Jeeze! It's a good thingy I've learned to copy*paste my responses before hitting the submit button.
I always seem to get booted from MC when I write long responses.. *twirls my hair*
Is that a hint?!
Week #1 of my vacation~
I flew into LA & spent the first couple of days between visiting my stepsis & her family and going to the SantaMonica beach with friends I met last year through Carrie {one of my room mates during classes}
These friends took me up to San Francisco so that I could finish some sight seeing I didn't get to do last year.
They stayed in S.F. {they're bigtime partiers, I'm not & I can't sleep in a smokey place} while I stayed with Carrie@her aunt's house in Oakland.
I really love the whole San Francisco environment.. the hills & trolley cars, tea houses, boutiques, museums, the bay & bridges and the people are great and very unique.. much like true NYers.
Week #2~
I left from LA to O'ahu with that travel group & stayed in Honolulu.
My room mate was grreat & very thoughtful.
She was out to 'have fun' & didn't bring any guys back to our room the entire week.. which is really quite a testiment to her ability to respect others and take them into consideration even though it was her room as well.
She got some nice ass too! *LOL*
Anyway, Honolulu was a very busy place.. which was grrreat for my first week in Hawaii because I was very antsy & nervous about being away from familar things & was looking to keep busy.
While most of the people in my group were nursing hangovers from the night before, I was out walking first thing in the morning & exploring
because I'm the best tourist on the face of this earth so most of them were surprised to hear what was on the island when we got together at dinner time & chitty chatted about the day *lol*
Tells ya something about that group *winks*
Some of the thingys I did while there & not necessarily in order.
I went to the Hawaii Maritime Center, which is a museum & it had historical stuff about the hawaii & her love affair with the sea and whaling.
It's located near a harbor & you could see all the cruise ships in the port and other ships and there were shops to brouse through.
We hurried through the state capital.. and I got to see Iolani Palace, the only royal palace in the US *grins* It was built somewhere in the late 1800s for King Kalakaua.
The only reason I remember the King's name is because there was some really great shops on Kalakaua Ave *lol*
The building architecture was breathtaking in some places.
For instance, the state building had a circular opening, rather than a roof & it allowed sunshine in during the day & the stars at night.. very unique. Inside there was a mosaic of the ocean & a chandelier that was a represention of the sun & moon.
It gave you a very spiritual feeling.. hard to explain, but it was a cool state building.
The coffee & pineapple was *YuMmY* and there are beautiful exotic flower & coffee plantations. And there's LOTS of bananas!
Naturally, there was a great military presence in Honolulu.
We went to Pearl Harbor & since I'm very perceptive to thingys, I had to deal with sadness waves going through me.
We passed Aloha Stadium where the NFL Pro Bowl is held when we were on our way to the Arizona Memorial.
Every sunset was breathtakingly beautiful. It just reaffirms my belief that the best things in life are free.
Being treated to lunch by a sailor just doubly reaffirms that! ha!
I basically ran through any museum I came across, while everyone else was shopping or whateva. The Mission Houses Museum was interesting. It was built in the early 1800s where the first American missionaries lived. It's the oldest wooden house on the island. I also attended church@Kawaiahao's oldest church which offered the service in Hawaiian
The Royal Hawaiian Hotel is in Waikiki & we had lunch there just because it was pink~
Naturally, being the surfer lover I am.. I was really excited when we went to the Banzai Pipeline on the north shore. The waves had to be up to 30 feet tall. It was very very impressive to watch the surfers live. We met a few, well.. we met alot *floats* but, there were a few who we later found out were rather famous, but I don't remember their names.
The Hibiscus orchids also stand out in my memory vividly because they were beautiful.
There were two gardens.. one was at the bottom of the Ko'olau mts.. it was replica of the Temple of Equality {Japan} It had the slanting roofs & red. Just beautiful.
The Contemporary museum in Honolulu also had a stronger Japanese influence with a japanese sculpture garden & beautiful delicate plants.. they also had featured artists from the area with their work on display.
The water in Hanauma Bay was a gorgeous emerald green.. and the Coral reefs in S.E. Oahu were just incrediable too.
In the Southern Kolau Mt Range, we went to the Nu uanan Pali lookout. I think we had to be about 1000 feet about the water & the view was worth going.. beautiful place to ship watch.
Note to huntergatherer~ In Kahana Valley State park they let people pig hunt.
I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but that's all I can remember from Oahu at the moment.
