Scandinavian Shave Ice, Kona, Hawaii

October 14, 2023

Scandinavian Shave Ice, Kailua-Kona, Hawaii

Kona Hawaii is a delightful town on the Pacific Ocean with plenty of shops, historic sites. and breath- taking scenery. It was here that we found Scandinavian Shave Ice.

Hawaiian Shave Ice is a traditional dessert in Hawaii in which a block of ice is shaved into small pieces and flavored with syrups. The creations are colorful, usually quite large and often include a scoop of ice cream in the middle of the ice. I happily partook of the wonderful traditional food while in Kona watching the Ironman race. It always feels a little ironic that while our daughter is doing an intense race, burning calories,, I enjoy watching while eating lots of calories.

Tasty and fun to eat

Scandinavian Shave Ice is a small shop with a menu that gives options for ordering the perfect treat. They start with a plastic dish the shape of a an ice cream cone and fill it with shaved ice, flavored with your choice of syrups and a scoop of ice cream is placed on top. This is then covered with a thick layer of shave ice to make a large and beautifully colored snow ball. Eating it is fun – the texture is more of snow texture than a sno-cone. For the ice cream, I ordered Kona joy, and for the shaved ice I ordered lime, grape and mango, With over 60 flavors for the shaved ice and numerous ice cream flavors, there are so many combinations to try! This is a not to be missed treat in Kona.

The shop had small tables to eat at, but being in downtown Kona, we chose to sit along the beautiful waterfront to enjoy them. I definitely want to have this again.

In the area: Kalua Kona has a chill and fun atmosphere, enhanced by the Ironman athletes and their supporters who were there for the race. Among the athletes was our daughter.

Ironman Woman’s World Championship Race, Kona, Hawaii- Ironman races are challenging – athletes swim 2,4 miles then bike 116 miles and finally run a marathon.  Probably the most challenging Ironman race is the Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii where the swim is in the Pacific Ocean, the bike ride is over hot, dry and windy volcanic terrain and the run is hilly and long. Athletes must qualify for this race usually through placing in a previous full Ironman race – the competitors are all amazing athletes. In previous years, the race was the championship race for both male and female athletes, but this year the race was split and the women’s championships were in Hawaii and the men’s were in France (this will switch nest year and the women will be in France, the men Hawaii). It was nice for the women to have their own race. We spent the day enjoying and watching all the amazing athletes.

Our daughter finishing the Ironman World Championships!

The Queen’s Bath, Kona, Hawaii – separated from the Pacific by a rim of rocks, the Queens Bath is a great place to enjoy and relax, It is calm, scenic and warm, with waves spilling over from the Pacific from time to time, We took some time to enjoy this while our daughter was biking at the far end of the island. The bath is easily walkable from town, but a bit tricky to find. A local person both recommended we stop there and gave us directions. 

Gypsea Gelato

(Big Island Abalone. Greenwell Farms, Kona Salt Farm)

October 16, 2023

Gypsea Gelato, Kealakekua, Big Island, Hawaii

Gypsea Gelato was an interesting place where one could come for the ice cream (or gelato) or expresso and stay to play Connect Four or corn hole, shop for a new hat, look at artwork or sit on a comfortable chair to read a book or play on their cell phone – an ice cream shop that has it all! Seating included a wooden boat with plenty of children’s books, large tables for groups, and padded throne-style chairs.

Seating to make you feel like royalty

There were plenty of frozen treats to enjoy including Hawaiian favorites such as “Macadamia Nut”, “Tom Kha” (coconut), “Kona Coffee” and “Lilikoi” (passion fruit) and more traditional flavors including “Just Chocolate”, “Just Dark Chocolate” and “Salted Caramel” , I went with Lilikoi. I found texture to be creamy, but the flavor a bit weak. We enjoyed our treats inside since it was drizzly outside.

Gypsea Gelato

In the area – today we went on two factory tours and one farm tour, All were wonderful and I highly recommend them,

Big Island Abalone, Kona, Hawaii -Abalones are edible mollusks with ear shaped shells. In addition to being an important food source in many parts of the world. their colorful, iridescence-lined shells make them attractive for use in jewelry. Big Island Abalone aquafarrm is an abalone grower that offers tours of their facility. 

