Hawaii Day 6, Waikiki, San Francisco, Calgary

Hawaii, Monday, 2012-2-4

I liked to rent a car and filled in the gaps of our visit in O’ahu, but Ching didn’t want to get too tired because we were leaving this afternoon, We ended up spending time walking in the beach and exploring the shopping district of Waikiki. We were in International Market Place set up under a huge banyan tree. There were food courts offering foods at a better prices. There was a Japanese restaurant with a specialty in Udong noodle. It was noodle in soya bean broth. There was always a long line up probably of its low price of $5 a bowl. Many people in the tour group agreed that it was good only for the first taste. We passed a fast food outlet called Egg’s and Things at 10:00, and there was a long line going all the way to the street..Therefore, there were many tourists traveled on budget.

During our visit, we saw a small number of beggars on the street, and some homeless  sleeping on the bench and lawn on the beach with all their possessions. One of them setting up camp on a lawn very close to the beach. He looked very young and healthy, but he was definitely not happy by his facial expression. Their number was small and I didn’t see why the city didn’t do something to help them. Or probably they liked their life style. I didn’t see any miserable native Hawaiian on the street. I didn’t know if this was because they had a good community supports, or they were not vulnerable on the temptation of alcohol..

We had been assigned to a different room facing the Diamond Head Hill. We saw a lot of trees and green space, but we saw very little of the beach. Therefore, the view was not as good as the one we had before.

We were picked up from the hotel by a guide driving a medium size van with the capacity of over 20 passengers. He stopped to pump gasoline into the car. He didn’t turned the car engine off while he was doing it. The car was full of gasoline smell when we left the gas station. I complain to him, and he remarked that the company bought a used car, and he suggested to me to rolled down the window. The cold wind was blowing on my face as he drove full speed on the highway, but I decided that it would be better to take the chance of catching a cold than breathing gasoline.

We arrived at San Francisco at 5:00 local time the next day. It was very quiet in the lobby. When I looked out of the big window, I saw the bright golden crepuscular  rays  penetrating through a hole in the clouds. This was my first experience of seeing something like that in real. Before, I had seen it only in painting especially the religious painting and was known as Buddha’s Rays or God’s Ray. It must have a very significant meaning for a very religious person for seeing it.

The airplane took off at 7:00. San Francisco was mostly under cloud cover. I was lucky to get openings in the clouds to capture some aerial photos of the city. As the plane flew higher and farther, I saw a distinct multiple layers of clouds and smog in the horizon. Later, I saw a black band on top of the cloud below the airplane, and I could not figure out what it was. I had seen too many caldera and craters in Hawaii, and could not resist of relating a geological feature to a giant ancient caldera.

Later, I saw the unmistakable blue hue of the Rocky Mountain under us. It was covered partly by clouds. And soon we saw the eastern edge of the mountain, and the subsequent plain west of Calgary. It was sub-zero temperature, was very cold and windy when we left, and I was glad that it had turned out sunny and warm when we returned in Calgary.

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Hawaii Day 5, Ioa Valley, Lahania, Kaanakali, Humpback Whale

Hawaii, Sunday, 2012-2-3

The flight took off from the runway going east, and then turn northwest over the Richardson Ocean Park, and gave us an excellent aerial view of the park. and then the whole Hilo Bay.  As the airplane gained altitude higher than the cloud, we started to see the majestic Mauna Kea (4,207 m) wearing a cloud skirt. We could also see the other volcano Hualalai (2,521 m) behind it.  While the top and flank of Mauna Kea was slightly rugged, the Hualalai had the perfect shape of a smooth shield Volcano. 

As we flew closer, we could see the many cinder cones on the flank and the white speckles on the top of Mauna Kea. With the help of zooming, we could clearly see the white buildings to be the Mauna Kea Observatories. The observatory was opened to public, and there was a visiting information center 11 km below the summit to let the visitor acclimate the atmospheric condition before starting the steep climb on the dirt road. Gradually, we saw clearer of the volcano, and found its flank was very rough, and we saw some very large, deep and steep craters.

We flew over ‘Alenuihaha Channel separating Hawaii and Maui islands, and saw two large shield volcanoes in front. They were probably Haleaka and Mauna Kahalawai in Maui. As we continue to fly over ‘Alalakeiki Channel separating the island Kaho’olawe and Maui, we saw the beautiful crescent moon shape Molokini Island, a partially submerged crater. I saw some yachts mooring in its water. 

