Saddle Road
I decided to take a day trip up to the visitor information center at Mauna Kea, and perhaps take the weekend tour to the top. The center is essentially a little souvenir stand at about 8000 feet, with some telescopes, an informational slide slide show, complementary hot water (cocoa and instant coffee available inside, and a microwave (remember water boils faster!).
Actually reaching the summit requires either a 4WD vehicle (and remember, your rental agreement does not allow you to drive further up than the information center) or taking a commercial tour. OR you can hoof it - there's a foot trail that will take you up. 5 hours each way, so plan accordingly.
Actually, I drove to the half way house twice, as I discovered on the drive home that I had lost a water bottle I would rather keep. Besides - freewheeling down a 17 percent grade is fun.
The true highlight of the trip though is driving along Saddle Road. This roller coaster has everything - it weaves, it rolls. No shoulders of course. Intermittent "one lane bridges" that fortunately the local drivers handle well. Want more? How about geese and free range turkeys to dodge. About half way through you cross the county line, and the road quality goes to handbasket. My ride also featured a second driver drafting behind me, just to keep things interesting.
I'm really looking forward to star gazing later this week, then riding the Saddle back in the DARK.
Breakfast Lunch and Crab
Sam Choy's was specifically recommended to me. Located on the Nimitz, it was a convenient stopping point after renting the car in Oahu, so I dropped in.
The shrimp batter is done with coconut, and the sweet and sour sauce includes generous portions of ginger.
They also had a garlic tater tot, which I had to try. Garlic for sure, also something red I couldn't quite place, but on the whole they reminded me of Italian salad dressing - not quite what I was expecting.
I decided that I should try the Loco Moco; I don't remember finding white rice at the bottom (maybe I said something strange when ordering it?) but mostly what I remember is a Salisbury Steak with a pair of eggs over easy on top.
I'm sure to stop in again for more shrimp, and hope to explore other corners of the menu.
Fly to Kona
This is mostly a note for myself - but I ran some searches looking at AUX-KOA flights, and they look more friendly, for the most part, then routing to HNL. US Air will one stop you through Phoenix, with minimal layovers.
Might be a better bet than trying to get an iPod battery to run video for 10 hours.
Body surfing
After my morning workout [yes, I've kept up so far, although today I needed to change the routine or else face the wrath of a pilates group], I grabbed my kit to see what the beach was all about.
Oh BOY!
Sand and surf - sure, there are rocks to play on over there, but yehaa into the waves, and if they yehaa back, the sand is pretty forgiving. So I went stomping out into the waves to see if I could figure out how body surfing might work.
Mostly, it works by pumping lots of salt water into my nose.
The waves themselves are of varying character, and it isn't immediately obvious to me in the surf how many harmonics are in play - so the good wave sets seem to be pretty random. I was a bit worried about slamming into someone, although people were pretty sparse and once the wave caught me there wasn't much I could do about it anyway.
My favorite set was three excellent waves in succession. The first I rode in. The second, I decided that I had missed, right up to the point that it picked me up to take along anyway. When I got myself up from that, the third dropped directly on top of me.
(The other lesson was that water depth is very difficult to judge - you've got a nice wave to ride because of water pulled in from shore, which makes your landing area shallower than it was when you waded through it).
I also took some time to drive up the road for provisions - a little bit of fresh fruit, and lots of sandwich fillings. While wandering through that mall, I came across a Koi pond - yet another lost memory of my childhood visit to the islands.
Surf may be interesting tomorrow - high surf alerts in effect until Tuesday. On the other hand, I want to do volcanoes too (not close by), so I may give the surf a day (and my skin a second break from the sun - I'm due to molt shortly in any case).
Kona
Friday I returned the car to the airport, and puddle jumped on go!Mokulele over to Kona. Lots of downtime in the airport. Discovered that somewhere along the way my suitcase gained six pounds, and also snapped part of its frame or something - one wheel is no longer correctly aligned, making it hard to roll.
Kona is deep into earth tones - lots of brown rock, with very blonde grass, and white rock graffiti - I haven't checked on the rules, but it appears that the locals leave various memorials written using blanched rocks from somewhere or other amid the more natural brown.
Checked into my room, and while I think the "full ocean view" part is questionable, on the whole I'm really happy with the room. One memory I had forgotten was hotel rooms designed to carry breezes through them - here, I have that, with a breezeway door I can close instead of the main door, and then the screen doors on the balcony.
Two surprises for me at the hotel - you get to it by turning landward off the highway (the drive doubles back under the road to the beach) and the lobby is on the 8th floor, with the hotel growing down from there to the beech below.
