Oahu days 1 and 2

On March 20th, 2008 we flew to Oahu to meet my parents for the start of their two week vacation and a four day vacation for us. We had the best flight of our lives. No delays, layovers or anything. It took longer to get to the airport from our house than it did to fly from Kauai to Oahu. We arrived at about 8:00 a.m. We picked up our rental car, got some breakfast, etc. and picked up my parents around noon. First things first....my parents got lei'd in Hawaii. Notice the pretty purple leis in the picture. We went straight to the zoo. To be honest Honolulu's zoo wasn't that fabulous, there were a lot of birds. We did enjoy watching the chimpanzee's eat and their handler came and talked to us about the group of chimpanzees. My parents really liked the banyon trees. A banyon tree is a tree that has a virus and it ends up looking like this.

After the zoo we went to Duke's for dinner. It was right on the Waikiki beach and we were able to walk from our hotel. I was excited that they had monchong available, my favorite fish. We played in the water of Waikiki for awhile after dinner. KyKy cannot get near the water without getting soaked so she walked back to the hotel dripping wet.

Waikiki beach

The next morning we were up bright and early to hike to the top of diamond head. It is a .7 mile hike with 271 stairs, tunnels and a bunker thing at the top that makes a good lookout spot. My mom was so proud of herself for making it to the top that she bought a certificate that proved she had been there. She really wanted a T-shirt that said "I made it to the top of diamond head." Halfway down the hill a guy was selling just that T-shirt so she got her wish. The view was spectacular. Kyleigh made it all the way up and most of the way down all by herself. She had blisters on the back of her feet when we were done but she was such a trooper. When she starts to get tired we tell her she is training for Alaska (so next time we go to Alaska she can come with us) and she will keep going.

view from the top of diamond head.

That afternoon we went to the Polynesian Cultural Center. It was so fun. First we watched a movie about the coral reefs in the IMAX theatre. Then we watched the canoe pageant with a different canoe representing a different island of the Pacific. We walked around to the different "islands" and participated in cultural activities. We went to Tahiti and got a tattoo. In Samoa we watched a cooking demonstration. In Tonga we listened to a drum show and somewhere else we weaved small fish from native plants. In the evening we went to a luau with lots of food, hula and Hawaiian music. Our favorite was the lei greeting and the purple taro rolls.

These girls in the canoe pageant could really shake!

After the luau we went to the Horizons night show. It was 110%. The costumes, backdrop, music, dancing, and especially the fire dancer. When we saw the star of the show, the fire dancer, we realized he was the same person who weaved the girls hats at the coconut festival in Kapaa (a town of Kauai) last fall. He told us then that he worked at the PCC, but we didn't realize he was the star of the show. How fun.

All of us at the luau.