Travel details, part 2

DAY 3 - We flew out of Oakland for Honolulu early Sunday morning. Let me tell you - I am not a big fan of flying but to fly over water with NO land around - at all - makes me pretty nervous! We arrived in Honolulu around lunchtime. We checked into the Doubletree Alana with our ocean view room - it was lovely. It overlooked Fort DeRussy and the ocean was about 6 blocks away. We went shopping to pick up some snacks for the week and walked down to Waikiki Beach. We had ice cream at Lipperts at the Hilton Hawaiian Village - coconut pineapple for me - MMMMMM!!!!!! We had a light dinner at Hard Rock and sat outside - such a treat! :) After dinner we went for a quick swim in the freezing hotel pool.

DAY 4 - We grabbed coffee and rolls at Starbucks and headed to Pearl Harbor. That is an AMAZING experience! They show a movie before they take you out to the memorial that is so moving - oh man! The memorial is beautiful - the wall of names is just mind boggling. We took the tour of the Bowfin submarine from World War 2 - interesting. I know I could never do it - too small a spaces for me! We also toured the USS Missouri. That is a HUGE ship! It was very interesting and we got to see the spot where the peace treaty was signed with Japan.
We walked around the side of the Missouri deck and there was a navy ship going out. Let me tell you, I had never been a witness to that before, but all those white uniforms all lined up at attention around that ship, just made my heart swell and caused a big lump in my throat! It was beautiful!
Then, in all our infinite wisdom, since it was 1:30, we decided, Hey, let's go hike Diamond Head. Uh, yeah - that is NOT a middle of the day kind of hike! DH & I both made it to the top but with much sweating, grunting and complaining (on my part) but were rewarded with spectacular views of Honolulu! It was worth the hike.
Since we stunk to high heaven when we were done, we went back to the hotel to shower and get ready for the luau. We went to the Royal Hawaiian for theirs. It was great! The food was excellent and the after dinner entertainment was great! And since we apparently hadn't had enough to eat, DH wanted to stop at Cheesecake Factory. So we did and enjoyed it on the balcony of our room when we got back.

DAY 5 - Pretty low key day. We did some shopping around town (including a scrapbook store that was AMAZING!). We drove up to the National Cemetary in Punchbowl Crater - can I just say, WOW! The cemetary was amazing and the flowers that had been left at the headstones were gorgeous! We walked up to the lookout and could see the whole city and some of the mountains north. Wonderful, wonderful view!
We decided to hike to Manoa Falls that afternoon. It was just incredible! It's not the biggest waterfall on the island but the hike there was great! We walked through a rainforest, fruit trees, a bamboo forest. The falls were very pretty and quiet.
We had dinner that night at Cheeseburger Waikiki, walked around town a little then went to bed early.

Stay tuned....there's more to come! :)