road trip

Honolulu festival fireworks

Honolulu festival parade

Waikiki Beach sunday

Chris and I pride ourselves on being organized and having events planned. Just ask the people who have traveled with us. Today, however, was an example of just being lucky.

Oahu post girls was not really planned out. I guess after 3 weeks and 4 islands, we just ran out of steam. So today’s events were just serendipitous. Honolulu is having a festival called “Honolulu Festival”! which celebrates cultural diversity. A large part of the festival is workshops and seminars but today there was a 2 hour parade and the evening concluded with fireworks.

The parade started really slow and there were major gaps between parade entrants. However, there were numerous groups dressed in garb reflecting that nation and frequently performing music and dance during the parade. The greatest representation was from Asian countries, Korea, Samoa, Japan, China, etc. Once again, we gained an appreciation for the unique history and cultures that make up Hawaii.

We keep comparing Waikiki with South Beach, since South Beach is the only real comparison we have. So far, Waikiki is faring quite well. Kalakaua Street seems to combine both Ocean Drive and Lincoln Avenue so it has the ocean beach along with shopping, pedestrians, and restaurants. The beach is more active here with people surfing, snorkeling, sailing, family cookouts, etc while South Beach is more sunning and partying. South Beach is larger and busier (at least at the times when we are there).

We went to the local church by the beach. For the second week in a row, Mass was about 1 hour and 25 minutes. Today’s mass however had Hawaiian liturgical movement i.e., hula and Hawaiian music as a prelude and postlude. The church sponsors a hula troupe which is competing in the all Hawaii competitions in early April.

Of course, like the rugby youth group on Maui, there was a fund-raiser to benefit the hula group. Once again we had a lunch with social overtones. We took the box lunch to the beach and watched the waves and people as we ate. We went back to the hotel and changed and then spent more time on the beach before the parade.

Between the parade and the fireworks, I used up the capacity on my first memory card. Fortunately I had purchased a second memory card and second battery with this camera. (Aren’t you glad you only have to see 3-5 pictures per post?)

Chris and I have been diligent in deleting extraneous and poor quality shots but there will still be a lot of work when we get home to prune the shots to transfer to Shutterfly and make albums. Plus I need to archive the pictures and then delete pictures on the iPad. Boy, the few days at home are going to be busy.

Tomorrow will probably be touring around Oahu before we head for home on Tuesday. The two Sarahs will likely be there as they begin the move to Minnesota.

Ed March 3 10:30 pm