Blogs from Hawaii, United States, North America - page 174

Holiday Season in Hawaii. No Snow, no White Christmas, no Problem. As reported in last years Blog complete with photos, titled, O Come All Ye Bruddas, The City spares very little expense and effort to convert our City Hall Complex into a Winter Wonderland, with mammoth statutes of Santa Claus, Frosty the Snow Man and Family and various Christmas Scenes. On top of this, the tree lighting ceremony is preceded by a Honolulu City Lights Parade, a fairly short parade through the main heart of downtown Honolulu, consisting of gaily decorated City Vehicles and marching bands from almost every major high school on Oahu. It was my first in attendance, though it’s in it 10th Annual year. Frankly it was pretty Small Town production, however the spirit and enthusiasm of the surprisingly pretty large crowd was ... read more

It takes some nice weather, some exploring, and some time to see all that Maui has to offer. In the past, this wasn't one of our favorite Hawaiian islands. With our first soggy week of weather we were still feeling a bit down on the island. The past 2 weeks of lovely weather and cool activities has changed all that and now, Maui is looking rather Marvelous!! The major attitude change started with the helicopter tour over the volcano, Haleakala, and then along the southern coast near Hana. The skies were quite clear when we started the flight, and we were able to see the cane plantations and the coast line during our climb up the slopes of the volcano. At the summit of Haleakala, the clouds started to gather and we had intermittent visibility with ... read more

Mele Kalikimaka to all our friends and families.....we miss you all very much!!! Our first few days on the island has found us haning out at the beach, and looking for lost luggage...LOL....Our usual snowball fightshave been replaced with sand fights and Heather built a sandman instead of a snowman...... Today we are heading to Paia, however it may be too windy for the kids to go in the ocean there....kids think they are pro surfers but don't understand the power of the sea.....that's where I come in!!! Have a good day everyone........ read more

I was the first one to wake up and Mitchell woke up right after me. We decided to stroll the beach to see if there were any remains from the jet that washed up on the shore. To our surprise there was a small bag that was filled with chips and iced tea. The chips in the bag were all good and it didn’t seem like the salt water got to it. When we got back Kai started a fire, and Preston and Styson went to look for more food and fresh water. They didn’t realize that we were carrying a bag filled with chips and iced tea. Kai proposed that we eat it right now and don’t even wait for Styson and Preston to come back, but Mitchell said we should wait for them ... read more

So apparently that isn't just tourist crap, I was meandering down the street before (alright alright I admit it, I was lost and had no idea where the hostel was), and a nice old man turned to me and said Aloha. It's pretty hard to pick up, unlike in Japan where you automatically bow to people after about two minutes. That being said, there's a lot of Japanese tourists here (just like home)… all the signs are written in English and Japanese (I possibly thought that it was a local language which used characters instead of letters, then I looked at it a wee bit closer). I don't know if its because of the cultural significance of Pearl Harbour (it was the 65th anniversary yesterday), or if its just because the Japanese are lucky and seem ... read more