Impressionist Hawaii - Day Five

I thought that we'd be tired after half of the trip, therefore my initial plan was to stay in bed late and went to Polynesia Cultural Center at noon. I'm very glad that we didn't follow my plan. Gang picked a guide book on our way to Waikiki beach yesterday, and decided to stop by Hanauma Bay in the morning. This turned out to be the best decision in our Hawaiian trip.

To see sunrise on the way, we got up at 5:30am and drove to Hanauma Bay right after. Dawn was just breaking, and the rosy clouds started to spread across the sky. Oahu was still quiet and very few autos were running on highway. We reached Hanauma Bay at around 6:30am. The rumor is that Hanauma Bay is so popular that cars may fail to find space in the parking lot if arriving too late - by too late it means after 9am. But that day, we were so early that when we arrived, the parking lot was almost empty! Not only that, no one worked at the ticket entrance, therefore we enjoyed a free visit to Hanauma Bay.

The beach was empty and chilly. We walked around the beach for a while, looking at the skyline and rosy clouds, and waiting for the sun to rise. Gentle lights penetrated through clouds and the sky became more and more bright. However we waited and waited, nothing happened. We double checked the sunrise time, and realized it has already passed, and the only reason for missing the sun was because of the weather - it was cloudy that day. Whoops! Gang and I soon accepted the fact and found a place by a palm, and spread out our towels. I opened a package of cookie and planned to have a quick breakfast, when some uninvited guests - flocks of pigeons traced the smell of food and besieged me. Later I tried chips and macadamia nuts, but it looked like pigeons preferred chocolate cookies. I had a hilarious breakfast with pigeons looking for food scraps around me. Finally Gang rescued me from the encirclement, sealed the food and moved the towel to ten meters away - it didn't really help: when Gang started to eat, pigeons quickly caught the new source of food and flew over to our place again.

When snorkel stalls came to the beach, Gang rented two sets and we started our second snorkeling experience. This one was so much better than the last one. I saw vast coral reefs all over the sands, tons of colorful fishes and turtles swimming around me. Sometimes waves pushed me around, and I relaxed in the tide, diving into schools of fish. Though I couldn't see them very clearly, but I quickly identified the humuhumunukunukuapua'a, a small bright yellow tropical fish in Hawaii. Other fishes whose names remained unknown to me were equally impressive: I once passed a fish with beautiful black and green strips across its body, and a big flat fish with silver scales brightly shining underwater. I had never imagined that I could see such wonderful underwater world in shoals. They all seemed to be within touch, but they also looked so unreal. I took several breaks during snorkeling, either relaxing in the water or going back to the beach. But no matter how many times I went to the beach, I still wanted to go back, just for a while; I never felt I'd seen enough.

But we had to move on. When visitors started to crowd the beach and sun blazed down, we drove north to the Polynesian Cultural Center. On our way there, we made several stops at Sandy Beach Park, a great place for surfing where I was caught in a wave again and got wet; Waimanalo Bay, where we got an amazing view of the ocean and Kailua Bay, which was implied as the best beach in Oahu in one of our guide book. Sometimes I had the illusion of driving along Route 1 in California, except that it was hotter and the sea was more azure.

At around 1pm, we arrived at Polynesian Cultural Center, a man-made cultural village to present different cultures around the Pacific to tourists. Students from a nearby university are actors, showing typical lives of islanders, including Hawaii, Fiji, Samoa, Aotearoa, Tonga and Tahiti. We went to a few shows, where students showed us things like drilling wood to make fires, cooking coconuts, climbing trees, wedding ceremony, etc. It's a shame of them to claim itself as a non-profit organization while charging visitors so high, but it's a good way for students to earn some money for their tuition. Later we had a traditional ali'i Luau (royal feast) accompanied by traditional songs and dances. The food was just average, poor kings! There was also an evening show about the origin of Hawaii. But since I couldn't see anything on the stage, Gang decided to leave early.

An extremely long day, but a fantastic one.

(Leave Hanauma Bay when most people just arrive here)