The last week, and Company!

May 22nd marked the beginning of our last week in Hawaii, and brought company! John Trebes, a dear friend from New Zealand came to have a Mai Tai with us! It started with a comment from Bryan that John should leave winter, and join us in Hawaii - we agreed, and John had an airline reservation and was on his way! He left New Zealand on May 23rd, his birthday. Due to the date line and time difference, he arrived in HI on May 22nd, so he got to have his birthday again on the 23rd.

We had a great last week, although it was sad, knowing that it would soon be over.

Saturday morning, we got John up early, had coffee and tea to go, and headed up to the farmers market to get our fruits and vegetables for the coming week. We got some more apple bananas - a very yummy type of banana that is smaller and firmer than normal bananas, and also has a slight tart, or apple flavor. We had never seen them before, but we bought them each week. There was also a seafood stand - Ohana Seafood - that had the most incredible marinated fish, so we got teriyaki-garlic salmon for dinner.



Here is the sign for apple bananas, and you can just see a bag in the lower left-hand corner of the picture.

A beautiful walk along the Waikiki beach, and of course, a picture with the Duke!

Beautiful water lillies at one of the hotels

John and I in front of the sea turtle statue.

We visited the Hilton Hawaiian Village, and spotted this Ibis walking through the lobby, looking as though he had business to attend to. There was a second Ibis nesting, so perhaps little ones are on the way! I had never seen an Ibis before, so I was quite amazed.

Mr. Ibis

Turtle and fish, also at the Hilton Hawaiian Village

So, we decided to go for a sunset sail on a catamaran! It was a 90 minute sail, and it was just beautiful. I can't believe that we hadn't ever done that, but we'll definitely do it again!

Happy sailors! Hint: when the beer costs more than the Mai Tai, have the beer!! The Mai Tais were $1 each, the beer was $2. As you would imagine (don't know why we didn't!) the Mai Tais were awful! One was more than enough!

Another catamaran with happy sailors! Also the Waikiki skyline and very dark clouds that did not bring any rain.

Ok, we're out on the ocean, and three huge jet skis roar up to our catamaran, and my first though was Pirates!! Of course, they weren't - but they were offering very exciting jet ski rides to anyone on the catamaran who felt brave! This Japanese woman decided to go for it! I'm sure that there was a cost for the side trip, but never did hear what it was.

Sunset on our sunset cruise

Having a great time!

The Royal Hawaiian, or "pink lady", as seen from the ocean. This was the second grand hotel built on Waikiki, and in all of the old pictures, she's the only hotel you see.

On the way back to our condo, we caught the last part of the hula show on the beach. It's a free show that is put on three nights a week. It's a beautiful setting, and there are both children and adults peforming hula numbers.

We had been reading about an event that takes place every year on Memorial Day, called the Lantern Floating. It started out as a way to honor those lost in wars and military conflicts, but rapidly expanded to include anyone who had passed on. There are lanterns that are floated out to sea at dusk, with names and wishes for loved ones. They are lighted, and the pictures we had seen online at http://www.lanternfloatinghawaii.com were just beautiful, so we decided that we would attend. The first thing that we did was go to the lantern tent, and put the names of those that we had lost on lanterns to be floated to sea. The top picture is of the lantern with our parents names on it. The picture below is Autumn's lantern.
If you cut and paste the website into your browser, you can choose Lantern Lighting 2009, and see a podcast of the event. There were tributes from individuals to those they were honoring, music, dancing, etc. It was a very moving way to spend Memorial Day, and we were so glad that we did it.

At the ceremony, waiting for dusk!

This is a little fuzzy, but you can see lanterns being sailed all along the beach. Now, they don't actually go out to sea, as that would be littering, but they sail around Magic Beach. In the end, there were two lanterns that managed to get way out, and were the last to be brought back in. I like to think those were ours!

Another picture, as it got darker

Happy hour on our lanai! Note the Steinlager, which is NZ beer - shame on us - it should have been a Longboard Lager!

John and I enjoying the rocking chairs at the Moana, the first grand hotel on Waikiki

On Wednesday, we boarded the bus and headed to downtown Honolulu to visit the Iolani Palace and the Bishop Museum. We had done quite a bit of reading on the Hawaiian monarchy, and were interested in learning more.

The building above is Washington Place. This was the final residence of Queen Lilioukalani, the last Hawaiian monarch. Note the tree and it's amazing roots!

Statue of the queen

Iolani Palace. We joined a tour of this palace. It was just amazing! We weren't allowed to take photographs inside, but it was beautiful. The reception area was all paneled in Hawaiian hardwoods, was was the two-story wooden staircase, but the paneling on the walls was Port Orford Cedar! We toured the entire palace, and our docent was just amazing, with lots of stories and antecdotes about the monarchy. Queen Lilioukalani was imprisoned in the palace after the monarchy was overthrown by members of the business community, aided by the military, and the US government. She was imprisoned for 9 years before she was allowed to move to Washington Place to live out her final years.

Statue of King Kamahameha the Great. The first king of the united Hawaiian Islands. His legacy is that he united the islands. The way he did it was to defeat all of the kings of the individual islands, to create one leadership. The story is that when he was born a tribal elder declared that he should be put to death, as he would grow up to be a "killer of kings". His parents sent him off to live with distant relatives instead. And the rest is history!

The Bishop Musuem and Planetarium were also amazing - there is a lot to see and learn in the islands, aside of the normal tourist activities. We never tired of watching the fish and looking for sea turtles. The longer you watch, the more varities of fish you can see, as the water is so clear.

We had a great and amazing time. We quickly worked into a routine that included long walks, beach or pool time, live music in the evening, etc.,in addition to the nornal domestic chores. We did quite a bit of shopping - so much so that packing to come home was stressful! But we now have an entire wardrobe of Hawaiian shirts and t-shirts! And yes, we could live there. I've no doubt that we'll repeat this month long trip to paradise again. Maybe two months next time!

John was able to continue his holiday, and come back to Moss Beach with us, so that was good. It was great to share our favorite things with him, and to experience new things was well. We have a list for "next time"!