Maui island was made up by a doublet of shield volcanoes. On the west was the older Mauna Kahalawai (1,764 m), and on the east was the younger Haleakala (3,00m). Between these  two volcanoes lay a broad valley called the Isthmus of Maui. The whole island had the shape of an upper body of a man. Mauna Kahalawai was the small head, and the rest was the torso. The flight entered Maui from its southern Maalaea Bay into the Isthmus and landed at the airport in Kahului in its northern shore. The GPS dongle worked intermittently, and I had the positions of some of the aerial photos

.

The guide today liked to brag of his skill and experience of all kind of sports. Our first stop was the Ioa Valley State Park. We took HW #32 west. It changed name a few times, and was finally called Iao Valley Rd as we enter the valley. Ioa Valley was the widest valley in the eastern flank of Mauna Kahalawai. It was a lust, stream cut valley. In the lower part of the valley where it was wide, the road stayed on the south side of the valley while the Ioa Stream flowed on the opposite side. Toward the head of the valley, it became narrow, the road crossed to the north side of the valley, and we were surrounded by steep and high cliff.

Ioa Needle was the landmark in the park. It was like a giant phallus with a height of 370 m. Actually, it was the end of a thin mountain ridge. The full view of the ridge was not clearly visible behind the Needle. At the top of the trail, we had a good view of the valley and we could see the gentle slope of Haleakala at the opening of the valley. Following the trail, we reached the bank of the Ioa Stream filled with boulders of all sizes. It was peaceful and very beautiful. It had a deep pool and several people were enjoying the cold water in the pool. On the trail, I saw a grove of guava trees bearing the yellow mature fruit. 

We returned by the same road and passed Kepaniwai Park Heritage’s Garden. There were gardens representing Hawaiian, Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Portuguese and other cultures. We then turned south into HW #30 encircling Mauna Kalahui around the western coast of Maui..

The south and the west flank of Mauna Kalahui were on the lee side of the trade wind, and the lower side of its flank close to the shore was very dry and bare. We passed the southern tip of the windmills, and saw many cars parked on a lookout at the ocean side of the road. The guide said that the people were watching whales in the water. The water surrounded by the four islands of Maui: Kahoolawe, Molokai, Lanai and Maui formed a shallow basin with a depth of 100 m which was very preferable for humpback whales. And they like to winterize here from Alaska. He promised that he would stop to let us watch on the way back.

As we continued northward, we saw several narrow beaches on the side of the road. The waves broke a distant away from shore indicating that the beach might be rocky. There were many cars and people on the beach. The guide said that many of them were doing snorkelling. Soon we arrived at the small and busy shopping town Lahania. The harbor was lined with small booths providing services for fishing and whale watching. A large cruise ship was mooring at deeper water. And a ferry was running to bring its passengers to shore. There was a huge banyan tree taking up the space for the whole block. Artists set up their stalls under the tree. The major street was the Front Street, and it was lined with shops and stores mainly for the visiting tourists. We strolled for one hour in this small town with no other attractions but shopping. It certainly was not what I liked to do.

We had lunch in a Chinese restaurant north of the town. The rocky beach across the street offered a good view. We saw many yachts moored in the water, and far behind  them was the smooth shield volcano island of Lanai, and the slightly jagged shield volcano island of  Mloka’i. After lunch, we continued northward. The guide wanted to open our eyes on the beautiful golf course in Kapalua. There were many condos in the golf property. I saw a beautiful red crested cardinal on the lawn in Lahania, and I saw it again on a shrub in Kapalua. It even posted to allow me to take photo with a powerful zoom lens.

We then drove back on the same road and stopped at Kaanapali. We walked through the shopping mall toward the beach. It was much better than that in Waikiki. The beach was wide, clean and without any man-made construction or obstruction. The high rise hotels were not built too crowded, and there was ample space between them. The waves were usually gentle, but occasionally large waves might roll on and break at the beach. But there were not many people on the beach, and we enjoyed wading there, waiting and getting wet by the next breaking wave.

We left after an hour, and were excited at several sightings of the whale from the car. Half an hour later, we arrived at the whale watching lookout, and stretched our necks looking for the water spout or the flapping tail of the whale in the horizon. A whale watching boat was also in the area. I didn’t see any and was disappointedly got into the car 15 minutes later. A member in our tour group was lucky. He captured a photo of a tail flapping in the air. Many people in the car passed the cell phones and cameras asking him to make a copy. 

