Trip to Honolulu, August 1998

We visit the Polynesian Cultural Center on each visit. This is an opportunity to see the peoples of the various South Pacific islands show the customs of their particular locale. This display was by an emormously amusing and entertaining gentleman who got great audience involvement as he pounded out tremendous rhythms on various drums.
	The Polynesian Cultural Center celebrates the great diversity of South pacific food styles. This was in the Dinner Hall ... we chose to forgo the luau this trip because the last time it was rather disappointing. This time we enjoyed a true banquet - buffet style.
From Honolulu to Laiea where the Polynesian Cultural Center is located we cross the Pali where King Kamehameha had a great victory against some invaders. This precipice has truly amazing winds that blow vertically at rates as high as 100 mph. Standing only a few yards back from the edge, however, you are out of the wind, and able to enjoy stunningly beautiful views like this.
	I have been in the habit of carrying two sets of car keys for so long, that when I borrowed my mother's car in Honolulu it never occurred to me that I had only one set of keys. Sure enough, for the first time in many years I managed to lock myself out of the car. Fortunately a visitor to the Pali had a cell phone and allowed me to call AAA. This pleasant young man rescued us!
Several companies own these submarines with which it is possible to cruise beneath the surface of the ocean and see some of the diversity of sea life. Unfortunately we saw more of the barnacled bottom of the bay than sealife. Still it was a pleasant trip.
	We also took a dinner "Sunset Cruise" with a truly amazing aggregation of passengers. I wrote an article about the people as the "Sketch Book". The entertainment was truly memorable! This was the view of the skyline of Waikiki at sunset as we returned.
While in Hawaii we had the opportunity to attend a timeshare presentation at Kona on the west side of the "big island". For $99 we received a pair of round-trip plane tickets from Honolulu to Kona, the use of a rental car, and two nights at the Royal Kona Resort Hotel, pictured here. We also got some meals and a sea cruise! We didn't buy the timeshare, but we did feel it was desirable for us to be polite and listen to the whole presentation. Next time we have a spare $16,000 we might even buy!
	From our room at the the Royal Kona resort Hotel we had this beautiful view of the shoreline. The long, low, grey building towards the top and to the left is a Wal-Mart store! We visited it and bought stuff too! We had a most amusing experience of taking Mom to the Wal-Mart at Millilani. She bought about $100 worth of stuff from the store and remarked on the way through the checkout: "My goodness, such a lot of stuff for less than a hundred dollars". Previous to that day she had never experienced the Wal-Mart shopping phenomenon.
This was the view in the opposite direction from our room at the hotel. A beautiful view of the Pacific Ocean.
	This was the glass bottom boat on which we took our trip down the coast of Hawaii. Linda decided she didn't have very good "sea legs" after all, but managed to enjoy most of the trip anyway. The view of sealife was much mored varied than what we saw from the yellow submarine!
The next time you buy a Mocrosoft product, please remember this view. It is the site of Bill Gates's little summer retreat (still under construction). It isn't hard to be just a little bit jealous!
	Hawaiian sunsets are legendary. This was photographed from the porch of our suite at the hotel in Kona.
Outside the reception area of the hotel each day a little troupe of singers and hula dancers (none younger than 60 years old) gathered to entertain passersby. I learned to play the ukelel when I was in Honolulu in 1951, and still remembered a few of the songs from then. The group let me sit in and play and sing a few numbers. I made as rapid an exit as I could afterwards!