Waikiki

On day four of spring break, we left Oahu's windward side and moved to Waikiki beach.  Waikiki is a busy, bustling, never-a-dull-moment sort of place; it's been a famous surfing spot for many years, and fortunately a few of the grand old hotels are still in business. This view is from our hotel balcony.

I took this picture in the morning, when the sun first came up behind the mountains and hit the beach.  Before sunrise, surfers were already in the water.  I caught some of them with my zoom:

Because of the shape of the beach, the shallow water and the coral formations, the waves come in narrow and long (you can see a few forming in the photo) and so lots of people can ride the same wave for a long way.  This is part of why people love to surf Waikiki, and why it's an ideal place to learn.

The Spouse was unable to enjoy this view because he was up and out the door every morning at six, working at the FIRST Robotics Hawaii regional, held a couple miles away at the University of Hawaii sports dome.

The boys and I woke later and got ourselves some food.  Because the Spouse stays at Marriott so much, he has Golden Platinum Grand Poobah status, which meant he and the boys got free breakfast, and I got 25% off.  If you've ever unleashed an eight-year-old boy upon a large hotel breakfast buffet, the following picture will make perfect sense.  If you're a dietitian, scroll down quickly.

After eating came swimming.  One morning we started building a sand castle by 8:30.  We finished it by noon - it was a large castle.  Back in the hotel room, we discovered that (1) we could see it from our balcony and (2) nobody stepped on it all day!  This caused me to temporarily suspend my cynical, jaded view of humanity.  (I exclude you, of course, my dear friends, loved ones and readers, whenever I mentally sum up peopledom.)

We also spent lots of time at the pool:

The covered area and blue umbrellas to the left is a restaurant, and imagine your delight if you are, say, eight or ten years old, tired and hungry from swimming, and your mom lets you splash yourself over to the restaurant in your swimsuit, and you can eat kalua pork sliders and chicken salad and lemonade, while the waitress exclaims that you're such a good eater, and how cute and sweet besides. (This, by the way, happened with several waitresses during the week.)

Besides a few shopping and tourist forays, which I'll describe in the next post, that was our Waikiki experience.  I can't sign off without a couple sunset shots, though, because Waikiki is situated perfectly to watch the sun set over the ocean.  At about the same time every evening, everyone on the beach stops and looks.

Oahu two

As I mentioned earlier, we spent the first four days of spring break exploring the island of Oahu.

This is a tree outside the pool area at Paradise Bay.  In this photo, the Spouse is coaching R on using the camera.  In the one I won't show, I'm staring at the camera as if I'm trying to break the lens.  I wonder if I look like that most of the time...

Directly behind us, you can see Honolulu.  To the left you can see the crater of an extinct volcano; that is Diamond Head.  You can drive through a tunnel in to the crater, park your car, climb to that  highest point you see in the photo, and look at Honolulu from that angle.  We did that!  Here are some shots:

Honolulu from Diamond Head.  In a couple days, we planned to leave Paradise Bay for the Marriott, which is the second building on the beach, after the green area.

Expensive homes and coral reefs down the other slope.

On another day, we visited the spitting cave of Portlock.  The shoreline cliffs are beautifully layered from eruption after volcanic eruption. The surf has bashed a cave at water level, and when an especially big wave goes in, it spits back out.  People of the sort I don't understand jump the sixty-odd feet off the cliffs to the cave mouth.



After watching three people jump at the cave, I walked back to the car and my left shoulder seized into a horribly distracting knot of pain.  The Spouse spent the rest of the day kneading it.  After that, we didn't watch anybody else risk their life.

 

Instead we did soothing things, like eating and goofing off.



Next week I'll post about the last few days of our trip, after our move to Waikiki.

Oahu

It's hard to know where to begin telling you about our spring break.

I should say first that if it weren't for all the Spouse's hard work, all the hours he spends on airplanes, the miles he logs in rental cars and the nights he spends in hotels, this trip might not have happened.  Besides, the Spouse actually spent three days working in Honolulu while the boys and I relaxed.

We started our trip on the windward side of the Island, at a little old resort called Paradise Bay.

I took this photo on the dock where I had morning coffee and watched the sunrise on Kane'ohe Bay.  The resort is a collection of old WWII barracks on a hillside.  The grounds are small but packed with beautiful trees and plants.  The pool is small but very pretty & relaxing...

Several critters lived in the pool landscaping.  The boys named them.  When the boys weren't swimming, we spent those first days poking around Oahu.

La'ie Point.  In 1946 a tsunami punched a hole in the rock.

 



We got too many great photos for one post.  So next week, Lord willing, I'll share a few more!

I have to mow the lawn

We've been gone for eight days - best spring break ever - and I really want to post photos.  However, the grass in our lawn is high enough to wave in the breeze, so I have to mow first.

When I finish mowing it'll be time to get the boys from school, and after that I nag about homework until dinner. After dinner I focus very hard on bedtime.

Before the mowing, however, I'll tease you with a few vacation shots.