May 14^th

Waikiki Beach

We've only been here about a day and a half and we've seen a lot of stuff.  First we walked Waikiki Beach, saw some hula dancers, got our feet wet and walked around the hotel lobbies which are intertwined with shops and gardens.  We had planned on doing this the entire first day, but since we caught an earlier flight, we moved up our plans.  Friday morning we went to Hanauma Bay, which is a good snorkeling area.  We got there early, so it wasn't too crowded.  The coral is only about 2 foot below the water, so it is very difficult to float over it without touching.  It has large stony flat areas with a lot of alcoves and deep holes that you can look down on all the fish.  We saw a lot of the common fish, but nothing super exciting.  We then we laid on the beach for a while.  After an hour of that, realizing we both forgot to bring anything to read and didn't bring cards, we decided to go for a walk and take a few pictures.

Waikiki Beach

Hunauma Bay

Leaving there, we drove north and checked out a lot of the surfing areas.  We saw some body boards, but not many surfers.  We continued north, went into a little town in another bay and found a place on the beach to have lunch.  (That skipped over all the missed roads, turnarounds, and pain getting there, but we were not on any schedule).  Following that, we headed back west across the mountains.  We stopped on top at a place called Pali lookout where you could take in a very impressive view of the mountain ridge and look over the town below.  It was overcast a little, so it started raining so we took off.  On the way back down to Honolulu, I noticed we were going to be very close to the Punchbowl, which is a cemetery for people who died in the Pacific wars.  Someone told us we should go see it, so we did the usual 20 minute search for the right roads and finally found it.  It had graves of about 35000 people.  It was very well kept and a good reminder of how lucky we are to not have had to go to war in the prime of life.

Pali Lookout

Punchbowl

We headed back to the hotel.. it's now only 3:30pm!  We got cleaned up and walked (hiked) a long way down to the Ala Moana Mall.  Nancy picked up her Bubba Gump shot glass and we actually ate there.  It was good, and I really "stuffed it down".  We walked around the mall area for the next hour or so looking at stores we could not afford to shop at.  Fortunately, we caught a shuttle back to Waikiki and did a little more walking around the Galleria, which was more overpriced crap.  But, they have a way-cool aquarium on the outside of the building with a tunnel going through where the rays float all around you.  That was neat.  In the end, we ended up crashing around 8:30 or 9:00pm, just after they shot off fireworks over Waikiki beach just for us.  We're still on the wrong time-zone so I'm wide awake at 5:00am writing this giant Email (and Nancy is happy I'm letting her sleep!).

And that was only day one (and a half)!

Gallaria aquarium

Fireworks over Waikiki

May 15

We had ourselves a bit of a rainy day yesterday.  Okay, really it poured almost the entire day.  So, we decided to drive around the island and see what we could find.  We hit some surfer dude towns, and I really didn't realize how many surfer dudes there were out here!  We stopped at the Dole plantation and checked out pineapple growing, which I knew nothing about.  Heck, I didn't even know what a Pineapple plant looked like!  Anyway, now we know..

From there we drove through more surfer dude towns and took in lunch watching scuba divers entering the ocean in a little gap between the rocks.  We'll be doing that adventure later in Maui.  The rest of the drive was pretty wet, avoiding giant water puddles and looking at the ocean shore.  It didn't seem to bother the surfer dudes though... they just kept on going! 

On the way back to Honolulu, we went to Pearl Harbor and checked out the USS Bowfin submarine, took in the Naval museum and the Arizona memorial museum.  I found it ironic when the guy on the video said "Never again will the US be taken by surprise like Pearl Harbor".. 

After that we headed home and got dinner.  Okay, the dinner sucked, but we were too tired to enjoy anyway so we called it an evening after walking around the touristy area and got some cold-stone ice cream. 

Aloha from Oahu.  Next we'll be in Maui...

She made me do it..

Oahu North Shore

Arn talking to Dad just before touring the Bowfin

May 16^th

I'm doing my daily duty of updating the trip journal.  It was travel day yesterday.  We woke up to surfer dudes riding the waves off of Waikiki.  We had an hour to kill before getting to the airport, so we went the "Ward Center".  We had to see the place named after us right?  It is a big shopping and entertainment area.  I had a discussion with a guy in an art shop (who went to the University of Dayton) about Koa wood. They do a lot of wood turning on the islands and you see a lot of wood bowls for sale. 

