Oahu-Diamond Head Crater Hike

I had been hearing a lot of good things about Diamond Head hike in Oahu, so I made sure it was on my to-do list. I begged mom to go on the hike with me but couldn't win in convincing her.

Entering Diamond Head State Monument which was only about 10 minutes from our hotel.

We got to the gate entrance at 5 pm but were told the last hikers were allowed in at 4:30. I thought maybe I could change moms mind about the hike, but she still didn't feel like trekking the trail with me. We went back the next day and she dropped me off.

We had to drive through a tunnel to get to the trailhead.

Here is mom at the Diamond Head entrance, great view!

A little basic background info on the Diamond Head Crater: The crater Diamond Head got it's name after Western explorers mistook the calcite crystals in the rocks on the slopes of the crater for diamonds. In 1904 Diamond Head was purchased by the Federal government and designed for military use and coastal defense. The trail to the summit was build in 1908 as part of the U.S. Army Costal Artillery defense system. The switchbacks along the trail were designed for mules to haul material for the construction of the fire control station Diamond Head. The climb from the trailhead to the summit of the crater is 560 feet.

I arrived around 11 am, paid my $1.00 entrance fee and after a quick picture, began the hike.

The hike itself was about a mile, one way, through switchbacks, tunnels and steep stairs.

Here is the beginning of the hike, the top of Diamond Head crater is up there somewhere!

The beginning of the trail was the flattest part of the hike. It was a crowded hike, especially as the trail began to get more and more narrow.

There was no shade along the trail, it wasn't too hot outside but being directly in the sun made it much hotter.

Still on the look out for the top!

Some of the switchbacks on the way up.

This part of the hike reminded me of some of the trails in Azusa canyon.

Starting to get some nice views as the incline increases.

First stairway of 74 concrete stairs, leading to the tunnel.

Passage through a dark 225 foot long narrow tunnel.

The view is getting better!

Second stairway consisting of 99 steep steps. The cross beams above the stair way supported camouflaging.

Next was the spiral staircase consisting of 52 stairs, which accesses the 4 levels of the Fire Control Station.

It's hard to tell from this picture, but you can barley see the top of peoples heads. You enter this area after walking through the tunnel. It's a small, 10 foot area that you walk through before crawling under a small opening in rock to get to the top, well almost! The majority of people on the hike were not regular hikers. There were lots of elderly people as well, I don't know how some of them made it through this small area.

After getting through the above area, the last set of stairs consisted of 54 metal stairs. These stairs replaced the ladder to the summit in the 1970's for hikers.

Map with the different points on the hike and things to look for once at the top.

After climbing over 200 stairs, uphill switchbacks and crawling in tunnels, I finally made it to the top!

I was hot, sticky and sweaty but the view from the top was worth the climb =)

I bet the sunrise and sunset are amazing from up here! Too bad the park closes before sunset.

View of Oahu, I looked for our hotel but couldn't spot it.

After about 10 minutes enjoying the view from the top, I headed back down.

View when exiting the spiral stairs.

On the way back down the stairs.

I made it down the trail in about 20 minutes. Just the right time that I told mom to be back to pick me up. It was a great hike and good workout. I'm very glad I did it!

Mom and I went straight from Diamond Crater to Waikiki Beach to eat at Duke's restaurant. There is a Duke's in Malibu and Huntington Beach but the Duke's in Waikiki is the orginial, since Duke (the Hawaiian guy that made surfing famous worldwide) is from Waikiki.

It's traditional American food but the fish tacos were delicious. The restaurant is located on Waikiki Beach and the ambiance was relaxing and beautiful.

Our hotel had a free shuttle that ran every 30 minutes and dropped off in the downtown Waikiki shopping area and Waikiki Beach. It was only a 10 minute shuttle ride so mom and I took advantage of the shuttle a few times.

The Honolulu police department is directly in front of Waikiki Beach, mom had to sneak a picture in while we were waiting for the shuttle.

