Jan 02, 2001
December
14, 2000 Getting There
December
15, 2000 Pearl Harbor, Byodo-In Temple, etc.
December
16, 2000 Hanauma Bay, etc.
December
17, 2000 Manoa Falls, Tantalus Dr., etc.
December
18, 2000 Snorkelling, Foster Bontanical Garden
December
19, 2000 Big Island
December
20, 2000 Diamond Head, Luau
December
21, 2000 Going Home...
Random
thoughts...
(Check out
the photographs from the trip. Don't worry. It has some descriptions.)
I landed in Honolulu, Hawaii around 12:30pm. It took a while to get a rental car. Everybody cramped into the car and off we went! I spent the afternoon settling in, unpacking, and just looking around the area. I don't really remember what I had for dinner, but I remember watching "Will and Grace" and "Just Shoot Me" on TV and buying snacks for the next day. (My first experience with the ABC stores that are all over the Waikiki area. They are on every block in Waikiki, and on both sides of the street! They are definitely not good landmarks to use when you're navigating.)
My friends and I got up very early and we were at the Pearl Harbor Memorial around 8:00am. We got our free passes, watched an introductory film about Pearl Harbor, then took the ferry to the USS Arizona Memorial. I bought some postcards and took some photographs of course. After that we went to the Pali Lookout. Pali means cliff. The Pali Lookout is a place that offers a nice view these days, but that hasn't always been the case. A long time ago, a Maui chief conquered Oahu, but the Hawaiian King Kamehameha I try be king of all the islands. He fought with Maui forces, drove them up to the cliff and 400 soldiers fell off the Nu'uanu Pali.
We headed north and got lunch at a Thai restaurant. We ordered an Eggplant-MahiMahi dish and a mahimahi curry dish, among other things. I figure we should try the seafood in Hawaii. Plus, I love seafood, so that's just another excuse. Then we went to Foodland (a grocery store) to stock up on food before we continued our journey to the Byodo-In Temple.
The Byodo-In Temple is a replica of the Temple at Uji, Japan. It was quite beautiful there and lots of carp in the pond. I rang this huge bell (5 feet, 3 tons) and it's supposed to bring me happiness. When we got back to the rental car after we toured the temple, it turns out that the car was broken into! Backpacks and bags were taken from the car and the trunk. We reported the incident to the police. We all had our cameras with us, so I guess the expensive items didn't get taken. Three of us got belongings stolen. Unfortunately, two of my friends who were there for a conference lost a lot of paperwork and one of them lost the whole presentation!! Over the next couple of days, major efforts were put into getting the transparencies on time for the presentation.
We decided to not let this unpleasant incident spoil our vacation, so we journeyed on to Turtle Bay, took some photographs, then kept on going to Sunset Beach. We hung out on the beach for a little while with my new folding beach mat ($2.39 at the ABC store!) I also took some photographs there and watched people surf.
For dinner, I had some sort of grilled fish as dinner. I think it was trout, but I don't remember. After that, we went to Hard Rock Cafe to check out all those music memorabilia. They had a wall full of John Lennon stuff, an outfit worn by Stepfani from No Doubt, a guitar from Eric Clapton, etc.
In the morning, we went to Hanauma Bay. It is supposed to be the best spot for snorkeling on the island. We got there about 8:30am, and there was this slope that we had to walk down before we could get to the beach. I took some photographs of Hanauma Bay from the slope. From the photographs that I hope to have available soon, you would be able to see where exactly I got scraped and bruised by the coral reefs (a preview to more adventure...) I rented snorkel gear and set out to get used to them. There were a lot of fish in the water, very colorful ones too. You don't even have to go very far to see them, just maybe 10 feet off the shore. I started in an area of the bay that had lots of coral reef close to the shore (just by chance). Eventually, I found where there was less coral reef so I could swim a little more smoothly. When I got to the edge of the coral reef, where if I could just go beyond the floor is supposed to drop and I'll see more, waves started to crash in. I was trying to get some footing but the waves were very strong and I was sort of stuck, along with other snorkelers. In the process of waiting for the wave to subside, I had scraped the outside of my lower right calf. My left knee was bruised and has a small cut. There were maybe a couple more small cuts on my legs somewhere. Finally, a fellow snorkeler and I went out together. I couldn't dive down but I was told that I could have seen sea turtles and such. Oh well. When I realized that I was getting a little tired and seasick, I decided to swim back to the shore and waved good-bye to my fellow snorkeler.
In the afternoon, we went to Honolulu Academy of Arts. That place was supposed to have one of Monet's Water Lilies and even some Van Gogh. I really wanted to see the Monet painting. (Click here to see my painting page.) When I got there, they said the painting was not on display and the gallery where it was usually displayed was being renovated. WHAT!!?? That was the whole purpose of my visit! Sigh, so I just walked around the stores and stuff and didn't pay to see the rest of the gallery.
When we returned to Waikiki, I was walking around the stores near our hotel and thought I would do some shopping. I got some souvenirs, some bracelets and a navy blue sarong with white dolphins. Then my friends and a went to the Curry House. They had fried scallop curry on the menu, but I didn't try it. I think I had shrimp and stewed pork curry. It was quite good.
