week in oahu

our flight left california 30 minutes late due to one of the baggage security scanners breaking down, but then we ended up in honolulu 3o minutes early!  we were pretty hungry after the plane trip (no food served on 5 hour flight but for round trip tickets for 2 to hawaii for less than $600 (ata airlines) 

so it's off to iolani palace.   you can't go inside the actual palace without first purchasing at least the self guided audio tour, which made it feel like a tourist trap. the palace itself is interesting to look at, but i found the audio tour to be quite boring.  it felt that each room you can only look at for so long before it loses interest, but in the meantime the audio clip is still going for another 3-5 minutes.  i ended up skipping a lot of the clips and just looking at the palace itself.  still a nice place to visit.

aloha tower wasn't at all what i had expected.   there was a cruise ship docked nearby that look almost as tall as the tower.  did get some really nice views of the harbor though.

stopped at the walmart in mililani to pick up a few things we forgot to pack.  discovered it's the cheapest place to buy macadamia nuts and some souvenirs as well.  come on... it's walmart!

drove by the dole pineapple plantation and saw it teeming with buses and tourists galore.   heard it was another tourist trap rip off and we were running a little late and already ready to get to grandmas house and unpack so we decided to skip it.  maybe next visit but i doubt it.

my grandma lives practically across the street from the "three tables" which is part of the pupukea beach park.  three tables got it's name from the 3 small reefs which are right off shore from the beach.  took my girlfriend there to practice snorkeling for the dolphin swim the next day, as she'd never gone snorkeling before.

all that swimming and we were too tired and not really that hungry to go to jameson's to have dinner.  hmmm i don't even think we ate for the rest of that night.