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Published: September 14th 2006
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View from Diamond Head
Waikiki Beach in the background. Aloha
Arrived in Honolulu in the morning of the 5th of September after leaving Fiji at 11.59pm on the 5th September- Groundhog Day! I had just crossed the international dateline meaning I had the pleasure of having the 5th September all over again.
I met three people from the Motherland (England) as soon as we landed in Honolulu, Hawaii: Gemma, alex and Leafy (real name Aleathea?!) We got booked into a hostel just by the famous Waikiki Beach. The first day involved finding our bearings and having a Mcdonalds (When in Rome-Thats one of mine!)
On Day 2 we visited the Arizona Memorial aka Pearl Harbour. After watching some original footage of the Japanese attack we got a boat over to the memorial, which is stationed above the wreckage of the SS Arizona (the warship that was sunk by Japanese bombers and suffered the greatest loss of life). At night i sampled some of Waikiki's nightlife: I headed out on a pubcrawl that the hostel was running with a couple of blokes from San Diego who were in our Dorm. We went into this crazy bar called Nashville where there were loads of "rednecks" wearing Cowboy hats doing
Line Dancing?! The pub also had the most dangerously situated Darts board i've ever seen, right outside the bogs: if your ever get caught short in that place you'd have to do a mad dash dodging flying darts in the process.
Day 3- Done the Waikiki beach thing! Hawaii is world famous for it's surf, so i decided to get another lesson: I didn't think my three hours worth of experience way back in May would have put me in good stead. I picked it up again pretty quickly, hardly ever wiped out and was standing up like a pro (Even if i do say so myself!) did get quite sunburnt on my face though. At night me, Gemma, Alex and Leafy decided to go all Forest Gump and goto the Restaurant "Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.": it was themed on the film and had all kinda Shrimp: Fried shrimp, Boiled Shrimp, Shrimp Gumbo.............. Was frickkin awesome! Got absolutely 5hitloads to eat and the decor in the place is really cool, on our table we had two signs, one saying "Run Forest Run" and one saying "Stop forest Run", whenever we wanted a waiter to stop at our table we
Get your rocks on.
The Jumping Rock at Waimea Bay just had to flick the "Stop" sign over!
Hawaii is made up of over a hundred Islands, with only 7 inhabited and 6 visited by tourists. Honolulu is based in the Island of Oahu, by far the most populated and most popular with tourists . The area around Waikiki Beach is especially popular, with most of honolulu's accomodation been situated here. I decided to get away from a lot of the crowds on my fourth day here, heading for the North shore of the Island. The bus service on Oahu is first rate and it only costs $2 to get anywhere, took me about 2.5 hours to reach the North Shore.
The first place i checked out on the North Shore was Waimea Bay, a beautiful Bay which had a huge Rock that pertruded into the Sea. Even though the Rock didn't reach out far from the Beach the water was quite deep so people were jumping off it into the sea. I decided to have a go, reminded me of the cliff typed thing we jumped off in Laos, wasn't quite as scared this time though cos loads of people were doing it. Some of the locals
Random Bay on Northshore.
Done this photo using the camera timer, the work of a pro. jumping off the rock were being a bit mad, doing flips and all sorts of weird entries (ooh), i went for the traditional pencil jump that ended up looking like a botched up Bomb attempt!- still good crack though.
The North shore is World Famous for it's surfing, there are warnings all around the bays saying "Oi mate, only professionals are allowed to surf" (OK i'm paraphrasing), as you know "I'm not a professional" "I'm not a professional, well I should be"!?! (Banter) As it happened the waves were as flat as a Pancake, which was dissapointing cos it would've been good to see some Pros in action (Ooh)- the big waves kick in in October apparently.
At night Waikiki had some festival going on, there wer loads of different stalls and stages with different bands and people singing on them. One thing all of us said was, "God, how many fat people are there here?!?" Seen so many people Wheelchair ridden because of their weight. Honestly, i kid you not, Holtby would've looked positively normal in this place (no joke!) (banter T)
One thing I should point out is how cheap fast food is over here,
in fact we've done it almost everyday (aka everyday but one!) Aswell as Burger King and McD's there is Dennys (my personal fave), Wendys, Taco Bell... Its a quid fifty for fries, Cheese Burger and drink. The portions are ludicrous aswell, especially the soft drinks- i was thirsty and asked for a medium only to be presented with this Vat full of Pepsi! I think Mcdonalds are doing their best to combat the countries health problems though, after polishing off one of their grease ridden burgers (the stuff was dripping from them) they give you some pineapple chunks!?! Sorted! (Disclaimer: the fast food does taste sooo good though)
On our final day in Waikiki the four of us went to Diamond Head, the crater of an extinct volcano that overlooks Honolulu. It has been used by the military in the past because it offers a great view of the Ocean. The trek up there was quite knackering (reckon i sweated out at least one of the burgers i'd had) but the view from the top was amazing, looking down at the Skyscrapers and the surfers on Waikiki Beach.
Alex and Leafy arre heading to LA tomoz; Me and Gemma are heading to one of the other Islands, confusingly called Hawaii, nicknamed the Big Island though (cos it's the Biggest)
ciao for now
Mike
Ps apologies for the sprigensesque title of the blog, i'm getting lazy!
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