Adventure-packed first day! We studied Oahu Revealed before coming and had a rental car lined up for our first day when we arrived. We dropped our stuff at the hotel and headed for "Spitting Cave".
There's a well-to-do neighborhood on the S.E. side called "Portlock". Between one giant house and a giant cliff-side lot (for sale, yours for only 3.7M USD) is a steep path leading to lava flow cliffs. Under the cliffs, a cave has been carved and when waves surge into the cave, the water has no where to exit and is shot out overtop the incoming surf directly backwards. It's loud, forceful, impressive. We got some pictures, I'll upload when we're back.
Next stop: some blowhole. Dinky.
Third stop: "Dragon Nostrils". This was the most exercise of the day. I learned during last year's Maui trip that the most memorable experiences are the ones that take work. This one was 500-600' of climbing up a paved path, then 200-300' of scrambling down a steep wall to... the dragon nostrils!
This part was awesome in the original sense of that word. We're standing on lava rock, but beneath us is the surf... the ocean has worn the cliff wall into a shelf. When big waves push under the shelf, the air and water are forced up through three or four small holes. The sound of the air rushing in and out of these holes is like the T-Rex in Jurassic Park. Well-named, these are.
After this, we found Yogurt Momma--a just-opened self-serve tart frozen yogurt spot. The craze has even reached here. Delicious. I had Captain Crunch on mine.
We drove along the H3 highway--a 16 mile stretch of road costing 1.6B USD to make over 30 years. It's very beautiful. It reminded me of a scene from Halo 3. Not sure what that says about me.
We tried to visit Pearl Harbor, but we missed the deadline (last tour leaves at 3pm... we were there around 6pm).
The day ended watching fire-works on the Regency floor of the Hyatt. For you normal people, that's the special floor that special people (who stay in hotels a lot) get to stay at. Free crackers and finger foods. We made dinner out of this :-)
This year introduced some new technology in explosive theater. We gave the different types of fire-works names. For reference:
* Upside-down jelly-fish
* Warp-speed
* Multi-color birds
* Flowers
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