Hawaii22-28 February 2006 |
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I traveled to the Hawaiian islands of Oahu and Kauai with my mom. We first stayed on Waikiki Beach at the Hilton Hawaiian Village. Right: Fire jugglers on the beach Below: View from our room. |
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We rode the trolley around Honolulu... |
| ...with a bunch of Japanese tourists. |  |
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Left: Hawaii's state capitol building |
| Right: Queen Liluokalani statue |  |
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The trolley took us to the Hilo Hattie store. Left: Self portrait in front of the "World's largest Aloha Shirt!" wearing the free shell lei given to all who enter the store. |
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Above: King Kamehameha statue Below: Waikiki is kind of overrun by tourists and high-rise hotels. But there's a reason for that. |
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We went to Pearl Harbor and saw the USS Arizona Memorial |
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Left: USS Bowfin submarine |
| Right: The Dole Plantation not only had informative exhibits about the history of the cultivation of pineapples in Hawaii, they could serve pineapple-flavored soft serve and chili dogs to dozens of tour buses an hour. |  |
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Above and Left: A beach on the north shore of Oahu |
| Right: Mom and our tour bus driver |  |
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| Right: Looking out at a cloudy overlook |  |
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| Right: A statue of Akebono, Hawaiian sumo wrestling champion, in his hometown. His mom runs a store in this strip mall. Note the Japanese tourists posing with Akebono. |  |
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| Right: View from the slopes of Diamond Head |  |
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Left and below: Fireworks on Friday night at the Hilton Hawaiian Village |
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| Next we went to Kauai for a slower paced experience, staying at the Sheraton Kauai Resort where we had live Hawaiian music and hula dancing every evening |  |
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| We took a helicopter tour of the island. |  |
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Above: Where we stayed, from the air. Right: Coffee fields. |
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Everything we could see through the rain was spectacular. |
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Left: Niihau Island, west of Kauai |
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Occasionally the sun shone and we were able to pop the top on our convertible. |
| Waimea Canyon is known as the "Grand Canyon of Hawaii." |
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| Right: Free coffee samples |  |
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Left and below: Flying back out of the small Lihue Airport |
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