Sorry for the lateness of these blog and photos album-we've been trying to upload them for weeks with no joy, but finally here you are!!

So we arrived in Hawaii safe and sound, we gained 3 hours again so that made our time difference to home even more! We arrived in Hawaii about 7.30pm local time so the sun had already set, we got a shuttle to the hostel which didn’t take too long. We were staying one road over from Waikiki Beach in Waikiki so we couldn’t wait to get there! It was more like a cheap motel than a hostel to be honest so it wasn’t too bad. We were staying in a 4 bed mixed dorm but there was a private room at the back and then 2 beds in the living room area-that’s where we stayed!
We had a little walk around and found out the best speck for the beach so we could go straight there the next day! We got up nice and early the following day and headed to the beach. The weather was so lovely and the sea was the most amazing colour blue you’ve ever seen! We had a nice relaxing 1st day as I needed to rest my gammy leg from where I’d fallen over!!
The next day we pretty much did the same, hit the beach and sunbathed! We went to a hula show at the beach that evening just as the sun was setting and it was beautiful. We had a nosy round some of the really posh hotels and some were really fancy-we felt so out of place!! We also discovered $7 bottles of rose wine-1.5 litres!!Amazing!
The following day we got up bright and early and got the bus to Hanauma Bay Nature Reserve-a crater that has been filled in by the sea and has amazing snorkeling apparently. We rented all of the snorkel gear and headed I for a swim. Literally as soon as you stepped in off the beach there were thousands of fish everywhere! So we had a swim around for about 45 minutes and then got out for a bit. Brian was a bit unsure of it at first cos he felt like he couldn’t breathe properly but he decided he wanted to have another go a bit later on-thank god he did!
One of the reasons why people snorkel here is to try and catch a glimpse of a sea turtle and that’s all we wanted to see-only 1 we weren’t greedy! So we had another go and Brian found it a lot easier this time around. We were about to head back when Brian spotted a sea turtle on the bottom! It was so amazing and probably one of the best things I have ever seen in my life! It looked straight at us and then swam towards us a bit-we had to keep our distance though because you get a massive fine just for going too close to them!
Then it swam to the top and poked its head out of the water to catch its breath! It swam round us for a bit and then off it went about its own little business! Honestly though words can’t describe how amazing it was to see a turtle in the wild!
I also found out my name in Hawaiian – Laula! Brian’s Dad has called me this for years-how did he know?!?! The following day we headed out on the bus again to Pearl Harbour to the USS Arizona memorial. It took about 2 hours cos we got on the wrong bus so they took us all around the airport and everything first! The tickets are free to go onto the memorial, they show you a movie first about what happened on the 7th December 1941 and then you get on a little boat and they take you to the memorial. The memorial building is built over the ship so you can see bits of it coming out of the water. It’s a weird feeling but we were glad we went to it. We then went back to Waikiki and booked a luau for the following evening. We went down to the beach then and watched the sunset as we held hands-ahhhh-no not really!!
The following day we spent some time at the beach in the morning and then got ready to go to the luau. We were getting picked up at 4pm so we had to wait for the bus at the hotel down the road. When we walked into the luau we were given a Mai Tai cocktail-delish! There were a few hours to walk round looking at everything before dinner was served so we hit the bar with our drinks vouchers that was included with our package! There were 5 things that happened before dinner was served-all traditional Hawaiian things and were started by one of the guys blowing into one of those big shells! The 1st was a demonstration of how to wear traditional Hawaiian dress, the 2nd was how to break into a coconut properly by using a sharp stick! The 3rd was one of the men climbed to the top of the tallest tree and threw flowers to everyone below- you then had to take one of the flowers and put it behind your ear. You put it behind your right ear if you were single and put it behind your left ear if you were taken and in love-so naturally we put it behind our right!!Only joking! The 4th event was showing us how to fish. They took us down to the lagoon and showed us how to cast the net and fish in the traditional Hawaiian way. The 5th and final stage before dinner was the unveiling of the pig from the underground oven where it has been cooking for hours! They paraded it round to everyone and then we all sat and waited for our dinner! The food was amazing-the best we had eaten in weeks! After dinner there was hula dancing, fire dancing and other entertainment. We spent our last day at the beach and got ready to go to Fiji baby!!

Check out the photos for Fiji too!!
Fiji blog to follow!!!