Sorry for the boring title, but Kristine and I have been out and about this past week.
This past Saturday, after one of Kristine's interviews, we drove around Manoa Valley, about 10 minutes outside of Honolulu. We were just exploring and found an unmarked garage sell. The gentlemen were very nice and we walked away with a bamboo rug, a hand woven laundry hamper, a magazine basket, a 29" T.V. with built in DVD/VCR/AM/FM and two of the best oranges I have ever had in my life. First of all, the oranges here are green and yellow and they aren't that acidic. Kristine described them the best, "They are like oranges after they have been squeezed and sugar has been added."
We also found Manoa Falls on Saturday, which we went hiking up the following day with our roommates and another friend. Manoa Falls is a 100 foot water fall in a rain forest. Every book we read on it said it was a grueling hour of a hike, but the experts that we are, it only took us 30 minutes so we continued up the mountain to the top. After several torrential downpours while walking through lush bamboo forests we made it to the top after another hour of basically non-stop hiking. Everyone was a trooper and we enjoyed getting into the woods and up the mountains. In total we hiked about 5 miles in 3 hours and 30 minutes. It still amazes all of us that this trails is literally 15 minutes from downtown Honolulu. That's like finding a 100 foot waterfall in Central Park.
On Monday, with the same crew, we headed to the south east corner of the island at 5 am to catch the sunrise at our most favorite swimming hole called "The Blow Hole". To our surprise there was already traffic at this ungodly hour.Anyways, this beach is about 100 feet long snuggled down in a cove which rises about 45 - 50 feet of lava rock on all three sides. It's quite secluded and we had the beach to ourselves for a good 3 hours. This time was filled with some journal writing, snorkeling, body surfing and cliff jumping.
Also on Moday we checked out Pali Lookout, which is a famous 985 foot cliff where in 1795 King Kamehameha I defeated the Oahu armies by using western fire power to force them off the cliff. The cliff looks towards to north east and is quite windy. The was one spot where the wind came channeled up the valley and comes of the rock with great force. It truly felt like we were sky-diving.
Tuesday graced us with a phone call from a gentleman that I went to high school with named Kenny. I bumped into Kenny at the first day of work and low and behold, he too works at Wai'anae High. Kenny has been here for 1 year now and has been showing us around. He took a bunch of us "newbies" to Maunawili Falls in Kane'ohe. This was more of several smaller waterfalls cascading down the mountain. after a 30 minute hike we reach the falls with only one other family there. We had this gorgeous place to ourselves. Kenny promptly started off by showing us where you could cliff jump. We dove in and found the water to be, let's say, um, refreshing. The pool was very deep and myth has it that nobody has ever touched the bottom. This is said to be because it is the gate to Hell. That was fun to know as I was trying to dive down and see how deep it was, haha.
Well, we had an eventful beginning to the week. The rest of the week brings work, which I began today. More on that later!
