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elwenFor people who want the pictures without narration, the gallery is here. (Flocked, as previously noted. But some of the pictures (any whose link in the entry ends in g1) are not locked.)
Still, it was pretty neat. We stopped by a black sand beach on the way and got to see some turtles pretty close by in the water, and then we drove the loop around the crater rim. My sister really wanted to see the petroglyphs, so she and I hiked the 0.7 miles out to them. It was kind of anti-climactic because the pictures made it seem like there were a lot more fancy petroglyphs than there were -- it was mostly a lot of little dots, where umbilical cords were place to ensure the baby's health. But the trail there was kind of neat. It was really windy, so we were comfortable in spite of the heat being radiated from the black rock. The landscape was pretty barren, and we were basically following little rock piles rather than a visible trail.
After that, we went to the water's edge, but none of us were in the mood to hike out to see the lava flow. It was mid-afternoon, so we probably would have ended up having to return in the dark, and we had no flashlights. There'd been a park ranger at the visitor's center who gave us a humorous presentation about going to see the lava flow, who'd suggested that a family trying to find their way in the dark with cellphones and a single penlight was a bad idea. I figured that seeing the steam rise from the water was enough -- chances are that's all you can see up close anyway.
On the way back, we stopped by the Thurston Lava Tube, which I got to walk through alone because everyone else was tired and/or carsick and didn't feel like being dripped on for the second day in a row. I thought it was great, since I like greenery, and most of the crater had been a bit too barren for me. The sound of tropical birds and the lushness of the area was a stark contrast. It was hard to imagine a time when the rock was so hot and new that nothing could grow there.
When I got back to the car, I managed to drag my sister out and we hiked a bit on the trail that led to an overlook of the crater -- making sure to take a few "dorky Asian pictures" for good measure. [Y'know, the pictures you take of yourself by holding the camera out in front of you. I got pretty good at it by the end of the trip.] We'd started taking them wherever we could -- make sure you check out the subgallery. XD
That was pretty much all I had time to see on the Big Island. During the orientation that morning, they'd talked about a valley in the north that had hundreds of waterfalls that was accessible by helicopter, and I had really wanted to go flightseeing there, but I guess that's hardly unique to the Big Island and the volcano is more important.
The outdoor-ness was one of my favorite parts of Hawaii. You walk "into" a building, like a hotel lobby, but you're really still outside. Everything's so open, it really reminds you that you're in a tropical place where the weather really is that nice all year round.
Anyway, so we arrived in Maui. The day before my family left, my dad bought a GPS, which my sister had been asking for for Christmas anyway. It turned out to be a lifesaver many times over. However, it could not get us to the place we were staying. On the highway driving through the middle of nowhere it announced, "You have reached your destination." Several mishaps later, we found the place, and were promptly sent next door because the place had been overbooked. The place we ended up at was pretty nice, though, and our condo overlooked an artificial waterfall that was quite pleasant to listen to while reading on the patio.
While we were grocery shopping that night, I found this:
I think it speaks for itself.
In the end, and this is seriously cutting out many rejected draft schedules and additional confusion while booking the packages -- my mom and my brother could get bundle deals on the submarine and luau, but my brother also got in free as a child, so in the end he didn't need the bundle after all -- this is what we came up with:
That afternoon, my brother and my mom would go to the Ocean Center, while my sister and I went flightseeing. (My poor dad got left out because they hadn't had enough spaces on the helicopter.) The next morning, my sister, my dad, and I would go kayaking while my brother and mom slept in. In the afternoon, they would go on the sumarine while we went to the Ocean Center. On Christmas Eve we would go snorkeling in the morning and then attend the luau. Finally, on Christmas Day, we would drive to Hana on our own, thus avoiding any problems with various outfits being closed.
Yeah, I am sooooo J.
So first came flightseeing. I guess this was almost entirely to indulge me and my obsession with waterfalls. I think what I associate most with Hawaii is deep, deep green valleys with lots of thin waterfalls streaming down their steep sides, and this was what I got to see. The pictures hardly do them justice.
