Mele Kalikimaka!/Merry Christmas!

I'm back! I decided that staying would not suit me just yet, lol. Actually, I did miss home and was tired of hotel living so I decided to stick to the plan and caught my flight home yesterday, like a good "honorary Hawaiian". Ula, my new corner basket weaving friend granted me honorary Hawaiian citizenship after a pleasant chat and my decision to buy the biggest little basket that could fit into my suitcase. He handmade it right there on the spot for me. It's made of Taro leaves and he promises that if I take care of it, it will last for years. I'll take a picture of it and post it soon. It's the best souvenir I bought and, despite the 80 degree humid weather, it was the warmest feeling I got during my stay.

Anyway, you KNOW I took a kajillion pictures (302 to be exact) so I won't be posting them all. Just a bunch of my favorites. We stayed from Sunday afternoon (3pm) until Wednesday afternoon (2pm) and did quite a bit of living in that time. A quick run-down of the places we visited (larger, more detailed blog entry to come):

Waikiki Beach

Dukes Restaurant and bar on the beach

Bernice Bishop Museum of Hawaii (FABULOUS! Rich with Hawaiian culture)

The town of Haleiwa on the North Shore

Halona Blow Hole

Hanauma Bay

Diamond Head (inactive volcano)

Turtle Cove (actually in the middle of the ocean! EEK! Our tour guide told us AFTER we got out of the water that tiger sharks sometimes eat our turtle friends :( And if they'd decided they wanted to eat us, it would have been lights out instantly. We wouldn't have even seen it coming since they like to ambush their prey and we swim like pansies. I have serious respect for ocean swimmers! Especially "T". I can't pronounce his name but boy was he HOT and could swim his Hawaiian ass off *swoon. After almost every sentence he said "eh". I was completely captivated but tried to keep my drooling under wraps. More about him and the turtles and our horny captain and the Italian girls later)

Pearl City/Pearl Harbor

The US Army Musuem (got a chance to teach my boy about black WWII hero Dorie Miller, Rosie the Riveter, and a bit about the Renaissance starting in Paris after WWII black soldiers decided not to return home, and black roles in the military at that time (mostly menial due to racists beliefs that we couldn't fight, etc. and despite all of our accomplishments it still took years for the military to be integrated. Albeit, the military was integrated before the south was).

Macky's and Giovanni's world famous shrimp trucks (YU UM!)

We didn't want to live like tourists but we sort of couldn't help it, in a way. This trip has inspired me to learn more about Hawaiian culture and history. In the beginning, I felt like I had landed in Japan, or took a roundtrip ticket back to Santa Monica, CA rather than to an island in the Pacific. Asian's and whites have truly taken over Hawaii, almost to the point where it's unrecognizable (from what they show on tv, that is). Waikiki Beach is NOT the place to go if you'd like to experience Hawaiian culture, in my opinion. Anyway, I said I'd make this entry short-ish so I'll stop here and just post some pictures. You came for the pictures anyway, I'm sure. WARNING: These photos DO NOT do this place justice at all. But enjoy! More to come!

The town of Hale'iwa, plate techtonics at work near Diamond Head, & our "front porch" in Waikiki

An old Hawaiian man chopped off the edge of this little coconut w/ a hatchet, dug a hole w/ the tip, stuck in a straw for me, and voila! coconut milk on the run :)

This is what I call a SUNDAY DRIVE! This was taken directly from our rental car windshield



This shrimp, sauteed in garlic and butter was simply magnificent. I'm going to try to make it at home as soon as I can.

These cute little darlings put on a performance of "Hawaiian Santa" for us. See the video below.