Aloha from the Hilton Hawaiian Village Oahu

Aloooooohaaa!

Today is our last day in paradise. Just how much rice can one person eat, anyway.


Last night they had a memorial day ceremony that you would ONLY find in Hawaii. About 40,000 people gathered in Ala Moana beach park for this Buddhist / Hawaiian ceremony that the hawaiians have converted to their own unique island style. It was a beautiful event. Since it took place at night and we are in bed and asleep by 7pm, we watched it live on TV. We could have seen it from our room, but there's a new hi rise blocking the view of Ala Moana park in that direction

They have the Japanese drums like the beginning of Mystere (Cirque du soleil), Hawaiian ceremonial dancers and drummers and flute players (they play their flutes from their nose - weird, huh?). then thousands of people floated little budhhist shrines with burning candles in them out into the water to symbolize the prayers for their ancestors and for anyone else they wished to pray for. the theme was peace and world harmony. It was moving to watch and the floating mini shrines with candles inside numbering in the thousands was spectacular.


If we are ever here again on memorial day, I definitely want to go to this ceremony and photograph it. Here's a website:

http://www.lanternfloatinghawaii.com/home.html

We're leaving this evening. Departure from hawaii is an ordeal for everyone who comes here as a tourist. First, you don't want to leave the beauty and serenity. Secondly, There's nothing worse than hanging around an airport for several hours waiting for your plane to take off. Since all of the planes now leave and fly overnight back to the mainland they begin departing around 7pm and some as late as 10 or 11 pm. The Hotels, on the other hand, kick you out of your room at noon and where can you go with sixteen bags, three kids and pets in tow for eight hours. THE BEACH?... You can tell who went to the beach. When they cram you into your center seat and the guy in the seat in front of you reclines his seat into your lap, you see sand in his hair from the beach. If you wish to set your beverage on his forehead while you adjust your seat, the sand could cause it to slip off and spill your mai tai.

the folks here at the Hilton have graciously allowed us to stay in our suite until late (probably 3pm) then we'll drive to zippy's for one last meal of steak and two scoops of rice and macaroni salad and then hop on the plane, take two sleeping pills and wake up in Houston.







The airlines like to bustle around up and down the aisles delivering peanuts, pretzels, etc. on these long flights- that major undertaking can last up to two hours of an 8 and a half hour flight, then things get boring. So in quest of a full 8 hours of sleep- we'll be out. (foregoing the first class meals of chateaubriand or duck ala orange - choose one- and ice cream sundae's - while the coach class, watching from their sardine can, in the back drool with jealousy (we'll be sleeping anyway). Does that sound like the ramblings of the privileged few just before the peasant rebellion that ended in the deaths of the Romanov's (the russian Czar and his family)?

Oh well, it's six ten am and we're sitting in bed trying to figure out how to spend this last day. I do NOT want sand in my hair on the airplane.here you have the only crazy, fully dressed, tourist in the islands building a sand castle for his grand daughter and grand son (who would have done it themselves if they had come along). Working diligently to keep sand out of my hair.