Luau!

The fire dance is always the highlight of any show at any luau

Dinner tonight was a traditional Hawaiian tourist luau.  All the essentials were included in the package.  Roast pork.  Poi.  Pineapple upside down cake.  Hula girls in dance skirts with audience participation in a couple of the dances.  All the great tourist traditions of the 50th State.

It all starts with getting the pig up out of the barbecue pit on the luau grounds.  Large men in native garb are part of this part of the tradition.

Actually, the luau started with an adult beverage.  A mai-tai.  This was an open bar luau.  The mai-tai was good, but then I heard the bartender telling another luau-attendee that he could mix up his mai-tai with bourbon instead of rum.  So I ordered a bourbon mai-tai or three.  An upgrade.  The above photo is the part where they remove the banana leaves that had been covering the pig meat during the cooking process.

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The meal was very good.  Food was plentiful and the bar was quite open.  The pork was flavorful, moist and tender.  There was salad, ahi poke (ahi tuna sashimi with onions) (quite good), pineapple, steak, a nicely-cooked white fish of some sort, rice, a dessert bar.  And a food blogger who neglected to get any photos of the food.

After dinner, when the sun had already set -- this was billed as the "Sunset" Luau so of course a sunset features prominently -- the light was dimming and the show started.

The highlight -- of course -- was the fire dance.

It was too dark and the fire-dancer was moving too fast for a clear shot, but the fire in motion made for a great picture.

And with that, the fire dance and the luau came to a conclusion.

Touristy?  But there is a lot about Hawaii that is there for the tourists who are an essential part of the Hawaiian economy.  So, for the 50th State at least, the "touristy" is the traditional.  Enjoy guilt free.

Walking the Alanui Aupuni

The King's Highway. From back when Hawaii had kings.,

Lava rock as far as the eye can see.

I am staying at the Waikoloa Beach Marriott Resort & Spa (pictured above).  It is much much lower in key than the hyperactive resort on Oahu.  It's almost like All-America suburbia:

If All-America had giant fields of lava rock.

The fact that there is sharp, black lava rock everywhere here on the west side of the Big Island is what makes this place interesting.  It's like no place else I've visited in that regard.  Except, maybe, Iceland.  A warm, sunny tropical Iceland.  Which, then, whatever it might be, would not ICEland.

Time to walk the Alanui Aupuni.

This is a day where the agenda has but one line item:  Be lazy.  Actually, it has two line items.  The second is an evening luau, but that's for later in the day.  So, for the earlier part of the day, other than eating these delicious deep-fried doughballs from the Island Gourmet Markets of the Queen's Marketplace -- I had two -- one coconut, one mango -- the coconut was very good, but the mango was exceptional -- even by the standards that is the deliciousness of fried dough -- I wanted to walk the trail through the lava rocks.

The trail has a name.  It's the Alanui Aupuni, a groomed trail through the lava rock dating back to the mid-19th Century -- pre-statehood -- pre-U.S. territorial status -- from back when Hawaii was ruled by a king.

The above is the Abrader Quarry, from which sharp cutting stones were mined.

Lots and lots of lava rock.

Eventually, on this trail, you come to a crossroads.  Continue in the southerly direction and you end who knows where?  The airport 20 some miles south?  Make a right turn and head west toward the ocean and you come upon a shrine:

Yes, that is the shrine.  It is the Ke Ahu A Lono.  Translation:  the cairn made by Lono.  It is a "shrine" that marks the boundary point between the land of two different tribes.  But it is a shrine that commemorates what amounts to the rehiring of a prime minister who was wrongfully terminated because the king listened to jealous courtiers.  Happens all the time.

This goes back to the 1600's.

Having reached the southern boundary of the people who lived on the land in the vicinity of the Waikoloa Resort & Spa, I headed back north.  In search of petroglyphs.

This is the petroglyph area.  It's sandwiched in between two sections of golf course.  And it's not even historic sections of the golf course.

Can we be honest, here?  These were not particularly impressive petroglyphs.  In part, this is because I was not sure if I was looking at petroglyphs.

Up in Valley of Fire northeast of Las Vegas, the petroglyphs pop out at you.  They are impressive.  These?  I think the petroglyphs here are nothing more than carved lines in the lava rock denoting who knows what.

But I didn't really notice them.

It's time to adjourn this meeting on the Alanui Aupuni and reconvene at the hotel pool for an afternoon of R&R.

The Big Island Adventure Begins

Ten minutes after sunset on Waikoloa Beach

Moving on to the next island:  the Big Island, a.k.a., Hawaii.

For the second half of my Hawaii vacation, I am staying at a resort on Waikoloa Beach on the Kona Coast of the Biggest Hawaiian Island of Them All.

Swanky.

This is the view from my room:

Why, yes.  That is the ocean out there a short distance from my balcony.  This resort is a lot more low key than the one on Oahu, which was even swankier, but there were a million children there (give or take 100,000) all simultaneously screaming in the pool.  Very few children here.  Much quieter.