We went over the eastern side of Maui including 'Iao Crater, and then we went across to see the sea cliffs on Molokai. It was like the aerial pans you see in documentaries, which always delight me so much. We flew up into this valley that's one of the wettest places on earth, catching a rainbow on the way out, and there was all this mist rising from the trees. Over Molokai, our pilot pointed out this little rock sticking out of the water, which was covered by a species of palm tree that grows nowhere else in the entire world. [That kind of puzzles me. You'd think that, being on a rock in the water and so close to several islands, a seed would have been carried to land at some point in evolutionary history.]
On the way back to Maui, we saw whales, although they really were just little white specks with vaguely whale-shaped shadows attached, which is pretty much how I'd describe my picture of them.
Browsing the gift shop after we got back, I kind of regretted that the one thing missing from our itinerary was Haleakala, the western crater. After the Big Island, I was kind of sick of barren craters, but looking at the pictures, it looked really pretty and alien, like the surface of Mars. As with Mt. Fuji, you're supposed to climb in the dark and watch the sunrise from the top. If we had seen it, though, I think we would have done one of the downhill biking packages. Ah well, I guess sometimes pictures must suffice. [But I argued vehemently against that idea in my GRE essay...]
The kayaking itself was lots of fun, but the trip overall was kind of disappointing. I guess I expected too much from an outfit that takes people of all experience levels. I thought we'd go out along some sea cliffs and maybe see some waterfalls *ahem*. The lady at the orientation did say the south shore had better scenery. But in the end all we did was kayak out to a snorkeling location, anchor the boats and snorkel a bit, then turn around and head back. The snorkeling wasn't that great, and being nearsighted I could barely see anything. At my request, my sister would point and shout, "There! There!" through her tube every time she saw a fish, but usually I couldn't even make out the outlines. We did see a sea turtle, which was kind of exciting, but since we already had a snorkeling trip planned, I felt the whole thing was kind of redundant.
In the afternoon we went to the Maui Ocean Center. As expected, it was nothing new really, and we went through the whole thing in 2 hours or so. We did get to see a shark feeding, which was kind of neat. The open ocean tank was better than Monterey's, mainly because they had lots of large, graceful stingrays as well as several species of sharks. And I was very impressed by the underwater tunnel. We used to have a membership to Underwater World at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, so I'd become kind of jaded to underwater tunnels. But the Maui Ocean Center one was great. There were lots of rays going overhead continually, and when the smaller fish swam up, you really couldn't tell where the glass was, so it was as if they were just floating there (in water? in thin air?) with nothing separating you from it. So I guess it was all good. My dad rented one of the audio tour things, and he thinks it was a great educational experience.
The three of us had gone on a submarine on Oahu during our previous trip to Hawaii, so we didn't particularly feel a need to go again, which is why we had the complicated split with my mom and brother. Now I kind of wonder. I hadn't felt there was much to see from the submarine except for the sea turtles and an octopus, so.
The snorkeling trip was supposed to have two stops, Molokini and "Turtle Town" [I never did find out what or where that was], but ocean currents from the south made the second destination too cloudy so we just stayed at Molokini. No complaints from me. I really can't describe how awesome it was and how clearly you could see everything. [The outfit provided prescription masks, which meant I didn't have the same problem as I'd had while kayaking.] And we ended up seeing several sea turtles on the way back anyway.
The luau was . . . a luau. We pigged out, I had part of a mai tai, and then we watched the performance. It was pretty good -- I think hula would make one really good at DDR. All that moving of your legs without shifting your upper body! My main regret was that they didn't have fresh poi. The second night in Maui we'd eaten at a "local favorite" where they'd served poi but it was really sour. After that, we looked up on Wikipedia how to eat it. I guess it's supposed to be slightly sweet when it's fresh, and then it gets progressively more sour as it ferments, upon which you eat it with salted fish. I wasn't really interested in eating sour "library paste", as the Wikipedia article describes it, but I kind of wanted to try the fresh kind. I mean, it's not like Asians don't eat taro, so I felt like it should be palatable somehow. But the luau's poi was also sour, so I gave up.
