A little format change...

... in recognition of the college football season's commencement. It's no secret that I don't follow sports nearly as much as I used to, but diehard fan or not, we can all get behind Jim Tressel, no? I think we can. If only it weren't too warm here for a good sweater vest. Go Buckeyes.

Turtles my ass

Just some pictures from this weekend. On Saturday I spent the entire day back at Hanauma Bay (see description in previous post). I alternated between reading and snorkeling. The day and water were beautiful as always. Saw some cool fish, and an eel, and did not see turtles (despite people coming on shore talking about all of the turtles they saw). It has to be a conspiracy.

After Hanauma Bay, I took a brief tour along the eastern tip of the island to take some pictures from the cliffs. It's my favorite drive, I think, so I do this a lot (the roadtrip, not the picture-taking). They say, in the winter, that this is a good place to see the humpback whales. Of course, they say turtles are all over the place too, so we'll see about that.





This is Sandy Beach from a distance, the one place on the island I absolutely refuse to swim. There's pretty much no shorebreak, so the waves come in like crazy. The locals love it, and experienced wakeboarders say it's the best place on O'ahu. The keep an ambulance on site, however, and it seems that you're required to, at best, leave with a concussion or dislocated something, and, at worst, with a spinal fracture, so I'm happy to just take pictures from a safe distance.

Some dude who climbed up on the rocks. No idea how he gets back, but it looked cool.

That night, I was inspired to take a picture to demonstrate to my mother that I am in fact tan and look sort of like I actually live in paradise. Of course, you can't tell. All this picture did was show how badly I need to clean my bathroom mirror.

On Sunday, I went to Pearl Harbor to view the memorial. I did it exactly how you're supposed to not do it. Tickets are free, but are first come first served, and I was warned that during peak times, you sometimes have to wait 90 minutes to three hours from the time you get your ticket to the time you get to start the tour. While you're waiting, there's a museum, bookstore, etc. but not three hours worth of entertainment. As such, you're supposed to get there when they open. At 7:00 am.

Well, I was awake at 7:00, but had a lazy morning, spent substantial time applying 2 layers of sunscreen, finally got moving, and realized en route that I forgot to eat breakfast. Not wanting to wait for 3 hours on an empty stomach, I stopped at a diner for a leisurely, lovely breakfast (despite the very drunk man sitting near me). It was 9:30 am.

I finally got to Pearl Harbor, book in tow in case I was bored there for hours, and managed to charm the ticket guy into letting me into the next group that started in 15 minutes (the people in front of me got a ticket for 75 minutes from then). Fine, maybe it wasn't charm, but rather that I was there by myself and he had a single ticket for the next pathetic solo who came along, but that's neither here nor there. I explored the grounds briefly, then lined up.

The tour is in two parts. First, you see a 15 minute film on the attack, then they put you on a boat to take you into the harbor and onto the memorial itself. The movie itself was pretty good. For those who, like myself, pride yourself on the ability to recognize celebrity voiceovers in commercials and films? Stockard Channing (I got that one right away. I looked, but she was never credited).

The memorial itself was nice, but... not my favorite. Perhaps it's the product of living in DC for four years, doing the touristy stuff there all of the time, and therefore having a very high standard for such things, but I was only mildly engaged. Actually, the thing I found most compelling were the aerial video and photos seen in the movies and museum, where you could really tell how the memorial was built over the sunken ship. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed my afternoon and would recommend it to others, it just won't make my favorite monument/memorial list that I apparently have been compiling over the years.

After I left Pearl Harbor, I drove up to the North Shore for a while. I stopped at Turtle Beach. No turtles in sight. I also went to Waimea Bay for a while, then home. Somewhere in between all of that I also cleaned my house, got a pedicure, and watched some tv. Not a bad weekend at all.