Oahu- Day 3

Hey, so where were we?  Oh yeah, Oahu.  We stayed with some friends of ours and spent Sunday tooling around the island.  This shaved ice place is Erin's (with the pinkish-red hair below) favorite on the island.  You can see from the line that it's a lot of people's favorite.

Charlie, on the right, grew up in Hawaii, and assured me that getting ice cream in your shaved ice is the way to go.  I was very skeptical of his recommendation, especially after he went for the sweetened condensed milk on top of his.  Ice cream in shaved ice, that's like mixing water with your ice cream, and that sounded gross.

Turns out- IT'S DELICIOUS!  It tastes sort of like a root beer float, except with shaved ice flavors.

Then we drove up to the Pu'u Mahuka Heiau Historical site (I totally googled that).  It was a little windy.

According to the 30-second history lesson I got from Charlie, this spot was the last stand the native Oahuans made against King Kamehameha in his battle to unite the islands, who were the last hold-outs.

They fought all the way up to the cliff and then King Kamehameha's army started pushing the Oahuans off.

Which is when the surrendered.  Tyler wanted to see if he could pet a wild chicken.

They are very fast.

Tyler told me that I kept giving him stink faces, so I did this one on purpose.  After dinner, we took a walking tour of downtown Honolulu.  There are three of these King Kamehameha statues in existence: one in DC, one on the Big Island, and one in Honolulu.  Without trying, we've now seen all 3.  I don't remember what this building is... some government office?

This is tha royal palace where Queen Liliuokalani lived when she was disposed.  It being a Sunday evening, it was closed so we couldn't go inside.

And this is like the first Catholic church in Hawaii... or the biggest... or the fanciest, or something.  I wanted to take a picture of that amazing stained-glass window, but we went inside and they were performing Gregorian Chants right in front of it, and it would have been awkward to walk around them.

We also went to church at a random Honolulu ward, and there was a family moving away.  After the meeting, the congregation sang "Aloha 'Oe" (which is learned was composed by Queen Liliuokalani, I learned from a plaque outside the palace) and gave the moving family leis.  I was pretty much bawling, it was so touching.