We stopped at a park or a garden. The guide said that there were many rare trees there. I thought that it might be an arboretum. But there was really not much to see there. Later, I found out that it was the courtyard of Flyin Hawaiian Zipline. I really didn’t understand his motivation for stopping there other than the company policy for trying to get someone interested in zipline adventure.

We were taken back to the airport at 16:40 to catch our flight leaving at 18:30 to Honolulu. That was the end of our tour in Maui. I regretted for not having the chance to see and experience the other more interesting attractions in the island.

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Hawaii Day 4, Richardson Ocean Park, Hawaii Vocanoes National Park, macadania orchard

Hawaii, Saturday, 2012-2-2

We checked out from the hotel very early this morning, and the driver came to pick us up at 6:00 to go to the airport to catch a flight  to Hilo in Hawaii. We arrived at Hilo at shortly after eight and met our tour guide. The rest of the tour group had already waiting in the car, and the only seats for us to take were at the last row.

The airport in Hilo was very close to the city, and we drove east on Kalanianaole Ave to Richardson Ocean Park. We passed the port which had the facility to accommodate a cruise ship. The area around Hilo had suffered many lost in lives and damage in properties by tsunami. Some of the major tsunami occured in 1946, 1957 (8 m high), 1960 (12 m), 1975 (9 m), and in 2011. Some houses were built on stilts against the possible threat of flooding from the tsunami, but the majority had no stilts.

Richardson Ocean Park was just about 5 km east of the airport. The shore was the rugged volcanic rocks, and in many places along the road, waves broke at the rocks not far from or right on shore. The park had many coconut trees and a beautiful garden like lagoon at its entrance, and there were many kayaks on the ground. All of them had a single rig to prevent it from flipping in rough sea. There were many surfers in the water and the wave was about a man height. Most of the surfers laid on their boards and paddled with their hands, and only one surfer used a row. I assumed that one could surf better without having to handle the row.

There was a small black sand beach, and unlike the black beach which I had seen in Indonesia, the sand on this beach was very large, as large as the size of small bean, due to its young age. There were some pahoehoe lava, and it had the appearance of smooth, billowy, undulating, and ropy. It really looked like the intestines or brain. The other  lava was rough and rubbly and was called a’a locally. We also saw large boulder of volcanic origin. There were many tidal pools and we saw the flipper of a sea turtle sticking out from its hiding place under a rock.  

We then returned on the same road toward the city, and stopped at Big Island Candies Factory south of Honolulu Park to see the making of chocolate coated macadamia nuts. The nuts were poured into a bowl of melt chocolate and a worker would then scoop them up one at a time and put them into the packaging tray.

Our next stop was Rainbow Falls in Wailuku River State Park in the northwest of the city of Hilo. There was a grove of very tall mango trees and African tulip trees on the parking lot. We also saw the Hawaii state tree kukui in the parking lot. Its nut had high contents of oil, and in the old day, the local used it as a candle and therefore the tree was also known as the candlenut tree. Later I learned that this tree was very common in Indonesia, and its nut was known as kemini.  Like it was in Hawaii, the nut was used in cooking or used with other vegetables raw. The parts of the tree had many uses, and right now the nuts were turned into Hawaiian nut lei.

The falls was not far from the parking lot, and it flowed out of the rocky bed of Wailuku River over a natural lava cave. It was only about 24 m high. During a high flow season of the river, the falls was as wide as the river, but when we were there it was just a narrow falls and was not very spectacular. However, a narrow section or a whole of a rainbow could always be seen in the mist thrown by the falls. We went up a short trail to see the source of the falls, and saw large and pretty yellow flowers on vine in the shape of trumpet. Later, I found it to be cup of gold (solandra maxima). Farther on, we saw a grove of tall mango trees and large banyan trees. These were trees we saw from the parking lot. The fallen red flowers of the African tulip covered the ground and the trail.

We then have lunch in a Chinese restaurant in Joint Astronomy Center  west of University of Hawaii. It had limit number of choices on its menu, but the price was high. The price for a simple salad bar was $16. We had to make another stop for shopping at Akatsuka Orchid Garden on our way to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park which was the reason that I came to Hawaii. We saw many beautiful orchids there but none of us bought anything. We wasted half an hour of our precious time there. In my view, half of a day had been wasted on things that were not why I came to Hawaii. We had gained an altitude of 900 m, and I could feel the change in temperature.