I started hiking up to Manoa Falls about 10:30am. The falls didn't have much water so it wasn't as spectacular as it could have been, but I tried to take some photographs anyway. I made the mistake of wearing shorts, thinking that it would be hot. It was hot, except I got many mosquito bites. We came down and went to lunch at Ezogiku Noodle House. After I paid for lunch and all, on the car ride back, I realize that I had a coupon in my tour book all along!! (I love coupons and hate missing a chance that I can use them.)
In the afternoon, my friends and I drove on Tantalus Drive. At the top of that drive was supposed to be a great view of Oahu. I took some photographs, but I wonder whether they would turn out. I'm not a very good photographer...
For dinner, we went to a Japanese restaurant called Kyotaru. I had tuna sashimi. I believe they call tuna ahi. Anyway, those were thick chunks of tuna sashimi. Yummy!
Everyone went to Hanauma that morning. I went further to the right of the bay this time, to try out the other less-coral-reef area. It turned out that they had less fish and things to look at. My friend who didn't snorkel on Saturday followed me. I'd decided to head back the other way to show him all the fish and coral reef I saw on Saturday. We swam quite a bit along the bay and also out to the ocean, until the waves got big. Since my friend isn't a good swimmer and I don't know how many times he's snorkeled before, I have to say I was pretty impress that he followed me around for like 45 minutes and didn't really come up for air or stop or anything. Yay!
Then, some of us went to the Foster Botanical Garden. They had some orchids there. I suppose I should have looked into other botanical gardens also. I don't know why I picked this one really, just that it was in my tour book. (I guess those advertisements pay.)
We went to a nicer place for dinner that night. It's called House Without A Key. I had Lump Crab Crusted MahiMahi with Spaghetti, and a Passion Fruit Ice Tea with a touch of almond. It was an outdoor restaurant. We could see the sunset at our table, and there was an Hawaiian band playing and singing songs. It was very nice. We walked around the beach and the store some more after that, before I got ready for Tuesday...
The Big Island!!
Some of us have decided to go to Hawaii the Big Island for a day. We hopped on a plane at about 8am and landed around 9am. We got our rental car and started driving towards Rainbow Falls. I took some photographs but there was no rainbow. Oh well, so I got a postcard of "Rainbow Over Rainbow Falls". Then we drove to Boiling Pots. Supposedly the water looks like it's boiling because of the hot lava flowing there. Of course nothing was boiling when I was there. Then we took a scenic route along Hamakua Bay. There are supposed to be a bunch of waterfalls along there. We only stopped maybe twice, and continued going to Akaka Falls. We went to both Akaka Falls and Kahuna Falls. The drop of Akaka Falls is 420 feet, but since I don't really know that much about waterfalls, I don't know whether 420 feet is a lot or not. We journeyed on and stopped at the Black Sand Beach at the Panalu'u Beach Park. The sand is black because of all the lava. There is also a green sand beach. The sand is green there because of the minerals from the lava. I got this postcard with little packs of black, green, white sands and sea shells. We didn't go to the green sand beach because we wanted to spend the rest of the afternoon at the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park before we had to hop on the plane at 8pm to go back to Oahu.
We drove along the Crater Rim Drive. At first we stopped by the Sulfur Bank, then we saw some Steam Vents. We stopped by a bunch of overlooks to take photographs and to look at craters. (After all we were on the Crater Rim Drive.) The biggest crater is Kilauea Iki Crater. We stopped at Devastation Point next. Then we stopped at Thurston Lava Tube (Nahuku). We walked through the lava tube and came out on the other side. Then we went back to the Chain of Craters Road. (The names are descriptive, aren't they?) We stopped at a lava shield, then headed to where there was glowing lava. By the time we got there it was past 6pm, dark enough to see the lava glowing red. We walked on lots of cold, hard lava to try to get closer to where the lava was moving and glowing, but it didn't seem like we got any closer after walking about 15, 20 minutes. We took some photographs and decided that it was time to go back. It was getting quite dark, so it made our way back a little more difficult. We realized that we were later than we thought and it started raining, so it made driving out of the park and toward the airport more difficult. We hurried for over an hour. We were at the airport around 7:50pm for our 8pm flight, not good. We sent one person to check out the flight while the other two tried to return the rental car. However, the plane left without us! We made arrangements to catch the earliest flight on the next day and drove around in search of food. I had fried... (you guessed it!) mahimahi for dinner. (seems like I've been eating lots of mahimahi, doesn't it?) Then as we try to decide what to do for the night, we finally settled on sleeping in the car to save money. Since we had nothing to do, were tired from a whole day of activities and had an early plane to catch, we went to sleep early. Then it started raining. The sounds of rain hitting on the car definitely didn't bother me, sounded kind of nice actually. (Also made me feel better because I figured it would make it less worth it to break into our car in heavy rain. But then since some of our belongings were stolen already, what else could they steal right?)