Later that night, mom and I ate dinner at PF Changs. She had never been there before. We had another delicious meal. Just thinking of the sea bass on ginger soy spinach makes me want to go back right now! MMM.

This concludes this part of the Hawaii trip. One more posting and the Hawaii posts will be completed. Pearl Harbor is my next and final topic.

It's Wednesday evening right now, meaning it's almost Thursday, meaning it's almost the weekend =) I am doing testing with my students this week and it's tiring for both them and me but it's going well. We are giving them the Stanford Achievement Test, which is an American standardized test. The test includes questions about American geography, currency, and past presidents! So sad that these Japanese kids are taking this particular test. The school only uses it as a guideline to see where students are, so hopefully it's not too big of a deal when they do poorly.

This Friday is the school talent show, so I'll there Friday night helping out. Not much else going on over the weekend except that I am going to try to get on base to do one last grocery shopping trip, to hold me over the next 6 weeks. Lately I've been able to find some good fruits at the Japanese grocery store, including: oranges, apples, bananas, tomatoes, avocados, kiwi and even watermelon! I was so sad to go back to the store and find they are no longer getting watermelon. Oh well, one week of watermelon was a nice treat. I also found plain yogurt with no sugar and plain soymilk at the Japanese store. All of that has been able to hold me over for a while =)

XOXO

Kristen

Hawaiian Luau

Hawaii Part 2 =)

My mom had some friends that recommended going to Jermaine's Luau in Oahu. There were long lists of luau's to choose from, so we decided to trust the recommendation and go to Jermaine's Luau. The hotel tour guide gave us great information and booked the luau for us. A bus picked us up next to our hotel, which was very convenient. The tour guide provided us with some Hawaiian history and fun facts about the luau during the bus ride. Traffic is horrible in Oahu, so it took us about 1 1/2 hours to get there during rush hour (4 pm is their rush hour).

We finally arrived at a beautiful, secluded beach, ready for some fun.

Mom and I were both excited about experiencing our first Hawaiian luau.

Mom getting laid with a seashell necklace by our tour guide.

We got seats near the front of the stage.

There were a good amount of people there but it wasn't too crowded which was nice.

Mom ready for the show to start.

Using up our free drink tickets and sipping mai tai's.

Traditional dancers.

The beginning of the luau starts with the presentation of a pig, which has been cooking in the ground all day!

A fire dancer lighted torches before the pig was presented.

We left our tables and walked over to a side area for the presentation of the pig.

Here are the workers, taking the pig out of the ground so we can soon eat it!

It got a bit chilly out, we were so glad we brought jackets with us.

We went to the buffet line to choose our food as the luau began. We tried a taste of everything. We tried the Hawaiian speciality poi, yuck, tasted like glue. The marconi salad was delicious, the best I've ever had! The fried fish was dry and not very tasty. The roasted kalua pig was very good. The pineapple cole slaw was not very flavorful, the marinated teriyaki beef was good and the coconut cake was yummy. Too much food to finish for sure!

Watching the dancers perform.

The dancers performed dances of Samoa, Tahiti, New Zealand and Hawaii. There was a Samoan fire knife dancer and of course hula dancing.

The whole show lasted about 2 1/2 hours. We enjoyed the food and watching various dances. It was a great evening! We got back to the hotel late and went straight to bed. This post was a little short too long to include with my other posts.

Next posting will be my Diamond Head hike =)

It's Friday night now and the week flew by! It was hot and HUMID this week. Today it got cold and rainy, the weather can't make up it's mind. I found an area near my apartment that has a steep hill and stairs, near a park. In the evenings, I've been jogging in the area, climbing stairs and stretching at the top of the hill, where I can see the ocean as the sun is setting. This is literally about 50 yards in back of my apartment and absolutely gorgeous. I can't believe I haven't found this spot until now. I am enjoying every bit of the view after dinner each night =) I'm loving the workout, great view and just getting out of the apartment in the evenings. Seven weeks left in Okinawa, crazy! Hope you all have a good weekend, I will probably do enough relaxing for everyone =)

XOXO

Kristen

Arrival in Hawaii (part 1)

Since I have an ample amount of Hawaii pictures, I've decided to divide my blog entries into sections of activities we did (in order) during my trip to Oahu. This blog will has pictures from the first few days on the trip as we got settled in.

