Travelling around Oahu I

Yesterday was a strange day. We went to the HPU library and I got out 'Revolutions and Revolutionary Movement,' and a free textbook about journalism, and then we took the bus up to Ali'i Beach Park. It took a long time and, sadly, it wasn't worth it!

Ali'i was crap - although the beach was quite empty, the sea was cold and full of seaweed (we have been spoilt at Waikiki and Kuhio!), and although the sun was shining, there was freezing rain pelting down. The waves were also disappointing and there were no surfers to be seen. It was generally very unpleasant, so we walked into Hale'iwa, the town, which was amazing. All the signs point to "Historical Town of Hale'iwa", and Tom loved it: the McDonalds looked like it had jumped out of a turn-of-the-century Western, and all the buildings were made from wood and corrugated iron. Matsumoto's, a surfer hangout and shave-ice place much lauded by the guidebooks, is there, and as we walked past we could see a queue of at least 20 people stretching way out the door! Sadly we only have $4 now, and the shave ice was $2, so we decided not to get any.

We had lunch and considered coming back to Waikiki, but it was only midday and we'd been travelling for a couple of hours so spending just half an hour on a rainy beach was a bit of a let down. Instead we took the Circle Island bus on a bit further - and about ten minutes down the road, we saw a STUNNING beach with clear turquoise sea! Waimea Bay is beautiful, it's the kind of sea you could have stayed in forever. There was a huge rock which people were jumping off, which provided entertainment, and the sea was cool, and the waves looked gentle but were amazingly powerful. Once we'd had enough (after about an hour in the water =P), we sat down and I read some of my Revolutions book for Tuesday. Although the beach was pretty crowded, it was huge enough, and the sea was loud enough, that it felt like we were all alone. You couldn't hear anyone else. It's a truly gorgeous place, and anyone who comes to Oahu should definitely go there. We'll be going back as often as we can =)

This morning we got up at 5.45 and went to watch the sunrise from Waikiki Beach. It was so lovely to swim there with so few people around, even though the sun was rising behind a load of skyscrapers and we couldn't really see anything. Hopefully getting up so early will mean we can sleep a bit later in the day, and then stay up far later than we normally have been tonight: as I've mentioned before, classes start in a few days, and Tom has three evening classes (5.15 to 8.10pm). He gets tired around 6pm, and we're normally asleep by 8, so we need to keep adjusting our schedule. We'll be discovering Waikiki today, instead of hiking up Diamond Head, as there is a $1 entry fee per person to Diamond Head and we can't even afford that =S

I'm about to go and get free breakfast from the hotel, yay =]