Fortunately, it really only rained severely at our first stop, a small double waterfall that we ultimately couldn't get close enough to to see. We got really soaked there, though, and at the next stop, where there was a cool overlook and then a neat forest trail, no one wanted to come down. After that, I think the clouds mostly burned off/rained themselves out, and we were dry.
The road really was pretty scary, though. We were in a station wagon, which was better than a bus or a minivan, but still kind freaky at times. I sat in the front because I'm prone to carsickness apparently. I ended up getty pretty carsick on the way back when we weren't making regular sightseeing stops. At one of the waterfalls, where water actually fell onto the road itself, I took this picture of the bridge:
Right before Hana, we stopped to picnic at a beach, which was good for some pictures of amusing signage. Then we were through Hana and on to the really scary part of the road. Where the Hana Highway had marked out its one-way sections, this road was so narrow it was pretty much all one-way. And we were heading out in the afternoon when most people were heading back, which meant we had to pull over a lot, sometimes for large tour vans. Still, the ultimate destination was worth it. We reached the northern part of Haleakala National Park, the start of the 2 mile Pipiwai Trail that leads to the 400ft Waimoku Falls. Along the way, there was a really cool "totoro tree". :D My dad turned back right before the really Japanese-feeling bamboo forest, leaving my sister and I to finish the hike ourselves.
The bamboo forest was really interesting to walk through. You could hear the bamboo creaking as the wind blew. In a lot of places, it was quite dark, though you could see the sun way overhead -- we were worried that we really would have to make our way back with a keychain LED. The set of sensations -- the wind and the air slightly damp from the rain, the creaking and rustling, and the half-light -- was really unique. This is one place where pictures don't suffice.
Finally, after being passed and passed again by a couple hardcore backpacking types, we made it to Waimoku Falls. It was different from the ones we'd see from the helicopter in that it was larger and more fanned out, and the plants didn't crowd it as closely on the sides. I guess it was more like an "ordinary" waterfall and not like the deep valley ones. The kind where the hike up to see it is part of what makes it all worthwhile. [I'd be somewhat skeptical whether it's even possible to hike up to the deep valley ones. I'm not about to take up rock-climbing just to see them. Plus, the aerial view is probably much better.]
So that was Hawaii. Overall, I think it was probably the best of our recent family vacations. Now and again my dad still tries to ask, "Wouldn't it have been better to do a package tour?" but I stand even more firmly by my position that it wouldn't. Maybe we would have seen more, or gotten more background, but that's not really what we're about, I think. At least for myself, I want to see things and do things, and take my time with them; not listen to a bunch of stories and stop for photo ops. I guess I'm less interested in the cultural stuff -- the human history, if you will -- than the natural aspects.
After this, Hawaii, including Maui and the Big Island, remains high on my list of vacation spots. For all that we saw, there are still lots of places, even on the islands we visited, that we didn't see. Haleakala, of course, and the depths of 'Iao that we only flew over. And that valley on the Big Island with waterfalls *ahem*. I was also sold on the nature-ness of Kau'ai, so that would be next on my list.
All of this someday, of course, when I'm a filthy rich lawyer. :P
Oh, and I couldn't work these into the narrative, but what would pictures from Hawaii be without a few sunsets and palm tree silhouettes?
