Hawaii 2007 Part II

June 10-14: Oahu

The first day in Oahu was airport and rest day. All four of us came in at various times throughout the day, which resulted in my dad driving back and forth from the airport 3 times. After we unpacked, planned our itinerary(thanks Ben) and settled in, we had some dinner and polished off a bottle of Captain Morgan(and coke) plus 3/4 of a bottle of Bicardi O Rum(and sprite) with my dad. Halfway through the bottles we decided to play a game of drunk Pac-Man.

The next day was choc full of tourist activities: Punchbowl Cemetery, Pali lookout, the Byodo Temple(below) and hiking up Diamond Head. Needless to say, we were exhausted and decided to stay home and take the night off by watching "Blood Diamond" on DVD. A nice bonus while staying at my dad's house for the week was that his wife's uncle loves to cook and he was our personal cook when we were home. For dinner that night, grandpa made us some Chow Fun.

TueSday, the 12th, was supposed to be "S" day: Shopping, Surfing and Snorkeling. Ben and my brother, Erwin surfed in the morning, while Maryann, Novette and I went shopping at the Ala Moana Shopping Center. After an impromptu lunch at the Pineapple Room with my friend Ty, who lives on the island, we were ready to go snorkeling at Hanauma Bay. Unfortunately it was closed and we drove along the coast stopping at scenic spots. We found oursleves at Sandy Beach, which we later found out was a pretty dangerous beach to swim at. Grandpa made oxtail for dinner and we finished off the night with another African themed movie, "The Last King of Scotland" and some Kahlua root beer floats.

Day four on Oahu lead us to Pearl Harbor and the Aloha Stadium Swap Meet. The timing for those to events ran like clockwork. Unfortunately, since we had made plans to go to dinner and bowling later that night, we had no time to go to Hanauma Bay -- 2nd attempt foiled. Instead we went to Waikiki to lay out and relax for about an hour. There Ben discovered Banyan Trees. That night we took my dad and his family out to dinner to Makino Chaya as a "thank you" for letting us stay and eat in their home. Afterwards we went bowling, which I haven't done in over a year. I scored a 105, 115, 110.

The next day was officially reserved for HANAUMA BAY since we failed our last two attempts and we had a free day. We FINALLY made it to the bay, despite the cloudy weather. Afterwards we went to the Paradise Cove Luau(main picture) where the Mai Tai's rule.

And now I am tired. Since this is a pretty long post, I'll just split this up into 3 parts. More to come later!