It may seem weird once you find out I was only in Hawaii from September to November, 2008. After Jeremy got out of boot camp, he got stationed in Honolulu. For the next 9 months, I stayed in Oregon and planned our wedding. After the wedding, I moved to Hawaii, and we were there until November when Jeremy got orders to A-School. Being a long A-School, we were able to both move to California, but that's another post. This post is chock full of tropics. We had a blast while on Oahu. Though we weren't able to do everything on our wish list, we had some great adventures snorkeling, hiking, visiting cultural spots, and viewing sunsets on the beach.
First of all, the snorkeling is an experience of a lifetime. I highly recommend you try it at least once in your life if you haven't already. I'm scared of the water; I'm a terrible swimmer, but strap a snorkel and some fins on me, and I have a blast; all of a sudden I can tread, swim faster, and am much more confident breathing. Give me an underwater camera and I go to town:
I wasn't lucky enough to see a turtle, but one day we hope to go back, and I won't rest until I have swam with a turtle. These were just some of the better pictures I took. Some were taken at Hanauma Bay, and most were taken at Shark's Cove on North Shore.
What trip to Oahu is complete without visiting North Shore?
North Shore sunsets are the BEST!
One place we went to escape the tourist traps is a place near Kaneohe called Chinaman's Hat. It's a quiet little beach that's great for finding little colorful pebbles and shells. It's not the best for snorkeling because of the murky waters, and there's not the best waves for surfing, but to relax and enjoy the scene and gather some natural mementos, it's perfect.
The Punchbowl National Memorial Cemetery is also a place to go. It's a very beautiful and heart tugging place.
The Buddha temple in Kaneohe is a must see, too. It's a quiet, serene place. It's welcome to visitors, and they give military discounts, but it's not a crowded tourist trap. It's filled with a lot of culture and memories. There's a koi pond, peacocks, and a big gong you can make a wish before ringing the gong. Before entering the Buddha temple, you must remove your shoes, and once inside, there are incense you can light as you look around. The structure and decoration are immaculate.
Waikiki is the tourist hang out. It's beautiful and fun, but very crowded. It's picture perfect, and everything you would expect it to be. If you have a chance to go, don't be shy, walk into each of the hotel lobbies just to check out the structure. There are many photo opportunities in front of the different statues in each hotel along the beach. There's restaurants in these hotels with beach front seating. You DON'T have to be a guest to eat at these places. Take advantage of it. :) We went to a place called Shorebird. I can't remember what hotel it was in, but the food was good and the scenery unbeatable.
The above picture is downtown Honolulu looking from the CG small boat station.
If you do go to Hawaii, make sure you go to Oahu for sure, even if you hop a plane there for just a day. The Honolulu zoo is a definite must see. We went twice. The prices are really not that bad. Military gets a discount, too. When we went, we saw tigers, cheetahs, giraffes, elephants, hyenas, African wild dogs, klipspringers, crocodiles, alligators, hippos, chimps, orangutans, zebras, rhinos, lemurs, other monkeys, numerous tropical birds and birds of prey, an ostrich, and numerous reptiles and amphibians, flamingos, and I'm sure there's more. Here are a few of the pics we took.
Next are some random pictures: The sky pictures are unaltered and were taken around our apartment in Waipahu. The other picture was some of the houses I saw on one of our scenic drives.
As for the Grand Finale of this virtual picture Oahu tour, there's no other experience like getting deep into nature where man's foot rarely goes. The deepest parts of Oahu that not many people go. Tourists for sure don't even know about this place. It was an old water pipe system that filtered rainwater off the tallest mountains in Oahu. It's an overgrown narrow trail in the Palolo Valley. It's a tropical rain forest if ever you saw one. Natural waterfalls are the rewards for the labor of climbing. It's not a hike for the faint of heart. We hiked in for over an hour climbing up and down steep embankments, maneuvering over fallen trees while trying to stay on the cliff. Look left and there's the mountain, look right and don't look down. Be careful of the soft ground; it could give way or you could slip in the mud as I did a couple times. But it's so worth the danger. We could have gone farther, but we were both pretty tired, so we stopped at the first waterfall we came to. Jeremy had done the hike before and gone farther to a couple more waterfalls and a crater.
Well, that's Oahu. A blessed experience I'll never forget, and one I hope to experience again one day. For all its activities, it's worth dealing with cockroaches and hot weather. Our next duty station, Petaluma, California for 6 months. We have an apartment waiting for us in Santa Rosa. Aloha!