Big Island
Because I was very silly, I failed to discover that I had a final on December 18th until after we had booked the trip, so I joined my family on the night of the 19th, while they left for the Big Island on Saturday the 16th. In my absence, they had snorkeled in none-too-clear water, with my dad insisting that you could only see the fish if you had snuba'ed like he did; wasted a day at the Hilton listening to a time-share presentation, playing on the beach, and harrassing a sea cucumber; and taken a bus tour of the island. The bus tour meant that, when it was time for me to spend my one day on the Big Island seeing the volcano, they'd already seen it. That kind of sucked because my brother complained more, and a lot of times no one wanted to get off the car and walk around with me.Still, it was pretty neat. We stopped by a black sand beach on the way and got to see some turtles pretty close by in the water, and then we drove the loop around the crater rim. My sister really wanted to see the petroglyphs, so she and I hiked the 0.7 miles out to them. It was kind of anti-climactic because the pictures made it seem like there were a lot more fancy petroglyphs than there were -- it was mostly a lot of little dots, where umbilical cords were place to ensure the baby's health. But the trail there was kind of neat. It was really windy, so we were comfortable in spite of the heat being radiated from the black rock. The landscape was pretty barren, and we were basically following little rock piles rather than a visible trail.
After that, we went to the water's edge, but none of us were in the mood to hike out to see the lava flow. It was mid-afternoon, so we probably would have ended up having to return in the dark, and we had no flashlights. There'd been a park ranger at the visitor's center who gave us a humorous presentation about going to see the lava flow, who'd suggested that a family trying to find their way in the dark with cellphones and a single penlight was a bad idea. I figured that seeing the steam rise from the water was enough -- chances are that's all you can see up close anyway.
On the way back, we stopped by the Thurston Lava Tube, which I got to walk through alone because everyone else was tired and/or carsick and didn't feel like being dripped on for the second day in a row. I thought it was great, since I like greenery, and most of the crater had been a bit too barren for me. The sound of tropical birds and the lushness of the area was a stark contrast. It was hard to imagine a time when the rock was so hot and new that nothing could grow there.When I got back to the car, I managed to drag my sister out and we hiked a bit on the trail that led to an overlook of the crater -- making sure to take a few "dorky Asian pictures" for good measure. [Y'know, the pictures you take of yourself by holding the camera out in front of you. I got pretty good at it by the end of the trip.] We'd started taking them wherever we could -- make sure you check out the subgallery. XD
That was pretty much all I had time to see on the Big Island. During the orientation that morning, they'd talked about a valley in the north that had hundreds of waterfalls that was accessible by helicopter, and I had really wanted to go flightseeing there, but I guess that's hardly unique to the Big Island and the volcano is more important.
Big Island to Maui
We flew to Maui the next day out of Kona Airport. On my way there, my flight out of SFO was delayed, so I ended up being stuck in Honolulu airport for an hour after missing my connection. Somehow, with their years of experience, the travel company gave us a 30 minute layover, which my family barely made but their luggage didn't, so they'd ended up having to wait at the airport for the later flight anyhow. Sitting in Honolulu airport, I mused how airports all look the same the world over, with those same weird black seats. Then I arrived in Kona. I overheard a girl who had come to pick her friend up saying, "Isn't it cute?" And it is. It's all outdoors, with park benches instead of those weird black seats. I would have fonder memories of it if they hadn't confiscated my sunscreen when we left for Maui, but that was really my own fault. [But where am I ever going to find 28 SPF sunscreen ever again? All the bottles I saw in Hawaii were 4 or 8. Note that sunscreen is not the same thing as sunblock, kthx.]The outdoor-ness was one of my favorite parts of Hawaii. You walk "into" a building, like a hotel lobby, but you're really still outside. Everything's so open, it really reminds you that you're in a tropical place where the weather really is that nice all year round.
Anyway, so we arrived in Maui. The day before my family left, my dad bought a GPS, which my sister had been asking for for Christmas anyway. It turned out to be a lifesaver many times over. However, it could not get us to the place we were staying. On the highway driving through the middle of nowhere it announced, "You have reached your destination." Several mishaps later, we found the place, and were promptly sent next door because the place had been overbooked. The place we ended up at was pretty nice, though, and our condo overlooked an artificial waterfall that was quite pleasant to listen to while reading on the patio.