We caught our flight around 6:35am in the morning and got picked up by our friends around 7:30am. We went back to the hotel to clean up. Then we got ready to go to Diamond Head. It's a big crater, about an hour hike up and maybe a 45-minute hike back down. They were selling these certificates that said something like "(name) has finished a 0.7mile/1.5mile round trip hike that includes 271 steps (of which there are 99 very steep steps), dark (very dark and very narrow!) spiral staircases, tunnels, and unpaved rocky path. The reward was a fantastic view..." Yeah, something like that. I took some photographs there. (of course, how else can I end up with 112 photographs?)
We stopped to eat lunch. We had sushi (probably because I'd been talking about sushi so much and everybody just wanted me to shut up. Ha Ha!) Anyway, I had scallop rolls and horato nigiri. I thought that horato stuff tasted pretty interesting, and then the lady sat next to me told me that horato is scallop. They also called their spicy tuna roll volcano roll. I was hoping that they have Hawaii roll, like they have California roll in California, but they didn't. Oh well. (The funny thing was, I later saw that they have Hawaii Roll at Miyake in Palo Alto, along with New York Roll, IBM Roll, Apple Roll, etc.) Then we went to the north shore to watch people surf. That is supposedly a nice area for surfing in Hawaii. Because of the storm moving in, the news said that the waves could be 20 feet high.
Then we drove back mid afternoon to try to get back to the Waikiki area to catch the bus to our luau. We hit traffic and it took us over an hour to get back. We missed the one that was supposed to stop at our hotel. We split into subgroups to try catch the bus that seemed to be stopping a little ahead of our hotel, and tried to park the car and get all our bags out. Luckily, we caught up to the bus, since some of us went ahead and try to make it wait for the rest of us. We made it to the luau. Yeah! As we got off the bus, we all got this lei with tiny seashells and got our picture taken. The food was interesting. They have an Imu (underground oven) roasted pig, poi (mashed taro and water, can be used as a sauce to dip meat from the roasted pig in), chicken with what they called long rice, and some coconut jelly/pudding type things. They were pretty unique, but reminded me of the Chinese underground roasted chicken, Chinese taro dishes, Chinese rice noodles (the transparent ones) and Chinese coconut jelly type dessert, so I wasn't too shocked when I tasted those things. They also had fried mahimahi, cured salmon with tomatoes and onions (which looked like salsa), fried chicken, salad, rice and other things. We were almost done with eating when they started to announce who won the drawing. There were three prizes, and we were all clapping for the winners. Then they announced the winner for the grand prize. It took me a few seconds before I realized it was me! What do you know... So my prize was the photographs that were taken when we first got off the bus, a 8"x10" and a 5"x7" in a booklet with photographs and description of the entertainment that would be performed. There were all these different dances, from Tahiti, New Zealand and many different islands. There were also performances of Samoan fire dance, Hawaiian wedding song, hula dance, etc. The female members in the audience were invited to learn the hula dance. Some male members in the audience were also invited to learn the dance. One person was chosen to perform with the performer and it was so funny. The guy was pretty good too!
Out ticket to the luau also included tickets for drinks, not necessarily alcoholic. A few of us got different things just to try out. Pina Colada was pretty good there. Mai Tai was pretty good. Blue Hawaii was all right, but I think I like Mai Tai better. The best was Lava Flow! It was a creamy color with red stuff at the bottom so when you stir it you see these red swirls, like lava. I read somewhere that it is made out of coconut cream, rum, banana and strawberry pulp. It tasted like strawberry cheesecake with coconut. Yummy.
I went to the Waikiki Beach in the early morning, did some last minute shopping and then went back to the hotel to pack so I could return the rental car and hop on my 2pm flight to go home. However, the adventure continues...
When I got to the airport, I found out that the flight was delayed for 12 hours, and I was supposed to be at work the next day! The airline company was supposed to provide lunch, dinner and hotel accommodation (till the shuttle pick me up at 1am from the hotel to go to the airport.) However, one of the people I was traveling with had another flight on the next day. After he asked politely and insistently a few times, they gave in and booked us on a plane by another airline and waived the fees. Very nice of them. We dragged our bags to the other side of the airport to get our boarding passes, then realize that we have to drag our bags all the way back to get to the boarding gate. We got on the very empty plane in the end and finally made it home.
THE END!
Random thoughts during the Hawaii trip
* They play
the song "Winter Wonderland" a lot. I wonder whether it is because
they don't get any sort of winter wonderland. I don't' think any
snowman will survive in that kind of tropical weather.
* They have
their own version of "Twelve Days of Christmas". It has something
about a Nene bird in a pear tree, dry squids, big fat eels, etc. Very funny
actually.
* I think
I had maybe 30 mosquito bites at one time.
* Spam is
a big thing in Hawaii. Others have said so. They have Spam
sushi, Spam sandwich, Spam rice dishes, Spam curry, etc. It reminds me
of where I grew up actually.
* I took 112
photographs with a regular camera and about 40 photographs with disposable
underwater cameras. I think this is the most photographs I have taken
for any occasion.
* Maui
onions are sweeter than regular onions.
Jan 02, 2001