Hawaii or the Big Island was made up of 5 shield volcanoes, and they were all the product of the upwelling of the molten lava from the hotspot deep in the mantle of earth core. The volcano that we would visit was called Kilauea. It was located in the southeast part of the island, and was the youngest and the most active volcano among the five. It emerged above the sea in about 50 to 100 thousand years ago. It lacked any prominent topography feature, and was seen only as a shield shape dome feature on the flank of the adjacent larger volcano Mauna Loa. It had a distinct and large caldera measuring 4 by 3.2 km and its wall was 120 m high. This caldera was created during the many recent eruptions of Kilauea. During an eruption of a shield volcano, the floor of its  caldera would be pushed up by the pressure of the emerging lave under it. It was then filled with the emerging lava and formed a lava lake. The lava might overflow the caldera or flow out through breaches in the caldera. Toward the end of the eruption, the lava would drain back underground through pit craters or vents and a giant whirlpool of lava might be formed in the lake. The molten lava would eventually returned to the deep underground reservoir where it originally came from, and left the floor of the lake with weak and little support. The floor would eventually collapse under its own weight.

Within this caldera, there was Halemaumau Crater at its southwestern corner. It was almost a circle with a diameter of 920 m and a vertical wall of 85 m high. It was a pit crater of Kilauea volcano and also the center for many of its recent eruptions. The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory was located at the mid-western side of the Kilauea Crater, and the Kilauea Overlook was very close to the observatory. The overlookt was right at the edge of the crater, and was just over a kilometer from the closest edge of Halemaumau crater.

Just outside the eastern ridge of Kilauea Caldera, there was another pit crater called Kilauea Iki. It was a little smaller than Halemaumau. In 1959, a new lava shield called Pu’u Pua’i was formed by the upwelling molten lava under the ground. It erupted and shot up fountain of molten lava hundreds of meters high. The lava flowed into Kilauea Iki crater and formed a lava lake. The lava in the lake eventually drained back underground toward the end of the eruption.

A road called Crater Rim Drive had been constructed around and enclosed Kilauea Caldera and Kilauea Iki Crater. It had a length of 18 km and had several overlooks. There were several long hiking trails on the lava floor. Halemaumau Trail started from the northeast corner of Kilauea Caldera and transverse the floor of the caldera, passed the eastern edge of Halemaumau Crater and ended at the nearby parking lot on Crater Rim Drive at the southwestern corner of the caldera. Another trail called Byron Ledge Trail went south along the eastern wall of the caldera, and then turn west to join the Halemaumau Trail at north of the crater. Kilauea Iki Trail started from the eastern end of the crater, transversed its floor, and passed the foot of Pu’u Pua’i and reached the western end of the crater. I then joined the Byron Ledge Trail by climbing up the wall of the crater and then down the wall of the caldera. 

Another interesting thing to see in the park was the lava tube. During Kilauea eruption, the molten lava found their way pouring down the volcano into Hilo Bay. The outside skin of one branch or  asection of this lava flow gradually cooled down and harden, but the lava inside the core of this flow remain hot and continued to flow until it ran out of the supply of molten lava and became a tunnel. There were probably many of such tunnels transporting molten lava down the volcano to the sea during an eruption.

We arrived at Hawaiian Volcano Observatory in the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park at 13:40, and immediately we walked to Kilauea Overlook to see Kilauea Caldera. The overlook provided an unobstructive view of the surrounding due to the lack of any trees or tall vegetations. Kilauea caldera was huge. Steam was coming out of Halemaumau crater. Like other pit crater, the floor of this crater collapsed and sunk after the molten lava had returned to its chamber, and left a vertical wall around the crater. The Thomas A Jaggar Museum in the observatory had many good exhibitions explaining the characteristics of Kilauea volcano and many related subjects. I knew that there was not enough time to study each one of them, and busy myself just to take the photo of those I found interesting. By the time I left the museum, the rest of the tour group had already anxiously waiting in the car.

We returned to Crater Rim Drive and drove counter clockwise. We stopped at an active small Steam Vent not far down the road puffing steam. The steam was produced by water sipping down on the hot rock underground. Regretfully, the guide didn’t take us to the Sulphur Bank which was not far away. According to the literature, the volcanic mineral deposits and smell in Sulphur Bank was similar to that in Yellowstone. We continued on the road and stopped at Kilauea Iki lookout. We could see clearly the lighter colour trail and the specks of hikers on the floor of the crater. The cracks of the lava near the foot of the wall looked similar to the pressure ridge of ice on a lake. We could also see very clearly the broken surface of Pu’u Pua’i liked the broken crust of a cake. 

