Aloha to Oahu
Trip Start
Nov 13, 2007
1
101
106
Trip End
Oct 08, 2008
Waikiki,
Hawaii,
United States
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
hawaii has been awesome. due to monetary restrictions ive not made it any further really than waikiki and certainly not to any of the other islands but theres been so much to do here and also its been really nice to just chillax and sunbathe that i definately think it was the right thing to do.
the diving here was great - i did 3 wreck dives and saw 2 beautiful eagle rays on 2 of the dives. its the first time ive seen big rays swimming around like that so it was amazing to see. i also saw a whole load of fish that ive never seen before - stonefish, big fat frogfish, loads of different kinds of moray eels including a zebra one as well as my first proper octopus - ink and all!! i went out with a group called diamond head divers run by mike the tom selleck lookalike (there will be photos to prove this!)
also did a day trip to pearl harbour which was superb and really interesting. you get to watch a film at the start which gives you the whole history and then you take a small ferry out to the sunken USS Arizona. we also then got to do a tour of the USS Missouri - the last US battleship that was the location of the signing of the peace treaty that ended WWII as well as serving in Desert Storm. you got to tour all the different creq quarters as well as sit in the weapons ops room with those blue lights turned on like in the movies. very cool. it still had alot of the original maps and drawings etc from the war so was just an amazing experience. on the way back we went via the airforce museum where they had an F14 and F15 on the tarmac so that was cool - the F14 was the one they used in the filming of Top Gun. :-D
and speaking of filming......i also did an amazing tour up to Kualoa Ranch which was a film locations tour (though to be honest once the guy realised i was a Lost fan we focussed on Lost alot!!) they were actually filming season 5 when we were there and though i never thought i was the starstruck type you shouldve seen me hanging out the window with my camer as we drove through the crew/cast base camp and up into where they film!! LOL. we saw so many locations it was brilliant though it did lash like there was no tomorrow when we got to hurley's gold course and my pic is more rain and fog than rolling green hills!!! and all my hoping was rewarded as the trip came to an end as who should drive past out hummer in his spanking new shiny blue/grey BMW 4x4?? (prepare to be jealous!!) - yes it was sawyer!! in my excitement at seeing him i forgot to initially turn on my camera and so only got one very blurry pic of him (as he floored it when we saw my camera) but you can still tell its him. very VERY exciting!!
other than that ive just been taking it very easy - relaxing by the pool (the beach in waikiki is just horrendously crowded and you wouldnt want to be body-conscious at all with all the body beautifuls parading around!!!) lots of walking and checking out the beautiful sunsets. its been awesome.
hawaii is also really nice in that its not as manic and the people seem a little more chilled than in mainland US (no offense to any of my american friends, ive told most of you before that you are the exception to the rule when it comes to stereotypical americans!!) another great thing in particular about waikiki is that it never seems to rain! it rains everywhere else on the island and always looks like its threatening but never seem to materialise.
and so next stop is LA (for the night) before heading on up to SF to meet up with shane and also kim (who used to work in dell) so really looking forward to that. though ill be glad when im in LA cos i am NOT looking forward to another flight after the flight from fiji *shudder*.
still cant get my head around the fact that this time 2 weeks ill be home. in ireland. madness.
aloha xx
