Flowers and Fishies

Um, hey, did I mention I was going to Hawaii at the end of April?  Well, M was presenting some of his research at a conference in Waikiki and my parents asked me what I wanted for my birthday earlier in the month and I said, rather flippantly, that I wanted to go with him.  Well, they worked their schedules out so they could come stay with the kids and I could go!  Lucky me!

Here are some of our photos and impressions of the trip.  (It's a super long post, so prepare yourselves.)    

We'd rather experience one place well, than see a bunch of places briefly, so we only stayed on Oahu and left the other islands for another visit.  Honolulu surprised me; much more urban than I imagined.  Waikiki was insane!  I couldn't believe how many 40 story hotels they packed into such a small space!

         

Wednesday I drove out to the swap meet to get all of the obligatory souvenir shopping out of the way while M was at his conference.  (The kids asked us to bring sharks teeth home for them; not sure why, but I picked some up anyway.  I also got a cheap sparkly sea turtle necklace for myself.  Turns out, that’s what AJ REALLY, REALLY wanted and he’s been trying to convince me non-stop to trade it for his shark’s tooth.  If I’d only known!)  

Also while M was otherwise occupied, I spent HOURS photographing flowers and trees at a botanical garden.  Before the end of the trip I had over 300 photos of just plants.  Here are my top 10 flower shots.  I think my favorites were the huge, gorgeous nutmeg blossoms. (bottom left with the brown centers)  

I also got a kick out of this little baobab tree. (yep, that's me down at the right side of the base of the trunk!)

and how cute is this little gecko?!

That evening we went to the Laie Temple.  We always try to visit the temples near our travels, especially now that going an hour or 2 out of our way seems trifling compared to the 6 hours it takes to get to our own temple.  This makes the 27^th temple I’ve seen in person and the 18^th in which I’ve done ordinances.  It was so pretty, with lovely, small, stained glass, red hibiscus throughout the interior, and of course, the grounds were terrific.  The drive was pretty too.  

Early Thursday morning we hiked Diamond Head.  It was a great view and interesting to see the old WWII bunkers.  After breakfast M went back to the conference and I wandered around Waikiki wondering why I hadn’t brought any colored pencils or watercolors with me, such fun colors and shapes everywhere.  I took a lot of photos, but I know from experience that I’ll never get around to drawing from any of those photos like I would have liked to in person.

Thursday afternoon we headed up to the North Shore to seek out some sea turtles.  (I'm pretty sure I've never blogged about this, but I have always been fond of turtles.  And aren't sea turtles the best turtles ever?)  My dear friend Monica, who lived in Laie, Hawaii when she was young, recommended a spot for snorkeling called Shark’s Cove.  Never fear, it’s not named for the man-eating kind of shark.  We saw big schools of fun fish.  

We hadn’t been swimming around long when I spotted our first green sea turtle a mere 10 feet away from me.  I was so excited that I nearly hyperventilated and just maybe a tear or two actually trickled down my cheek inside my snorkel mask.  It didn’t mind at all that we hovered around it while it snacked on whatever it was that was growing on the rocks! 

But wait!  I spotted a smaller turtle around the other side of a rock and was thrashing around trying to get M’s attention to show him, only HE was trying to get my attention because he could see the small one PLUS the third and larger turtle that was right under me and that I was smacking in the face with my fins.  Ooops!  But it was so awesome to hang out with them, they were so cool!!!

We drove a bit further down the road to get a famous shaved ice with ice cream and watch the sunset from Turtle Beach.  M was absolutely smitten by the shaved ice with ice cream.

Friday morning we were up for early snorkeling at Hanauma Bay.  It’s THE place EVERYONE snorkels when they are visiting Oahu and there were lots and lots of fish that were very tame.  It was an impressive place.

As far as fish go, M’s favorites were the Spotted Boxfish (small, black, round fish with white polka dots), the Cornet Fish (the greenish photo above - super skinny & about 2 feet long) the Flying Gurnard (above, second from bottom right) and anything else with awesome camouflage ~ he even found an octopus!  My favorites were the Moorish Idols (upper right photo from the Shark's Cove photos -yellow, black & white striped ones that looked like angelfish only they are like 8 or 9 inches), the Threadfin Butterflyfish (above, far left - neat herringbone patterns), and most of all the Reef Triggerfish. . .

This photo of a reef triggerfish was nabbed right off of Wikapedia because we didn't get a good photo of one of these fish, but we did see them.  I love their super dramatic, graphic markings; I'm thinking God had fun the day he created these.  And "it turns out" (this phrase brought to you by our good buddy, Dr. Brock )  J  yes, it turns out, that this guy's name is the longest word in the Hawaiian language ~ humuhumunukunukuāpua’a

Next we cleaned up and headed north again to the Polynesian Cultural Center.  Man!  Those Tahitians can shake their hips! And the flame dancers at the night show were stunning.  And the luau food was delish!

Saturday we headed back to the other side of the island again, this time to rent a sea kayak and paddle out to a sunken island.  At the lowest tides of the year it is a 1,000 acre sandbar that’s a mile or so from the main island.  While we were out there, the low tide only took the water down to about 8 inches covering the sunken island.  

The sand was held in place by and old coral reef that stuck up in places and where it was deep enough, we snorkeled about.  It was really cool to see fish that acted naturally afraid of you and a healthy coral reef in contrast to Hanauma Bay where the coral has been brutally damaged by literally millions of humans coming in contact with it every year for decades.  

The coral was wicked sharp and my knees are all banged up from merely brushing against it when the swells would drop me down on it.  Next time you see me in shorts, try to remember to ask me how I got those scars on my knees so I can brag about them. J

We meandered around the North Shore stopping at Laie Point (very beautiful) and a waterfall (rather disappointing).  Then, lo and behold, we were pulling into the same shaved ice shop we’d stopped into before (yeah, M really liked that stuff) and just in time to enjoy it while watching another picture perfect sunset on none other than, Sunset Beach itself.  

 

Sunday morning we packed up, checked out and went to church with one of my cool friends from the mission.  Next we took the USS Arizona tour at Pearl Harbor.  It is as unimaginable that the Japanese could have sneaked across the entire Pacific Ocean for that surprise attack as it was that the 9/11 hijackings could have taken place.  They did a very nice job of keeping it a quiet, respectful place.

 

We needed to see a better Hawaiian waterfall so we headed for Manoa Falls.  It is in the rainforested part of the island and it was exciting to recognize the smell of a rainforest (from our trip to the Peruvian Amazon) the instant we stepped out of the car.  It was seemed so strange to smell rainforest after smelling the ocean just 20 minutes before.

Foolishly we were already wearing the clothes that we planned to wear on the plane that night.  It was a very, very muddy hike.  M was in his sandals and was slipping and sliding everywhere.  It was a nice tall waterfall, though I thought the hike was prettier than the waterfall.

Our last destinations were the Halona Blowhole, the From Here to Eternity beach and a hike out to the Dragon’s Nostrils (very cool twin blowholes).  Again it was weird to go from heavy, thick rainforest to hiking amongst cacti, wind sculpted, scrubby shrubs and barren lava formations within another half hour drive.  

From there it was just an uneventful plane ride home to some kids that were mildly glad to see us (see S's sketch of us hula-ing and surfing in our welcome-home-origami-heart) and grandparents who were ecstatic to see us. Aloha!