Hawaii

I'm finally putting up pictures from Hawaii. Kami and I spent a whole week on Oahu at the end of July, and it was fabulous! We stayed at a hotel in Waikiki but spent most of our time sightseeing. I'll try to give some play by play with the pictures.


We took this from the plane heading into Honolulu. This is looking more or less east across the south part of Honolulu.


Our hotel was about a block and a half from the beach. This was the view when we got there.


Here we are with gelato near our hotel. We were right across the street from the beach walk project, which is a street with lots of little shops and sitting areas. It was a little noisy so that worried us, but as soon as we got into the hotel room and closed the door we couldn't hear a peep. It was great!


Here's Pearl Harbor. It's a really neat place to visit. I didn't know a lot about the attack, so it was nice to learn a little history. They have you watch a short movie before taking you out to the memorial. I learned that there were several battleships sunk that day, but the Arizona accounted for 1,117 deaths, about half of all the Americans killed in the attack. The ships magazines were hit by a bomb causing the ship to explode.


The memorial was build directly over where the Arizona lies, and parts of it are still visible. There is also a wall with the names of those who died engraved on it. They only allow whispering at the memorial and there were guards to enforce that rule, so it was a nice quiet atmosphere.


This is the living room in our hotel room complete with Hawaiian decorations.


We spent a day and a half at the Polynesian Cultural Center in Laie.


This is from the canoe ride at the PCC. They fit about 25 people on it and a guide takes you down the river. When we first got there we took the boat down and started at the other end of the park from the entrance to try to miss the crowds. The park has 7 "villages" representing 7 different islands of Polynesia, Hawaii, Tonga, Fiji, Samoa, Tahiti, Marquesas, and Aotearoa (New Zealand). They also have a small area dedicated to Rapa Nui, or Easter Island.



This is a hut from the Fiji area. It is the tallest hut in the Center. It was used as a Temple where only the priest and the Chief could enter to perform sacrifices. It's interesting to see the similarities between their beliefs and some of ours, or Old Testament beliefs.


At the island of Marquesas, which is part of French Polynesia, I got to participate in a "pig hunt." They had the men that were there for a special occasion come up, like a honeymoon or anniversary. They even gave us crowns made from coconut leaves.


After the presentation we got to take a picture with the "king and queen."




In the middle part of the day they put on a canoe pageant. A small band plays music while a canoe with dancers from each village pass by. The first group is from Aotearoa, or New Zealand, and the second is from Hawaii (we think).


This picture is with some of the girls from the Tahiti village. We really liked the pattern on their dresses, but they didn't sell any shirts or dresses with that pattern in the gift shop unfortunately.


Here's Kami standing next to one of the statues from Rapa Nui, or Easter Island. Easter Island isn't one of the islands they do shows for, but there was one student working there from Easter Island, so he told us a little about the statues and why they were made.



This is us at the Luau that night. They roasted a pig in the ground in the traditional way, and have a little band playing music the whole time and talking about different things. They taught us a simple hula dance while we ate too. The food was fabulous! We had Kalua Pig, teriaki chicken, marinated fish, Mahi Mahi, and cake for dessert.



This is from the night show.



The next day we took a bus tour around the Island. This was one of the lookout spots we stopped at.



This is Pali Lookout. It was windy way up there! This is overlooking the East side of the Island. The Pali Highway goes over the mountains between Honolulu and The East side of the island, and the lookout is just off the highway.



This was taken at the Dole Plantation. We got a pineapple float, which is pineapple juice and pineapple ice cream (sort of). It came in this little collectable cup, which doubles as a bank. Kami is now using it to save change for our next Hawaii trip :)





There were some beautiful gardens at the Dole Plantation, so naturally Kami took a picture of every flower! Well, almost. She especially loved the Hibiscus and bird of paradise. The white and yellow flowers are plumeria. That picture was taken at the Polynesian Cultural Center.

The next day we rented a car and just drove around at our leisure. We also went back to the PCC since we could get in again for free if we went back within three days. We also visited the Lai'e Temple. Here are some pictures of our travels:










We spent the last full day at Hanauma Bay. It's a protected bay that is home to a coral reef and lots of fish. The water was beautiful and after we got the hang of the snorkeling thing we had a blast! We saw lots of neat fish, and even a Green Sea Turtle! We had some underwater cameras to take pictures but they didn't turn out too well.









We went driving a little after going snorkeling too.


And that's it! We took almost 600 pictures so this is really just a fraction of them. But we had a great time, and we can't wait to go back!