|
| Aloha! - The journey |
| Saturday, January 06, 2007 |
Aloha!
The most challenging part of the trip was the planning. The problem was, I knew exactly one couple for real, and one online friend who had visited Hawaii. I had two sources to get advice from to plan this trip. When I googled for Hawaii, it gave me five choices of islands to visit. The five main islands of Hawaii are, Hawaii,also known as the Big Island, Oahu, Maui, Kuaui and Molokai. We had a hard time pronouncing these Hawaiian words too. Honolulu was the only place we had heard of in Hawaii, so we started off from there. Honolulu is in Oahu island. DH was particular that he wanted to visit Pearl Harbor, an important landmark, which was the reason for US to enter into World War II. This was in Oahu. When I consulted my friend whose brother and wife had visited Hawaii recently, she said they had gone to Maui, another less inhabited and more beautiful island. Now the confusion arose. Should we visit Oahu or Maui. My friend, let me call her R said Oahu was just like any other city, with Highways and tall buildings, and that it was not the real Hawaii. After lot of consulting and talking for a few days, while the prices on Orbitz to Hawaii climbed up a full 100 bucks right infront of our eyes as we were still deciding, we booked our tickets to Honolulu, atleast we know one place we want to see in Oahu.
Our flight was at 4:40PM on Friday from Oakland. We thought we would have a lot of time on Friday, to pack up and make the 2 hr drive to Oakland. We were so wrong. We woke up at 8AM, and from then on we were packing, arranging stuff, deciding what to take and what not to, and it was a tight schedule, before we left our sweet home at 11:15AM. DH had printout of maps for our trip. We had to drop off DH's Comcast Modem at some place in Oakland before going to the Airport.
I should take this opportunity to talk about this exotic thing I got as a Xmas gift from DH. A GPS!! 
It is the coolest thing! I have wanted one for a year now, but it was so expensive, we had been putting off buying it. Now finally we got it! With all the travel we do, I think we will make good use of it. No more paper maps for us, and no more getting lost, not that we get lost often. Our experience with the GPS alone would make a couple of blogs, should I write about it now or later? Let me write now, while I am still excited about it. :--)
I have heard from one of my friends that the maps in the GPSes are sometimes inaccurate, or they might take you on a roundabout route, and sometimes are not reliable. Heck, we were prepared for that. I didnt want to take a chance with the GPS right away and get lost, so we had paper maps, and the GPS for reference. We didnt want to get lost on our way to the airport and miss our flights now, did we?
The lady in the GPS tells us when to take a left or a right, when we are about 0.3 miles from the intersection or on the ramp. If we do miss the turns, it automatically recalculates a route from our current position and gives us another route! Isnt it cool or what?! I was so excited. First we thought we need to have the exact address of places to be able to use the GPS. But no!! We can search for near by anything, grocery store, walmart, Fuel station, restaurants, and it will automatically show us the list it has with the distance. It is the most amazing thing to possess, I tell you.
Once we reached Comcast office, we had to simple select the nearest airport and it took us to the Oakland Airport. Of course it didnt know the Economy Parking Lot, it just gave directions to the terminals, but thats a given, even Google maps cannot help us there. Our car was to stay there for five days until we got back.
We reached the Airport at around 2:30, well before time, thanks to me, and there was long line at the check in counter. We were flying ATA. We already saw many Hawaiian looking people around us. Huge round faces and flat noses. I still had a nagging doubt in the back of my head, hope they wont ask for a valid US Visa to get back to US Mainland. Of course they didnt. :--) Afterall Hawaii is the 50th State of the US of A. The Airport was a sicko Airport, they had gates built amidst restrooms, bad planning. We were like a hyper excited couple at the gate taking pictures and laughing uncontrollably for the silliest of jokes DH made, and eating non stop too.
Our seats were apart, two aisle seats on either side. I cant fly like that for full 5:30 hours! We were keeping our fingers crossed hoping someone would accomodate our request. A single guy sitting by DH agreed to swap seats and yeah! we were sitting together now. The lady beside me was a resident of Hawaii, teaching in the University of Hawaii, and boy! was she talking non-stop! The flight was full of babies and kids. Babies in the front, smiling at us, kids in the back, kicking our seats, and kids on our sides too.
We watched the stupid John Tucker must Die chick flick they cast on the plane, and then continued to watch the Pelican Brief on our laptop. I slept halfway in the cosy comfort of DH's shoulders. We had to fill out some custom forms, DH forced me to put our purpose of visit as Honeymoon. Yeah right, any trip we do will be our n+1th honeymoon.
We got some tips from the lady beside us on places to visit. She told us not to miss the North Shore in Oahu, which was supposed to be very beautiful. We asked her to take a picture of us at the airport and bid adieu. Our baggage did not get lost, thankfully, we collected it and quickly went to get a cab to our Hotel.
The drive was about 20 minutes, on a Highway, from Honolulu, full of tall buildings, to Waikiki, full of tall hotels. These two cities had a New York look, with all the tall buldings.
It was an awesome feeling. To be on an island, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. We were really in the middle of the Pacific, we flew about 2500 miles, and it was about 2500 miles to Japan on the other side! This is my first visit to any island, it was beautiful, it was a wonderful feeling. The whole islands were formed by volcanic eruptions from the mountains in the Pacific. It gave me goose bumps when I thought about that.
Hawaii was 2 hrs behind California. Gee, we thought we were the last to wake up and the last to sleep, but not anymore. Hawaii is probably the only place we can go to from California and gain two hours. The weather was good, high 70s, just perfect.
We checked into our room, we were not able to see the beach and the sea from our patio because it was dark. We were very tired, it was 11:30PM PST, but only 9:30PM Hawaiian time. We went down to walk a little, get something to eat. We got garden sandwiches, which we gobbled up pretty fast. We were supposed to make plans for the next day, make arrangements, but we were too tired for that, and so hit the sack soon.
Aloha! - Pearl Harbor and the Submarine Tour
Aloha! - Diamond Crater and Hanauma Bay |
posted by SK @ 8:01 AM  |
|
| 2 Comments: |
-
nice write-up. i have read maui is the most preferred US beach destination. for our ajanta trip, we had a GPS. its usage is based on the software you load, rite? we neved used the GPS. in any case, when we have our mouths for company and a sense of direction... and getting lost is itself a purpose of travel :-) i agree with you about the island bit. the islands are simply the best places to travel!
-
Hey Sparkie,
Yes Maui has the world famous beaches.
Regarding GPSes I guess here they come with maps already loaded, we were able to use it in Hawaii also :--)
Well about getting lost.... its not much fun here, I think, recently read a family got lost in Oregon wilderness, taking a lost trail, in snow during thanksgiving, just north of where we live, and the father died of starvation while trying to get help. :--((
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WEATHER/12/08/kim.survival/index.html
Yes, islands are everything packed in a small area, it is cool! :--))
|
| |
| << Home |
| |
|
|
|
|
nice write-up. i have read maui is the most preferred US beach destination. for our ajanta trip, we had a GPS. its usage is based on the software you load, rite? we neved used the GPS. in any case, when we have our mouths for company and a sense of direction... and getting lost is itself a purpose of travel :-) i agree with you about the island bit. the islands are simply the best places to travel!