Reflections of My Travel

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This morning we got to sleep in until 0300 since time changed back home but not here. It was nice to be able to get that extra hour of sleep but having to work until 1200 cut into my after-work, pre-play nap time. After working, we got our stuff together and headed for Hanauma Bay to snorkel. I was a little bit worried that it was going to be a disappointing tourist trap after paying and having to wait to watch a safety video before being allowed down to the bay. I was pleased to be wrong. The bay was beautiful. The snorkeling was terrific. It was a little shallow over the coral in places but still manageable and since it was so shallow, fish viewing was excellent. The waves were pretty mild. The only problem was that there was no sun out (a little rainy) so after about an hour and a half we had to get out and try to warm up a little because I had lost all feeling in my right thumb and pinky and left thumb. It was very painful and then there was just no feeling at all. Scary. When we got out, I was told my lips were quite blue. We got out and walked around (in the cold wind with no sun) for a half hour or so until I was able to get the feeling back. We then went in for another hour and a half or so (yes, the problem did repeat). When we got out again, they were closing the bay and calling for everyone to make their way out. On the way out, we finally saw some mongoose that were not trying to run and hide. We stopped to grab something to eat and thawed out while watching trick-or-treaters make their way around the shopping center.

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Another bright and early flight morning. This was our fourth flight to Oahu and we’re finally sticking around to see some of the island. Once we got our car, we headed straight up to the North Shore. It was very pretty and the waves were large at some of the beaches. We stopped for a while at Turtle Bay and watched the surfers there. We continued around the coast, stopping occasionally to watch the water and finally made our way down to Waikiki to check into our hotel. After troubleshooting some problems encountered while testing our internet connection, we walked down to Waikiki Beach. Let me begin by saying that I don’t really enjoy cities. At least not big cities with nothing but one-way streets and traffic and huge buildings. That’s all waikiki is. In no way is it Hawaii. I feel sorry for all the people who come to Hawaii and all they see is Waikiki. It’s basically a scaled-down Atlanta with a beach. And the beach itself is not a great one. It was small beach with huge crowds. Finding room to put a towel down would be a chore. I’m not saying that it’s not worth staying, but I certainly would not recommend centering a vacation around it. There are much prettier towns and much prettier beaches to visit on the four islands we’ve seen. Alright, enough preaching for now. Anyhow, we walked down to the beach and walked around a bit. We caught a little bit of a hula demonstration kind of show which was neat. Then we walked down to where they were having Sunset on the Beach. This is where they set up a huge movie screen right on the beach and play a movie on weekends. There were food booths and all that jazz too. We found a table at the pier and sat and watched about half of Ghostbusters before deciding that it was past our bedtime. Work comes early. Not as early as the last two weeks, but still early.

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THAT STUPID ROOSTER!!! (just for you, cousin). It was a less-than-restful night. The roosters around here were apparently never fully informed about their job description. They seem to be unaware that their job begins just before daylight and ends just after daylight. They crow all day and all night. And about an hour or so before daylight, one of them was kind enough to make his way over to the car, sit right next to the tire, and crow his flippin’head off. Ah, such fond memories. After getting up, we stopped by the KFC to take some pictures of the chickens walking around the KFC (freshest food on the island!). We then made our way to Poipu beach, which we had heard was the best snorkeling on Kauai. We got in the water and snorkeled around for maybe an hour before we agreed that it just was not good snorkeling. There were way too many waves and much too strong a current for it to be enjoyable. It was a continuous struggle just to keep from getting washed up on the corral that watching of fishes just wasn’t an option, let alone photographing them with which Randal grew very frustrated. When we got out of the water, we sat on the beach with the chickens watching surfers and drying out. Then we headed down the beach to the next bay over where there were lots of boogie boarders. Randal wanted to try the sport so he got out there and let the waves rough him up a bit. I think he about decided that he should start out on some smaller waves but it looked like he was having fun anyhow. He lost one of his fins but, luckily enough, the waves were so strong and constant that they would let it get sucked out and it kept beating at the shore until Randal was finally able to grab it. From there, we drove to our hotel and checked in before driving up the north coast for a while. We stopped at Opaekaa Falls along the way and then our GPS told us the way to another waterfall just slightly outside of Lihue. Wailua Falls was incredible. We got there just before dusk so we were very lucky to see it. The pics came out pretty decent but still just do not do it justice. When we got back to the hotel and got everything in the room to be organized and packed, we headed down to the jacuzzi for a little relaxation. We had a great time talking with the other people in there, especially another young couple from Holland. We enjoyed talking about our trip there and they talked about their trips here (the guy had already been to 42 states) and it was just really fun to compare cultural differences as seen from the travelers’ eye. We just got back to the room and Randal has us just about packed up. Time to catch a few hours of sleep.