Honolulu Gazette

This is one of the several "professional" photos the tourists destinations take at the beginning of each adventure and then sell to you at the end for $10-$20. Nevertheless, we thought this one was really cool (and the proceeds go to support the memorial). These are supposed to be some of the real headlines from the papers in 1941. It has a back side also with war photos and even a Spam add, for some reason I had trouble scanning that side.



Believe it or not, there are still more photos to post (even of just the good ones, not ALL of the photos we took), so keep checking back, I'm hoping to get them up soon!

Sunset Dinner Cruise

In the evening following our waterfall hike we went on a sunset dinner cruise, which turned out to be great! We were all a little unsure about eating and walking around on a moving boat (and the water was quite choppy!) but we quickly got used to it and had a great time. Bonus, we even got to see a whale! The photo was really dark because it was right at dusk, but Greg worked some magic and lightened it up enough so you can see the flipper splashing. We were so lucky we happened to be standing right there when it appeared.

Still more photos to post tomorrow!

Manoa Falls Waterfall Hike

The first real excursion we did in Hawaii (other than explore our hotel & Waikiki) was to go on a hike to the Manoa Falls - it was amazing! This was definitely one of my favorite parts of the trip. Although the hike was muddy and little more tricky than I had imagined, it was so beautiful and it felt great to be out walking in the middle of a rainforest!

Doesn't it look amazing?! The photos don't even do it justice. By the way, a countless number of movies and tv shows have filmed in this very place!

Luau

Ok, so our original plan was to do a sunset dinner cruise on Valentine's Day and do the hotel's luau another day. Well, the dinner cruises were all booked for Valentine's evening, and the hotel's luau was temporarily not available either. So, that left us doing the Paradise Cove luau for Valentine's Day, sounded good enough. For reason we both had in mind this intimate luau setting on the beach (thanks to every tv sitcom that has ever done a Hawaii episode), but thats not exactly what was in store. After a delay with the buses and the herding of all the people to travel to a different area of the island, we finally arrived at Paradise Cove with 1,800 of our closest friends. Literally, there were 1,800 people at this thing! There was a lot of waiting around with little games and shows which we weren't really into, but we did get some good photos and the after dinner (no, there was no whole roasted pig in sight) the show was actually pretty entertaining. Overall it was a really long evening that wasn't exactly as we had hoped, but nonethelss now we can officially cross "luau" off of our Hawaiian to-do list.

Even though the luau wasn't exactly what we had expected, we still a wonderful first Valentine's Day together!

Hilton Hawaiian Village

We absolutely loved staying at the Hilton Hawaiian Village (thanks mom!). The place literally has everything. Let's see, Louis Vuitton, Coach, ABC Store, Benihana, Tori Richard, Na Hoku Jewelry, just to name a few of the retail establishments on site, not to mention the pools, restaurants, flamingos, penguins, activities, and of course, the beach!

Pearl Harbor

We loved our tour of Pearl Harbor. Thanks to our bus driver Julius for the recommendation of submarine tour, it was great. Wow, it sure is small down there! We are convinced they must have chosen the crews based on height, Greg could barely fit down there. Enjoy the slideshow!