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Sabrina headed to the conference again. I wandered Waikiki on foot again. Yesterday, I had wandered west, over the canal and towards downtown. Today, I covered central and east. I found the hotel we stayed at last time we were here, and took some of the same photos again (which is good, because they're not currently loading in the blog). I ended up down by the Waikiki Aquarium, Honolulu Zoo, and the War Memorial.
Along the way, I snapped plenty more pics of trees, beaches, parks, statues, buildings, the Ala Wai Canal, and Diamond Head in the distance.
The history section of that canal page in Wikipedia is... worth a read. It will provide important context for these photos:
The sign says it all. The man in the second photo was tending what looked, to me, like a crab trap. I asked him if he was trying to catch crabs. He proudly explained that yes, he was, and he "sell them for buy liquor". The woman kayaking... well, at least she's not in the water.
Today, I was also on the hunt for photos of unusual, amusing, or out-of-place things. Actually, this is something I do most days, but I'll highlight today's crop, because it was especially good.
I watched this guy trying to mow tiny patches of grass with a lawnmower for longer than was appropriate, probably.
Or people waiting at a crosswalk, carrying surfboards.
Here we have a road crew using a leaf blower to dry freshly painted turn arrows (and crosswalks, lines, etc.)
This place was actually pretty tempting... maybe tomorrow?
As if the tourists needed any encouragement to use their selfie sticks.
I have no idea about this one. I didn't even bother going in.
I have no idea why they were taking wedding photos on the street, facing away from the beach.
Here we have a (hotel) restaurant with a two-story aquarium in the middle.
There was a guy here who was trying to convince me to rent a scooter. I was almost sold on it, until he said I would have to return it to the same place, which was a mile and a half from the hotel. The trikes actually looked like a lot of fun. Basically just scooters with a different body dropped on top.
This appeared to be a man getting a haircut on a park bench, overlooking the beach.
This isn't that unusual, but I was almost attacked by a duck.
I also strayed a bit too close to the water a few times, and got sprayed on multiple occasions. The old couple here did the same thing, but they got absolutely soaked.
I couldn't bring myself to take an "after" shot, but they experienced a wave similar to this one.
The War Memorial looked interesting, but was closed for repairs.
One thing I noticed today was the prevalence of surfboards being carried around. It's bad enough negotiating crowded sidewalks, choked with tourists, vendors, people handing out flyers, cafe tables, landscape features, etc., but when you add in 6' or 8' surfboards, it gets downright absurd. I also saw people carrying them on scooters, bicycles, on their heads, stashed in railings along edges of balconies, crammed into and on top of cars/trucks of all sorts, and lined up at every hotel, ready to be rented. I don't recall there being so many people (not in the water) with surfboards last time we were here. It was, however, February, which could be the only difference; not much changes between "seasons" here (the average temperature graph is comically gentle), but the direction and severity of the surf varies widely from "winter" to "summer". Perhaps the waves weren't right last time. Or maybe I just didn't notice last time.
Eventually, I ended up back at the hotel, almost 10 miles later. I tracked down Sabrina, and we went over to the beach for a swim before dinner. Tomorrow, there's more conference in the schedule (though perhaps not all day), after which we might go for a short ride and maybe even snorkel again.
I can't figure out how to link into the album and have it scroll to a specific photo, but the pictures start here if you really want to page through all of them.
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