Abalone life span

Our tour began with an introduction to our tour guide – a very interesting and knowledgeable scientist from Japan. He introduced us to the abalones by showing us the life cycle from eggs to the harvestable mollusks. We then walked through rows of tanks as he explained how the fish are raised. As the abalones grow, they are moved between tanks until ready to harvest. They are fed seaweed, which is grown in separate tanks which we also shown.  

After the tour of the abalones and seaweed growing area, our guide brought us to a tank with other interesting sea creatures that they keep solely to show tourists, The tour was followed by the tour guide preparing abalones in two different ways and giving us samples to try, with sea grapes for garnish. I never had abalone before, and I liked it, but the the rubbery texture would take some getting used to. The sea grapes were fun to eat.

Kona Salt Farm, Kona, Hawaii -Sodium chloride, often referred to as “Salt” is an essential component of our diets -we need it to live, but too much is obviously not good for us. Salt used in cooking may come from a variety of sources, such as underground salt beds and seawater extraction. Today we toured Kona Salt Farm, a seawater extraction facility . 

Kona Salt Farm final drying step, with our great tour guide

Due to the volcanic formation of this area in Hawaii, the ocean becomes very deep very near the coast. It is here that the Kona Salt Farm gets seawater for salt – specifically 2200 feet below the ocean surface, where the salt is cleaner and richer in minerals than salts mined closer to the surface. 

    solar evaporation system

Our tour guide started by showing us the scenic Pacific Ocean coast by the farm, and taking our pictures by the beautiful back drop, Then she got down to explaining of the technical side of salt production. We saw from a distance where the clean, cool salt water was brought up from the deep ocean, and then headed to the drying facility. The deep sea water went through a series of evaporation steps to obtain the pure, healthy salt. 

The different qualities of salts including finishing salt, coarse salt and first flake salt were discussed and shown to us – all chemically the same, but with different textures. We were then given a chance to try and buy the resulting salts at the end of the tour, including flavored salts where additional ingredients were added to flavor to the used in cooking or serving.

Our tour guide was friendly, knowledgeable and very happy to show us the amazing process. a tour I highly recommend.

Greenwell Farms, Kealakekua, Hawaii – The volcanic soil, the climate and the winds and weather patterns on the Big Island of Hawaii all come together to produce some of the best coffee in the world, known as “Kona Coffee”. We stopped at Greenwell farms for a tour of coffee-growing plantation. 

The coffee plants produce white flowers followed by green berries which happened before we arrived. The green berries then produce red fruit called “cherries”. Our tour guide gave each one of us a cherry and we removed the outer fruit to reveal an inner seed known as the coffee bean, covered with a slimy layer. Commercially removing the outer coating is done using a “pulper”, which our guide he showed us, The next steps in the process are a short fermentation, rinsing and sun drying. We saw the beans going through each step ending with beans drying on big trays in the sun. We learned about the different grades of Kona Coffee and challenges in growing the crop. We were able to sample some of the various coffee products in their small store.

But Greenwell farms did not just grow coffee, they had several other crops that thrive in the warm. moist Kona environment, the most interesting to me being bananas and black pepper. 

Black pepper plants (foreground) and banana trees (background) at Grreenwell Farms

The bananas grew on a row of very tall trees with a common root system. Each year all the plants were torn down and regrown. Fascinating that they could grow that tall in one year. The rows of black pepper plants with the clumps of peppercorns were in the process of ripening were also present.

Dave’s Ice Cream (Pearl Harbor National Memorial, Pearl Harbor National Aviation Museum, Dole Plantation, Kaiwi State Scenic Shoreline, He’eia State Park)

October 19, 2023

Dave’s Ice cream, Honolulu, Hawaii

Dave’s Ice Cream “Made Fresh in Hawaii” has multiple locations in Hawaii. We drove into the parking lot (free and coinvent parking -score one for Dave’s) parked and walked in to the shop where we were met by both nicely painted walls and friendly employees pleased to let us try their ice cream. I was happy to oblige them. First I tried Ube Ice Cream which is a purple yam flavor, I did not expect to like it, but found both its flavor and texture pleasing. Next I tried Kulolo Ice Cream, which is a taro flavor, one of their best sellers, this too was much better than I expected.