We continued on the drive and stopped at Thurston Lava Tube not far away. This tube was discovered in 1931, and was located at the bottom of a crater presently filled with jungle. We walked down a trail and saw many fern trees along the trail. The singing of song birds filled the air but we could not see them. The widest part of Thurston tunnel was about 3 m in diameter, and it was big enough to walk for its whole length of 200 m. Unlike a regular cave, its cross section was uniformly circular all the way from start to end. The wall and floor were wet. It was lighted with electricity but the light was not strong enough to show the texture and features on the wall of the tunnel. And I felt like walking in a giant underground storm drainage pipe. At the parking lot, I saw a tall tree, and a bunch of brown colour fine roots about 50 cm long and 25 cm wide at its widest section was hanging on one of its branch like the aerial prop root of a banyan tree. It was also like a giant Chinese brush. I saw a similar tree when we passed near the southeast corner of Ola’a Forest Reserve on HW #11 on our way to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. And it had several bunches of this roots hanging on the branches of the tree. I wondered if it was a parasitic plant.

Chain of Craters Rd branched out south from Crater Rim Drive at south of Kilauea Iki crater. It ran initially through forest and then mostly in the barren land of lava field all the way to the coast for a length of 30 km. It would pass many craters, lava flows, and offered many beautiful vistas. This was one of the major attractions that I wanted to see on this trip. However, the guide took us only up to Lua Manu just a short distant after we turned into this road. Lua Manu was a small pit crater, and the road had been covered by lava but now had been re-paved. On both side of the road one could see a large field of lava. Surprisingly, we saw ohi'a lehua trees stood up in the black lava field. The guide had repeated many times to warm us not to pick any rocks on this tour or else it would bring bad lucks. However, many of us could not resist the temptation of picking some for  souvenirs.  This was the end of our tour to the national park, and we took the same road back to Hilo.

On the way, we passed the huge macadamia orchard and stop at the store of Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Corporation. For the first time I saw the real macadamia tree. It was about 25 m high, and looked like a lizhi tree. Its flowers were produced in a long raceme 5-30 cm long. Its fruits were round like large dragon fruits and were very hard and woody, and took 3 months to develop. The first crop was produce 5 years after planting from graft, and it took 15 years for a tree to mature. A mature tree produced as much nuts in kilogram as much or more than its own age in years. When the fruit was mature, the outside husk would dry and split, and the nut would drop to the ground. The  harvesting was therefore consisted of collecting nuts falling on the ground. The tree was brittle in nature and must be protected from strong wind. We saw rows of narrowly conical trees had been planted as wind breaker.

We check-in at Hilo Hawaiian hotel at 17:30. It was located on Banyan Drive in a peninsula in Hilo Bay in Hilo where row of large banyan trees were found along the drive. The hotel faced the bay and the Coconut Island, and the view was very pretty. It was also next to a beautiful Liliuokalani Garden and Waihono Pond. The whole set up had strong  flavour of a Japanese garden. It was a nice place to relax and enjoy the beautiful scenery.

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Hawaii Day 3, Hanauma Bay, Halona Blowhole, Pali Lookout

Hawaii, Friday, 2012-2-1

As always, we were at the tour lobby 15 minutes early than schedule but the guide didn’t show up at the pick-up of time of 8:45. Ching was anxious that he might not see us because there were many people in the lobby. We waited for another 15 minutes, and called the tour company. It turned out that the group had left without us.  We were told to wait in our room for their call. Back to our room, I sat in the balcony looking at the beach.  A man in a kayak was approaching the wave breaker trying to get through a narrow opening in the breaker. He lost control, and the kayak was flipped and threw him into the water. The depth of the water inside the breaker was shallow and I saw him stood up in the water pulling his kayak.

We didn’t wait long and received a call that the tour company was sending a sedan to take two of us on a private tour. It certainly was a far better arrangement than yesterday when the company left us in the Pearl Habor doing nothing for 4 hours. We went south along the major Kalakaua Ave and passed the big Kapiolani Park where it used to be the playground of the royal family. The road then became Diamond Head Road running on the foot of the hill. Diamond Head was one of the many cinder cones of the Ko'olau ancient volcano in O’ahu. It was a predominant hill southeast of Waikiki. It was a volcanic tuff cone with its distinct crater, and its name was given by the British sailors who mistook calcite crystals embedded in the rock found in the hill to be diamond. The houses along this road were huge and beautiful. The properties on the water side of the road all had beach frontage. It was the most expensive residential area in Hawaii. We stopped at a lookout at the flank of the Diamond Head Hill watching the beautiful scenery. The waves were much stronger here, and there were many people surfing.