Side note:  on the way out we passed the local "MOS BURGER" fast food place and I had a good laugh for Kent.  Waikiki is full of Japanese, so I guess it makes sense. 

The flight to Maui was uneventful.  More time to read this horrible book I bought.  The lady said it was good, but I am bored with it already.  I guess I grade books the way Elliot does movies..

We got to Maui and we like it here much better already.  No big cities, bright blue water and very easy traveling.  I attached one picture of the shore line.  The Embassy Resort is much nicer also.  The room is huge, with a separate living room, bathroom and bedroom.  Awesome for the next 7 days.  I immediately took advantage of the free alcohol happy hour and was buzzing within the hour.  I had to.  We had to talk to the concierge about our plans and she spent a good portion of the time booking us for their "Condo Time-share program", where we can save $150 if we give them 90 minutes of our time.  It’s impossible to escape the people trying to get to your money any way they can.

Today we plan to do some more driving around the island and check out the tropical waterfalls and scenic spots.  No telling what we'll find.

Arn at the Ward Center in Waikiki

Maui Shoreline

May 17^th

It was a busy day for us.  We got up early (still haven't quite adjusted and we are trying not to because the next 3 days are early risers..).  Anyway, I tried to make a connection to the internet from the hotel and was denied 5 times.  !@#$!#@$  I'm sure you all missed your daily update, but it's looking like you may be getting them all in one giant chunk when we get home (in which case you have a lot to read I expect). 

Nancy and I headed out on the road to Hana, which is on the east side of the island where it's much more tropical.  On the way we stopped at the dive shop and talked with a guy there who gave us a little more information about our upcoming dives.  It sounds like it's going to be pretty awesome. 

From there, we headed back towards the airport and then on the north road to Hana.  First stop was Ho’okipa Bay where the surfer dudes were out in droves shooting the waves.  The waves looked much better here than the ones we saw in Oahu, but maybe that was just due to the weather. 

From here we stopped at the Twin Falls trail, which is supposed to be a couple of really nice waterfalls at the end of a mile hike.  We did about 3/4 of the hike and found the trail was flooded with a stream.  We didn't bring our flip-flops, and we didn't want to suffer wet feet the rest of the day, so we just took some nice pictures downstream and headed down the road. 

From there the road starts winding like one of those old cassette tapes after it jams in your player (remember those days?).  There are a lot of places where the road narrows to one lane and you have to wait your turn to go through.  There are also a million stops to see little waterfalls and lookouts.  A few miles down the road we stop at some little trail that takes you along a ridge and you can overlook the valley.  Pretty impressive, but the pictures don't show it well.  There are some really wild looking plants along the way, so it was worth it. 

We've been winding about 2 hours now and we come along a cliff overlooking a black sand beach.  We stopped and ate lunch (PBJ courtesy of Chef Boy Arnie).  Just past that we see a sign "Hana 18 miles"... Groan..  The Froders book pretty much says the good stuff is over, so we turned around and started our tedious way back.  About an hour back, we stopped again at the twin falls.  Not to be denied our tropical waterfall, we threw the flip-flops in the backpack and started the trek again.  This time we make it to the stream crossing and the freaking water had subsided so we didn't even need the stupid flip-flops!  The trail got more interesting as you had to cross some narrow walkways that went alongside some old man made water-wheel channels.  I don't know where they went, but it was pretty neat doing the balance beam thing.  The first waterfall was pretty nice looking, so we got the complimentary shots and then headed back.  We took the other branch leading to a second waterfall.  Unfortunately, we could see the fall from a distance, but the water had risen over the trail..  It was either swim to the falls or be dry and content.  We had our cameras and we were already tired, so we called it a day.

We made a few more pit-stops on the way home, but spent the next couple hours hanging at the pool and relaxing.  We have to wake up at 1:30am tomorrow for the morning bike ride down the mountain.  Groan..

Surfer Dudes at Ho’okipa Bay

Hike to twin falls

Winding road to Hana

Black sand beach on road to Hana

Twin Falls first waterfall

May 18th

If they think for one minute I'll buy a timeshare of this place where I can't get internet access, they are nuts!  I apparently can go to the copy shop across the street to get on the internet.  Gee thanks.  They'll probably gouge me good.  I'm going to invest in cell phone modem somehow before my next major trip.  It sucks not being able to dial out.

