Trip of a Lifetime

Eloisa Dizon
Sep 4, 2017
4 min read

Hawaii, I can't even believe I got to experience such a wonderful place. I was so excited for a whole year before the trip actually happened. The planning of every detail was stressful but when we arrived to Hawaii, it was the most relaxing place anyone could be. If you'd like to know how I stayed organized into planning, let me know and I can make another blog about my organizing strategies. The reason for this Hawaii excursion was for my cousin's wedding, but we ended up making it our little adventure of Hawaii. We went to a beach almost everyday but we never went to the same beach twice. We wanted to make sure we got the whole experience. We arrived in Hawaii on Tuesday got all our stuff and went to our Airbnb, which I do recommend to anyone who is travelings anywhere. Our host was super nice and the place was well thought out and she even gave us a bottle of wine to make our stay better, plus free parking was always great, because no where in Hawaii is there free parking. When we settled and unpacked we ate at the yummiest restaurants, the ramen there was phenomenal! The one thing that always amazes me is that it will pour down rain for one minute and completely stop suddenly and be all sunshine the next.

It's crazy every beach there was completely different though. One might be saltier than the other or the waves might be different or stronger. It's crazy to think how mother nature has effected all the changes around the island, especially the mountains. The mountains were so beautiful the way they were formed and how they had their own rain clouds.

When driving to the Dole Plantation we noticed how the traffic and scenery was so different than of St. Louis. We were about to turn into the plantation when we looked to our left and all the fields were cascaded with fog; the fog was so thick that you couldn't even see the mountains. But at the Dole Plantation there a lot of fun things that were going on. Outside was a little kiosk that let you pick out oysters that had pearls in them. I picked two oysters and one of the oysters had two pearls in it, apparently that means you will have twins. Let me just tell you, I do not want twins. Having just one Elena is a handful but having three little at once, I wouldn't know how to keep my sanity. But after picking my pearls I got to choose the setting I would keep them in or to just have the pearls. I decided on two rings, one has a diamond, the other has a halo around the pearl, the other pearl was just put into a baggie so I could bring it with me. After deciding on the jewelry we finally walk into the store of pineapple which I thought was pretty awesome. I personally love pineapple. We tried the dole whip which I thought was literally just vanilla ice cream with pineapples in it, I was wrong but in a great way. The dole whip was more of a sherbert which made it way better. After taking the tour on the train I realized how much work it actually is to grow the pineapples. They go through a lot of hard labor, but I didn't realize that they grew other things besides pineapples at the plantation. They grew nuts and even flowers. After the train ride there was the maze we didn't end up going to but from all the pictures it looked like fun. If you do go to the plantation I would suggest going out of that part of town for food. There wasn't that great of a selection.

Let's talk beaches, the beaches in Hawaii are so beautiful and so clean! I loved going to the local beaches, there weren't a lot of tourists there, even though we were the tourists. We got mistaken as natives! The sand was completely different on different parts of the island. Like it would feel so soft at one beach but super rough on the other. I thought one of the coolest things we did on the beach was go to Waikiki Beach and go snorkeling and not even three yards away from the shore you could see fishes! I wish I had a GoPro to actually film that. By far the coolest thing was going to Waianae Beach, where most of the locals were, and seeing a see turtle swim less than a foot away from me. It's shell was as big as my body, best experience I will never forget. Let me be real the time I was in Hawaii I will never forget.

Don't forget about the wedding though. I was the make up artist to one of the bridemaids, my cousin and the sister to the bride/ one of the maids of honors, the bride has two sisters. So I come early to get her make up ready, my daughter is one of the flower girls so she obviously needed to be there too. It was pretty hectic at the time but everything calmed down once it was time for the bride to walk down the isle. I wanted to spare the details about us running around like chickens with our heads chopped off that part was not fun but when my cousin walked down the isle everything went calm like how everything is in Hawaii.