Showing posts with label Oahu. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Oahu. Show all posts

10/11/2015

Oahu - Honolulu

A couple of weekends ago, before the rain, I checked out Manoa Falls here on Oahu.   From the parking lot, it's just less than a mile up to the falls through groves of bamboo and a rocky and somewhat muddy trail.


Well visited by locals and visitors alike, it's not all that difficult and little keikis (local word for children) running ahead of their parents who continued to yell at them to be careful.



Honestly, I pretended to stop a lot to be courteous and let other travelers pass on the narrow trail so I wouldn't appear out of breath.  I was grateful I had brought along my tripod to stabilize myself in fear of slipping on the rocks.  They had gotten very greasy after hundreds of muddy feet had plastered mud on them.


I won't even try to tell you it was the most outstanding thing I've seen on Oahu but it was a better venue  than hanging out with the tourists on Waikiki.


Also, on the trip back, I stopped off at a couple of waysides to get down and visit some small flowing streams.


I had planned on visiting the arboretum near there but ¾ the way down, it began to rain so I opted to speed up and visit the Treetops Restaurant adjacent to the parking lot.  The food was a so-so buffet of Asian/Fusion dishes with some good old mainland bread pudding as a comfort food.

This weekend, I took a tour around the NE side, trying to see if I could find the old Magnum PI TV show location.

Failing to find the home of Magnum and Higgins, stumbled onto several hang gliders working the cliffs.


A couple of them really got off on buzzing the half dozen bystanders positioned by the road overlooking the bay.  While looking toward the sea, you could hear a little breezy sound and look up just in time to see them zip over you.  Sometimes they approached head on.


So, after church Sunday, I felt a little guilty just sitting around at the hotel so I strolled on down to Waikiki to see if it was still there. Sure enough, it was crowded with the usual surfers coming and going, old tourists trudging around in shorts, flowered Aloha shirts and sandals with socks on them.


I know I will not get a lot of sympathy from anyone but the temperatures were in the low nineties with high humidity making the real feel at 103°.

So I headed back to the hotel to sit under the air condition until late in the afternoon when I would go out.  The light will be better for photos later...yes, that's it.  The light's better.

So just east of here is Hawaii Kai.  Nice sunset.






10/08/2015

As fate would have it...

I've had my share of great assignments and quite a few have been in Hawaii.  With that said, I figured my luck had long run out and I'd never see the islands on the company ticket ever again.  So, as fate would have it (thanks Mr. Jones) I find myself on Oahu once again.

It's not that working in San Angelo, Texas and Eunice, Louisiana wasn't some of the highlights of my life but Hawaii...?...it's what dreams are made of.

I've been here about 3 weeks and taken quite a few pictures but somehow my laptop started having issues downloading Windows 10 and I've pretty much been without a function to upload pictures with.  So without deep narratives, I present a quick photo journal of the past 3½ weeks.

After a red-eye flight to Honolulu, I found myself dealing with traffic like no other place I've been unless it was New York or the 605 in Los Angeles.  At least I got a rainbow in the deal.


There's not many places to stay within your budget other than downtown Waikiki, complete with zillions of tourists, street people and more traffic.

The annual Aloha Festival


  Raining on the parade


 I suppose if you're going to be homeless, this is the place. Rare is the night below 60°


  Life in downtown is living in a cube.  A view from my 220 square foot hotel room.


 My first week here, the place was swarming with tourists but over the recent week, they have thinned out a bit.


 Getting away from Waikiki, you can find less people


 Or strolling around later at night.  Here's the marina where the Ala Wai meets the harbor


 Looking toward Diamond Head at dusk.


  I always love a slow drive around the island.  This time it was counter clockwise.  Who knows, next week I might go for clockwise.


 It has been said that the best food on Hawaii is the after taste of the peanuts from the flight over.


 The place is synonymous with surfing so I spent last Saturday afternoon on the northeast side watching the surfers

 Waves crashing on the lava rocks


  More waves, more rocks


 More surfers.  He looks happy enough.


Later on, I'll upload my trip up to Manoa Falls.


1/13/2008

Banzai Pipeline..2008 Backdoor Shootout


Saturday night, I put Ms Darlene on a plane in Honolulu headed for New Orleans. She's been with me from the get-go since flying in here on Christmas day so I'll miss having her around. She's been a jewel at finding deals on hotel rooms and reasonably priced joints to eat in. Were it not for some chain restaurants, the best food here would be the after-taste you had in your mouth from the last meal on the mainland.

She usually spent the day out on the beach and parks watching people and shopping (not much buying) while I fought traffic sometimes for an hour and a half each day to and from work. To us, the attitude, culture and ambiance of Honolulu and Oahu are entirely different from Maui.

Yesterday, we went out on the North Shore to the Banzai Pipeline and watched the 2008 Backdoor Shootout . The sand was very loose so I dug my tripod in and squeezed off a hundred or more shots. Here I was with a pretty decent camera but felt oh so small when the pros came out with those big nasty Canon lens that made mine look like a dime store cheapy.







The waves were thundering, the sun was bright
and there was a modest crowd there on the beach to watch as jet skis / wave runners waited to tow the
surfers
if necessary.



( You can click on the pictures for a larger view )


Although the waves were not the legendary 30 footers, many were at least 20 feet.





Just when we decided to leave, Darlene looked over at the BodyGlove tent and lo and behold, David Hasselhoff was there getting his beauty struck with the local girls and they were all over him like flies a dead fish on the beach. He's the guy who was on Knight Rider and Bay Watch .
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hasselhoff - you remember the red bathing suits).







After some of the commotion eased a bit and the girls stopped accosting the man, and the Hoff
sauntered down the beach to where the news and camera people were hanging out.







We left shortly after and was headed out when we ran face to face with him and Darlene thought it would be a wonderful idea to get a picture taken with him, so she hit him up as he came out the gate.
He mumbled "yes" and so fired off a couple of shots of him and Ms Darlene.

The whole encounter probably lasted no more than 10 seconds and realizing Mr. Hasselhoff had more pressing things on his mind, we thanked him and dismissed ourselves as he went his way and we went ours.

That's it from this rock in the Pacific.