Well, we got about 5 hours sleep and got up at 1:30am.  Yes, we crashed very early, but amazingly we were exhausted from the driving so it wasn't a problem.  We got picked up at 2:10am by a Hawaiian guy whose name I couldn't pronounce or remember.  Nancy and I were bundled in multiple T-shirts and a sweatshirt with shorts.  They said it would be about 40deg on the mountain, but I figured we could handle that for a short while.  We stopped in town and picked up a helmet and rain gear.  The rain gear was bright yellow and had a hood and long pants, so it helped keep us warm, but it made us look like Tele-tubbies. 

The next hour and a half we weaved up the Haleakala volcano where we were to stop on the rim and watch the sun rise.  Our bike guide was named "Cliff"... how appropriate!  He was full of bad jokes and entertained us with them half way up.  Once we reached the top, Cliff and the other guy gave us a few directions and let us out of the van.  HOLY CRAP it's COLD!!!  The wind is blowing about 50mph and it looked like something out of Salem's Lot with the fog whipping past us over the rim.  Stars were out clear, but it was hard to gaze at them without being blown off balance.  Everyone ran up to the crapper and ran back to the van to wait for the sunrise.  Then here comes Nancy with tears rolling down her face.  It seems we left her memory chip for her camera at the "resort" and she was freaking out.  Do all chicks freak like this at 3:30am in star lit fog on mountain tops?  No biggie, my camera was good to go.  She calmed down when we got back in the van.

Nancy in her TeleTubby suit.

Nancy and Arn pose

Arn on the Haleakala volcano overlooking Maui

Okay, with the first glint of light on the horizon, we all ran to the rim overlook to get a good spot.  The guides quickly went to sleep in the van.  You know those film clips of Mt. Everest you see where hikers where the super thick suites and the goggles?  We needed those.  People were cowering against the buildings, wrapped up in blankets, kids were crying, everyone hopping around trying to keep the joints from locking up.  You can see my sunrise photo's for more details on the "event". 

So finally the sun is up and we were assigned bikes.  The bikes have special disk brakes that can handle the heat of constant breaking.  They are all low geared, so it's free spinning if you try to catch up while going downhill.  The ride itself was spectacular.  Fortunately they gave us ski gloves for the ride down (we could have REALLY used those as we were freezing our butts off).  We went down single file with a van following.  The view was awesome.  You could see the second volcano across the island clearly, which they said was lucky.  We stopped for a photo op about a third of the way down where the guide pointed out all the features of the island by just pointing. 

The rest of the ride was fun, except for the cramps in your hands from constantly using the brakes.  But, well worth it in the end.  We ended up eating at a country club in some little town and then finished the ride by "coasting to the coast" at Paia.  All this done by 10:30am.  I recommend the ride, but dress like it's going to be zero outside and you'll be there for an hour.  By the time you are at the bottom, you have all your excess clothes in the van and it's a nice 78deg winding through pinnapple and suger cane fields. 

Another adventure done.  We're not going to do much the rest of the day.  A nap, a trip to the copy shop so I can send these Emails and hopefully dinner in town somewhere.  Tomorrow is the first of 3 days of scuba.  Hope the adventures keep coming!

May 18^th, Evening

With the lack of internet, I've slacked on my daily journals.  The last three days have been a blur.  I last left off with the bike ride.  That evening, we went to the Whalers village just down the road.  It is the typical tourist trap with upscale shops and restaurants.  We took in the town and then stopped in to Leilani’s Restaurant where our friend Chris worked.  Chris visited the Cincinnati jugglers about 6 months ago while he was in town visiting his dad and convinced us to honeymoon in Maui.  He was working that evening, so he was able to fix us up with an appetizer and dessert (without us knowing).  I ate fish tacos for the first time, and they were loaded with hot sauce.  At first I didn't think much of it, but when I was done, my mouth was on fire.  Just in time for the gigantic ice cream cake that they sat in front of us.  It was an enjoyable evening as we watched the sun set on the ocean.

May 19th

It was not an enjoyable morning.  I knew I was going to pay for it, but I broke one of my first rules of travel: Don't eat spicy food while traveling! 

Around 11am we left for our first of 3 days of diving.  The dive boat held up to about 36 divers, but the first day we only had eight.  We went just up the waterfront about a mile to a place called Mala's Warf.  It is a wrecked harbor built back in the 1920s.  We got to see some turtles, a spotted eagle ray, some frog fish and lots of fish which Nancy and I tried to identify on our plastic fish card we bought.  We did several small swim-throughs under the wreckage, which was fun. 