Lots and lots of lava on the Big Island. So far, I've only seen lava that's been cooling down for the last million years or two.  I celebrated with a drinky-drink in an offbeat drinking vessel featuring a topless mermaid.

It was called "Lime in Da Coconut" and I am a Harry Nilsson fan.  I got it, however, because it had a healthy dose of ginger in it.  Despite "ginger" not appearing in the name.  Ginger is way under-used as a cocktail ingredient.  Ginger is way under-used as an ingredient period.  There is no such thing as too much ginger.  While there was some nice ginger heat in this Harry Nilsson-inspired cocktail, the heat could've burned hotter and I would've been even more pleased.

A Journey To The Hawaiian North

Surf's up on the north shore of Oahu

Today's agenda was to head up to the North Shore to try to see the super-gigantic surfin' waves of the Banzai Pipeline and the turtles at the nearby Turtle Bay.

The beaches were very nice and peaceful.  Well, peaceful until the tsunami warning alarm starting blaring really really loudly.

That is not the tsunami coming in.  This being the first business day of the month, and the time being twelve noon, this was, as they used to say on TV, "a test of the emergency broadcast system."  There was no tsunami today.  You did not miss the news.  It was a test.  The warning system passed.  It was loud,

Nor are these the waves of the Banzai Pipeline.  We did get to closer to there, but the beaches were packed and the Banzai Pipeline was a bit muted.  The waves were beautiful coming in, breaking up against the reefs, but they were not contending for the title of "world's largest surf-able waves."  At least not today.

Here is a self-portrait.

Self-portrait of my footsteps in the sand.  The sand was soft and clean and deep.  As to that third and final adjective, you would sink ankle-deep with each step.  You could not ride a bicycle or drive a car on this sand.

With the waves being under "world's largest" in stature, we headed to Turtle Bay.  Where, theoretically, there were supposed to be turtles.  There was a large coral reef:

I thought it was lava.  But that actually is coral.  It was hard and sharp.  Except for maybe the first 10 or 15 feet closest to the beach, where the sharp edges had been worn down from years of being trod-upon by the tourist horde, this was difficult to walk on.  And if you would fall on this, given how hard and sharp the rocks are, you would be seriously injured.

Here's a view of the Turtle Bay Ritz-Carlton resort:

So, yes, there was coral and there were swanky upscale resort hotels.

And a crowded beach.  But there were no turtles today.

Tourists, yes.

Turtles no.

So no "world's largest surfable waves" at the Banzi Pipeline.  No turtles at Turtle Bay.  Let's try one more tourist attraction on the North Shore:  Waimea Falls.

There was an indigenous display on the premises:  the Hale O Lono.

And there were interesting plant species, such as the Cordyline Fruticosa.

A member of the asparagus family.  This was called the "Hula Hands," although it too was a Cordyline Fruticosa.

And this is the Crista-Galli, the national tree of Argentina.  It was introduced to Hawaii from South America.  It is not thriving here in the 50th State because a type of wasp also was introduced into Hawaii, which lays its eggs in this tree, eventually killing the tree.

 

That's a downer.  Know what else was a downer?  The waterfalls were a long hike from the parking area.  The fee to hike the hike is expensive.  Like everything else in Hawaii.  Although I don't understand why a hike in the forest would be expensive here.  It's not like they had to import it from the mainland.  But, most importantly, the falls were non-functional.  The trifecta of passing up the chance to see a particular tourist attraction.

But I'm on vacation.  In the sun.  In Hawaii.  Surrounded by endless beautiful beaches.  Even it they did not have, out today, the world's largest surfable waves or turtles in the Turtle Bay.

They did serve up an awesome sunset however.

Sightseeing Drive Through Honolulu

The palace was closed, which is just as well. King Kamehameha was not home

After the Pearl Harbor tour, the tour guide took us on a quick drive through the City of Honolulu to see the most major of the major sights.

And this was it:

The King Kamemaheha statute outside the King Kamehameha Building across from the Iolani Palace, which was the home for Hawaii's fin de siecle kings.

And this is Iolani Palace:

It is open for tours, but not at this hour.

And this was it.  It was a "drive through and have a few things pointed out" tour.  Which is just as well.  Us tourists, we don't come to Hawaii to see the sights of downtown Honolulu, so I wasn't complaining

The small grove of Indian banyan trees next to the King was definitely worth clicking the camera shutter over:

And, look, I found a dapper tourist within the banyan grove:

Then it was time for dinner:

We opted for the locally-famous Restaurant 604.  It's right next to Pearl Harbor.  The food was reasonably priced (by Hawaiian standards) and expertly prepared.  It was really good quality bar food,  And there's nothing wrong with that.

And, like all good restaurants in Hawaii should be, it was right along the water, with excellent views of the ocean:

Great food.  Great views.  Reasonable (for Hawaii) prices.  What's not to love?

And that concludes my first full day in the 50th State.

Don't worry.  Those clouds didn't get any more ominous.  It's Hawaii.  Where there is no extreme weather.