While we were grocery shopping that night, I found this:
I think it speaks for itself.
Maui Day 1
The next morning we had an orientation from Pleasant Holidays, the group with which we'd booked the vacation. Next was several hours of me being extremely J and trying to fit all the activities we wanted to do into the 4 days we had. On my list was: hiking, snorkeling, kayaking, and flightseeing. My brother wanted to go on a submarine. My mom thought we should go to a luau on Christmas Eve. My dad insisted that he would do the drive to Hana himself rather than take a bus tour -- probably a good idea in the end. And, in spite of the fact that I'm usually the one obsessed with aquariums, everyone else wanted to go to the Maui Ocean Center while I wasn't particularly interested. I guess I figured it'd be the same as any other aquarium, and we didn't really have time for it in my strictly regimented J schedule.In the end, and this is seriously cutting out many rejected draft schedules and additional confusion while booking the packages -- my mom and my brother could get bundle deals on the submarine and luau, but my brother also got in free as a child, so in the end he didn't need the bundle after all -- this is what we came up with:
That afternoon, my brother and my mom would go to the Ocean Center, while my sister and I went flightseeing. (My poor dad got left out because they hadn't had enough spaces on the helicopter.) The next morning, my sister, my dad, and I would go kayaking while my brother and mom slept in. In the afternoon, they would go on the sumarine while we went to the Ocean Center. On Christmas Eve we would go snorkeling in the morning and then attend the luau. Finally, on Christmas Day, we would drive to Hana on our own, thus avoiding any problems with various outfits being closed.
Yeah, I am sooooo J.
So first came flightseeing. I guess this was almost entirely to indulge me and my obsession with waterfalls. I think what I associate most with Hawaii is deep, deep green valleys with lots of thin waterfalls streaming down their steep sides, and this was what I got to see. The pictures hardly do them justice.We went over the eastern side of Maui including 'Iao Crater, and then we went across to see the sea cliffs on Molokai. It was like the aerial pans you see in documentaries, which always delight me so much. We flew up into this valley that's one of the wettest places on earth, catching a rainbow on the way out, and there was all this mist rising from the trees. Over Molokai, our pilot pointed out this little rock sticking out of the water, which was covered by a species of palm tree that grows nowhere else in the entire world. [That kind of puzzles me. You'd think that, being on a rock in the water and so close to several islands, a seed would have been carried to land at some point in evolutionary history.]
On the way back to Maui, we saw whales, although they really were just little white specks with vaguely whale-shaped shadows attached, which is pretty much how I'd describe my picture of them.
Browsing the gift shop after we got back, I kind of regretted that the one thing missing from our itinerary was Haleakala, the western crater. After the Big Island, I was kind of sick of barren craters, but looking at the pictures, it looked really pretty and alien, like the surface of Mars. As with Mt. Fuji, you're supposed to climb in the dark and watch the sunrise from the top. If we had seen it, though, I think we would have done one of the downhill biking packages. Ah well, I guess sometimes pictures must suffice. [But I argued vehemently against that idea in my GRE essay...]
Maui Day 2
The next morning, we went kayaking on the south shore, which meant leaving the condo at 5am or so. I took a liking to kayaking after an ELS trip to Elkhorn Slough in Monterey. My siblings and my dad had previously been kayaking in Santa Cruz (?), and my sister had tipped over, so she may have been somewhat less enthusiastic, but I think this trip changed her mind. For myself, I was a bit hesistant about ocean kayaking, since the slough had been very calm, and I didn't know what to expect when there were *gasp* waves.The kayaking itself was lots of fun, but the trip overall was kind of disappointing. I guess I expected too much from an outfit that takes people of all experience levels. I thought we'd go out along some sea cliffs and maybe see some waterfalls *ahem*. The lady at the orientation did say the south shore had better scenery. But in the end all we did was kayak out to a snorkeling location, anchor the boats and snorkel a bit, then turn around and head back. The snorkeling wasn't that great, and being nearsighted I could barely see anything. At my request, my sister would point and shout, "There! There!" through her tube every time she saw a fish, but usually I couldn't even make out the outlines. We did see a sea turtle, which was kind of exciting, but since we already had a snorkeling trip planned, I felt the whole thing was kind of redundant.
