Saturday, November 21, 2009

Hawaii - 5 Oh, More Honolulu

Susie came to Hawaii with the goal of buying a muumuu. When we were at the Polynesian Cultural Center she saw a Center guide wearing a nice one and asked where she got it. The Hula Bowl Swap Meet (flea market) was the answer. Great bargains compared to the tourist traps. Where the locals shop. So that's where we went Saturday mid-morning. Lots and lots of booths, selling lots of stuff. We got a muumuu for Susie andI found a $3 t-shirt for myself saying I climbed Diamond Head. Can't beat that if it survives at least a couple of washings.

For lunch, we followed a Fodor's recommendation: The Little Village Noodle Shop in Chinatown. Their recommendation was summarized in two words: Go There, so we did. And were glad we did. I had some tasty fried shrimp. Susie had moo shu in the little tortillas.

I had one more scenic objective in the Honolulu area: Manoa Falls, located up one of the ravines behind Honolulu. . From the parking lot it's a .8 mile hike through a rain forest to get to the falls. Here are a couple of shots. The waterfall, most of which I got in this first shot, is 150 ft. high




As we left Manoa, we happened to turn back toward the mountains and saw another Hawaii rainbow.


We were scheduled to fly home late Sunday night. We would need to check out of our hotel by noon Sunday, leaving us homeless in Hawaii for 10 hours. And that's a problem, you say? Not really, but we felt like had pretty well done Oahu. Another day might be anti-climactic. All I could think of was to make a big loop drive to the North Shore and back. The one culinary opportunity we had missed was the roadside panel trucks selling fish and shrimp all along the north and northeast shores, but that didn't seem particularly important, especially after our Chinese shrimp. We checked on flights and found that the Sat. night flight actually had a few more seats available than the Sunday night, which would probably tighten up by Sunday night, so we opted to switch to the Sat flight. This gave us time to hang out in the room, pack up, and leisurely head for the airport. Which we did.

One last shot: our view of Diamond Head from our balcony.


Had an uneventful trip home.


That's all, folks.

Aloha,

Susie and Rob

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