Hawaii - October 02, 2003

Today the in-laws arrived from Taiwan. Their flight was scheduled to arrive at 6:00AM, so rather than awaken Michelle and haul her down to the airport, one of us decided to go. Chu-Wan was the logical choice, so I got to stay at the hotel and sleep in - hopefully, Michelle would do the same.

It didn't happen that way, of course. Michelle woke up moments after Chu-Wan left, so I took her for a walk on the beach. For once it wasn't very crowded and it was hard to imagine a nicer place at that moment. Michelle was on her best behavior, too. She had a big smile and a wave for everyone we passed.

With her in the stroller, I circled the park twice, once for fun and the second time to retrieve her shoe, which she'd thrown off on exactly the far side of the park. While circling the park, I realized that the early morning hours were dominated by surfers coming out for the morning, and they really do give the "hang loose" hand gesture to each other as the drive around.

We returned to the room to discover Chu-Wan has returned with her parents, but instead of the expected welcome, Michelle was terrified of them. Not exactly the granddaughter-grandparent reunion we'd planned.

After they'd rested, we checked out and headed to see Diamonhead on the inside. It was closed for construction. As an alternative, we tried to find Tantalus mountain, high up in the high-rent district of Honolulu. Although we kept climbing up and up and up, we never really found what we were looking for, but we certainly did get a great view of the city.

With time running out, we went to the airport and caught the inter-island flight to Hawaii.

Flying into Kailua-Kona, the first site of the island of Hawaii is not impressive. Whereas Oahu is pretty much exactly what one might expect after watching years of Hawaii 5-0 and Magnum P.I. the island of Hawaii proper is something quite different. The western coast of Hawaii, like Oahu, is literally a desert island. Scrub brush and mesquite line the barren ground. To make matters worse, the airport lies on a lava flow giving the appearance of complete desolation.

Hawaii is the youngest and largest of the Hawaiian islands, Although standing in the wings is Lo'ihi, a new underwater volcano some 20 miles south of Hawaii that will someday rise above the surface and become the newest island.

Hawaii's relative youth means that it has not eroded away like the other island, and the island is really a series of 5 massive underwater volcanic mountains. The tallest being Mauna Kea, which rises 30,000 ft from the ocean floor. This makes it taller from base to summit than Mt. Everest. (No fair counting from the ocean floor, you say? 13,796 feet of that is still above sea level, making it a tall mountain no matter how you look at it.) Not to be much outdone, at 13,677 ft tall, Mauna Loa is only a few feet shorter than Mauna Kea, but it's gentle volcanic slope gives it massive volume. The height and size of the mountains keeps most of the rainfall away from the western side of the island.

We decided to upgrade to a mini-van and headed on our way to our timeshare, located somewhat south of the town of Kailua-Kona.

Up till this point, I'd had no experience with timeshares, but I must say, it's a very nice way to stay on vacation. This was the Holua Resort run by Shell Vacations. We had a full, two-bedroom condo, with living room, fully-stocked kitchen and laundry. My only reservation was the horrific lime-green color scheme of the rooms.

Chu-Wan and I had enough time to go out and see the sunset over the ocean, and since Michelle was still terrified of her grandparents we took her along. The management told us there was an observation platform immediately out into the desert to the west of the timeshare, but we couldn't help but be worried about the danger signs on the area, warning us that entering the area without permission was forbidden and we were liable for our own injuries if we got hurt.

What mysterious danger lie in the desert? We ignored the signs and went out anyway, but we never found out what the danger was.

The sunset was perfect.

After dark we went to a nearby shopping area and ate at a Subway. Instead of "Thank You" on the mouths of the garbage cans, these said mahalo, the Hawaiian word for "thank you" . A nice touch, I suppose but I wonder how much it added to the cost of the sandwiches? We also did some shopping. Prices in Hawaii are Expensive. Frozen pizza: $9, Gallon of Milk: $5 How can anyone make enough money to live in a place with prices that high?

On to Day 5 ==>

Oahu - Waikiki at sunrise	Oahu - Waikiki at sunrise	Oahu - Michelle at Kapiolani park	Oahu - Michelle at Kapiolani park	Michelle in Kapiolani park near Honolulu Zoo (Waikiki)
Oahu - Diamond Head	Oahu - Mr. and Mrs. Huang	Oahu - Honolulu airport, Michelle enjoys a scrumptious meal	Oahu - Mr. Huang and Michelle, Burger King, Honolulu International Airport	Hawaii - First sights, the desolate lava flow that is the Kailua-Kona airport
Hawaii - Outdoor terminals at airport	Hawaii - Airport	Hawaii - First Sunset	Hawaii - First Sunset	Hawaii - First Sunset
Hawaii - Michelle and Chu-Wan at sunset