We continued going north and became Kahala Ave. We then turned east on Kalanianaole Hwy (HW #72), and saw the hill in Haha’lone Valley Park north of Paiko Lagoon. Before we turned into the road to Hanauma Bay, we saw Koko Head which was another cinder cone very close to the road. It had a very rugged flank with many deep gulches. On its southwest flank, there was a narrow ridge that ran from its foot to its top. And stairs had been built on it and I saw many people climbing straight up to its top.

We turned into the lookout at Hanauma Bay which was famous for snorkeling. It was originally the crater of a cinder volcano very close to the southwest of Koko Crater. The east wall of the crater had disappeared and the crater became a bay. The beach was at the western foot of the crater and was very beautiful. The lookout was at the western ridge of the crater, and there was stairs going down to the beach. The beauty the bay and its abundance of marine life brought in too many tourists, and  they had ignorantly destroyed the multi-coloured coral reef closest to the beach. Right now, it was under a strict control, and It was the only pay beach in Hawaii at a cost of $7.50 for admission. There was also road along the southern ridge of the crater, but it was not opened to public vehicles. The guide said that Chinese called the hill the Dinosaur Hill because of the shape of the ridge of the crater.

We turned back to HW #72 and continued going north. The road cut through the flank of Koko crater. And we stopped at Halona Blowhole Lookout after only 5 minutes driving. We were high from the water, and the coast was very rugged. There was a hole near the bottom where water would be sprayed high like a geyser at the right combination of high tide and strong winds. There was also a small volcanic vent puffing out some steams. To its immediate south was the little Halona Cove. The water was rough at its entrance, and there was a small sandy beach at its head. Although there was no road to the beach, but people liked to go down by scaling the cliff from the parking lot when the water was calm to enjoy the seclusiveness of the small beach. Further north the rocky shore became a beautiful Sandy Beach. The beach was also known as the Break-neck Beach due to the frequent injuries suffered by the surfers here. It was caused by the closeness of the natural wave breaker to the shore and the bottom was full of sharp volcanic rocks.

As we continued our journey north, the hill became dry and was full of cactus, there must be a significant micro climate in this area. We saw many cars parked on the road west of Makapu’u Point Lighthouse.  Later I learned that in addition to the lighthouse, there were other interesting points in the area. We passed the  Makapu’u Park and saw the Manana Island. The road then became close to the coast, and we saw some more small beaches. We passed a Hawaiian homeland community of Waimanalo, where tourists could find an alternative to the high rise tower accommodations. We then saw the beautiful Ka’elepulu Pond from a hill. The road then merged with HW #61 and we continued westward toward the Pali Lookout. West of the intersection with HW #83, the road became Pali Hwy. We passed the tunnel, and turned right into a side road to Pali Lookout.

Ko’olau Mountain Range had many valleys on its western flank. Four of them were wide,  opened and formed part of Hoholulu. From the north, they were Kalihi, Nu’uanu, Manoa, and Palolo. Nu’uanu was the only valley that broke Ko’olau Mountain at Pali Pass at an elevation of 300 m. The lookout provided an excellent view of the flat land of the eastern coast, and the strong easterly wind was channeled into this pass and blew like in a wind tunnel. When King Kamehameha invaded O’ahu after conquering Maui and Maloka’i from his home island of Hawaii, the defenders led by Kalanikupule were driven up into the Nu’uanu valley, and trapped on the cliff near the present Pali lookout. Most of them died by jumping over the cliff, and their remained were found during the construction of the Pali highway.

As we approach the downtown of Honolulu while we were still on Pali Hwy, we passed the large walled property with the flag of Republic of China. It belonged to Taipei Economic & Cultural Office. This ended the tour of the day.

After having lunch and rest, we explored the Queen’s Surf Beach and the adjacent Kapiolani Park. The beach here was much wider and beautiful. There was a groin and it provided a good view of Waikiki, and the many fish in the water. We had learned that this end of the beach was frequented by homosexual, and we didn't have to look hard to prove it. The park was large and it provided a clear unobstructive view of Diamond Head. There were also big banyan trees with many large trunks grown from its aerial prop roots. We went swimming in the lagoon. It was shallow all the way to the wave breaker, and the water was much warmer than that in the open water. We sat in the balcony, and saw Waikiki bathed in the soft and magical colour of the sunset. There were not many people on the beach in front of the Royal Hawaiian, and there were still many surfing in the water, and sail boats were forming a line returning to the marina.

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