I have decided that 23 is not my lucky number anymore. As I was writing my previous entry from Fiji we were still at the hotel. Lizet always gets a bit excited if we have to fly because she doesn't want to miss the flight. So we went 3,5 hours in advance. Once arrived our flight wasn't departing as scheduled but was actually 3 hours earlier. We wanted to check in but they said we were overbooked and had to wait either till Tuesday (two days later) or go to Los Angeles and then back to Honolulu. It sucked big time, instead of having the 23rd as an extra day on the beach we were spending it on the plane.

Anyway 24 hours later and for our bags 44 hours later we were in Hawaii. On the island oahu which means the gathering place in Hawaiian .The capital Honolulu. The island where pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese in world war 2. You don't notice that event anymore since we have seen so many Japanese that it was like we were walking in Japan sometimes. They like Hawaii since it is only a 5 hour flight. But not only the variety in people was a difference with Fiji it was actually a lot more.

The transition between Fiji and Hawaii is huge. Both are Pacific Islands but you could see that one is ruled by the USA and the other partially by the United Kingdom. Where Fiji really sticks to its roots and traditions Hawaii is Americanised. The biggest income for both is tourism but for Hawaii the second biggest is the army. And boy we've seen soldiers and army related discounts. Americans love their army or so it seemed. The walk from our hostel to the beach brought us along 20 fast food shaks and 4 malls. The traditional/original people where no where to be found except for street musicians or performers. Being in a big city felt weird compared to island hopping with almost no people around. On the other hand, it was nice to have a burger and a beer instead of lovo and kava.

Waikiki beach, both bigger and completely different from any other island/beach we have been to so far. It is sheltered by a range of mountains so all the clouds can't go over it. Which means that there is always sunshine even when it rains everywhere else on the island. Frankly we didn't expect that much of Hawaii and just wanted to go there because of the serie lost to see where it was filmed. We did a tour to the place where jurassic park, lost and many other films and locations were shot. With an atv we went into the valley and made pictures and saw a left over set from a recent recorded movie. Journey 2. It was funny because it looked like ancient Atlantis but when you looked closer you could see that it was made out of plaster and foam. It really looked like it had been there for centuries.

And another day we did a 120 mile tour around the island by a tour guide who was way into his 60ies and acted like he was 99. Particulary fond of flowers and trees and liked to stop the bus with every plant he saw. He liked to talk and was doing it non stop for 8 hours straight. We know all about the national flowers in Hawaii now for sure.

A few tours and days later we decided that we had to surf, the beach at waikiki was always packed with people trying to catch some waves. After signing up we could come the next day at 8 of clock in the morning. First practicing on the shore and then for the real deal in the water. With the help of the trainers we managed to get up and surf multiple times that morning. But when we tried it ourselves on another day we turned out to be really bad. Could be the waves or our lack of expierence either way we couldn't stand up on the board. It were the waves Ofcourse.

Now we are well away on the mainland and had dinner to say dag USA is quite different. But I will get to that later. Lizet has posted some pictures of Hawaii on Facebook and as ever I will do it here. Aloha!