Hanauma and Punahou

When I woke up this morning, I looked around the room, and John was up and dressed, had organized the towels, the mats, the fins, the goggles, the snacks, packed them all in bags and carryalls, and was ready to head out to Hanauma Bay.  All I had to do was put on my suit and make sure I had my hat, sunglasses, and bus pass. 

We even had enough time to walk up about four bus stops so we could get on the bus before all the riff-raff got on. 

This is an important thing to know about if you're going to Hanauma Bay in the morning, because by the time the bus gets to our stop they have to have somebody standing outside the bus to cram people in.  But because we got on early, we even got to sit down. 

I am the happiest woman in the world when I am at Hanauma Bay.  I am even happy getting up before 9 a.m. to go.  It was a little windy today, but the water was pretty clear, and I finally got to see one of those giant wrasses which I love, the rainbow colored ones.  I also finally went to the big sort of lagoon over on the left side, where I've never gone before (I put an X on the picture to show where it is) and saw some really interesting fish over there, including one of those lobster-ish looking bottom crawlers that pretty much matches the sand.

Alas, we couldn't stay there forever, because we both have been somewhat sunburned, so we came back.  We got exceptionally lucky, because just as we got to the bus stop, the bus arrived and there were only about 15 people going back to Waikiki.  I don't really care if the bus is full anyway, though.  It's still fun.

We came home, checked out the bus schedule and decided to go up to Punahou School (President Obama's alma mater) and go to the festival.  This is an annual event and I think half the people in Honolulu go to it.  They have some big rides, like the giant swing thing, and a ferris wheel, and some things that turn you upside down, plus the usual little kids' rides, and also carnival games like ring toss, and stuff like that.  

In addition, they had a farmers market, a treasure trove and a white elephant sale.  The treasure trove was mainly things that were older than, say the 70's like waffle irons, film cameras, typewriters, and things that were a little more valuable, while the white elephant sale was pretty much a flea market of old junk.  Both had a line out the door, as they wanted to be sure it didn't get too crowded inside.  

I think they also had entertainment inside the school, but we didn't go inside.  The only bad thing about this was the level of noise was hideous.  They had a DJ and loud amplified music everywhere.  On the good side, you could pay one scrip (50 cents) and get the DJ to announce anything you wanted, which seemed to be a pretty popular thing to do, and resulted in there not being so much "music."

They also have food -- we had a teriyaki burger, and Portuguese bean soup, which is one of the iconic dishes, and also bought malasadas. I think that at least a third of the people who come to this come for the malasadas. They are a kind of a donut, in that they are made of flour and deep fried, and coated in granulated sugar. 

It's very labor intensive, and they have dozens of people working in the tent.  This is the pure version -- apparently you can also buy them with filling, but nobody will admit to liking those and they don't sell them here, either -- and part of the appeal is that they are fresh, so fresh that they are almost still too hot to touch when you get them. So of course they are delicious. The lines to get these tasty treats go on forever, and they have large warning signs that NOBODY can buy more than a dozen. And most people were buying a dozen. 

Of course, that's because we were standing in the "bulk" line because we didn't see that they had an express line for people buying from 1-3 malasadas. Oh, and there were two different malasada tents.  

After the fair, we came back to Waikiki, and I went over to Seattle's Best to see if I could get some more game cards.  (Seattle's Best coffee is having a contest that you can enter every day, but you have to get a new game card every day with a unique number on it.)  I found that one of the baristas over there was pretty nice and would give me a few at a time.  Today I got really lucky.      .