Jennifer and I went to the free breakfast, this was at the Holiday Inn Beachcomber which was the hotel that Gary and I stayed in when we went to Hawaii in 2007. There were several people having this free breakfast, first we had our photo taken that we could purchase when we left. We were seated and served scrambled eggs, sausage, a mini muffin and fresh pineapple. Had cofee and delicious juice made out of guava, pineapple and oranges. This was sponsored by the tour company that provided the airport shuttle. We listend to a speech about the islands and different tours that were offered. Gary had said that he didn't care left that up to us.
We signed up for the Stars & Stripes Tour which took us to the USS Arizona Memoria, the USS Missouri and Punchbowl National Cemetary. Jennifer really wanted to see Pearl Harbor and Gary wanted to tour the USS Missouri again. The second tour was to the Polynesian Culture Center. They were really pushing for the most expensive tour, but we signed up for the general tour. We got a meal with it and decent seating for the night show. The last tour that we signed up for was the Grand Island Tour. This one took us all around the island and made several stops at places. One was the Byudo-In Temple which we really wanted to see. We paid our fees and then walked back to our condo.
Gary was still pretty sick and he pretty much kicked us out of the condo, he didn't want us to get sick if he had the flu. We went to the beach for a couple hours, first we bought a straw mat to sit on and just relaxed. We didn't have any shade so only made it a couple hours as it got pretty warm.
We went back got changed and just walked around Waikiki and shopped. For dinner we ate at a restuarant that is a beach BBQ. You cook your own meat and help yourself to the salad bar. It was very good, then we went shopping some more.
Monday Gary was feeling better, at least he wasn't vomiting. He was weak and had a headache so just took it easy. Jennifer and I went to Diamond Head, Gary didn't go and there was no way that he would have been able to accomplish the climb anyway. We took the city bus to Diamond Head, the fare was $2.50 each. I checked the web site and found what bus number we needed to go to Diamond Head, I should say I found the bus that made a stop at Diamond Head. We waited for the bus and asked the driver is this took us to Diamond Head. He stopped on the other side of Diamond Head not the crater, but told us what bus to take. We had to take the one to the community college which is across the street from the crater. We caught out bus, paid the fare and got a transfer that was good for 2.5 hours. The driver told me where to catch the return bus and which ones that would take me back to Waikiki.
We hiked into the entrance, paid our $1 fee and up the crater we went. It took us about 45 minutes to reach the top. The trail is very uneven and many people that at places you were just in line. Some places you had to let those coming down pass before you could move. The climb really isn't that bad. We climbed up all 175 steps. Those are narrow and they really need an up and a down section. The view from the top is spectacular especially when we saw the rainbow. There was a new trail that wasn't there 6 years ago so we took it. All that does is bypass the steps. We didn't see this on our way up. Besides the steps are the fun thing about Diamond Head. We spent two hours at Diamond Head.
Made our way down and waiting for the bus. We never did see the bus that the driver told me to get on, but one pulled up and said Waikiki beach & hotels so we hopped on. Wasn't sure is our transfers would work, we had the fare anyway but I played dumb with the driver and she said we just made it. Save us $5. We got off near the International Market Place which I was familiar with.
While we were at Diamond Head, Gary checked out the beach. At lunch at a Denny's then walked around Waikiki, decided to eat at Duke's which is very popular on Waikiki. Gary went back to the condo to watch the Alabama-Notre Dame Game. While he was watching football Jennifer and I decided to go to the Teddy Bear Museum that we saw the night before. It was really cute.
The rest of the time was spent relaxing at the condo, we had a early morning for our Stars & Stripes Tour which was 6:00 am. Found where we needed to get on the bus which was called Aloha Landing just a 5 minute walk from our hotel.
1 comment:
Beautiful rainbow!
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