Dave’s Ice Cream wall mural

I decided to order other traditional Hawaiian flavors: Haupia (coconut pudding flavor) and Lemon Custard Ice Cream. What I liked best about Dave’s ice creams was the smooth and creamy texture. Their flavors were all new to me, so I had no baseline to decide if I liked them or not. Don ordered mint chocolate chip which was a flavor I was more versed with, and it was great.

Dave’s also sold novelties, shave ice and Icees. There were picnic tables outside and small tables inside. We sat inside to avoid the heat outside and to read the whimsical sayings on the wall. We really enjoyed the friendly service and great ice cream at Dave’s.

In the area – Dave’s Ice Cream is located in Honolulu close to Pearl Harbor historic sites. I have included them here along with some of the other sites we visited on O’ahu.

Pearl Harbor National Memorial, Honolulu, Hawaii – On December 7, 1941 Pearl Harbor, a United States Naval Base was bombed by the Japanese, resulting in the loss of more than 2,400 American lives, and numerous naval vessels including battleships and airplanes. This was America’s entry into World War II. This National Park site educates visitors on what actually happened and why and what the after effects were. It brings the horror of the situation to life as well as the unification of the country after the attack.

The USS Arizona was hit and sank, taking over 1700 lives with it. Their watery grave was left in place and the National Park provides a shuttle to visit a viewing platform over the ship. It is a sacred spot, and being there with the volunteers telling stories about men who died brought the tragedy to life.

The USS Oklahoma was also bombed resulting in the ship turning on its side trapping men inside. Rescuers were alerted to the location of trapped sailors when they heard sailors tapping from inside the inverted ship. Only a small percentage of the men were able to be freed when rescuers cut through the hull of the ship. Many more tragically drowned.

USS Arizona Memorial – volunteers gave interesting accounts of the ship and men who perished when the ship went down,

The National Park Service put together a fascinating memorial recounting the Pearl Harbor attack – its causes, what actually happened and its aftermath. I was so impressed with how well this museum was put together – it is something everyone should see. it includes several buildings of exhibits, a boat ride to the USS Arizona, a movie and numerous outdoor exhibits.

Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii – a shuttle ride away from from the Pearl Harbor National Memorial is the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum. This is a great place for military history buffs and aviation fanatics to explore, There are plenty of airplanes and helicopters on display with stories about their combat missions. Former president George Bush was a military pilot and some of the types of planes he flew were on display. Although I know little about aviation, I was impressed with the breath of aircrafts and information provided. The aviation experts walking around (including Don) were very pleased with the museum.

The aviation museum includes a hanger which was in service for airplane repair when the Pearl Harbor bombing took place. The windows still have bullet holes sustained during the battle.

Dole Plantation -We spent a week exploring islands of Hawaii and found only one total rip-off tourist trap – the Dole Planation. Over-crowded, too expensive with tired staff going through the motions. I do not recommend visiting here.

Kaiwi State Scenic Shoreline – The east shore of O’ahu, Hawaii is unpredictably rocky – a bad thing for ships travelling in the area. To reduce the number of ships lost here, the Makapu”u Lighthouse was built in 1909. Today a 1 mile paved Makapu’u Point Lighthouse Trail allows visitors to walk to an over look above the lighthouse. A great scenic walk, all uphill (downhill on the return trip) with amazing ocean views is so beautiful, it is worth the stop. The lighthouse is not available for tours.

View from the overlook on Makapu’u Point Lighthouse Trail

He’eia State Park is on the Pacific Ocean with nice walking trails and rental Kayaks. Being on the beautiful, calm Pacific Ocean, I could not resist the renting a kayak.. As recommended by park attendants, I paddled out to a sandbar a bit over a mile away, The entire way was breathing scenery with shallow turquoise water, coral reefs, and darker deeper water. Sea turtles floated around enjoying sunny day – one actually passed right under my kayak.

When I got to the sandbar, I jumped out of my kayak and enjoyed the warm, clear, salty water. When I went to return, I was not too successful at figuring out how I got there (note to self- you always map your run in the woods, perhaps[s you should always map your kayak rides). I eventually had to call the state park because I had no idea how to get back (glad I had a cell phone to share my location!). I somehow got miles away from both sandbar and the state park. Bonus – to get back to the kayak rental place I got to ride on a pontoon boat with a park personal as my private tour guide. Worth the trip, just keep better track than I did of where you are going, and bring a charged cell phone. Beautiful water, wonderful staff, nice walking trail.