Hawaiian Travelogue

Yeah, it took a while to get the pictures transferred from DH's camera to a thumb drive to my computer, but here we are!

To recap, DH's childhood friend Steve and Steve's wife, Evelyn, belong to a home exchange program. They swapped their Tahoe home with someone from Hawaii (because the Hawaii family wanted to go skiing and Steve and Evelyn had had quite enough of winter!), and then invited us to come over and join them. We have the greatest friends.

Thursday, travel day, 8:30 AM flight. It's nice going to Hawaii because you gain back time... so we landed at 11:30 AM! Picked up a rental car, then plugged in our destination's address to Maggie (my portable GPS - it's a Magellan...), and off we went. The house was on the southwest corner of Oahu, overlooking Diamondhead, and on a road that would match Lombard Street for the "Crookedest Street." Luckily, we had advance warning and found the road that simply cuts straight up the hill so we could avoid all the switchbacks. When we arrived, we found Evelyn home... with her foot about two times its normal size. She had been hiking a day or two earlier and had fallen and sprained her ankle. Steve and Evelyn's daughter Erica came back from their hiking day, so we visited all together for a while then head off for Honolulu's Chinatown. We finished up with drinks at the Hawaii Prince lounge and dinner at Benihana's.

One of the grocery areas of Chinatown. There are lots of bananas in all the markets!

Friday, first full day, was our big sight-seeing day. We went to the USS Arizona/USS Missouri center, only to find that all of the ferry boat tickets (to get to the Arizona) had already been sold out. So we opted for a package that got us in to the Missouri, the Bowfin submarine, and their new Pacific Aviation Museum. Going through the Bowfin is awesome. It's a restored WWII sub, and I don't know how that many men could live together for that long under those conditions. The Missouri is even more awesome. It's so big and the tour takes you all over the place; it's easy to get lost. They have a marker showing where the Japanese signed the surrender pact, and replicas of the surrender documents. After those tours, Evelyn, Erica, and I opted to skip the aviation museum (Evelyn's foot was getting sore), so the boys did that. While we were waiting for them, Erica's cousins came by to take her out to party the night away. The four "adults" (heh) then went to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse for dinner. Mahvelous.

"The gang" (minus Kelly, the photographer) at the entrance to the USS Missouri

The USS Bowfin, a restored WWII submarine. Too cool.

The USS Missouri (left) and the Arizona memorial (right) as seen from the Bowfin.

Saturday, the women-folk headed out to find two of the five yarn shops on Oahu. The first one (Yarn and Friends) was weird - it was in a medical center building - complete with half-glass door with metal wires through it! - and couldn't have been much bigger than 20' x 20'. They had a lot of fun fur, some Noro, some Crystal Palace, and not a whole lot of anything else. The lady who worked there was really nice, but the cupboards were bare. We were looking for sock yarn (Erica wanted to learn how to knit socks!) so we thanked her and went to our second shop... which was even weirder. This one (Isle Knits) was on the 14th floor of a 25+ story office building in downtown Honolulu, and was even smaller than the first one. But boy, oh boy, was it crammed FULL of beautiful yarns! She carried lots of beautiful stuff - Debbie Bliss, Noro, Arucania, Cascade, Trekking, Claudia's, Lorna's Laces, and more, I can't even remember - and it went floor to ceiling and wall to wall. Plus a leeetle tiny table if anyone wanted to sit and knit (if they could fit!). It was wonderful. It's where I probably would spend most of my yarn money if I lived there. We found two yarns for Erica, and I managed to find a yarn for me and a yarn for CelticKnittingGal's birthday. We went home, and found DH and Steve engrossed in a board game from their childhood. Something about World War II, lots of little pieces of cardboard. It took them about 3 hours to make 2 moves. I don't get it. Evelyn cooked yummy chicken stir-fry for dinner and I got Erica started on her first sock.

"The boys" hard at work, strategizing World War II.

The view from the 2nd floor balcony of the house. Diamondhead crater is center. From the 3rd floor balcony, you can see Waikiki Beach, too.

Sunday was a slow morning, then DH dropped Steve and Erica at Diamondhead to do some hiking, then came back to get some work done. When he picked them up about an hour and a half later, he and I went off on a 'round-the-island adventure, stopping at Hanauma Bay Marine Preserve (to get a great hamburger, not to see the animals or anything... c'mon!), Turtle Bay resort (to have a wonderful mai-tai), and Ko'Olina (for another mai-tai and a light dinner). (BE CAREFUL! The Turtle Bay link plays music!) A lovely time, just noodling along the roads, including ignoring Maggie and winding up going the wrong way as we (thought we) were heading back.

Kelly at the Hanauma Bay overlook (after eating our wonderful hamburgers).

Me watching the surfers at Turtle Bay. In this picture, I am struck by how EXACTLY I look like my mom.

Almost sunset at Turtle Bay. The view from the bar. (Not shown: mai-tai in my other hand.)

Monday we decided to go to the Polynesian Cultural Center, and found out we could get discount tickets, thanks to Kelly being retired Army (nice to know his 20 years was worth it... discounts, free tickets to Disney... well worth it, I think!). So after breakfast at Boots and Kimo's in Kailua (which took a long time - it's crazy busy, even on a Monday), we went to Ft. Shafter to get the tickets and met up with Steve, Evelyn, and Erica at the PCC. It was a fascinating place, with shows scheduled highlighting some unique aspect of a particular Polynesian island. All of the presentations we saw were good and funny, especially the Fiji presenter, who was also the star of the evening show, where he played with fire.

At 2:30, there's a floating parade of dancers, one float for each island represented at the PCC.

Lifting the pig from the imu. Yummmmmmy.

The funny guy, the one who plays with fire in the evening show. ("Plays," as in he rests the flaming swords on his feet while he fixes his palm headdress.)

Tuesday was going-home day. We left early enough to run into traffic in downtown, but didn't encounter any, so we stopped at a building that may look familiar to viewers of "Dirty Jobs." It's the building where Mike was window-washing umpty-ump stories up, hanging in a basket. Lemme tell ya, it's even scarier when you see the building in person! Flight home was uneventful, we even had a good tail wind so got in almost 45 minutes early. We parked the car at the Doubletree, and decided to have dinner there at Spencer's before heading home.

Look familar, "Dirty Jobs" watchers? (Link loads the window-washing episode - with commercials, unfortunately!)

It was a lovely trip, we got to visit with great people, and I got a lot of knitting done. Even better, Erica is well on her way to being obsessed with socks - even got her on Ravelry!

Let's see, where's our next trip? Oh yeah, cross-country drive in May!