a visit to Hawaii, December 2007
Just as it says... in December of 2007 our entire family visited Hawaii for 16 days. 11 of those were spent on a cruise ship, the Pride of Aloha run by Norweigan Cruise Lines. It's listed as a "free-style cruise", which basically means that the passengers don't have to do anything they don't want to, and there are no set times for eating, no fancy dress required. Well, more or less. For the most part it was okay - the onboard entertainment sucked, and their excursions desk needs a swift kick in the ass, but the crew was friendly enough and good at their jobs. The ship could have been a little cleaner, and the food wasn't the best in the world, but it was all survivable. The stateroom, on the other hand... five of us in a room that could comfortably fit 3 - that was a little cramped.
Forget some of what you've heard about Hawaii - you don't get greeted with leis at the airport. For one thing, the lei shops might not be open, depending on when you land, and for another, you have to buy the leis yourself. But a lot of the rest of what you've heard about Hawaii is true - it's very beautiful, warm (they think that 60 degrees Farenheit is winter) and pleasant, catering to the tourist (high prices and lots of junk for sale). Beautiful beaches (and scenery on those beaches), clear deep blue water, and the outfit of the day appears to be shorts and flip-flops. Lots of public transportation throughout Honolulu - theBus - some of which is hybrid. At every port there are loads of shuttles waiting to take you to the beaches, to K-Mart, to Hilo Hatties (a Hawaiian tourist department store, loaded with Hawaiian shirts, macadamia nuts and lots of tourist junk)... plus plenty of excursion buses for trips to the volcanos, the beaches, the gardens, the rainforest - just about everywhere. The state is multi-cultural, though a lot of that culture seems to be Asian - the main languages spoken in Hawaii are English, Hawaiian, Japanese and various forms of Polynesian... plus all of the tourists.
The less said about the flights to get there, the better - I'll never fly Delta again, and I'll definitely never use Orbitz again. But once we got there, things went a bit more smoothly (once our luggage caught up with us a day later). This won't be a travelogue, just highlights of the trip (I'll skip the lowlights). I could also sit here and compare the native Hawaiians to the American Indians (and it would be a true comparison - both groups have been screwed over by the government, and have had their land stolen by industry), but I'll leave that for some other time.
Hawaii is nicknamed "the Aloha State", but it really should be called "the Rainbow State" - every single day you can see a rainbow (or several) somewhere... it rains every day in Hawaii. In places like Honolulu, that just means a five minute sun shower that you can barely feel, while in other places it means a deluge. The top of Mt. Waialeale on Kauai is the wettest place on Earth, getting over 600 inches of rain per year. a rainbow over Honolulu (January 3rd, 2008). As you might expect out in the islands, you can see some phenomenal sunsets as well, such as this one. sunset over Lanai (December 25th, 2007).
Of course, one of the things that Hawaii is known for is its miles and miles and miles of beaches, all of them open to the public and all of them clean. White sand, black sand, even green sand - just about any color you can think of can be found here. the black sands at Wai'anapanapa State Park in Hana, Maui (December 28th, 2007). My personal favorite is the long stretch of beach at Lahaina on the island of Maui... and yeah, I enjoyed the scenery. <G> babes on the beach at Lahaina (December 25th, 2007). Hawaii is known as a surfer's paradise, and they take that seriously - the weather forecast during the nightly news always starts with the surf report. Two of the best known places to surf in Hawaii are Diamond Head (on the south shore of Oahu, only 20 minutes from Honolulu), and Sunset Beach (on the north shore of Oahu), home of the infamous "Banzai Pipeline" (December 22nd, 2007).
Hawaii is a very green state - lots of vegetation everywhere (even in the middle of Honolulu), and it's an eco-friendly state, heavy on conservationalism. the view from the top of Diamond Head State Monument (January 3rd, 2008). Note the big open green field - at the right end of it you can see The Shell, an open-air stage. That huge mass of hotels is Waikiki - that entire section of Honolulu is nothing but hotels and beaches. Diamond Head State Monument (also known as Le'ahi) is a climb of 760 feet up a ridge on the inside of a crater in Oahu - and you'll feel every inch of that climb once you're through. But the scenery is more than worth it. Other scenery in Hawaii is just as fantastic - these shots were taken along the road to Hana, a narrow, twisting road that winds along the northern coast of Maui. Honomumu Bay & Waikani Falls. The photo of Wai'anapanapa State Park was also taken on the road to Hana.
Depending on the rain situation, waterfalls may be plentiful in Hawaii - sometimes they're there, sometimes they're not. Some waterfalls are always going, such as Rainbow Falls on the Big Island. Of course, one of the best known features on the Big Island is Volcanos National Park (official site) - on December 24th we took a bus tour of the Big Island, starting in the lovely city of Hilo and making our way through several parts of Hawaii. Stops included Rainbow Falls (above), Volcanos National Park (steam vents at Kilauea), the macadamia factory at Mauna Loa, and a few other places, eventually ending up at Hilo Hatties in Hilo. It was a little wet that day, so the photos didn't come out as well as they could have, unfortunately.
One of the other things we did on this trip was a helicopter tour of Kauai - on December 31st myself and my brother (along with four other people) went up in a helicopter owned by Island Helicopters for a beautiful tour of the island. It was a wet day, so there were plenty of waterfalls... the pilot also spent a bit of time pointing out where "King Kong" and other movies were filmed. houses of the rich along the Kauai coast (supposedly Sylvester Stallone's is one of them). Some beaches along the Na Pali coast (the north coast of Kauai) are virtually unaccessible by land, such as these two beaches connected by a cave. Other stretches of beach are very accessible, and very lush - such as these. Here's another shot of the Na Pali coast of Kauai, taken from the ship on December 30th.
I almost hated coming home... here's a view of Honolulu on the afternoon we left (taken from the balcony of our hotel room), while here is what greeted us when we got home the next afternoon. (sigh)
We gave my mother a new Canon PowerShot A560 camera (7.1 megapixels) for Christmas, but since she's fairly non-technical I ended up taking most of the photos... over 550, plus several video clips. It's a nice camera - okay, it chews up batteries very quickly, and the battery cover is a little loose. The best thing about it - other than the multitude of settings - is the fact that it's got image stabilization as well as a 6x optical zoom.
© 2008 - MasterWolf, Inc. tm