Since we were trapped in the house all day yesterday while the hurricanes past around Hawaii, we had to get out of the house today! So we drove north to the Dole Plantation in Wahiawa. My sister is visiting this week and she wanted a Dole whip, and my son wanted to ride the train, so it was the perfect afternoon adventure.
The Dole Plantation has a botanical garden, corn maze, train ride, farmers market and a big store with lots of pineapple paraphernalia. There’s also food, drinks and Dole whips!
When we were in line to buy our tickets on the train, a boy found a gecko and put it in a plastic bag. As he closed the bag the other people in line gasped and said the boy was going to kill it. I tried to get the family’s attention but they didn’t speak English and didn’t seem to understand. My sister said someone walked over and saved the gecko while I was purchasing our tickets.
In line for the train ride (a 30 minute wait on a Saturday) a family with a little boy around my son’s age told us we had to go feed the koi fish in the pond afterwards. She said they went to the store beforehand to buy fish food because it was too expensive to buy it from the machine by the pond. Then she grabbed a paper bag and filled it with about 3 cups worth of fish food and handed it to us.
After we threw large handfuls of fish food at the pile of koi, we were done, but still had some left in the bag. There was a little boy next to us who was grabbing fish food off the ground that others had dropped and throwing it to the fish. So we offered him our leftover bag, and he looked confused and said “Why?” I told him we were done and he took off running with the bag. As we walked away from the pond he came running back with his sister and yelled “Thanks!” as they ran to the pond.
After the train ride and fish feeding, we went to get some food! My sister got the traditional Dole whip in a bowl, my son got a Dole whip cone, and I got a huge bowl of pineapple. While he was stealing my pineapple he dropped his cone and didn’t seem too concerned. He ended up eating almost all my pineapple! If you have never had pineapple in Hawaii I can’t even explain how amazing it is. You just have to try it. At least he didn’t get upset about the dropped cone!
There were even a few chickens and a female peacock that showed up. It was a great afternoon at the Dole Plantation!
