aloha from hawaii - day 9, back on oahu island

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Sooo. We reached back on Oahu island again. Okok, this is like, our last day in Hawaii! We didn't rent a car and had intended to take a cab to the hotel but upon arrival we realised that the cabs are freaking expensive. So we decided to rent a car instead, from Advantage. Pb called and then we went out to wait for the shuttle bus.

While waiting for the shuttle bus we saw this Roberts Hawaii lady ushering people to the Roberts Hawaii shuttle bus. I've read about it and it's pretty decent, $15 for a round trip or something.. So we hopped on and ignored the stupid Advantage car shuttle which too forever to come anyway.

The stupid bus brought the tourists to every single hotel before reaching ours, and even kinda passed by our hotel to go to others. He probably didn't know that we knew the way, or he just thought that was the easier way. We were fuming when we got off cos we kinda felt bullied just cos we aren't staying in the Hilton or Hyatt. We checked into Aqua Continental hotel again, and got out to buy lunch, before waiting at the Pacific Monarch hotel [which was just opposite our hotel] for a tour bus to come.. We were going to the Polynesian Cultural Center!

fantastic chicken cutlet rice

We reached a lake and had to kayak over in order to reach the center.

Heh heh, no lah. This was in the Polynesian center already. our tour guide Clifton brought us around and explained lots of stuff.. including this following plant whose name I have forgotten.

We did feel kinda cheated cos the "moonlight package" that we bought meant that we couldn't visit all 7 villages! It didn't occur to us, cos our ticket did allow us to visit all 7, but there simply wasn't enough time to do so. Stupid!! To think that we were pretty happy that it fit in with our schedule. Each village takes half an hour and we only managed to do 2. Sian right. Plus the travelling from Waikiki to the polynesian cultural center in Laie also took some time.

First stop: Aotearoa (Maori New Zealand). That's clifton, explaining I don't know what. So what happens is when you go in, the people will figure out if you are friend or foe by doing some intimidating dance thing, sticking out their tongue and all. They made selected tourists do some silly thing and pb hid like nobody's business in fear of getting saboed to do so. Heehee. After a fairly long initiation and determining that you aren't enemy, they invite you into their house. I guess it's the same thing as what the new zealand rugby people do to eh, intimidate their opponents? Will probably get to see the same thing if you go to New Zealand.

There are carvings on the beams of the house, and they are actually the faces of their ancestors.

So basically they sing and dance and throw those balls on strings around to hit themselves such that they make some kinda rhythm.

This is supposed to signify your love and respect for each other. Hee! Actually I made that up cos I can't remember at all. See what happens when you blog more than 1 mth after the actual event. Anyway they got some guest (ang moh) to demonstrate it with a 'Maori guy' and the guest kinda freaked out initially cos he had to er, nose rub with that guy! Haha. But he did it anyway after realising that the guy didn't want anything ahem, more from him.

After the performance, we went to the next land.. Samoa. If there's anything I learnt, Samoans are jokers. At least that's what they portrayed themselves to be! It was really entertaining but silly.. This man demonstrated fire making.. and then he proceeded to stamp them out with his bare feet!

and this joker samoan climbed the tree real fast! Look at his silly expression. He was pretending to be afraid to get down.. haha. They said that, he was gonna leap from one tree to another. Er, obviously he can't do that lah.. And thank goodness he didn't.. It was fun.

That's all we visited. Damn now I visit the website and I realised there are Tahitian dancers that we missed.. I like them! So graceful. We proceeded to our Luau. It's basically a hawaiian feast where you eat traditional hawaiian food like poi (which is starchy, mashed taro/yam), kalua pig (which is cooked in the earth), poke (raw fish), lomi salmon (raw salmon), and haupia (Coconut-arrowroot pudding). There wasn't any alcohol sadly cos this polynesian cultural center was in the Mormon vicinity.

The poi was so disappointing, our Or3 Nee1 is like a million times better! Poi has like no taste. it sucks. the raw fish/salmon, whatever I ate was just scary cos i wasn't sure if it was fresh. And the haupia, if i ate it, wasn't fantastic either. Yes, I didn't exactly enjoy the food there. In fact the stupid coke was decaffeinated [mormons don't take caffeine] so everything pretty much sucked.

But! Our main purpose of coming to the Luau.. to get a Lei! Yes.. the garland of flowers. We really should have gotten one the first day we came but stupid us only got one on the last day.. Haha, better than nothing. It's pretty pretty!

some concert

The guy at our hotel had told us that he prefered Germaine's Luau as opposed to this cos this is really commercialised, and he was damn right. I thought it really sucked and we left after eating, ignoring the performance which was quite crappy anyway.

As we left, we walked right into their booth where they display your photo where you just wore the lei, together with some 'Hawaiian people'.. We decided we had had enough of paying way too much for photos [last day le, very broke leh] so we took our own instead.

aloha!

we had a nice stroll in the souvenir shops, and I don't know what possessed me to buy a cd. Well, I wanted to bring some Hawaiian music back with me.. it's usually pretty soothing and brings you into a Hawaiian mood! I bought a cd by IZ because it had the song 'Over the rainbow/It's a wonderful world' from 50 first dates and i really love it. I later found out that the rest of the songs in the cd aren't so lovable, and are pretty weird. Damn. Waste my $ again.

