Hawaii Day 1 (Honolulu)

Time to start summarising the trip! First day was spent travelling to Honolulu via San Francisco. I almost got to watch an attempted simultaneous landing at SFO again, but the other plane was too high and aborted at the last moment. I wonder what it was like on that plane when the captain says "sorry guys, I messed up, let me have another go". I also managed to grab some photos of the Golden Gate Bridge (by the way, whoever made the artwork for SimCity must have lived in San Francisco, as it looks almost identical to what you see in the game).

Honolulu Airport itself was hot, humid, and a generally unappealing lump of concrete. It hasn't changed since the last time I passed through. Trying to catch a taxi from the airport in the late afternoon, you begin to notice the laid-back "just relax, no rush, keep it casual" attitude of the locals. Things felt disorganised, with little communication, but they were friendly. We arrived at the hotel (very cheap, with air conditioning, would recommend) and then walked all of 2 blocks to Waikiki Beach.

The first thing you notice on your walk to Waikiki Beach is the ABC store on the corner. It's selling tourist and general goods, and you note it as a landmark and a place to go later for supplies. The second thing you notice is the other ABC store on the next corner. When you arrive at Waikiki Beach you might notice the beach itself, but the fourth thing you'll notice is the other ABC store on the corner to your left. The fifth thing you notice is the ABC store on the corner to your right. There's a lot of ABC stores at Waikiki Beach.

Rest of the day was spent scouting out places to go tomorrow (beach, zoo, Cheeseburgers in Paradise, that hula dancing show you just missed, etc).

P.S. First hint of a sore throat is the only medical problem.

Fake island

This is an island, just off Long Beach, California. Zoom out to see just how close it is to the beach. On the sides of the island are fake buildings and planted palm trees. Sometimes the buildings move. Now, can you guess what they do there?

Vacation

So, I got back from Hawaii about 5 days ago. I think I need another vacation. :)

First I want to say how amazingly beautiful Hawaii is. That's saying something coming from an Australian (we tend to be unimpressed by the world's beaches and such when we have so many of our own). I was travelling with some Canadians, and we had the most perfect and stable weather we've ever seen. 27c was the high, every day, guaranteed. It was only on our last day that we had some rain, and even that passed over quickly, never interrupting travel plans.

I'll spend the next week or so posting little summaries of each island. Right now I can't remember how many we visited, but it was about 5. I'll post slowly.

P.S. I had a few medical problems in Hawaii. No doubt my parents are nodding their heads saying "yeah, sounds like Peter, spending 5 days in traction during our Queensland holiday", etc. I'll keep myself amused by recalling what new problems I had on each island. :)

Patchy

Hey hey, this is blog post number 200. And we return to an old favourite: sunburn. This time wasn't so severe, but interesting in its own way. It's safe to say that the use of sunscreen was "patchy" in more than one sense.

Various Happenings

How're things here in Vancouver? The weather is getting nicer; less rain, and clearer air. The mountains look like beautifully detailed paintings on a huge canvas. We even had some sunny days, that would make you look up and ask "where's all that light coming from?". Seriously, things are feeling better here.

In other news, there's apparently a big tunneling machine rampaging its way down Granville St. Construction crews spent the last month or more digging a huge hole in the middle of downtown so that they could install it, and now they'll dig the new subway (aka SkyTrain) tunnel heading south. I'll try to take some photos sometime.

Finally, I'm going on a cruise in Hawaii. Leaving in about 2 hours. Kind of forgot to mention it before. Anyway should be good. My wrists need the holiday at least. See yas in 10 days! :)

Gargamel

I started wearing this bright red shirt that was sent over from Australia. Very nice shirt. The problem was that it was so red, and was likely to run in the wash. I was advised to wash it, with detergent, in the handbasin first. Since I didn't want to screw things up (don't ask how, I'm sure I could've managed it), I figured I'd try washing a pair of dark blue jeans first.

The jeans are still running, after 3 hand washes and a rinse. My sink looks like I recently murdered a smurf. At least now I know why my socks and the tail of my rain jacket recently turned blue.

As for the shirt, yeah it ran; the sink temporarily looked like I was making tomato juice. But the jeans are amazing. They're still dripping blue.