Monday, October 31, 2011

Oh Hawai'i part 4...The End

This is going to be the "Readers Digest" version on the remainder of our Hawaii trip...

We went to the ocean:





 We saw huge turtles:








We went to hang out in the Banyan Trees:



We went to the Valley of the Temples:


I love this!  Boy, making noise...girl, hiding from noise.  Classic!

Fish food...

Fish!!





We went to the Poly lookout:




WINDY!


Very WINDY!
 We went to the "Punch Bowl" a war memorial:



We went to the Honolulu Tabernacle:




Inside the Tabernacle.  They are replacing the carpet.

I just LIKE the name!




We went to Pearl Harbor:









Sarah met a friend named John...

We went to the Temple.  Sarah and I got to help clean it one night.


Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Hawai'i part 3

If you are sick and tired of reading about our trip...I apologize but I'm trying to get it all done before I forget something.  I swear, the older I get, the more I have difficulty remembering anything, unless it's written down and posted in a VERY obvious place, like on my forehead!

So, I was completely amused by some of the things we came across.  For instance, shrimp trucks!  The road between where Chris and Sarah live and where we were staying was only about 5-7 miles but along the way, there were plenty of places to stop and get nourishment...I really wanted to stop and give it a try but I have to admit, I chickened out.  Take a look at these places and tell me if you would have stopped and eaten there!  Lots of people do, but I didn't.

They serve people right out of this truck!

Seriously?!!


This one looked okay but...
Every time we drove by, these places were packed!  Several limos were stopped there so even the wealthy must know something I didn't.
I did, however, eat garlic shrimp at a place called "The Kahuku Grill" and it was yummy!  Unfortunately, I didn't get a photo...I was too busy eating!

On one drive, Sarah & I stumbled upon the Kahuku Golf Course.  Wow!  Having lived in Mesquite where golf is king and where the courses are well maintained and finely manicured, let me just say, this was NOT Mesquite golfing!

This is the clubhouse for the golf course, nice huh?
If you look at the grass to the right, yup, the pale green/brown stuff, that is what the entire course looked like.

Of course I had to add a photo of the fire station

One of the funniest things were the police cars...Or lack there of.  We kept seeing these random makes and models with just a single blue light strapped (literally) to the top of them.  I'm not kidding.  I think we figured out that if you are a police officer, you use your own car and when you're on duty, you strap a light on top and that makes you official!  But what if your car was a piece of junk and couldn't keep up with anyone?

I don't think they care about stuff like that because we also found out that there is no such thing as stealing.  It's called "borrowing" and it appears to be the Hawaiian way.  Stuff goes missing all of the time in fact, a couple of doors down from Chris and Sarah, a girl got her bike stolen, in broad daylight and we were there when it happened.  Incidentally, Sarah had her bike "borrowed" too.
We quickly learned that if you don't lock up EVERYTHING, EVERY TIME, it will get "borrowed"!  Problem is, you never seem to get it back again. 


This is the place were Sarah taught swim lessons for while


I asked Sarah if she had ever gone into this place before.  She hadn't, so I stopped the car and we went inside.  Not much to look at...They had a tiny bit of fresh produce (we bought some star fruit and some apple bananas).  They do sell eggs there but ironically, Dave was told that they ship them in from the mainland.  I'm not really sure why because there are chickens running all over the place!

This is the name of the place used in the movie "Fifty first dates" but it's not the building they used.

We had breakfast here one morning.  Dave and Chris chose dishes that were purely Hawaiian.  Dave had the "famous" Logo Moco and I can't remember what Chris had but it was something like that.  Loco Moco consists of rice, a beef patty, gravy, and a fried egg.  Talk about heavy!!

Dave and I have been to the coastal resort areas of southern Mexico two times and this area of Hawaii was not all that different from there...only a whole lot more expensive.  I can honestly say that the best part about it was seeing Chris and Sarah!

Monday, October 24, 2011

Oh Hawai'i part 2

While Dave was working, he was able to make some great connections.  One of them was a kind man who is serving a mission, with his wife, at the Polynesian Cultural Center (PCC).  It turns out that he is a retired firefighter from northern California and of course he and Dave ended up talking shop, sharing war stories and getting along famously.   Even more ironic is the fact that about a year ago Dave spotted this particular mission on a flyer that came through the Bishops office and he said, "Man, if I was retired, we could go do this".  Timing is everything.

Dave spent an entire day there at the PCC, walking around with Elder Newgren, looking at all of the in's and out's of the place, talking about how to improve the safety and security and identifying weak points.  This new job that he has is taylor made for him because he gets paid to be paranoid, which is something he does anyway, so he might as well get paid for it, right?

At the end of the day, Elder Newgren really surprised us with an amazing deal.  We got to go back a couple of days later and completely enjoy the entire park + eat at the brand new restaurant + see the "Ha, Breath of life" show + go on the Haunted Lagoon, complete with fast passes to get to the front of the line!  What a night!  We got to have Sarah and Chris along with us too which was incredible.  I've learned that Chris is very much "food driven" and it's fun to watch him dive into, and be very grateful for a BUFFET!  

Sarah was our tour guide during the day while Chris was at school, so she took us to the favorite "islands", being careful to avoid the more boring "islands".  It is impossible to see all of them in one day so we didn't want to waste time on those.  I have to say that New Zealand was my favorite.  Tahiti was very cool too. 

This is Cap.  It's short for a name that I cannot pronounce
Cap, demonstrating how to get the coconut out of the shell.  He was very funny!



Man, they could really shake their hips FAST!

New Zealand, doing the Haka



Inside the New Zealand "home".  Doing the Haka, again

NZ has a lot of deep meaning to their traditions.  Very cool

These guys were funny and really good drummers

Dave and Sarah in front of the Iosepa canoe