Oahu and Big Island

august 4th- from maui island hop to Oahu. i've been to honolulu before so i knew what to expect. crowds? somewhat and again not as worst then what i have at home in los angeles. a metropolitian city. i didn't rent a car in honolulu and i have forgotten how torturing it was to walk hahaha. i'm very much accustomed to drive everywhere. public transportation isn't exactly my way of getting around. sure they've got traffic but again it is not as bad as here, i could bare their traffic. the shuttle took me to my hotel, yes this time i stayed in a real hotel called hawaii prince hotel waikiki. got into my room and holy crap this is fancy for me. a large king sized bed just for me, a very large bathroom (oh my goodness), clean, and the best part was the harbor view of ala mai harbor! awesome! the windows can actually open to get the fresh air breeze too!! wow it was definitely worth the money and to add this hotel wasn't expensive at all. i paid about the same rate for the apartment in maui but this hotel exceeded my expectations. the down part was there is no kitchenette so i had to find food outside. luckily in every corner you will find an ABC store to buy snacks and food. this store is spotted every corner!

august 5th- expedia breakfast orientation. this was a gratis orientation for people who booked the trip w/ expedia. blah blah blah i knew where i wanted to go so i made reservations to see pearl harbor the next day and the last day to island hop to the big island for some volcano action. after expedia's breakfast orientation they had us do a tour of maui jewelers where they give you a tour of how their pearls and corals are made into jewelry like necklaces, rings, and etc. i was bored out of my skull and the lady at the jewelry counter showed me some pearls and corals. again i was bored out of my mind, i have no interest in expensive jewelry when i'm traveling. i proceeded on walking past them as soon as i can and they shuttled me back to my hotel. i didn't go explore their night life in waikiki but i sure did wanted to! waikiki looks like a place to socialize. i didn't know where the bars were and i didn't know if they had live music venues. hopefully my next visit back to waikiki i can experience the night life and see how it differs from los angeles. does waikiki have live music??

i'm feeling lazy to write more. oh my gosh. hahaha.

august 6th- pearl harbor was another memorable visit. i went with a tour and AGAIN i was the only solo traveler. remembering veterans. people from all around the world visiting pearl harbor. big ships, military, death, morbid feeling. names on those walls....morbid. sadness. getting teary eyed. tour guide was fun, hiliarious, and was flirty with me. yeah okay i'll go shopping with you. hahaha. i hope i made a new friend. after we were shown around the downtown area. a clean downtown!

august 7th- my final full day. morning at 5am, i was picked up from my hotel to hop on mokelule airlines(sp?) to fly to big island. made two new friends, a couple from Singapore. the coupled remembered me from the pearl harbor tour. apparently they were in my group and i didn't even notice. it was beautiful...nature is my favorite. weather was gloomy....the storm named Felicia was closer to the big island which probably affected the weather. tour guide was boring, spotted lots of folks fell asleep. we stopped by the "nut house" as the tour guide called it. the nut house (while giggling) was the Mona Loa nuts. we gotten to sample some nuts. After that we stopped by a flower shop. Then we finally went to where the volcanos were and stopped there for lunch. (lunch not provided) The roads to the volcano was not narrow nor bumpy at all which was surprising. i wanted a bumpy, pothole filled, and narrow roads to the volcanoes.

august 8th- Saturday morning i packed up and was very sad to leave............leaving....leaving.....leaving....gotten teary eyed. i don't want to go back to los angeles. noooo.

new friends, beautiful picture-esque places, very cool and good looking hawai'ian natives ohh laaa laaa, and laid-back tourists. i hope to be back in febrary 2010 to meet more people at the travbuddy meet-up. hopefully to experience the night life as well! a bar will do. i'll be sure to bring my going out outfits!