Review: Tropical Farms of Hawaii

When I was in Taiwan I often wanted to review things in a very straight forward way, telling you all the pros and cons of going to see something specific.  I realized though that it was kind of irrelevant because very few if any of you will ever go to Taiwan (if you do, let me know and I'll give you all kinds of advice!), however, many of you have been and will go to Hawaii at some point and so I can finally review useful things!  

I've noticed that my writing feels a little rusty right now but I'm hoping to iron out some of this awkwardness as I get back into.  Hang in there with me!

Saturday Zac and I had a lot of boring life things to get done but I really wanted to make time to go to Tropical Farms of Hawaii.  It is only about 30 minutes away from us and I had read many great things.  So we took a drive up the Kamehameha Highway out to the North Shore and back to the farms.  We had an absolutely great time!

Zac drives.  Sometimes I think I should drive.  I might have lower blood pressure if I did.  

Many of the big tour companies send their buses here for a brief stop to look through the shops and produce but they miss out on the tour.  We signed up for the 3pm tour (if you are thinking of doing this make sure you call and see what times they will have tours that day, they don't have a set schedule and it is different almost every day) and we spent the last 10 minutes before boarding our tour "bus" using rocks to crack open fresh macadamia nuts. 

I stupidly forgot my camera so you'll have to deal with cellphone photos.  I love when places have these signs. :)

We were joined by another military couple with a young baby and a 5 ish year old.  The bus was a short bus (as we call them) painted green and decorated with all sorts of tropical grasses and coconuts.  We were introduced to our tour guide, dressed in traditional clothing, and we started the tour.

He showed us many of the plants and fruit trees that they have on their farms.  He gave me ti leaves so I could start my own hula skirt.  The ti leaf is not related to tea at all and is actually more similar to a lily.  He demonstrated how to destem the leaves so that they are less rigid and you could weave them together to make a skirt.  After seeing a lot of plants and asking a lot of weird sciency questions we took a little stop at a stage area.  

Here they demonstrated how traditional hawaiians used Wild Hibiscus wood to start fires and we were treated to a fire dance.  

I thought I had taken a video of the whole dance but it turns out I never hit record.  Doh!  He was really good at wiping the fire around.  I asked him if he ever set his leg grasses on fire and he said pretty often and showed me a spot on his leg that had had all the hair singed off.  Probably shouldn't quit my job and become a fire dancer, eh?

You can see our little short bus in the background.  Then they showed us how to split open coconuts.  We drank the coconut water, shaved fresh coconut meat, and learned how to get coconut milk.  Zac, who doesn't like coconut at all, really enjoyed the fresh coconut meat.  

Don't look so angry! 

What made the entirety of this tour fun were the guides.  They made a lot of jokes, some slightly inappropriate, but all very clever.  As Zac says, you had to really listen to what they said and sometimes it took a few seconds but you always found yourself laughing.  

After the coconut and fire lessons, the ladies (and children) were presented with small gifts.  

My very own crown... I always knew I was a princess!

The fire dancer had braided them from leaves and a hibiscus flower.  When he gave mine to me he asked if I was single or married and Zac was very quick to respond with an emphatic, "She's taken!" *Swoon* Taken women wear their flowers on the left, those that are single wear it on the right.  

When the other woman was asked if she was happily married she responded that she was married, she didn't know about the happy part but she guessed that she was happy sometimes.  I watched her husband roll his eyes so hard I thought they were going to fall out of his head.  I had to stifle a few giggles.  

Zac didn't get a head piece. :(

Then we got back on the bus and rode for a little bit, stopping along the way at different fruit trees.  He explained each tree, it's fruit, and it's growing process.  We learned a lot, for example, did you know that each banana tree will grow only one bunch of bananas, after you've picked the bananas you cut down that trunk and a smaller trunk grows up behind it.  It takes 6-8 months for that trunk to grow a bunch and then you cut it down again.  When the fruit we were discussing was in season he would pick or cut us a selection to enjoy while he talked.  We got limes that smelled amazing!  

Next we took a little boat ride out into a small lake that has a lot of stories to go with it.  It has been the filming location of many famous movies and tv shoes including Lost, Hawaii 5-0 and Temptation Island.  The original Jurassic Park was filmed across the road and the second one will start shooting there in 4-6 weeks.  It was a beautiful view of the island and we heard many interesting folk stories of the area.  

More pictures of us.  Sigh.  "You wanna know why I was smiling?  Because I was looking at you in the phone when you took the photo."  Said Zac after we took this.  I'll keep him. :)

Then we were onto more fruit trees.  We learned out to pick starfruit with a long branch and he cut some up for us to try.  

It was citrusy and crunchy.  Zac really enjoyed them.  I didn't enjoy stepping on the rotten ones that had fallen to the ground.  He even picked us extra to take home with us!

Starfruit.  Cut by a Hawaiian.  With a machete.

We also had something called a starapple.  It is not related to the star fruit.  It is about the size of a large plum and when it is ripe it has a deep purple skin.  When you slice it open there is a small pit and the fruit is a lilac color.  It is sweet and airy, almost like you mixed purple jello with whipped cream and whipped it some more..  The one draw back is that it is EXTREMELY sticky.  Zac was peeling bits of starapple off of his face for hours afterwards.  

We saw mango trees and cacao plants and macademia nut trees and pineapple plants.  There were all sorts of fruit and nuts.  Did you know that a pineapple grows on a plant not a tree?  Each plant only grows one pineapple at a time!  

After our 70 minutes tour was over we wandered through the shop area and sampled many different kinds of macadamia nuts.  We in Wisconsin are used to having samples, but on the islands a free sample is almost unheard of!  There were onion and garlic macadamia nuts (Zac's favorite) and cinnamon coated (yum!) and honey roasted and caramel and so many other different flavors.  

It was over all a very enjoyable experience because of the knowledgable and funny guides and really diverse topics.  

I highly recommend that anyone who visits Oahu and has access to a car makes the trip up Kamehameha to the Tropical Farms.  It won't be a waste of time, rain or shine.  At $15 (military discount) or $20 a pop, the tour is quite cheap compared to others on the island (eh hem... dole).  We even got a few free photo prints of us from around the farm!  

In other news:  I start my new job tomorrow!  Zac has the day off so he is going to run errands in Honolulu while I do my orientation and health assessment.  Wish me luck!