In the afternoon we went to the Maui Ocean Center. As expected, it was nothing new really, and we went through the whole thing in 2 hours or so. We did get to see a shark feeding, which was kind of neat. The open ocean tank was better than Monterey's, mainly because they had lots of large, graceful stingrays as well as several species of sharks. And I was very impressed by the underwater tunnel. We used to have a membership to Underwater World at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, so I'd become kind of jaded to underwater tunnels. But the Maui Ocean Center one was great. There were lots of rays going overhead continually, and when the smaller fish swam up, you really couldn't tell where the glass was, so it was as if they were just floating there (in water? in thin air?) with nothing separating you from it. So I guess it was all good. My dad rented one of the audio tour things, and he thinks it was a great educational experience.
The three of us had gone on a submarine on Oahu during our previous trip to Hawaii, so we didn't particularly feel a need to go again, which is why we had the complicated split with my mom and brother. Now I kind of wonder. I hadn't felt there was much to see from the submarine except for the sea turtles and an octopus, so.
Maui Day 3
The next morning we took a boat out to Molokini Crater to snorkel. The water was amazingly clear and there were fish everywhere. There were even little jellies floating around, which was a bit scary. My sister got stung by one early on -- they seemed to disappear as the sun rose higher -- and rather lost her enthusiasm for the rest of the snorkeling trip. My dad convinced my mom and me to try snuba with him, which was an interesting experience, but apparently nowhere near as awesome as it had been on the Big Island. In fact, there was rather less to see from 20 feet down than there was at the surface near the shore. The main novelty was seeing the reef stretch out around you.The snorkeling trip was supposed to have two stops, Molokini and "Turtle Town" [I never did find out what or where that was], but ocean currents from the south made the second destination too cloudy so we just stayed at Molokini. No complaints from me. I really can't describe how awesome it was and how clearly you could see everything. [The outfit provided prescription masks, which meant I didn't have the same problem as I'd had while kayaking.] And we ended up seeing several sea turtles on the way back anyway.
The luau was . . . a luau. We pigged out, I had part of a mai tai, and then we watched the performance. It was pretty good -- I think hula would make one really good at DDR. All that moving of your legs without shifting your upper body! My main regret was that they didn't have fresh poi. The second night in Maui we'd eaten at a "local favorite" where they'd served poi but it was really sour. After that, we looked up on Wikipedia how to eat it. I guess it's supposed to be slightly sweet when it's fresh, and then it gets progressively more sour as it ferments, upon which you eat it with salted fish. I wasn't really interested in eating sour "library paste", as the Wikipedia article describes it, but I kind of wanted to try the fresh kind. I mean, it's not like Asians don't eat taro, so I felt like it should be palatable somehow. But the luau's poi was also sour, so I gave up.
Maui Day 4
On Christmas Day, we drove to Hana, a little town on the northeast corner of the island, which you get to by driving a scary, twisty coast highway with lots of one-way segments. My dad insisted that he preferred to do it himself on grounds that he could see more if he was the driver rather than sitting in a bus. I think in the end it was a good idea. Being in a tall swaying bus on that road would have given me a heart attack. Plus, we were able to stop for more random waterfalls. The main problem was that it was raining even as we drove from Lahaina to Kahului. [There was a gorgeous double rainbow, and we passed many drivers who'd pulled over to take pictures.] When we stopped for gas in Kahului, we managed to buy the gas station's last poncho, but my dad was still skeptical we'd have any problems. He asked the cashier about it, and she just looked at him and said, "It's a rainforest."Fortunately, it really only rained severely at our first stop, a small double waterfall that we ultimately couldn't get close enough to to see. We got really soaked there, though, and at the next stop, where there was a cool overlook and then a neat forest trail, no one wanted to come down. After that, I think the clouds mostly burned off/rained themselves out, and we were dry.
