Polynesian Cultural Center

Liliha Bakery and Dole Plantation

Everything you wanted to know about pineapples but were afraid to ask (or just didn't care)

On our way to the Polynesian Cultural Center we stopped by Liliha Bakery and the Dole Plantation. The cream puffs at Liliha's are terrific!

Scooter riding in Puu Ualakaa State Park

Pacific Aviation Museum, USS Missouri and USS Bowfin Submarine

The torpedo room. Cooool.

USS Bowfin Submarine

"Whoah!"

The main gun batteries were big. I mean really really BIG.

USS Missouri

American SBD Dive bomber

Notice the red circle is missing vs the P40. I was told by the tour guide that the the red circles on American planes were eventually removed due to the confusion that would arise during combat with Japanese Zeros.

Japanese Zero

American B-25 Medium Bomber

American P-40

I've been eagerly anticipating the Ken Burn's WWII documentary series of "The War" that premiered on PBS this past week. My Motorola DVR from Time Warner can only hold about 7.5 hours tops of HD content. I wanted to record the season openers of Heroes, House, and Grey's Anatomy and so I had little room to record "The War." I watched a bit of "The War" while in Oahu and luckily it would be rebroadcasted when I got home. A very moving and polished documentary. It didn't try to be the mother of all WWII docs and even tells you from the get go that WWII was fought in many places with many many stories for any one documentary to cover. Instead, the scope was limited to describing the WWII events and experiences strictly though the eyes of soldiers and civilians from four US cities and in chronological order (1941 - 1945). No "experts" or "historians". There is no deep examination into the horrific events like The Holocaust or The rape of Nanking. Out of scope but that's OK because that wasn't the intent of the film and there are other good documentaries for those events.

I think it's safe to say that if you didn't serve in WWII, you can never fully comprehend and appreciate the experiences of the soldiers who were actually there. But I think visiting the memorial, the historic sites along with watching the "The War" really elevated my level of understanding of the events that happened at that time vs just visiting the sites alone or just watching the documentary by itself.

Brunch at Boots & Kimo's

"Home of the original macadamia nut pancake sauce" Wow, the pancakes were amazing here! We also ordered "steak and eggs" for good measure.

Pearl Harbor Memorial

We got up really early on Wed morning and arrived at the USS Arizona Memorial at around 7:10am. The line gets really long by the 7:30am opening time.

Waikiki Beach and Kakaako kitchen

After our hike we walked along Waikiki Beach, stopped by a night market and later had dinner at Kakaako kitchen. Kakaako kitchen is what I would call a hidden gem. It's by no means fine dining. On the surface, the entrees look like any other "lunch plate" place. The home-style food is served in sectioned styrofoam containers and the untensils are picnic white plastic. But don't let that turn you off. If you can get past the lack of ambiance what you'll receive in return is excellent food at very reasonable prices. Their sweet chili chicken is terrific.

Oahu: Diamond Head State Park

It was pretty warm and humid that by the time I got back down I was so thirsty that I sorta broke my rule about drinking high fructose corn syrup. I drank half of my Hawaiian Sun and it was quite refreshing but at the same time I felt a little weird about it. It's been a long time since I've had sugary drinks and they are bit too sweet for me. I am so hardwired for diet soda!

At the top of the mountain admiring the views

We island hopped to Oahu on Tuesday and hung out with Viki's med school friends. Our flight was delayed a bit we didn't arrive til 2:30pm. Shortly after we landed we did an afternoon hike at Diamond Head.

Pana'Ewa Rainforest Zoo

There's a funny story with this monkey. A woman was admiring him for a bit and when her husband came over and stood next to her, he started shrieking at him. If he walked away, the shrieking would stop. If he came back and stood next to her again, the monkey went berserk! Dude, talk about being possessive!

After the hike, we drove up to Hilo and visited the Pana'Ewa Rainforest Zoo. Getting this close to a white bengal tiger was amazing. This was likely as close as I'll ever get to a white tiger. After seeing so many beautiful, wild animals durng the past few days I was bit sad to see this tiger caged.

Volcano National Park - day 2

Very cool. I didn't expect to see a spider living in such a harsh environment.

Looking back at the folks behind us. To put size in perspective, you may have to click on the photo to see the people behind us - the little itty bitty specks on the right.

The long trail ahead of us within the crater

Kilauea Iki Crater. Our work out for the day. Viks and I hiked from the Kilauea Iki Outlook through the Thurston Lava Tube path, then through Kilauea Iki Crater itself and circled back to where we started at Kilauea Iki Outlook. It was only about a 4 mile hike total but challenging at some of the points with jagged terrain and up hill. You can see a white streak path in the crater itself - that is where we hiked through.

Entrance to the Thurston Lava Tube. You can see the rainforest surrounding the entrance. As mentioned earlier, it was really interesting how quickly the landscape changed from desert to rain forest in such a relatively small geographic area.

Volcano Inn stay

Knowing we would arrive late in the afternoon, we booked a room ahead of time at the Volcano Inn which was just a minute or two away from the park. The Volcano Inn is what you would call eco friendly lodging. The room has corked flooring (renewable), uses solar power for the appliances, and to futher conserve energy there is a key switch to power off a majority of the room and it is attached to your room key. So you are forced to turn most of the power off before you leave which is a good idea anyway. I didn't expect the bed to be as comfortable as the Sheraton and it wasn't but it was sufficient, the room was comfortable overall, and the price was very reasonable. The room even included free wi-fi (from a home Linksys router!). Ron and Jeab who were the owners were very nice people too.

Volcano National Park - day 1

The shoreline at the end of Chain of Craters Road. It takes about 45 min to drive down this 19 mile road with all the curves. We were a little disappointed that there weren't any visible lava flows accessible by hiking. Only by helicopter. But the other views were still pretty amazing.

I love how the sun rays pierce through the clouds and reflect on the jagged terrain in this photo.

Keanakako Crater

One of the many steam vents along Crater Rim Drive. The steam was not too hot to touch either (at least the ones accessible to us). It was like an outdoor sauna!

Halema'uma'u Crater. It's a crater within the larger Kilauea Caldera Crater

The Nene goose walking along the Halema'uma'u Crater overlook. We learned that the beautiful Nene is actually an endangered bird of Hawaii.

It's much cooler in the higher elevations. It was drizzling, raining hard at times and just downright cold. We bought some cheap ponchos and looked like tourists but it was so cold at times we didn't care.

A stop along Crater Rim Drive (circle: 11 miles). Look at what lava can do to your backyard. It was simply amazing how the terrain changed from crater to desert to rainforest. The views were simply awe inspiring.

Mike and Christi's wedding

Great wedding. Mike and Christi looked very happy. The weather worked out really well. It was actually cloudy and drizzling the day before and after. But on Sat, it was bright sunshine for most of the day if not the entire. I think weddings are stressful and a lot of work whether they are close to home or "destination" But either way you are getting married (good thing) and you are surrounded by family, good friends, good food . After some time you look back and think "Yah, it was worth it."