Next we caught sight of some tikis for sale in a wood carving workshop. I had initially thought they looked pretty scary/ugly. But after a while I began to like them.. And they have meanings to them. The top face means peace and happiness and the bottom means love and happiness. The friendly assistants said they would ship (fedex!) internationally, and throw in a small tiki for us for free.. So we quite gladly took it.

I totally trusted them cos it's fedex. I was so so wrong. Sooo many things went wrong with this order that I feel grossed out thinking about it. I've mentioned about how inefficient Hawaiians can get, and this was the worst experience I had.

When we bought it, they were so nice and they even offered so many things to us. They said they could carve out a message behind for us for free, and also spray the unfinished wood on the back of the tiki for us. They also wrote on the fedex invoice so I felt really safe.

There were loads of warning signs, like how they didn't give a receipt (?!).. but when we went back to ask for one, they gave us a name card instead.. And also, they didn't accept nets so I had to go draw money for it. Sounds like a scam right? But the polynesian cultural center is a pretty commercialised place so I can't imagine it being so dodgy. And it may just be the way they work so, gotta give them some trust right?

So we went back and waited.. and waited.. and waited. We got tired of checking the fedex (we even had a tracking number wheet) and decided to call them up. The guy who answered told us that.. they realised Fedex was too expensive to ship to China. wtf? Ok. I forgive them for thinking that singapore is in China. But still? that's really retarded right? So they should be sending it at least by other means and at least informing us or something right? I mean ok, I also understand that it's expensive, it's probably more expensive than what we paid for the tiki itself [which was why i was happy to buy it] but that is just.. totally.. retarded.

hai. to cut the long retarded story short, we spent a few weeks of phone calls to bug the fella to ship it, endured lots of stupid excuses from him, and pb did finally receive it. Guess what? There wasn't any message (it was supposed to be Jiafu and Xin'en, Hawaii 2007] and neither was the back sprayed with wood finish. WELL. We are just glad to receive it. :(

After rushedly buying the tikis, we went to watch a polynesian cultural performance which basically consisted of people from the 7 islands dancing around. It was... nice. I especially liked the way they simulated volcano by shining orange lights onto some fountain. It was cool.

aloha from hawaii - day 9 on big island

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

We stayed for a night at the Hilo Seaside Hotel, instead of just taking a day tour and going back to Oahu, because of something off our 'To Do list' in Hawaii that was, of course undone.

checking out of our hotel


the porch, and the hotel cafe

and our TODO: see the island from a helicopter or in this case, a mini airplane! It was kinda rainy and foggy again, so we were pretty worried about not being able to do another of our must-sees because of the weather again.. [like the shark encounter.. sob]

We met our pilot, Anthony (i tink) in the office, and he started checking out the weather on the web.. I thought he was quite cute too huh.. Heehee, dressed in his pilot uniform and shorts. But the Co Pilot pb was even cuter!! haha.. must put that if not later get scolded for swooning over random guys I meet in Hawaii. So he was like, we can start out and do a weather check, if it's not good enough to continue over the mountains then we'll come back and you don't have to pay.

Haha, pretty good right.. even if the weather is bad we still get our chance to fly in a private plane! So we got in, put on our seatbelts and earphones! It got really noisy in the plane, and earphones are a must.. there's also a mic to communicate to each other, and you can hear him reporting the weather, the plane's location and direction every now and then.. really cool. So we flew...

I look damn frumpy here

these are the macadamia nut plantations we were at yday, the taller trees shield the macadamia nut trees from the harsh winds.

Where lava has destroyed the lands


interesting how little dots of vegetation can still survive after being surrounded with lava


the brown parts are ash, from burnt vegetation




looks like they're building something here.. the roads are laid out. Cute right. Oh, by this time he had deemed the weather good enough to continue! YAY!

We reached the active region of the volcano!! See the lava flows.. it goes into the sea and heats it up! This is somewhere near where we went the previous day, just that we didn't have the time to hike here. We were freaking lucky with the weather in fact, cos as we reached here the fog kinda went off a little, enough for us to see.. And yet it is easier to see the lava flows when it is a little darker! Lots of people do hike there, and in the airplane company's office, there was even one of those whisks you use for baking, covered with hardened lava. Interesting right? Can you imagine bringing a whisk to watch lava just to kinda collect it and wait for it to solidify.. Hoho.

These were a little more inland, nearer to the peak of the volcano.

There were lots more photos but about 80% of them suck cos eh, moving on a plane can? Soon we were on our way back and we passed by the falls before reaching the airport again.

It looks pretty short here, but it was an awesome flight. Really enjoyed myself. Anthony not only drove the plane, but he also explained the different areas to us.. and because it is a flight, you get to travel so fast and see so many things in just an hour! Also get to listen to the kind of things they have to report.. haha.. cool.

I felt really awkward about leaving him a tip cos, eh he is a pilot leh! It's like such a respectable job but you still gotta tip him? Feels weird right? So cannot tip too little.. But really appreciated his hospitality, he made it really relaxing and enjoyable.

So after the short flight, we took a cab to the airport [which was just beside the airplane place] to wait for our flight back to Oahu.. We had our breakfast. I was feeling damn broke so I bought some weird sushi thing with fried chicken on top. Pb had his favourite pancakes..

he is such a little boy! There were just 2 arcade games in the dining place and he happily hopped over to play after finishing his pancakes.. -_-"


i liked the hilo airport! so comfortable! Can sleep here man.


aaaand.. we took aloha airlines back.