Holiday blogg

Oct 21, 2007

Aloha!

Now we are into our last night here in Hawaii. We have done a lot this trip. Since I wrote the last time we have been to a luau, rented a car and drove to Pearl Harbour and Dole plus back to the turtles, we on a dolphin excursion and snorkled for the first time.

The luau was very touristy on the bus trip there but was very enjoyable. The dancing was beautiful and the sunset was romantic. One of the dances was with fire and that was pretty cool.

At Pearl Harbour you could still feel the history of that day in December 1941. There were some of the survivors walking around greeting people there and taking pictures. Then we watch a short film about the events of that day and took a short boat ride out to the USS Arizona memorial. Where the ship and her crew still lie on the bottom of the ocean.

We continued on to Turtle Beach to see the turtles again. There was one on the shore and several feeding right at the edge. The one on the shore went back into the water while we were there and two others were slowly trying to come up to sunbath. After being there a short while then it was on to Haliwea Joes for lunch.

After lunch we visited the Dole Plantation. We saw how Pineapple is grown and other fruits such as bananas, mangos, papayas, etc. First we took the Pineapple express and then I took a walk around the garden with a guide. When we were finished there we drove to Pali Lookout. It was starting to get dark already so we didn’t see that much. Definitely would have been great to see during the daylight.

Friday is when we went out on a catamaran and saw about 15 dolphins. They were evening swimming right in front of the boat at times. We also saw some other turtles swimming around and the crew on our boat fed some fish. There were tons of them hoping up trying to get the bits of bread. After seeing the dolphins a little more we sailed a little further from them and went snorkling. Even Johan and I could do this since they had optic goggles. This was a first for all of us. We could see quite well with the goggles. Well enough that we saw a big turtle relaxing on the bottom of the ocean about 6 meters below us. I got a chance to hold a sea urchin in my hand. It was fuzzy. After about 40 min in the water we sailed back to the dolphins for a couple minutes then it was brunch time and time to head back to the shore.

The last couple days we have mostly been on the beach. Just taking it easy. Hanging loose as the Hawaiians would say.

In the morning we head to Las Vegas for the last few days of this holiday that will never be forgotten.

By Corina@journeyreport.com

 Oct 15, 2007

 Hello from sunny Waikiki!

I know I have not written in a long time. Have been enjoying the trip so much.

We spent one night in Las Vegas on our way to Oahu, Hawaii. We have been here in Waikiki now for almost a whole week. The weather has been perfect every day. We have all burned ourselves atleast once. Thursday we drove around the island of Oahu. We stopped at a few beaches on the way and ofcourse a few viewpoints. We went swimming at the one beach and the Blue Angels were practicing for the flight show they did this past weekend. We ate a really good cajun fish sandwich for lunch and then we tried shaved ice for dessert. We were at ‘Turtle Beach’ there we met two turtles of about 20 that sunbathe on the beach there. There names were Scallop and Missy. I was super excited to see them. They were quit big. There were two ladies working there to keep tourists at a safe distance for the turtles and they told us that the turtles are atleast 20 years old when they start coming up on the beach and that they live to be about 70.

We have booked in us for a traditional Luau for tonight and then we have booked a car for Wednesday and booked a trip out to sea on Friday.

It feels like we have come to another country than USA because it is so tropical here and there are many Japanese. All the menus, brochures and coupons I have seen are both in English and Japanese and a lot of the people working in the restaurants, stores and hotels speak atleast a little Japanese.

Time to finish getting ready for the Luau. Hoping for a beautiful sunset.

Oct 1, 2007

 Now we have seen both a junior hockey game and a major league baseball game. The hockey game started off with a buffet dinner and tickets on the ‘rail’ for the match. The match and barley even started, 3 seconds of play, and the refs we giving out the first 5 minute penalties of the game for fighting. The game was fairly calm other than that and the local team, Kelowna Rockets, lost 2-1 against Vancouver.

The next day we drove about 6 hours to Seattle, Washington to see the Mariners play against Cleveland Indians. This was the first ever live MBL game for any of us and it was pretty cool. We even got to see 2 home runs. The Mariners won 4-1. On the way home we drove through snow on the mountain pass. It was snowing really hard some of the time.

The weather has been really mixed. Today we had fairly decent weather. Hopefully it will continue since we still have a party coming up and would like to do some hiking at Kettle Valley, on the old rail tresses. We have been shopping some more and visiting with some family.

Sept 26, 2007 

We have now been in Kelowna 3 days. It was a very long trip. First we flew to Atlanta, then Las Vegas.When we had gotten on our plane from Atlanta on our way to Las Vegas we had a delay of about 30 min, because of another passanger that needed some sort of medical attention. We spent the night at the DoubleTree hotel in Las Vegas and it was a really nice big room with a huge king size bed.

The next day we flew from Las Vegas to Kelowna thru Vancouver. That trip was a piece of cake compared to the day before. Everything went very smoothly at all the airports with check-in, security, and immigration.

We have been shopping a few times. Have found some really good deals. We have also eaten out a few times. Tonight we are going to a junior hockey game and tomorrow we head to Seattle for a baseball match. We will be staying the night there as it is about a 6hr drive each way.

The weather has been ok. This afternoon it was really sunny and warm. We enjoyed a nice walk around the airport.

Well now its time to get ready to take Cash, my brothers 8 week old puppy, back to her home on our way to the game

Take care everybody and don’t work too hard..