Christmas in Hawaii

On 19th Dec we boarded a plane and almost 10 hours later emerged in Hawaii for Christmas. Our first couple of days were just spent relaxing on the beach and taking a short trip to Manoa Falls (where we stumbled upon a tv crew filming a documentary about Africa (!!) with Kris Marshall (old My Family, Love Actually). We attended a traditional Hawaii Luau in the evening

where we saw all styles of Polynesian dancing, coconut tree climbing and got to get temporary tattoos (well Tom, Lily and I did) whilst eating loads of food.
If anyone is wondering whatever happened to Glenn Medeiros (of one hit wonder 'Nothing's Gonna Change My Love For You' back in 1987) he is performing at the Hale Koa hotel in Waikiki. The next day saw us off on a trip to see the Iolani Palace and Pearl Harbour then onto a Magic Show in the evening, this was a brilliant show with magician Mark Allen Mauricio and his family.

We were up early the next day for our tour of the Big Island where we visited volcano fields, waterfalls and orchid plantations. We toured the whole island and it was a VERY long day.

Rather disappointingly, or perhaps I was just very naive about the whole thing, this was all we got to see of the active volcanoes. Tom, Lily and I were expecting flowing lava! Perhaps we are just a bit stupid as Nick (the big smartypants) had never expected to see any.

This is the view from our balcony. We spent another couple of days relaxing around the hotel and beach and on Christmas day we went on a submarine for a trip below sea. This turned out to be hilarious as we sat on the left side of the sub (having been told it doesn't matter which side you sit on) and it turned out the right side of the sub got all the action with loads of oohing and aahing whilst our side looked out at not much. Luckily, we saw the bright side of it all and still managed to peer through everyone to see what was going on.

Our final trip out took us around the island of Oahu itself. We stopped off at some of the North Shore beaches and managed to see some surfers risking life and limb on the big waves.

And then the holiday was over and it was back to the airport for a slightl shorter overnight flight back to Atlanta and then home, bleary eyed but happy.

As usual, I will post a load more photos on Facebook.