Aloha Oah'u!

We recently traveled to Oah'u where Dan was a FEEGI (Forum on European Expansion and Global Interaction) conference chair of a panel. Upon arrival we checked into the conference center on University of Hawai'i at Manoa's campus then walked to Waikiki where we had an early dinner at the Halekulani Hotel. We dined on the lanai at the best table in the restaurant with a stellar view of Diamond Head, the volcanic cone on Oah'u. The food was outstanding and the company splendid.

Dan and Mary posing in front of Diamond Head after our meal

 The next day Dan and I were both up bright and early, he headed off to work and I went to explore campus and the surrounding neighborhood on foot. I found a delightful bakery for breakfast, enjoyed a mani/pedi, bought some apple bananas and Hawai'ian goodies to take home to Claremont, and explored campus. I also did a fair bit of bird spotting (inspired by my birdie relatives - I'm looking at you Pat, Moe, and others!).

I spotted lots of colorful birds - this one was especially cute!

Dan's conference was hosted at the East-West Conference Center and the building and grounds were first rate.

Conference Venue - Japanese Zen Garden (photo courtesy of Dr. Warsh)

 After the first day of conferencing the University of Hawai'i president opened up their home for a reception on the Lanai - it had a stunning view of Diamond Head and we enjoyed appetizers, treats, and refreshments while watching the sunset.

U of H President's House (photo courtesy of Dr. Warsh)

 The conference attendees looked at the panels and beyond them was the beautiful Japanese garden with koi pond, tea house, and mongoose running around!

Prof Dan hard at work (photo courtesy of Dr. Warsh)

On the second day of the FEEGI conference while Dan worked I navigated the bus system. I took the terrific bus to Pearl Harbor where I learned a lot about Pearl Harbor. For example, did you know that before the current memorial was built there was a semi-permanent concrete block buoy with an American flag on it memorializing the attack. It was decided, in 1958, that they should build something better so they needed to fund raise $500,000 for the project. After over a year of fundraising the project had only raised $155K dollars. The King, Elvis Presley, heard about this and decided to host a benefit concert in Oah'u raising $64,000 for the project and bringing the memorial into the news. Read more in this interesting article: https://news.usni.org/2016/12/07/elvis-helped-save-uss-arizona-memorial

Another interesting Pearl Harbor fact I learned was that the designer of the memorial, a Hawai'i resident, Alfred Preis, was actually a detainee during WWII due to his Austrian birth. None of my photos do it justice, but the boat ride to the spot of the USS Arizona was a moving experience and I thought that it was a really well done memorial.

After my touring was over I strolled over to an excellent restaurant where I overlooked the water and ate pulled pork oah'u style nachos and a pineapple mocktail. :) After lunch I bused it to Waikiki where I strolled through the art fair that was going on in a beach side park. I bought some goodies, enjoyed a smoothie in the shade then headed back to freshen up at our hotel room.

Dan and I meet up after his conference was over and we had a bite with other conference attendees before heading to Waikiki where we scored a cabana on the lanai at the beautiful Royal Hawaiian Hotel (the OG Waikiki hotel - it was a wonderfully well-appointed hotel. The lobby was stunning).

The next morning we checked out of our conference hotel then hit the road to the North Shore where we had plans to lay on the beach and relax in our beach rental.

Cool rivlets along the shore

 We stopped in the Piko (belly button) of Hawai'i for an uninspiring lunch on Lake Wilson in the pouring rain. We thought about stopping at the Dole Plantation, but as it was raining buckets we decided that we would just view the fields from afar as we drove by.

We checked in to our terrific Air BnB on Sunset Beach then had a quiet dinner at home before hitting the next day running.

We drove to the Waimea Valley Botanical gardens where we learned about culture, did some bird peeping, and did a nice hike to the waterfalls.

Dan and I had fun playing this version of checkers with nuts

This beauty turned to pose for me just as I was capturing them on film

Endangered 'Alae 'Ula - around 1,000 survive and we spotted one!! Wheeee :)

These are weapons made with shark teeth

After the Waimea Valley Botanical gardens we swam, watched surfers and ate an incredible dinner at the food trucks - Dan had a Mexican poke bowl and I had fish tacos (we both agreed that this was our favorite meal of the trip) washed down with a tropical smoothie.

The next day we borrowed the beach cruisers and cycled down the coast to the WWII Pillbox hike across from Pipeline Beach. As it had been raining quite a bit in the two days prior the hike was quite muddy but Dan was handy enough to find us a couple walking sticks and we made it to both pillboxes where the WWII soldiers used to point their guns to the ocean and monitor the Pacific for attacking planes or vessels.

Peace!

Then we biked up the coast to Ted's bakery for their famous chocolate waimea pie and lunch, then back to our place where we borrowed the snorkel equipment and did some swimming. There was filming going on at the beach we were at - a German soap opera!

Then we drove up to the fancy Turtle Bay resort where we watched surfers on the lanai at sunset, shared poke made table side and were even given a delicious "Happy Anniversary" dessert as we are celebrating our 10th anniversary this spring!

Happy Anniversary to this handsome devil and here's to many more!

Mahalo for reading!

Aloha for now!