The road really was pretty scary, though. We were in a station wagon, which was better than a bus or a minivan, but still kind freaky at times. I sat in the front because I'm prone to carsickness apparently. I ended up getty pretty carsick on the way back when we weren't making regular sightseeing stops. At one of the waterfalls, where water actually fell onto the road itself, I took this picture of the bridge:
Right before Hana, we stopped to picnic at a beach, which was good for some pictures of amusing signage. Then we were through Hana and on to the really scary part of the road. Where the Hana Highway had marked out its one-way sections, this road was so narrow it was pretty much all one-way. And we were heading out in the afternoon when most people were heading back, which meant we had to pull over a lot, sometimes for large tour vans. Still, the ultimate destination was worth it. We reached the northern part of Haleakala National Park, the start of the 2 mile Pipiwai Trail that leads to the 400ft Waimoku Falls. Along the way, there was a really cool "totoro tree". :D My dad turned back right before the really Japanese-feeling bamboo forest, leaving my sister and I to finish the hike ourselves.
The bamboo forest was really interesting to walk through. You could hear the bamboo creaking as the wind blew. In a lot of places, it was quite dark, though you could see the sun way overhead -- we were worried that we really would have to make our way back with a keychain LED. The set of sensations -- the wind and the air slightly damp from the rain, the creaking and rustling, and the half-light -- was really unique. This is one place where pictures don't suffice.
Finally, after being passed and passed again by a couple hardcore backpacking types, we made it to Waimoku Falls. It was different from the ones we'd see from the helicopter in that it was larger and more fanned out, and the plants didn't crowd it as closely on the sides. I guess it was more like an "ordinary" waterfall and not like the deep valley ones. The kind where the hike up to see it is part of what makes it all worthwhile. [I'd be somewhat skeptical whether it's even possible to hike up to the deep valley ones. I'm not about to take up rock-climbing just to see them. Plus, the aerial view is probably much better.]So that was Hawaii. Overall, I think it was probably the best of our recent family vacations. Now and again my dad still tries to ask, "Wouldn't it have been better to do a package tour?" but I stand even more firmly by my position that it wouldn't. Maybe we would have seen more, or gotten more background, but that's not really what we're about, I think. At least for myself, I want to see things and do things, and take my time with them; not listen to a bunch of stories and stop for photo ops. I guess I'm less interested in the cultural stuff -- the human history, if you will -- than the natural aspects.
After this, Hawaii, including Maui and the Big Island, remains high on my list of vacation spots. For all that we saw, there are still lots of places, even on the islands we visited, that we didn't see. Haleakala, of course, and the depths of 'Iao that we only flew over. And that valley on the Big Island with waterfalls *ahem*. I was also sold on the nature-ness of Kau'ai, so that would be next on my list.
All of this someday, of course, when I'm a filthy rich lawyer. :P
Oh, and I couldn't work these into the narrative, but what would pictures from Hawaii be without a few sunsets and palm tree silhouettes?
no subject
Date: 2007-01-05 06:42 am (UTC)Since I'll be home for Christmas once I start grad school, you're always welcome to come back to the Big Island. It means free room and board, and I'll take you up to Waipi'o Valley. ;)
no subject
Date: 2007-01-05 07:08 am (UTC)The bamboo forest picture reminds me of the one that used to hang in Pub kitchen, which I am convinced was of Arashiyama in Kyoto.
On the topic of panda puffs...
Date: 2007-01-05 06:26 pm (UTC)They donate an extremely mild amount of profits (dunno what %) to wildlife preservation. But still, they're one of the best tasting gluten free cereals out there.
Re: On the topic of panda puffs...
Date: 2007-01-05 06:40 pm (UTC)I think the box in the picture says they donate 1% of sales.