Kelowna, Canada 27.3.2015
After the Samoan paradise it was time to move on to one of the most famous holiday places in the world, Hawaii. We would spend there two weeks. Johannes was very excited for travelling to the USA first time ever.
After landing Honolulu we were almost disappointed how quickly and easy we passed customs and immigration, no problems there. Not that we had anything illegal with us. Hawaii consists of eight islands. Almost one million people of the state's 1,5 million population lives in Oahu. As the state's capital city Honolulu.
We arrived in the night, but buses to the tourist area Waikiki worked fine. We were surprised of the chilly air because it was "only" around 25 degrees. We also noticed quite quickly that it was full of Japanese people and almost all the signs had Japanese texts. Another thing was the amount of American tourists since we had met only few of them previously on our trip. The question "Where are you from?" had as answer a state of the US, not a country of the world.
Waikiki Hilton offers firework show every Friday.
Before the trip we were thinking to do most of plans on the road. On the road we found out that usually there's not much time to do that, and like in Samoa, there were no wifi anywhere. The fact that we hadn't planned anything was a bit bad in Hawaii. Waikiki had only few hostels and even it was low season they all were almost full / full. We ended up changing hostels five times and changing rooms also inside the hostel. The longest time we had in the same place was three days, otherwise we moved around. This was time consuming and stressful but we had time so it was worth it. We saved a lot of money by changing hostels/rooms/dorms.
Everybody told us that we will not experience real Hawaii if we did not leave the main island. The only way to go to other islands was flying and tickets one way started from 80 USD. If travelling to other islands it is good to plan ahead because now we tried to organise a trip but everything seemed full and expensive. So we decided the best is to use the money to do something we always wanted to. When travelling every person have its own opinion and idea of the way people should discover and travel but it is vital to remember always what interests you most. We experienced Hawaii which has a tourist area where everything is clean and safe but also a surrounding area which is like any American place. Homelessness (out of Waikiki) was remarkable and we heard that some states governments in mainland US give to homeless people one-way tickets to warmer Hawaii. Then the problem moves away from sight.
Oahu was full of activities that ranged from economic to expensive. There is practically everything. We tried scuba diving, jumping from the airplane and surfing. Waikiki was good for surfers on smaller waves. Never the pay the real price because there all pleanty of discounts in the city ads and websites so one can get even -50%-75% off the original price. Our scuba was practically free since we paid half of Asian prices and dived with fishes, turtles and rays.
Excited first time divers!
This time we jumped from the airplane. Monica jumped first!
One day we took the bus and visited the pineapple plantation of Dole. It was a huge place full of American tourists. For us there was sightseeing in just looking at other people. The pineapple was so good but more expensive than in the grocery shop. We took a train tour of the plantation that was corny :D
Pacific Memorial Cemetery & Sailor Jerry's grave. Johannes with his new Aloha-shirt.
View from the cemetery of Honolulu city.
North Shore Pipeline waves.
Small pineapple @Dole's.
Street art in Honolulu.
We met nice people in different hostels to hang out with. But also few very strange that have pleanty of money but were very special, diplomatically speeking. Hawaii has everything.
Hawaii was the most the most expensive place we had been so far. It felt nice to be there since we never thought of visiting it. It has own charm :)