I arrived in Oahu at 10:15 am Saturday morning. I had an empty seat next to me on the plane from Okinawa to Tokyo which was nice for the two hour ride. I arrived at the new airport in Tokyo, Nagoya which was very big and clean. My 1.5 hour layover went by quickly, enough time to grab a snack and check in. My flight from Tokyo to Oahu was 7 hours and went by rather quickly. A lot faster than the 16 hour flight from L.A. to Okinawa!

A shuttle picked me up in front of the airport and took me to the rental car lot where I signed the paperwork for the rental car that came with my moms vacation package.

Our rental car, very comfortable and great gas milage (which came in handy each time we got lost for miles and miles!).

I had already written down directions from the airport to the hotel but was given a nice map by the rental company to help me find my way. I found the hotel without a problem, about a 20 minute drive from the airport.

The hotel was pretty, lots of glass windows and off of a main street. The perimeter of the hotel was busy with lots of touristy activities. Since it was only 11 am and check in time wasn't until 3 pm, the hotel told me I could pay$30.00 to check in early or come back at 3. I decided to go to the store and get some lunch then come back to check in later. I found a Safeway about 10 minutes from the hotel, had some lunch at the deli and bought some snacks.

A view of our hotel from the street

The weather was beautiful, sunny but not too hot. After lunch, I walked around the park adjacent to our hotel. Ala Moana is a huge park with lots of homeless people sleeping in tents! Not the cleanest place, but the last half of the park is along the beach and is filled with people using boats and jet skis.

I finally got checked into the hotel at 3 pm. It was a nice, big room. The entire backside of our room was floor to ceiling glass windows with a view of the marina.

We also had a view of the swimming floor from our room. The swimming pool was freezing cold and very windy on the deck since it was on the 5th floor. Nice place to lay out for some good sun though.

Each floor of the hotel had glass windows, here the the view from our floor.

We had a great view of the nearby mall from our floor window...5 minutes walking distance to the mall. I was able to visit there a few times and was SO very happy to eat American food and buy American clothes. It's been way too long!

After checking into the hotel, I changed into my swimsuit and took the hotel shuttle to Waikiki Beach which was an 10 minute shuttle ride. The beach water was very blue and warm!

There was a wedding reception at the hotel in back of where I was laying on the beach. It was a beautiful setup!

After being up for 30 hours, I knew I couldn't go to sleep before picking my mom up at the airport...that would make me even more tired. I ate dinner at the local mall and headed to the airport to pick up my mom at 9 pm. I found the airport without a problem but the airport signs were a bit confusing to say the least. I drove around in the airport for 30 minutes, parked in the wrong parking structure and was told there is only one parking structure and it's for Hawaiian airline pickup/drop off. I continued to drive by American Airlines to look for my mom but she was not there, so I parked in the Hawaiian airlines structure and walked 10 minutes to the American Airline terminal. I found a payhone on the way and called my mom. She said she has just walked out. I was happy to finally see my mom waiting with her luggage. By this time it was 10 pm, we went back to the room, unpacked, showered and went to sleep at midnight. I was up for a total of 36 hours and slept in until noon the next day!

On Sunday, we drove around the island exploring. We went to the north shore, grocery shopping to stock up our refrigerator with lunch foods and snacks and had a seafood dinner at Red Lobster which was next door to our hotel.

