Make new friends, but keep the old. . .

Purikura with Lauren & Karen!

On Monday, I spent the day with my friend, Karen.
I met Karen through my friend Lauren who met her while they were both interning a the Honolulu Weekly back in December or January. We all hit it off well and started hanging out. We donʻt get to see her too often though because she doesnʻt drive and lives in Wahiawa.  Sheʻs from Scotland orginally and has lived all over the place and spent a few years in Japan, hence why she has never learned how to drive (she never lived some placed where she needed to!). 

Unfortunately, her husband is leaving the army now and theyʻre going to be moving to Ohio ironically enough.  I think his mom lives there now.  Haha, Iʻm trying to set her up with Melinda so she has someone to hang out with when she gets there. I think they would get along pretty well. Theyʻre both the kind of people that arenʻt hard to get along with.

Anyway, I am sad that she is leaving.  She has been my hiking buddy and is always up for seeing and trying new things.  I'm trying to spend time with her before she leaves here in the next week or so.  On Monday she rode the bus into town and I picked her up and we drove to Lanikai and did the Lanikai pillbox hike (not much a hike really, pretty short!).  But beautiful views.  It was pretty steep though. Some how neither of us fell the whole time. . . until the very, very end when I fell on my butt and slid down the hill. haha After that we went ate fish tacos at Maui tacos (Iʻve been eating a lot of tacos lately, huh? Well, theyʻre cheap and about 1000 times better when theyʻre not from Taco Bell!).  and then we went to the beach at Lanikai and swam in the water.  

After that we headed toward town and stopped at the Pali Lookout. They make tourists pay to park there now!  Anyway, that got me thinking that she had never been to one of the lookouts that overlook the city so I took her up to Makiki Heights.  Makiki Heights is also where the Contemporary Museum is so we stopped there - they are closed on Mondays, but my friend was working and able to take us into the galleries for our own personal tour! :D

Pali Lookout

After that, I was going to take her back to the mall to catch the bus home, but then Karen asked me if I wanted to go get Taiwanese shave ice from this place that weʻve eaten at before.  I said "Yes!" (Itʻs goood!) and then we decided to pick up Allie from school so she could come with us!  Taiwanese shave ice is a little different than Hawaiian style - they pour a brown sugar syrup on top for one. And its all about the toppings!  They have about 10-12 different toppings you can choose from.  Allie went ahead and got regular rainbow shave ice, but I got Taiwanese style with pudding (that lovely little yellow/brown thing on top), mochi balls and coconut tapioca. I let Allie try it but I think the tapioca weirded her out - she did not like it! haha

Taiwanese-style Shave ice - yummy!

Since it was evening by this time I offered to take Karen home and also because I wanted to see her dogs before she moves!  They have two Huskies/Malamute mixes - one almost 1 yr old and the other is 5 or 6 months old.  So we drove through rush hour traffic to Wahiawa (which took forever, it seemed) and then we had to go through the scary process of going on base! (Since she lives on the military base).  Its not that scary really, its just a weird feeling - they check her ID, check my ID, ask us where we are going, etc.  

Allie & her new friend, Trotsky.

The dogs were sooo cute! Theyʻre very hyper, of course, but they seemed to really like Allie, especially the bigger one! I think b/c she was more down on their level.  She liked them too (she loves huskies) but she didnʻt like them licking her in the face.  She sat down on the couch and big one came sat right next to her. Anyway, Allie keeps saying she loves huskies and wants one, despite the fact "those dogs were crazy!"  After that we drove all the way home, had a Happy Meal dinner and Allie was ready for bed.  She got her flu shot that day at school and it seemed like it made her sleepy.