Oahu-Day 2

Blogger is not letting me put the pictures where I want them. The beach scene above left is on Oahu. The man on the right is our tour guide, Peter.

This was the oceanview (and other hotel view) from the 17th floor of the Waikiki Beach Marriott. The room was clean and nice. The bed was very soft and comfy. As part of our package, we had a free breakfast with the room. The buffet was very good but we had to get up early (5 am) so we could catch our bus at 6:15 am.

First stop: Pearl Harbor. Our bus driver was a 72 year old native Hawaiian. His name was Peter. Pictured above in the big hat and green shirt. Peter scared me half to death right off the bat, by turning onto a one way street and in trying to compensate and get back onto the main street almost hit a street sign with the side of the bus (I was sitting next to the window!) He told us the story of eating breakfast with his family as a 7 year old, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. His parents yelled for him to leave his breakfast and come with them, he said that he had a hole in the seat of his pajamas and did not want to get up and go with them. His babysitters' house burned down from fallout from the attack. Pearl Harbor was quite interesting and moving to visit. They have reflective captioning so I was able to understand the movie they show about the bombing of Pearl Harbor. We were able to pick up a flag that had flown above Pearl Harbor for hubby's grandfather. He is a WWII veteran and we thought he might like to have that.

After touring Pearl Harbor, we reboarded our little bus and started on a circle tour of the island. We went to the Dole Plantation (mostly just a tourist stop now) and had some yummy pineapple ice cream! Then we made our way around the island, stopping at various places along the way. Blowholes, beaches and a Macadamia nut farm. We also spent some time in front of Peter's house where he pointed out several trees in his yard and several of his relatives houses in the neighborhood (still don't know what was up with that!) It was a long day but we were able to see a lot more of Oahu than we would have seen on our own. Traffic in Oahu is bad and I would not want to drive there.

That evening we walked along the beach and ended up having a "Cheeseburger In Paradise". It was fun for us because our Life Group had just had a Karoke night and that was one of the songs that we sang. The cheeseburger was good but the chocolate desert was better! We ended the evening with a short stroll on the beach before heading back up to the room.

Off to bed for us, for tomorrow we go to MAUI!