On the way back from the dock, we took a few shots under the old Banyan tree in the park.  It’s pretty amazing how it has multiple trunks and the branches connect to each other.  It’s one tree, but looks like multiple.  Pretty impressive tree!

The rest of the day was sleep.  I think I fell asleep immediately after getting back and then got up to brush my teeth a couple hours later and then slept for the rest of the night.

Maui Sunset

Nancy before her first tropical dive

After first dive

Walking under the Banyan tree

May 20th

Thursday morning we had to be at the dive shop at 6:30am.  Our destination was the Molokini crater, which is the most popular dive destination in Maui.  It had about 100 foot visibility and the water was crystal blue.  We dived the outer reef both times.  The first dive we took in a lot of varieties of colorful fish.  I was disappointed in not seeing any sharks, but I did see a large green Moray eel coiled up under the corals.  The second dive went in another direction and we finally saw some small white tip reef sharks.  Out in the open water we saw a larger grey reef shark.  Then we came across a couple of small spotted eels fighting over a fish carcass.  It was pretty entertaining because about twenty divers formed a huge circle around the scene.  There were move divers in Molokini than fish I think!  The only humorous thing that happened was that I missed putting sun block on a section of my back and have an 8 inch red streak spanning my back.

Diving just sucks the energy out of you.  We ended up napping most of the day until that evening where we went to a Luau.  The one we went to was called “Drums of the Pacific” at the Hyatt Regency.  The place was pretty crowded.  They were entertaining guests from the cruse ships docked in the harbor.  They did the unveiling of the pig and some silly ceremonial stuff before dinner.  Then we just got in a buffet line and loaded up with grub.  Seated across from us was another newly-wed couple.  The guy’s name was “Vinny from New Joysey”.  I don’t like to stereotype, but if you told me to picture a guy named Vinny from New Jersey, he would fit the image perfectly, complete with a single eyebrow that ran all the way across his forehead.

During the dance scenes, they had 5 hula girls and 3 guys.  I noted that one of the guys reminded me a lot of Dave Willacker.  The other guys danced to the beat of the drums, but this guy just did the moves and had no rhythm at all.  I found it almost comical.  (Sorry Dave)  I figured there had to be a reason.  At the end of all the dances, this guy pulls out a torch and knife staff and starts slinging it all over.  He was damn good at it, which explained a lot.  They hired a fire twirler and made him learn the silly dances.  I guess it was all what I expected, but I’ve seen more entertainment at the Arn Party!

Leaving the Luau, they had a bunch of local artists set up in the lobby.  We had just seen a bunch of turtles on the dive, so we bought a hand carved turtle made out of Koa wood from one of the locals.

Arn at the Molokini crater dive site

Black Trigger Fish swarming the boat looking for handouts.

Luau freak show

Nancy at the Luau with her lei

May 21^st

Friday morning, 6:30am the dive boat headed for Lanai, which is a larger island across from the northern part of Maui.  We tied up at Cathedral 1, which is a lava bubble totally emerged.  We dove down to about 60 foot into the scene of more hard corals and the typical colorful fish.  We went immediately into the bubble.  In the entrance way, using flash lights you could see a small reef shark and a moray eel that were pacing back and forth in a small crevice to the left.  The passage then opened into a larger open area that had light spilling in from above.  Directly across the bubble was a wall with small craggily holes all over it that looked amazingly like stain glass windows and had blue light spilling through.  It got a little crowded in there with six of us and the guide all trying to get in, but we quickly exited to the right side through another tunnel that took you on the back side of the cathedral.  The rest of that dive was pretty typical.  The guide showed us some interesting star fish and the Crown of Thorns starfish.  He pointed out various endemic rare species that we aren't knowledgeable enough to appreciate I'm sure.  Dive two was at Wash Rock.  It also had a nice lava tube ride swim through, but It was not as interesting as the cathedral.  We identified many different fish and saw some colorful sea slugs, but nothing really exciting happened.  It was a nice dive anyway. 

On the return trip we heard the captain hell something and everyone jumped to the side of the boat.  I thought he yelled "man overboard!", but I think he really said was "Dolphins Port side!".  It was awesome.  We found a school of probably 30-80 spinner dolphins that just swam around the boat.  The occasionally would jump up into the air and spin 4 or 5 times before splashing down.  The spinner dolphins are only about 2 to 3 foot long, unlike what we are used to seeing at dolphin shows, but you could tell they enjoyed putting on a show for us.

