hotel we were staying in while we were in Oahu was all the way up in the North Shore, so for the first day, we decided to drive along the Eastern side of the island and take in the views, randomly stopping here and there. It was a gorgeous day, which made for some breathtaking views and several stops along the way….

After a couple hours of driving (it took us a while since we were driving up the Eastern side of the island instead of cutting through the middle, and because we kept making stops), we finally made it to the Turtle Bay Resort, where we would stay for the next five nights.

After checking in and settling into our hotel room, we were hungry for dinner so we decided to eat dinner in the local area of Kahuku… at none other than Giovanni’s Shrimp Truck!

This was actually the only shrimp truck we went to at the North Shore during our whole trip. We wanted to try some of the other ones that are supposed to be good (like Macky’s, and Romy’s…), but we were down in the Honolulu area most of the time, so we never got the chance. I definitely could have gone for more shrimp during our stay! Thank you Estella, Megumi, Bryan… everyone who told us about Giovanni’s! It was so good, I am drooling now just thinking about it.

After dinner, Dan spotted a roadside fresh fruit stand on the way back to the hotel, and he was seduced by the big fat Iced Cold Coconut sign. Dan loves coconut! (Me? Not so much.)

We returned to the hotel for the evening, taking dips in the pool and just relaxed. The Turtle Bay Resort was right on a beach, so we had a gorgeous view not only from the pool area but from our hotel room as well!

Only Day One, and we already ate so much good food and saw so many beautiful sights! We were definitely excited for the days to come. Stay tuned for more of our adventures in Hawaii!