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.

More photos could be viewed in lku99999 Picasa Photo Albums in Google.