Friday evening (after another nap) we went out to dinner with Chris to Kimos Restaurant in Lahaina and all had some excellent fish dishes (not spicy thank you!).  Once again we watched the sun set on the water.  Chris said on Saturday he would take us on a hike to some more interesting destinations. 

Cathedral 1 top of the lava bubble

Spinner dolphins swimming around the boat

Another Maui sunset from Kimos Restaurant

May 22^ND

Saturday morning came quickly and we headed to the other side of the mountain range from where we are staying.  We parked in a person’s yard and put some money in a little coffer as a tip for the parking.  We headed up the road and walked past a gate that clearly said "No Trespassing".  Ha!  Apparently this is all for legal reasons as most of the popular hikes in Hawaii are on privately owned ground, but the locals all know which ones can be hiked without question.  In fact, tour guides frequent these trails and you can book a hike up the same trails for around $80 with a guide.  Nice that we had Chris to just show us up there for free!  The trail wound up a stream that was partially man-made irrigation channels.  Every now and again we would come across flood gates that didn't look like they had been used in many years.  Apparently most of the agriculture on the islands have moved to cheaper places in the world, like Chili, and the irrigation canals are no longer used as extensively.  In some places you can ride inner-tubes down the irrigation canals that cut through the hill sides in long tunnels. I digress; I learned a lot the last few days.  Anyway, we walked up a slight slope following a stream until we came to a real swinging bridge.  The bridge only went about 10 foot over the stream, but it was fun crossing and a little scary looking at the worn boards and the ragged wiring holding the cables together.  Up a little farther there was a much longer bridge that was worse than the first one, but easily passable.  We then wound through bamboo forests, fern fields, huge bazaar looking trees and thickets that had been cut away to be passable.  At the top we found a small waterfall that ran off into a small pool that you could at least wade through.  The water was icy cold, but some others folks there took a swim.  Braving the icy pool, Nancy quickly lost one of her $2.99 flip flops as it rushed down stream.  Those damn things really wanted to swim away the entire trip, and finally succeeded!  I'm not sure what was funnier; watching the flip-flop swim away or watching Nancy hobble back to shore on all fours across the stream due to all the rocks.

After a while we got invaded by the "tourists" from the cruise ships who looked around wondering why they paid so much to be taken to this silly little pond in the middle of invading mosquitoes.  I wouldn't have enjoyed it half as much if I had to walk with that bunch!

We headed downhill and drove a short way to IAO park (pronounced "Iao") and to see the Iao Needle – a massive point that is over 2000ft above sea level.  This was another valley cut deep in the mountains and had some very impressive steep walls.  I felt like I was in Yosemite again, except that these cliffs were all green.  Here we took in lunch (an impressive spread of PBJ and pretzels).  This is another natural wonder that we wouldn't have had the pleasure of seeing if Chris hadn't taken us there.  We very much appreciated his time and in return we gave him 3 bags of groceries that we never had a chance to eat!  Seriously though, it's time like this that is very hard to repay.  I hope I have a chance to do unto others as they have done for me.  Unfortunately, there really isn't much to see in Cincinnati!

Chris and Nancy on the way to the swinging bridges.

Nancy crossing the swinging bridge

Arn, Nancy and Chris at the trail falls.

The IAO Needle

May 23^rd to 24^th

The honeymoon has nearly come to an end.  We started out the day visiting the local Catholic services in town.  It was a small church and they had a nice service.  Most of the people there were visitors.  The only interesting fact I found out from the homily that Charles Lindberg (The spirit of St. Louis crossing the Atlantic) is buried in Hana, Maui.  I guess he didn’t like all that publicity! 

We headed for the airport and had no problems on the flights home.  It was a long one, but we slept through a good portion of it, so it didn’t feel too bad. 

On arriving a the house the next morning, we found what I should have expected.  It seems our friends held another party at our house in our absence.  For the second time my house has been littered with hundreds of post-it notes.  I should have guessed it was a bad idea to let a friend water the plants while I was gone.  (I want my keys back!)  Oh well, I guess that’s what good friends are for. 

I hope everyone enjoyed my journals.  Vacations are more fun when you can share it with others.

Aloha and Mahalo!

Arn & Nancy

“Welcome Home Arn & Nancy Less Party 2004”

You have to love the use of color…

The blown up latex gloves in the microwave were nice touches don’t you think?