Relaxing Day, Time to Rest

Today we purposely made no plans. After all the activity yesterday and more to come this week, I think everyone was grateful for the chance to just be a little bit lazy. Perhaps this is what caused me to post on Facebook earlier today that I felt I had lost all sense of time. That phrase explains just how relaxed I am, and it's wonderful. I don't live a stressful life, but being here is just amazing. So what did we do today, if we had no plans? Well, after a breakfast at Burger King (not planned even a little bit), we stopped at this Christmas store to buy an ornament to have personalized with our Hawaiian names, and then Zac and I headed down the beach a bit to where they've placed a seawall to swim. The seawall creates a nice swimming bay and does a great job of keeping most of the rocks and shells from coming in. It was a great area. I only had my, now cloudy, camera on my phone to use, but I grabbed a pic of Zac anyway. We had a lot of fun just enjoying the waves coming in and relaxing in the salt water.

Katy didn't come along as she wanted to do the historical tour of the hotel that was happening at 11, but we learned later a lot of the details from her. This place is pretty fascinating and has quite the history, including an apparent ghost, which many current employees admit they indeed have either felt or even seen.  Well now, THAT is something we are interested in!  We'd hoped to head back to the area this evening but with the three of us feeling perhaps a little overwhelmed with the food we've eaten these past few days (just too much; just too good), we decided to stay in tonight.  

For lunch we walked over to a 50s style diner and had a pretty good meal and very good shakes. Zac and Katy shared a Coke shake and I had a chocolate malt. After this we dropped back by the Christmas store and picked up our ornament, which you see here to the right and above a bit.

This afternoon we had plans to have our pictures taken at the hotel. There were opportunities for so many good shots, but due to timing and location often the sun glare off white tiles or white buildings was so strong we couldn't see. And outdoor shots in the sun mean my glasses are going to turn dark, so for quite a few I took them off. Well that just made my eyes water more in the sun.  :)  We got enough good ones to pick a few for keeps as well as one they chose for us that was a freebie.  The photographer was very nice and I think had timing been earlier in the day, the pics overall would have turned out better and made our decision for what to keep much tougher.  I'll share the pics here before going on.

We did have a nice dinner at the Beach Bar restaurant the hotel has, and that was very enjoyable. The breeze eventually cooled down a little bit as the sun began to set, and the two-piece band on stage (with an amazing guitar player, I should say) kept us entertained.

They even brought a hula dancer on stage (I heard something about Miss Hawai'i, I think, perhaps in the competition?) and so that added some culture to their primarily Hawaiian songs as well. Here is a short clip I took on Katy's phone, and her settings aren't set up to record in HD, so I apologize for the poor quality:



Yes, several Elvis songs about the area were sung and hopefully the video above plays for you. One funny thing during dinner was that these birds, which walk around like we aren't even there, are constantly looking for crumbs off the ground, and at one point I felt one of them peck at my toes. After that I decided to move my feat to the beat of the songs, just in case.  :)

Zac's tummy was a bit unsettled (too much in the way of sweets today, perhaps) so he headed up to the room while Katy and I enjoyed the music a bit longer, then I took this pic of her on the beach as the sun was setting. Her phone doesn't grab light as well as mine (of course mine grabs NOTHING right now) so I had to work with it after the fact a bit, but I think this is a pretty good representation. I nabbed another shot or two of the sunset, along with a large sailboat in the distance right in front of it, and we spent a few minutes along the water letting it rush over our toes and enjoying the peacefulness of the evening. Tomorrow we drive around the island stopping at spots along the way to dip our toes in the ocean and get some shaved ice. We're ready! Obligatory Hawai'i sunset shot below, sailboat in the distance.  Enjoy! :) 

Pearl Harbor

Today began with a tour of downtown Honolulu, which included a fair amount of history, on a Duck. Now, I don't have a picture of the Duck, primarily because all the pics you'll see on tonight's blog post come from Katy's phone. I wasn't always thinking in time to get the pics I should have. Of course, this is all because my phone, which purportedly is capable of standing water to depths of 30-50 feet, lied to me. Oh I've used it underwater before, but my dip in the ocean yesterday morning apparently made it decide to let some in and make my camera all cloudy. You may have noticed it with the pics yesterday. Aiee. Anyway, off to the Apple Store when we return home, but I digress.

The Duck is, as many of you will know, an amphibious vehicle, so we did most of the tour through the streets, then drove right into the marina and out into the ocean. That's kind of an odd experience but it was certainly interesting, and our tour guide, Roland, had all sorts of fun nuggets to share, things he was interested in, stories of how he bought his 2-bedroom, 1200 square foot apartment 30 years ago in Honolulu for $197k... Yikes!  :) Well, at least that wasn't a surprise as we have seen plenty of episodes of House Hunters.

After the Duck tour we headed for Pearl Harbor, specifically to see the USS Arizona Memorial. There are other things out there we would have liked to have seen, but the way the tour was set up, there wasn't time to view any of those. I was a little shocked, having been to other U.S. Parks-controlled places like this (thinking Mt. Rushmore for one), that it didn't offer more food as an option, and that caught us a little off guard since we arrived at lunchtime.  If I get to do it again, we'll at least know to plan meals accordingly.  :)

Before they take you on a boat out to the memorial, you see a short movie complete with actual footage of the USS Arizona blowing up, taking its initial hit. That was, in a word, sobering. To add another, it was fascinating to see so much footage I hadn't seen in other older movies or even other references to it.  I know Katy and I for sure were really touched by the short film and it helped bring it home quite a bit more. And I told Zac heading into it that I thought getting to see some footage (not quite knowing what it would entail completely) and seeing the memorial would be a far more interesting history lesson than any he will ever get in a classroom.  I think he certainly took something from it that he will remember several years from now when he studies this in school.

We came back from the tour fairly exhausted and rested up before heading out to dinner. While Gary and Nell took the kids for a dip in the ocean and then to McDonald's, Katy, Mickie and I headed to Shore Fyre (http://www.shorefyre.com), which is actually the same place the others had gone earlier today for breakfast. We enjoyed our meal, and it's this little spot next to a surf shop, on the below ground level about a block off the main drag next to the beach. Good place. After that we did some souvenir shopping and then headed to the Häagen Dazs for a cone. THAT was a good idea. The main road everything sits on here is ridiculously busy, not only with people, but with cars. It's also very unique. About every half block there is someone else playing music, including a guy singing Christian songs tonight, and we sure appreciated his effort on those. It's not the first city I've been in where this occurs, but the dynamic here is very different, very creative but very different and intriguing. Kind of a fascinating place.