Finally, I get to blog about HAWAIIIIIIIIIII! :)

Day 1 (20 Dec 06) - Diamond Head Crater

On this very day, because Xiayi and Boon Leong had been delayed on their flight to Hawaii, the trio consisting of Mark, Shanlong and myself went do a little bit of exploring of O'ahu, or rather just Waikiki. After having a little breakfast at MacDonalds (which had interesting local food), armed with a Goza (beach mat), from one of the ubiquitous ABC Store, Mark and I set off for a morning of suntanning/wading at the beach. The beach at Waikiki, though crowded with tourists is hon-to-nee su-goi (really amazing!).. And the water is surprisingly cold for the warm weather...

Lunch was at this Japanese Ramen place - There's an incredible number of Japanese tourists and establishments all over the island, so much so that every shop had signs in English AND in Japanese. And of course, everyone started speaking Japanese to us, seeing that we're Asian looking...

Thereafter, we decided to hike to Diamond Head Crater, which is somewhat the nearest attraction to our hostel, which looked like this:
I was occupying the top bunk... ;p

The trek up Diamond Head crater was somewhat easy (it was meant to be, considering it's supposed to be good for "family outings"), so we finally got up to the top. Of course, Shanlong and I treated ourselves to some shaved ice as well, which is actually very expensive crushed ice, topped with syrup. It's somewhat like ice kachang, without the kachang. hehe

Here's Kenny at the top of Diamond Head crater.

Day 2 (21 Dec 06) - Parasailing/Surfing

This was decided to be the day of adventures. We made a booking for parasailing at noon, and headed off for some Hong Kong dim sum for brunch. And there were 4 of us, less Shanlong, cos Shanlong doesn't really do activities vaguely related to heights, water and excitement, which I suppose worked well, since it was tandem parasailing.

A candid shot of Xiayi in the boat. It's somewhat scary I thought to be in a small boat like this in the vast ocean. You're suddenly very vulnerable to the elements. Every small wave lifts the boat a few feet up and crashes down in the next. Somehow, I'm a little more used to the Fastboats I was handling back in the Navy.. haha...

Xiayi and Mark about to fly away. On the same boat was this family with 3 kids, of which the youngest was something like 4 years old. When the brother and father went up (they were first), the youngest girl seeing her daddy flying away cried so hard. Of course, the rest of us in the boat found that amusing though.....

Kenny & Boon Leong on their way up. It's strangely peaceful once you're up in the air. No winds, no waves, just the peaceful sea beneath our feet and the shore a distance away. If only everyday was this peaceful.

After that, we decided that we were gonna go for surf school and do some surfing! So we forked out some USD40 for a lesson, which by the end of, we had some semblance of a surfer:

Kenny preparing to mount his board

Kenny on the surfboard. This photo looks somewhat impressive, but actually, the waves are pretty small (relative to the 25-foot waves on the North shore) and the water where we were learning is rather shallow (slightly more than waist-deep), which is quite helpful to use amateur/novice surfers. ;p

Dinner was at this Japanese restaurant called Aka Saka, which Shanlong & Mark were raving about after their dinner there on the first day. Must say they do serve pretty good Japanese food, something we don't really get here in the UK (not without cutting deep into the wallet that is..)

So this pretty much concludes our first two days on the sunny island of O'ahu, Hawai'i.

Labels: Hawaii, Parasailing, Surfing