Long Weekend in Honolulu

I usually have weekends with Kerry to see more of the sites on the Island but this time we had a three day weekend and it was lots of fun. We had decided to go snorkeling at Hanauma Bay on Saturday but because of a Box Jelly Fish Warning we decided to postpone that event for another trip. Kerry was disappointed because he had actually convinced me to go snorkeling with him again. We decided to visit a Buddhist temple that I had wanted to visit after seeing it on TV many years ago (thanks Magnum.) It is called the Byodo-In Temple at the Valley of the Temples. It was really pretty impressive. It is a replica of one from Japan and was built in the late 60's. And it was a beautiful day to be out and about.

The bell with it's wonderful sound.

Standing at 18 feet this is believed to be one of the last hand carved since "ancient times."

Just outside of the Temple this little girl was feeding the birds, there were two in this picture and they landed right in her hand, my mind flooded back to The Olympic National Forest just after Rebecca was born and Natalie stood hands out feeding Camp Robbers and they came right to her hand. It was a sweet memory. We stood and watched for awhile and notice all of the fish below the bridge and other birds responding to her and others in her family feeding them.


On the property there were several of these black swans swimming around. They looked so graceful.

As we started to leave the grounds Kerry noticed these two turtles sunning themselves.

It was a beautiful Temple in a very beautiful setting. I'm glad we were able to visit it.

Since the day was still very young Kerry drove on to the North Shore. There were remnants of the the Tropical Storm still seen on the north part of the island with 20-25 foot waves. The day before they had been 30-35 feet waves. We decided to walk along the reopened beach to see them a little more closely.


Again I was a little reflective of all of the family walks on the beach of Oregon and looking into the tide pools for little creatures, sweet memories.

Even with pretty decent pictures it is hard to visualize how big the waves really were.

As we walked back along a cove where the surf wasn't quite so rough we watched some surfers. The girl in the very center gave us the hang ten sign and surfed in for us. Because I had taken so many pictures I had to turn the camera on and off to snap the last few, my batteries were gone. I thought I had zoomed in on her more and was a little sad that I hadn't gotten a better picture of her.

On Sunday we went to church as usual amidst all of the questions as to when we would be moving in. Good question, it seems with no answer!!! We went back to the hotel and Kerry fixed dinner so that we didn't have to go out on Sunday. He's pretty good at fixing meals from a microwave.

This is the view of Diamond Head from out of our room. We decided that since the jelly fish warning was still in effect we would hike to the top which is something we had talked about before.

Pretty intense climb up and down! After climbing up over 200 stairs and a pretty steep trail that takes you through one of the walls of the volcano you come out into an old military lookout and to this view.





Still love those light houses.

The last few steps to the top of the lookout.

Into the crater, the trail head, and the parking lot.

Waikiki and downtown Honolulu.

Proof positive that we did this together.

Back at the bottom.

After we got back to Waikiki we decided to take the car back to the parking terrace and walk to Chinatown. It was fun to walk through and experience but I was forgetful and didn't take one picture. It was a really fun way to end the weekend. It just went way to fast.

My time with Kerry always goes way to fast.