We got up early yesterday to drive to Waimea Bay. It is a beautiful beach and calm at this time of year. One the way Hunt noticed that the low tire pressure light had come on. We were near Enterprise so decided to stop there. Darned if there wasn't a screw in the tire! They swapped cars and we were on our way again. I'm so glad we ended up renting the car from them!

 We sat on the beach, posed for pictures and swam…

I tried to get both feet in the picture but couldn't do that and take the photo at the same time. You can't tell from here but I had to hold my feet up and snap it at just the right time as the waves came in and out. I was happy I didn't drop my iPhone!

Our guys continued to carry the heavy/awkward stuff. Way to go, guys!

 We went to Haleiwa for lunch, followed by shave ice. I am going to miss shave ice! 

Haleiwa is a quirky, cute town with lots of food trucks and shopping. I think this truck went with the art-painted-on-surfboards gallery…

Usually a sofa on the front porch is a bad look, but it works here…

As I people-watched while eating lunch I realized that I should have been taking photos of the Japanese women this whole trip. As a group, they dress very well. Their fashion sense is so very different. I would love to be able to put together the look that so many of these women do. 

Many of the clothing shops in Waikiki seem to be stocked especially for Japanese women. I have gone in and tried on some clothes and they just don't look the same on me. This woman's outfit doesn't look as good from the back as it did from the front (which is often true for me) but even so, it worked on her. I'll try to get some better pictures today, on our last half day here.

 We stopped on the way back so Karen could take photos of the Cook's pines.

Once back we had drinks on our balcony, we went to Ono Hawaiian Foods for dinner.

Ono is a highly rated dive with local food. It was great! (Unfortunately I think it gave me heartburn. It was worth it.) We had drinks at a lovely bar on the beach after dark and talked and laughed about our adventures. It has been a wonderful trip and we four are good traveling companions.

Karen and Hunt are off to the museum and for a tour of the Doris Duke home. We are going to the beach. I hope to have one last Hawaii post before it's all over – although it may go up after we're home.

Aloha!

Last night I took this lovely sunset shot. I may not get another one this good…

Early today we hiked up Diamond Head. It's only 1.6 miles round trip – half uphill, half down. The views at the top are amazing…

The rest of today was 'TheBus" day. Steve and I took 'the bus' to the Honolulu Museum of Art and to our favorite pho restaurant in Chinatown for lunch. Karen and Hunt had a car day – and they report that they had a great time visiting a ukulele factory and a friend for lunch. 

The HMA is a lovely museum, better than I remember. One thing I noticed, besides the art, was the color on the walls. One vibrant room color changed into a different vibrant room color. It was amazing how well these colors showed off the art!

I also noticed the cutouts, high in the walls, that I assume are return air vents…

I took photos of them in many rooms… the designs and wall colors changed. I made a photo collage…

They look like possible applique blocks, don't they! In addition, they were both functional and decorative without being obnoxious.

We came upon a group of artists sketching this model…

We looked at some really big, wonderful vases by Jun Kaneko …

We walked through the 'portrait' room – my favorite…

The painting on the left is a very large canvas by John Singer Sargent that I came especially to see. But notice where your eye goes…

Scale matters. Each of these canvases is about 5' tall. Which one commands your attention?

The Indonesian rooms were full of interesting objects. I sometimes view art through a quilting lens. The carvings on this piece would be great quilting designs…

I also like faces…

After the museum we went to Golden River Restaurant in Chinatown. We have eaten lunch here every time we've been on Oahu. As always, it was terrific!

We went back to Waikiki on The Bus for some near-the=end-of-trip shopping. We passed a house infested with birds! Neither of us has ever seen anything like it. The birds were cllustered around this house, not at neighboring houses. So, so strange.

We were too tired after this to do a lot. We ate dinner nearby and had drinks in our room. It feels good to chill. Tomorrow we're going to the north shore and Haleiwa… I'll post pictures!

There is a lovely white-sand beach (or very nearly white) on the NE side of Oahu in the town of Kailua. Kailua is a big town! You can get there quickly (depending on traffic) from the center of Honolulu, driving over the mountain (or crater, or hill, depending on your point of view) OR you can take the scenic route around the edge of the island. We chose scenic. And it was – scenic – but we didn't stop to take pictures. 

Just as we got to the beach park we drove past this concrete wall:

Can you see the squares painted on it, in different colors, as if someone is (or was) trying to pick a color for that wall. I think it looks great just like this. So great, in fact, that I wanted a better picture. We couldn't stop so Steve walked over the bridge to take this picture for me:

As it turned out, this became my theme for the day. All I could see were color combinations, especially the periwinkle-to-truer blues in the sky and the aqua-to-greens in the water…

The colors change as the sun moves, as clouds make shade (or not).

Don't you love to watch waves break? The frothy whites mixed with the suspended sand next to the blues – just lovely.

I took a lot of breaking wave pictures. The next one is nice because of the light reflecting off of the water before it breaks. 

I looked a little at the other people on the beach. These folks were set up next to us and it's not them so much that got my attention as it was the stripes on their chairs, towels, and bags. It made for a fun composition…

Once again, I was thankful for digital photography – and technology. Back in the day I would have taken many fewer photographs and they would not be nearly as good as these are. I get better photos from my iPhone than I ever did with my point and shoot cameras.

We take more photos because they are essentially free. We can discard the many bad ones and keep just the good ones. We can crop and change colors, use filters, and layers – we can do what only professionals could do not that many years ago. 

And rather than looking through a stack of photos days (weeks, or even months) after taking them – we can see them NOW! And we can share them NOW! And I don't have to feel guilty about shoving pictures in a box to deal with later. I can file them (neatly, in labeled folders) on my computer – and still deal with them later :-). But they don't gather dust and I they don't take up shelf space. 

