Aloha from Hawaii

After our flight from Toronto, Canada to San Francisco, USA, we had a short layover waiting for our flight to Honolulu. Not surprisingly, the airport was a great place to people-watch, and, as it turned out, pet-watch.

Greg approached the lady in the photo, to ask if she would allow photos of her dog to be taken. While he was taking the photos, I watched other travellers rubbernecking and laughing with their travel companions. It was like being in the midst of a candid camera shoot.

Its tongue looked so pink against the purple!

Once people saw someone openly taking photos, it was like the paparazzi had arrived. OK, maybe I'm exaggerating, but there were lots of people taking photos of this little dog.

We're now in Honolulu, and our hotel is in the heart of the shopping district of Waikiki, and so we spent the day walking around to discover this famous tourist destination. We went through the Sheraton Waikiki to get to the beach, and it was certainly beautifully decorated for Christmas. We walked by again this evening, and the Christmas lighting was tastefully done and was really beautiful.

While there earlier today, we first saw this sand sculpture. We were impressed by the attention to detail shown in the work.

Then we saw this permanent flying turtle sculpture, which is decorated for Christmas. Any guesses what the white square is in the centre of the photo? The clue is on the floor below. The answer will be later in this post.

I didn't quite get the symbolism of flying turtles, and especially thought it strange to see them decorated for Christmas. 

The white square? Yes, it's a clue for Pokémon. Here's a closer look at the sign.

Here's another sculpture that was at the same hotel. It had so much interesting detail.

We loved that the winter snowmen scene had so many touches of the beach, for example, the snorkelling equipment and surfboard. I'm guessing those may be snowflakes on the surfboard too.

This afternoon we walked to the famous Waikiki beach. It was a dull overcast day with light drizzle for quite a while. It didn't stop people from being out and about though.

Greg took my photo there, in front of a Hawaiian outrigger canoe. I don't know whether it was there for decoration, or used for any practical purpose. For those who regularly read this blog, notice I'm using my walking poles. I was grateful to have them after having sat for more than 10 hours the previous day.

I wanted the photo taken, not to show the canoe, but to show the many surfers at this famous surfing beach. What's missing? Yep, the surf! I'm not sure if the people were genuinely optimistic that there would be surf (which there wasn't while we were there), or whether they just wanted the claim-to-fame of having been at that beach.

On our way back through the Sheraton hotel, Greg stopped to check out the koi in their pond. They certainly were large and beautiful. We lost Sumo, our largest koi, to the cold Canadian winter a year or two ago.

Tomorrow we'll start our one-week cruise of the Hawaiian islands, where we'll spend two days at each of Maui, Kauai, and The Big Island. I'll be back doing the blog after the cruise.

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Location: Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
Weather: Overcast, light rain, 23ºC (75ºF)
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