Where was I
Uwe! My last update was in Waikiki.
My original plan had been to stay in Waikiki for 6 days, but because the hotel was filled up with bridge players. So I arranged a car, and a few nights at Turtle Bay Resort.
The drive was outstanding. Rather than driving there directly (which isn't such a bad choice either), I went south from Honolulu to Aina Haina, and then up the east coast of the island. The skies were perfect, the shoreline has a number of nifty small islands just off shore, and of course on the shore side you have these enormous slopes - you are basically driving just above the beach, between a very green rock and the surf. I pretty much took all day to get there, and it was a day well spent.
[more ]Dessert
The coconut cake with the vanilla sauce was excellent, but the lilikoi mousse cake was insanely awesome.
Honolulu Zoo
They weren't cows inside. They were waiting to be, but they forgot. Now they see sky, and they remember what they are.
That quote came immediately to mind while looking at the sunbears at the Honlulu Zoo. Those aren't bears, they are merely bear shaped things that have forgotten how.
I retraced my steps from yesterday, walking along Kalakaua Avenue to the zoo. 1.8 miles each way is much more manageable than 4.mumble, and sneakers are a much better choice than shoes.
Again, I'm astonished by the numbers that are shopping in Waikiki. Both in terms of the number of pedestrians who are carrying bags from international shops, and by the economics - you fly four hours to the middle of the Pacific to buy goods that were also flown four hours to the middle of the Pacific, so that you can carry them home with you? Does it really make sense to buy goodies manufactured in China when you are in Hawaii, as opposed to when you are in Japan?
On the other hand, the other tourists see me walking around the streets and say to each other "Why is that gaijin wasting the day walking around Waikiki? He hasn't even done any shopping!" They may be onto something - this is, after all, Waikiki, and there are other places in Hawaii to not shop.
The zoo no longer matches my memories, nor those of my dad. He particularly recalled a lift that would bring you up to eye level with the giraffen, and I have this memory of little periscopes so that five year olds might see over the fence and into the habitats, but neither was in evidence today.
Leonhard Euler taught us that you can't tour the zoo in a single path, and for no better reason than that I missed the lions and the komodo dragons. I also seemed to have passed a cheetah exhibit without noticing it.
Evidence suggests that the ostrich hen is in season, so when I do the transfers you may get to view some big bird porno. It's not the most efficient process, although ladies might rightly point out that the male doesn't seem to have a lot of stamina either.
The african aviary actually has a few cats in it, to keep the birds on their toes and produce a more natural experience for the viewer....
As I passed the chimpanzee pit, the tour guide going the other way was explaining that the chimpanzee dressing room is decked out like an "Austin Power's lounge." I'm disappointed - I figured a species smart enough to throw its own shit would have better taste in movies.
The Gharial were in a mellow mood - one was hanging out with jaws wide open over the water, a second was in the water with his snout on the shore, and the third was just lounging with his head completely submerged.
At six inches from a crocodile stare, you can hear Quint's monologue about a sharks lifeless eyes. This one allowed me a single picture through the glass before he sank below the surface.
Crabby
Thought I did a decent job tracking the local fauna today, although the pictures will have to wait.
Some highlights.
1) Walking out one of the breaks, I happened to notice some young gar, and shortly thereafter a trigger fish, presumably a reef trigger fish, which is to say a Humuhumunukunuku-lots-of-vowels, and a few butterfly fish. No photos - I wonder what my options are for a water camera. On the other hand, do I really think I can get better pictures that what's available on Google?
2) Crabs are camera shy. I may have some decent pictures, but no closeups. The cybershot has its limits.
3) Guide to identifying things in the surf: if it's big enough to see, and slow enough to see, it's a plant. If it is stationary, it's a rock. Fish in the shoals want nothing to do with you.
4) Barefoot in the sand, sandles in the surf. Avoid cutting your hands on the barnacles if you slip.
Diamond Head.
After my morning exercise (set to the tune of some truly miserable football by New England), I strapped on my flip flops to hike the beach to Diamond Head.
Mistakes:
1) Not verifying how far away it really was - or for that matter, how I would locate it from the surf.
2) Not checking the bus schedule.
3) Failing to realize that flipflops were not the footware I would want for the return trip.
4) Not verifying how to locate my hotel on the way back.
Outbound, I took a break at Kapiolani Park. Not a problem for its own sake, but because I spent so much time there, on the return flight I had myself convinced that was "almost home". Ugh. Given how my feet and legs feel right now, I probably should have hopped onto the #8 bus as soon as I found one. Fortunately, I remembered that the one thing I didn't want to do was cross Ala Wai.