I'm posting early today because I had to work a bit this afternoon. Lorna suggested that it would be nice for me to share some island happiness by putting the books (in print, not eBooks) on sale. So I did. If you are on the mailing list you may already have gotten the email. If not, click here and you can see the sale prices (which are good through next Monday).

Aloha!

We figured out what to do with a day in Waikiki. First, the beach. We rented an umbrella and we bought some beach chairs. Best buy ever!

We watched the ocean and the surfers…

We ate lunch at a cool place – Island Vintage. Healthy and very tasty. Then we shopped. I mostly shopped – but so did Steve. He got some new shoes (1 pair) and while he was looking I found 2 pair :-).

We walked and shopped through the Royal Hawaiian Center and got this lovely shot of the top of the old Royal Hawaiian hotel. If only we had $500 per night to spend to sleep, we'd be here….

We walked farther down the beach and took this shot of Diamond Head and the ocean…

We were there checking out a beach-side bar, the Rum Fire. It's in the Waikiki Sheraton. Very, very nice. So nice that we went back later for sunset drinks with Karen and Hunt. (Before that we went to Chinatown for dinner. FYI – Honolulu Chinatown is not really open on Sundays. We ate at one of the few open restaurants and it was OK and thankfully not too expensive.)

We posed for pictures while we waited for drinks at Rum Fire…

Steve drank Hawaiian draft beer and I had a very expensive mai tai made with 23-year-old rum and a kicker of ginger. As the sun went down, I took this lovely picture:

We left after dark. I had to go shop for waterproof mascara – really, some things are just important. The man who helped us could easily pass for Eddie Murphy's son. I didn't mention that to him. Bet he's heard it before.

As we walked back to the hotel Steve made me back up to see this:

The escalators in the foreground are under construction and roped off. The whole area down there appears to be out of commission. Why, oh why, are the naked manequins (some with foam glasses) clustered like that in a lit window? They appear to be milling about, but not talking. They are too big-city cool to talk to each other in a group. They don't exactly look friendly, but they do look like they would wear nice clothes if they could just find them…

I don't mind that they are naked. They appear to be very confident. 

Tomorrow Karen and Hunt are hanging out in Waikiki and we are taking the car around the east side of the island to the north. I'll take pictures!

We are staying in a hotel we have stayed in many times before – the Aqua Wave. It was not always the 'aqua wave'. That came after it was remodeled. We can't remember its old name, but it's much nicer now.

The veiw from our window/balcony in the daylight is nice:

We can see the ocean off to the right. The short white hotel with the gray roof is the Sheraton Moana Surfrider where we went for cocktails last night. Over the left if you look close between the buildings, you can see the peak of Diamond Head.

We slept in a bit and then went for a walk along the beach…

We went to Starbucks where I resisted buying a mug. We've looked at various sites and books to see what we might want to do today while Karen and Hunt are off to Pearl Harbor and the Missouri and other related historical sites. We've our grass beach mats and it looks like we're going to the beach for the morning. Might ride The Bus later today to see what we can see.

It's funny. On Maui and Kauai it is easy to be in vacation mode. It's harder for me here. We are definitely back in civilization and the pace has picked up. I think we are going to Waimea Bay tomorrow and I'm looking forward to that. It's more un-plugged.

It is hard to leave Kauai, especially when you know that it is a fast jump back into civilization. Our flight was on time, and short. Hunt and I took the shuttle to Hertz to get the car and that's when the trouble began. We were first in line, got the paperwork done and then they sent us outside to wait for our name to be called. Turns out that they were out of cars and had way too many people signed up. I half expected a riot as more buses showed up and the wait exceeded an hour.

We weren't the first to think of it but neither were we the last. Other rental car companies had cars and were within walking distance. Hello, Enterprise! It took us about an hour to figure it out and get it done but we did get a car and cancel the other one. And then we went to get Karen and Steve and the bags from baggage claim. Their wait was probably worse because they were just waiting on us to get it done.

The traffic from the airport was not bad for Honolulu. We got to the hotel and the parking lot was sort of full. I parked us once and then Hunt was able to move to a better spot soon. It took a while to check into the Aqua Wave but our rooms are very nice. It's odd not to be sharing a condo with Karen and Hunt. 

We all met in the lobby shortly after checking in to go to our favorite end of day bar – the one around the banyon tree at the Ala Moana Surfrider Hotel. I got my favorite drink (a tropical itch) that has lots of rum and a backscratcher. I should have taken a photo. Didn't. I suppose I'll need to go back and get another!

There was live music and then there was an Asian drum show – with dancing! The drummers were all ages and I have to say the the little kids were so very cute. Everyone was talented:

As I stood and watched, others also moved in to watch and take photos. And videos. Many were in beach garb. Remember the photo of the man who might have been a plumber at the beach? Well, he is not alone.

In many beach bars there are signs that say cover-ups are required. I will never again question those signs.

In other news Waikiki itself looks better than I've ever seen it. Fresher, newer. Even the International Marketplace is cleaner. After we all calmed down from the rental car experience, we walked Karen and Hunt to the beach for a first look:

We walked to Keoni's for a thai dinner. it was very good! Then we headed back toward the hotel. When you ar here for the first time, it can be overwhelming. 

Steve and I are back in our hotel for the night. Here's our night view:

There is live music (loud) way down there. We sleep with earplugs for which I am grateful. 

Tomorrow Hunt and Karen are headed to the Arizona Memorial and more. They will have a great time. We've been there more than once and so we are planning to chill on the beach and in Waikiki. No car, no plans, that sounds really good to us. I'll take pictures. They could be boring :-).