At the other side of the world: HAWAI’I!!!!!

It was just great! The weather was excellent, 30C, sometimes a bit cloudy. The best part of all was that I could see Patricia again! I was so happy to see her, and be able to chitchat again in Dutch!

I arrived in Hawaii at 1pm and decided to take a quick look of Waikiki before Patricia arrived on this beautiful island.
Everything was amazing around me I loved it. I was so pleased to escape my lab for a few days and just enjoy the nice weather and the good company.
Around 5pm Patricia arrived at the hotel (which was situated next to Tiffany &Co, Niketown, Dior, Gucci, …). We decided to go out for dinner, and found a lovely restaurant above a market with view on the beach.

We decide then to go to downtown Honolulu to visit the first Chinatown of America, the Iolani Palace, Hawaii State capitol, …. We rested out in a park, and then took to the bus to go to the famous Waikiki Beach. That day we tried some Vietnamese soup: Pho, not my thing. That day we also booked a trip to the Polynesian Cultural Center on Saturday and a roundtrip of the island on Sunday.

The Polynesian Cultural Center was beautiful. It felt like we were in different countries in just one day. After visiting a Mormon temple, we went to a Luau. Luau is a big dinner including dancing, eating pig, … all Hawaiian style. We were greeted with a lei (necklace made of fresh flowers). After the dinner, a big show was giving with the different traditional dances of the different Polynesian islands.

After an exhausting day and a short night of sleep, we got out at 6.30am to be ready for our island roundtrip. Still a little bit sleepy, we found ourselves in a bus with a very talky guide. You can say a lot about him, but he knows his plants very well. During that day we saw a lot of amazing places, a few are: Diamond Head, North Shore (with the cute beach boys), Kahala (Beverly Hills a la Hawaiian style), Ko’olau mountains, … We went also to Waimea Valley, which was a large botanic garden.
The guide suggested us to go to a nice local restaurant at Waikiki away from all the tourists. We found out that it was indeed very nice. My chicken was so good but also so much !!!

The next day it was already Monday. Time to put our clothes back into our bags and check-out. Before that, we went for a few hours to the beach. I got myself a pretty sunburn. But that is all right next to all the fun I had have with Patricia. It was a memorable time!

Now it is time to go back to work … and get my master degree!!

By the way, over a month, Patricia and I are going to Vancouver

My parents are coming to visit me next week so that should be fun too. I am looking forward to it.

Photo’s can be found on
http://picasaweb.google.com/tjitskeoenema/HawaiI .

Aloha!