2012.12.03 O'ahu, Hawaii (Day 2)

Day two started with a jolt of light. Literally. 
My brother woke me up as he returned from his morning run at 4 (!!!) in the morning. What a crazy guy.

It was just as well, since I had planned for an early morning visit to Diamond Head Crater Park in hopes to see the sun rise above Honolulu. Those who know me knows I'm a frantic planner when it comes to trips. I don't take vacations, I take trips, hence the 5:30am start. 

We arrived at Diamond Head Crater, so called due to the glittering calcite crystals (Darn! There goes my get rich scheme) embedded in the rocks, and with our head lamps on, started our ascent in the dark.
 
The path was long and winding, complete with lots of stairs and a tunnel to boot (who doesn't like a good tunnel?) Finally, we emerged at the top where a surprising number of people have already gathered, including a group of Japanese tourists, McDonald's in hand.

You can just make out the faint glow of Honolulu in the dusk.

Alas,  no sunrise that day. Still, a beautiful viewpoint, no?

Just imagine a clear blue sky and deep blue ocean.

 

 

Remnants of Diamond Head Crater's military history.

A souvenir from the railings. 

 

Clearly, white was the wrong colour of choice that day.

And I'm leaning against the rails in the photo. Good grief, what was I thinking? 

As we were leaving, one of the elderly Japanese ladies fainted and had to be air-lifted out of the park. Poor lady, she probably got light-headed from being made to do this hike before having any breakfast.  

Someone give her some fruit cup. Stat!

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 The promotional aerial photo for Diamond Head Crater Park. 

Nature in all of her geometrical beauty. Doesn't it kind of look like a giant, delicious pie?

After a hearty breakfast at the hotel (yummy pineapples), we headed out to Costco and a local drug store for supplies. 

No lie, I really enjoy going to grocery stores/drug stores when I travel. It's such a pedestrian thing to do, but there are nearly always neat new things to discover. 

We stocked up on bottled water, granola bars, and local goodies like marlin jerky (mmmh!) Marlin jerky isn't exactly healthy (Marlin, being a top predator, is high in mercury - a concept known as bioaccumulation. Take that, high school biology!) but I have such fond memories of it from this trip. It got us through some hungry times.

Our next destination: Makapuu Point Trail - rated #11 on Tripadvisor.

The trail is located at the easternmost point of O'ahu, which gave us a chance to drive along the eastern coast of the island. The great thing about O'ahu is the many scenic stops along the coastal roads. The bad thing is the shifting weather - perpetual cycle between sunny and rainy. They don't call Hawaii the Rainbow State for nothing. 

We stopped by the Halona Blowhole. While we didn't get to experience first hand the record 30 ft ocean water jetting out of the thousand-year old lava tubes, we did see some jetting action. You will have to take my word for it since my camera finger wasn't quite fast enough to capture the moment. 

The impossibly beautiful coastline of O'ahu. 

Makapu'u Trail 
3.2 km of prime whale-viewing coastal trail. Even though we were too early in the season, I still had the fervent (and completely unrealistic) hopes that we would see whales performing tricks and jumps a la Seaworld.

People, be warned. This is exactly what happens when you watch too many Discovery/National Geographic shows, your expectation of "grand gestures" from the wildlife start to get out of hand. 

Koko Head Crater, we'll be seeing you soon.

Wild dragonfruit and bizarrely awesome cacti. If only mine grew (even half) so well. 

The rich volcanic soil + humid climate = tropical plant heaven.

All the different shades of blue-green of the Pacific ocean.

Finally, we reached the iconic lighthouse, which marks the end of the trail. Unfortunately, the lighthouse is closed to the public so we could only admire from afar. (The fence blocking the entrance path to the lighthouse was pretty mean-looking and heavily padlocked. Looks like I'm not the only one who wanted to pay a close and personal visit to the lighthouse). 

Instead of having a proper lunch like regular human beings, we ended up having the aforementioned marlin jerky and granola bars (which ended up happening more frequently than my brother would have preferred). It was all worth it though.

What a view!

There is truly something mystical and surreal about the Hawaiian isles. 