On Monday, we drove back to north shore and went to the Dole Pineapple Plantation. Not exactly like the one in Okinawa. This one had a train ride, the worlds largest maze and a gift shop. There were a lot less free samples but we did get a sample of fresh pineapple. We ate pineapple ice cream and rode the pineapple express. It was interesting to hear the story of Dole and how he started out with a single pineapple stand and now has world recognized products.

We saw gardens with pineapple from various countries.

Pineapple farm.

Moms top matched some of the plants.

Red soil that the pineapples are planted in.

We couldn't resist.

Riding the pineapple express was enough for us, we didn't do the maze. It was interesting to see that it was the world's largest maze though.

I couldn't get the whole maze in a picture but here is part of it. There is a screen in front of the maze that shows the time of people who go through the maze the quickest. The top time we saw was a little over 5 minutes.

It was nice to explore the plantation and learn some history.

Since we were already in the north shore, we stopped at Hale'iwa Beach Park and took a few pictures of the gorgeous ocean. It was very windy, overcast and rainy so I decided not to go in the water.

We ate lunch at Macky's shrimp truck. In the downtown area of north shore, there are a bunch of shrimp trucks that sell fresh sprimp! Everyone said we had to try at least one meal at the shrimp truck, so we stopped at this one which had a sign saying it was the #1 shrimp truck.

Menu. You could chose from coconut, spicy or regular shrimp with sides of rice, green salad and pineapple.

Mom and I decided to share a plate since it looked like a lot of food. We had the regular shrimp which was DELICIOUS! Definitely the best meal we had during the trip. The shrimp was huge and fresh! Mmmm, just thinking about it makes me want to go back already.

Here is mom ordering for us.

I forgot to take a picture before we started eating, here is our plate after a few yummy bites.

After lunch, we stopped at Matsumoto general store for some shaved ice. Apparently, this is the most popular spot on the island to get shaved ice. We had drove by the day before and the line was out the door. This time, the line wasn't as long, maybe because of the cooler weather.

There was a varitey of flavors to choose from. The whole beans in shaved ice is very popular in Okinawa and it seems to be in Hawaii too. We passed on the beans and had "regular" shaved ice.

Mom has strawberry, grape & cherry.

We got the small and it was still A LOT of shaved ice! Neither of us were able to finish all of it.

I had lemon, pineapple & coconut.

That night, we ate at Chart House for dinner. I have never hear of Chart House but my mom said it's a chain. The restaurant was walking distance from our hotel and had a great marina view.

View from our room during sunset. I can't get away from these gorgeous sunsets =)

This concludes this portion of my Oahu trip. Hope you enjoyed the pictures and were given some insight on how our trip went.

I got in at 11 pm Sunday night and had to wake up for work at 6 am Monday morning. I was just finally getting used to the time change when I arrived back to Okinawa (go figure). Monday was a long, tiring day but very much worth it! It was happy to see all of my students, I missed seeing them. It got me thinking about how in almost 7 weeks, I won't see them again. I guess it will be bittersweet =) I went to sleep at 8:30 pm Monday night and felt much better on Tuesday. We had a staff meeting yesterday and this is going to be a crazy final 7 weeks of school! Next week the students take state tests all week (we give our students the U.S. standardized test which includes questions about past presidents and states!). Next Friday night our school puts on a talent show, which the teachers will be working. The week after that is spirit week and then the spring concert! I talked to Rocky about a few last things I'd like to see on the island before leaving. We are going to look at the calendar and plan a few weekends of tour days. I sent home the last of my extra things, including my last few sets of dishes with my mom. I am down to the bare minimum here and very optimistic about packing my luggage in June. My next posting will be about our Hawaiian Luau =) Looking forward to a relaxing weekend. No more visitors are scheduled, so I plan to do a lot of resting and little exploring over the next seven weeks. Hope your all doing well!

XOXO

Kristen

P.S. My principal informed me that sayonara means that you are not coming back, like you are going for good. Most Japanese people do not use the term sayonara for that reason. Oops, guess I can't say that again until June!