Roosters on the beach

On the way up to Diamond Head, a few hellos. And we enjoyed a rest along the way to take some photos. The vistas had no bugs. Yes, I'm making a big deal about the bugs, but really, they were annoying as hell.



Up at Diamond Head, Adam turns around to say hello. Then he gets surrounded by little flying critters and is carried away. We saw it happen to several people.



What more could we want than a lovely rooster to liven up our day on the beach at Hanauma Bay. Pretty strange, but they seem to be more tame than rabid, so that was promising.



Since we all had cameras, this kind of thing happened a lot. We walked down and up to Hanauma Bay instead of paying for the silly bus.

Art

Lovely Palm art. Angsty and whatnot.

Random photos!

Here's a lovely shot of Diamond Head from near the top of the Aston Waikiki Hotel, where we attended the rehearsal dinner for Brandon and Amy. We hung out in a room on the 21st room with great views of the beach and other hotels. Hard to believe that we made it to the top of that beast.



While we were up there, all of the drinks came with a pineapple. And, depending on how that went down, you might have to pick some of it out of your teeth. I think we all did this at some point during the trip.

Thoughts on the trip

Until I get back home and to where my photos are stored, you'll have to settle for thoughts on the trip.

The entire trip was great. No doubt about that. However, in the future, I should like to see a lot more of Oahu and the other islands. Waikiki should be something that's done in two days, three max. It's the same thing on every block: hotel, ABC store (store with everything you might need, including clothes), dodgy restaurant, chain store and/or restaurant and rental place. Every block. The hotels on the waterfront are beautiful and fun to walk through, but not as striking as the ones on say, South Beach in Miami. The stores are very touristy and the prices reflect this. However, things overall are not any more expensive than they would be in Philadelphia. Parking cost us $10/day at the hotel, which was very reasonable. The garages are tight but our hotel had five garages to choose from. Get there early enough, no problem.

I couldn't see myself living in Hawaii for more than three months. If all of my friends were there, it might be a different story. But having to wear sunscreen everyday would be slightly annoying. I'm not sure if my brown skin burns or not, but I wasn't about to find out. We did put lotion on all day, so I don't think I got too much browner than I already am. My shoulders got slightly red when I was in the ocean for a bit, but the next day it was all gone and didn't hurt.

The most surprising thing about Waikiki is that it shuts down around midnight. The funny thing is that it's hard to push past that hour physically. When we made it to 1 a.m., it was a pretty big deal. Maybe it's walking around all day, putting up with traffic, the sun or something else, but come 11 p.m., we were getting tired. The nightlife reflects this, too. At midnight on South Street in Philly there's bumper to bumper traffic. On the main drag in Waikiki, there's a handful of cars. Maybe people are getting up early to go to the beaches? Maybe it's an early-to-bed crowd? Perhaps they pushed up last call to keep things family-friendly and non-destructive. You would certainly never confuse Daytona Beach with Waikiki.

No matter where we went, the beaches were absolutely beautiful. Pristine sand, blue ocean, fantastic views. That's the best thing about the island. The natural beauty. The further away from Waikiki, the more unspoiled land. I imagine the other islands are even better, too. The water was nice and warm, the sunlight occasionally eased by gorgeous cloud formations and the palm trees very photogenic.

And no, I didn't get a chance to rent a scooter or a motorbike. That will certainly be something for the next trip. It's much easier to get around downtown on a scooter, and once you get out of town, a motorbike would have been nice for touring. Much easier to see things.

Honolulu is like any other town in the States, though. There are really nice places and really shady places as well. Fortunately, you can see the lovely mountain ranges from pretty much everywhere. There's also the small rain showers that provide for several rainbows a day. You could be walking down the street and have it rain for a half block. Strange, but oddly refreshing.

Starting off ...

The view from the top of Diamond Head, which we hiked to the top of on Day 2. Hiking the 0.8 miles doesn’t seem like much at first until you get to staircase after staircase of straight up travel. The view from the top is spectacular, although we cut things short once we noticed the thousands of bugs flying around up there. Kind of a letdown after all the work, but there were a few scenic vistas on the way up without bugs and with decent views. This view is of Waikiki, and somewhere there is our hotel. The more expensive ones are obviously the ones on the beach, although ours was only about three blocks away. Not bad.




After hiking up Diamond Head, we headed over to Hanauma Bay. We had to wait a little bit in line, but it was definitely worth it. They also showed us a little video that basically informed us how the bay was formed and not to stand in the water on the coral reef. Try to stand on the sand. I had a chance to try snorkeling and check out the reef, which was pretty sweet. What was not sweet was cutting my foot on the coral and having it bleed for the rest of the afternoon. Oh well.



Another view from Hanauma Bay. Yeah, it was really that nice. They had a bit of green space beyond the beach, which provided plenty of shade and a fantastic view. The weather during the entire trip was a bit on the warm side and we had to use about a gallon of sunscreen. But that’s fun in the sun. Evenings were fantastic beyond words and I think in the future it’d be nice to go to a less populated place, especially after the sun goes down.



Palm trees everywhere.



Jumping ahead again. Brandon, right before the ceremony, wondering if he parked in a tow-away zone. Serious?

First things first

Well, you should all know that the reason we went to Hawaii was for Brandon and Amy's wedding, shown below. The wedding was at a ranch near Kailua, and although it was rather warm, the ceremony's location had absolutely beautiful views. Brandon and Amy, after being pronounced husband and wife by Adam(!) had to pass through a sword arch created by Brandon's Navy friends. For each pair of swordsmen, they had to kiss before passing, something they were more than eager to do. The couple told us that they had a little surprise, and it turns out that our friend Adam had applied for and received permission by Hawaii to marry the couple.

We're back

Just a quick update to let you know that we're back, and quite tired. There shall be updates rather soon -- like by the end of the day today -- but first I'll have to go through all the pictures (and there's hundreds) to get them ready. I think I should like to do a day-by-day kind of thing, but just to get things started some pictures will suffice.

The trip did in fact, rock. Hawaii is very, very beautiful, especially the beaches. The rest of it is decent, although I don't think I could live there for any long length of time. We only stayed on Oahu, as the busy social calendar kept us from venturing to the other islands. I've heard good things about them as well, like they're not as touristy. Which, considering how much we went up and down in Waikiki, would have been nice.