Since all beaches in Hawaii are considered public land, we decided to relax for a couple of hours at the little stretch of golden beach just peeking out from the cliffside we spied from the hilltop.

Note to self: Always have a bathing suit with you in Hawaii, even when you don't think you'll need it.

Sans bathing suit, my only recourse was the ever popular sandcastle construction (and taking photos).  

The white island in the mid-foreground is Manana Island. Popularly known as Rabbit Island. It does look like a rabbit swimming in the ocean. Do rabbits swim?

Due to its proximity to the ocean, the city of Old Castletown (ingenious, I know) was wiped out moments after this photo was taken. None of its inhabitants survived. 

New Castletown may or may not have been destroyed by its creator in an act of pure clumsiness.

We then had a wonderful dinner with our relatives. I may be severely biased but my nephew and niece are simply adorable. What can I say? Good genes run in the family.

2012.12.02 O'ahu, Hawaii (Planning and Day 1)

It's been a while. I know, I know. There is no excuse. Ubernerd, thanks for the gentle nudge for more travel posts.

Alright, let's get started. And not to oversell it, but Hawaii is truly a magical place. 

Like a good blogger, I need to put a disclaimer about sponsors. My Hawaii trip was partly sponsored by my brother. Yes, that's right. I have an awesome brother. 

This trip would have been absolutely impossible without my brother because as you know, I'm pretty broke. 

The seed for an Hawaii trip was first planted in October. The conversation went something like this: 

Brother: I still have x [it was an indecently high number] days of vacation I need to use up before the end of the year. I was thinking of running the Hawaii marathon."

Me: Cool, Hawaii seems like a pretty cool place to run a marathon. You should definitely go. 

Two weeks later... 

Brother: The Hawaii trip is probably not going to happen. I don't have the time to do all the planning AND prep for the marathon. Plus, I don't even know if I can actually take time off. 

Me: That's too bad. Hawaii does sound pretty awesome. 

Brother: How about you come with me? I'll pay for your flight if you plan the trip. I would have had to pay for accommodations anyways. 

Me: Seriously!?!? Hell yeah!!!

Then began a month worth of frantic scouring for flights, car rental, hotels, local attractions/food places. 

Since Hawaii is one of the it destinations and we were planning to visit in the slow season (early December), I figured accommodations would be fairly abundant. There's a pretty wide range to choose from: room sublets, apartment rentals, resorts, hotels. Not so. All the affordable rentals were fully booked up. I must have e-mailed over 60 Flipkey/Airbnb places. Everything before and after that one specific week was available. It was the strangest thing.

Then duh! It was the Anniversary of the Attack on Pearl Harbour. Combined with the Honolulu marathon, accommodations anywhere within walking distance of Waikiki beach was pretty much all full.

Lady Luck was on our side, Waikiki Gateway Hotel posted a Groupon just as I was at my wits' end. The Tripadvisor rating for the hotel was mediocre at best, but "the overall cleanliness" category seemed okay, so we took a chance. 

We only had six days (we had to cut the trip slightly short. My brother's company decided that he was too important to be away for too long), so we decided to focus on only two islands - O'ahu and Hawaii. 

Toronto->Newark Airport, New Jersey

What can I say about Newark Airport except that it has its own mini-train? And that the airport employee who directed us to the correct terminal knew the New Jersey->Hawaii weekly flight schedule by heart?

We arrived in Honolulu airport at about 10pm. After 15 hours of traveling (not including delays), we were definitely not our normal cheery selves when we picked up our rental car. I might or might not have gave the rental guy a slightly snippy remark when he suggested upgrading to a convertible. Sorry rental guy! I'm usually much nicer, I swear! 

Serendipitously, we missed the turn to our hotel but found a nearby underground parking that was much cheaper than the hotel parking. A major find since parking in downtown Honolulu is like the proverbial unicorn, rare and pricey.

Someone *cough* managed to spill soda all over my stuff when we were checking in. Not a great start to the trip. By the time we got to our room and got everything cleaned up, it was already close to midnight (or 5 am EST) and we decided to call it a night (or rather, I passed out on my bed).  

So ended our first day (or rather, first two hours) on O'ahu. The trip does get better (and with actual photos), I promise.