We slept very well and woke early (as we expected) and ate some English muffins and juice that we had purchased the night before at the ABC Store inside the hotel. We met Joan and John for the drive to Pearl Harbor, as we'd heard to go early to avoid the crowds that grow as the day goes on. We received tickets with an hour waiting time, so we explored the little museum and chatted on a wall that overlooked the harbor and the various memorials it houses. Eventually, we were ushered into a little theater, where we watched a 20-minute film narrated by Stockard Channing that quite fascinatingly explained all the history leading up to the tragedy in addition to the events of that day. The theater opened up onto the boat ramp, and we took a quick ferry out to the monument, a white rectangular tube that straddles the sunken Arizona. There wasn't much to see from the monument (except an alarming oil spill expanding into the harbor, which apparently has never stopped) but the film and the occasion were very sad.

We were feeling very lunchy when we left there, and I decided that we would drive to the North Shore up the Kamehameha Hwy, which cuts through the center of the island. We got a bit lost trying to find it (we often got lost, as we never did procure a decent map that showed anything in detail past the boundaries of Waikiki) but once we were on the road it was quite beautiful, very green and lush, and it wasn't very long before we crested a big hill and found ourselves looking down at the ocean again. We headed to the surf town of Haleiwa, where I had heard about some mythical hamburgers at a place called Kua Aina, and we finally found it. As it turns out, we weren't at all sorry we had held out, because the burgers were every bit as incredible as their reputation. We sat outside and enjoyed the nice weather and the sleepy little town (sleepiness occasionally interrupted by passing motorcycle groups.)

Feeling refreshed, we made our way to Pupukea Beach Park just outside of Haleiwa and took a little walk on the bright white sand. The waves weren't huge because it was May, but the water was almost navy blue and really quite stunning. David and I walked (and I occasionally frolicked) on the beach for about half an hour, and then we found John playing catch with an extremely avid dog. :) Hot and thirsty (the sand was deep and sloping, so walking was slow-going) we drove back into town to the famed Matsumoto General Store, where they reputedly have the best shave ice on the island. We waited in a considerable line while deciding on our flavors (you could have three from about 30 choices, in addition to the age-old considerations: ice cream, or no? and should I add sweet azuki beans?) but the time went quickly. They were also selling beach wear, picnic goods and Matsumoto logo items, but we stuck to shave ice at about $1.50 a pop. There was a large gecko on the wall above the flavor dispensers. We sat outside with a lot of other people and slurped our treats with straws and spoons. It was good, but in all honesty, not as good as we had in Kauai.

On the way back down (up?) the Kamehameha Highway, we turned in at the Dole Plantation, which we had passed earlier. It was part theme park (world's largest maze made out of hedges, and some kind of choo-choo train) part educational center (an exhibit of pineapple plants from all over the world, some of them quite exotic in their spiky flaming redness, and we saw a "mutant" pineapple that seemed to have a fused crown) and, in large part, general store (every possible pineapple-related product you can think of, and a dessert bar with non-dairy "Dole Whip," which I was told was delish but declined to try with a belly full of shave ice.) We were pretty tired after that, and headed back to Waikiki for a little rest before dinner.

We had a 7:00 reservation at Keo's, a famed Thai restaurant that has been in Waikiki for many years and is sort of a tradition. It was very pretty inside, with massive flower arrangements everywhere (we were betting on whether or not they were real; I was sure they were and went to finger some petals-silk) and lots of faux-antiquey furniture and gew-gaws. We ordered a special house curry with a name something like Naughty Princess (can't remember exactly) and lots of other stuff, too. It was really good but we were somehow too full to eat a lot of it.

On the way back to the hotel, David reminded me that he'd met a gal in the elevator who was raving about the karaoke at the Longboarder Bar in the hotel across the street from ours. He suggested we drop in to see if I could sing a number or two. I had my doubts, but they were just getting started when we showed up and I tossed my slip in the hat after a brief look through the book. The KJ seemed eager for David to sing, too, like that was going to happen. :) Joan and John were joking about how they were the oldest people in the bar, but David and I had everyone else beat by a few years, too. It was a young crowd, but a friendly one, and when I was soon called to sing Mary Chapin Carpenter's "I Feel Lucky" (one of my signature numbers) I had a lot of enthusiastic support from a table of Texans. It was a good night for singing, and I almost wanted to stick around and find out if I'd ever be called up again (next intended number: "Son of a Preacher Man") but knew I had a snowball's chance in Waikiki the way these things work. Since we'd already winced through some very bad so-called chardonnay, we said good-night and headed back to the room for some rest.