August 2008 Archives

We got a "late" start today and left at 9:00 for a tour of the 'Iolani Palace. I wasn't familiar with any of the history of the Hawaiian royal family and pre-state history of Hawaii, so it was pretty interesting. We had to wear little booties because the King decided to floor the palace with Douglas Fir wood, and it's not really a hard enough wood to be used as floor. Mine were teal.

After that we wandered through the State Capital Building but it wasn't open for tours or anything. Based on the stealth photos that we took through the tinted windows that showed cardboard boxes and folding tables everywhere, maybe it was for the best. The building itself was interesting though, being largely open to the outdoors, with a large square hole in the roof, no real walls on the sides of the building, and a large multi-story interior courtyard.

The Foster Botanical Garden was nearby so we walked through that. It wasn't anything fantastic, but was a nice half-hour walk through a varied garden.

Next door was "Zippy's Napolean Bakery", and we were so hungry and thirsty at that point that we headed in. It turned out to be sort of a Asian-influenced version of Denny's. Not sure how any of "Zippy", "Napolean" or "Bakery" apply to it, but whatever. It got us fed and we moved on.

We then went to Punchbowl, which is an old volcanic crater that's been turned into the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. It's got graves of over 45,000 men and women buried there, and there are 28,000 names of those that died in the Pacific since 1949 carved into marble monuments throughout. It had a great series of very detailed displays on the progression of the Pacific Theater in WWII. Not every day you see a giant cemetery/memorial in a volcanic crater.

Finally we drove a few miles up a crazy winding road to Pu'u Ualaka'a State Wayside Park which had pretty much the most amazing view I've ever seen in my life. The panoramic photo isn't even going to remotely do it justice. You can see for miles, in about a 270 degree swath around you, including all the resorts of Waikiki, Diamondhead, and the valley beyond it in one direction, and Honolulu all the way to Pearl Harbor in the other.

After that we headed back to the hotel, hung out there, went out for some sushi later, and now are trying to stay awake long enough to finish this post!

Our photostream for the day is here.

Tomorrow: Flying to Kauai!

After hitting the buffet we headed over to Diamondhead, which is a big old volcanic crater that overlooks Waikiki and Honolulu. The guidebook said it was less than a mile and took about 30 minutes to get up there. It failed to mention that the trail is almost completely vertical.

Okay, so not entirely vertical, but it was a bit sadistic -- every time you think you got to the top you'd round a corner and there'd be another staircase or tunnel or ramp waiting for you.

Luckily, the view from up there was totally worth it, so after a few bouts of catching our breath (the 2% incline I generally use on the treadmill turned out to be woefully inadequate), we got to look around in the wonderful breeze and see the entire crater laid out in front of us, with all the hi-rise hotels of Waikiki beyond it. From up there you could really see all the reefs too, the water is incredibly clear.

After a much easier trip down, we went to the Spitting Cave of Portlock, which was a little cave at the base of some rocks that violently erupted when the incoming waves hit it just right. Katy took a movie of it that you can watch here.

We tried to get into Hanauma Bay for some snorkeling, but parking was full so we moved on.

We drove by the beach where they filmed the scene in From Here To Eternity, which was actually smaller than I thought. And it looked pretty impossible to get down to, but there were people down there and I don't think they parachuted in, so there must be a way.

Next we hit the Valley of the Temples, which a large cemetery that includes temples from a bunch of different religions. We were there to see Byodo-In Temple, which is replica of a 900-year-old Buddhist temple in Japan. It's the temple where they filmed Sun and Jin getting married on Lost!

Finally after taking the H3 highway through the canyon and mountains back to the hotel ($100M per mile for the elevated highway, no joke), we headed back to Hanauma Bay and managed to get in easily this time. We had a good time snorkeling and chasing fish around trying to take their pictures with the underwater camera rig we brought (an old digital camera of ours and a waterproof enclosure I got on ebay). While we were in the middle of snorkeling there was a huge downpour for about 5 minutes, which is not uncommon in Hawaii based on my 3 days of experience. Pretty odd to be out in the Ocean while it's absolutely pouring rain on you.

Two fish videos:
Below and Above and Below
Get back here!

And our photostream for the day is here.

Tomorrow: Downtown!

(since I'm paying attention to the blog for the moment and can nuke any spam that strikes, I'm re-enabling comments on these entries)

Today we woke up stupidly early and headed over to Pearl Harbor to see the Arizona Memorial. Despite getting there only 30 minutes after it opened, we managed to line our arrival up with a couple tourbuses. It ended up working out fine though because the wait gave us just enough time to walk through the museum.

After that we took a tour of the Bowfin, a WWII-era submarine. I managed to not smack my head or shins into anything, so I considered it a rousing success.

We then drove up to the North Shore and grabbed lunch in Hale'iwa at a restaurant right by the water.

After that we drove around and stopped at a two amazingly beautiful beaches. The first one, Turtle Beach, despite being amazingly beautiful, had pretty cloudy water and didn't make for very good snorkling. Sadly, we had to resign ourselves to floating in the cool water under the sun as palm trees waved overhead. Furthur down on this beach were, shockingly, a bunch of turtles. They enjoyed riding the waves into shore and floating back out. Every so often one would beach itself and paddle slowly back to the water, which was pretty funny.

The second beach, Shark's Cove, had nice clear water and tons and tons of fish that were happy to swim right up to you as you snorkled next to them. It also had very slippery rocks and, as I discovered, some sharp rocks (just scratched my hand a bit).

Continuing our drive around the North Shore, we stopped at La'ie Point which had a nice view back at the island and out to some rock formations in the water.

On the way back into Waikiki we stopped at Pali Lookout which has a beautiful view of Kailua.

And of course we've got a new photoset, bigger than yesterdays!

Tomorrow: Diamondhead and more snorkling (I think)

(This is Katy, I fixed some stuff that Chris wrote. As usual, he stays up later then me and I get up earlier than him, so he couldn't consult me last night.)

First class is awesome. You could be lying pretty much entirely flat, eating a freshly-made hot fudge sundae, drinking a glass of port. It was ridiculous. I'd take that 7.5 hour flight over any 2-hour flight smashed in the center seat in a heartbeat.

So, we got to the hotel, walked on the beach some, and were promptly exhausted (yay 5-hour time difference).

We did manage to take some photos this evening, and if you're reading this we managed to post them before passing out. Hooray for us! Enjoy!

Day 1 Photos

I spent last weekend back in Ohio visiting the family. On Saturday we had a yearly Badminton Tournament, which was a lot of fun. "Team Chris" (me and my brother-in-law also named Chris) dominated the field, though a last minute team change (we had an odd number of players so my mom dropped out and I slipped into her spot) had a few people complaining. But whatever...if Bonds gets the record, Team Chris is Badminton Champions '08.

I took a few movies with Katy's new camera:
Badminton 1
Badminton 2
Eliza kicking the ball around
Eliza eating lunch
Eliza playing some badminton
Aunt Katie and Eliza having fun
Eliza drinking from a water bottle
Eliza with a nice dismount

I also took a bunch of pictures, which you can see here!