Halloween in Waikiki

I have never been to Carnival or to Mardi Gras, but they can't be much stranger than Halloween in Waikiki!

Lauri came with me for a week at the end of October 2007. We stayed at the Imperial Hotel in Waikiki. It is a timeshare, so is a little more comfortable, but the neighborhood is loud and the facility is old. It is about 2.5 miles from my office downtown.

On Halloween, everyone in town flocked down to Waikiki for the evening. Many were driving down, but thousands were walking along the streets, most of them in costume. They were the most outlandish costumes I have ever seen. Many were Japanese and I think they were attempting to all dress as streetwalkers. The streetwalkers must have been hating life, because no-one could tell them apart from the crowd. I did not have my camera with me and by the time I got to the hotel, did not think to take it when we went to get dinner, so I do not have photos. Wait till next year!

It took me 2-1/2 hours to drive the 2.5 miles. I could have walked it in less than 1/2 hour.

On the flip side, on the Saturday before, we went to the Arizona Memorial. The movie is a sobering and thought-provoking experience. The emotions it evokes are hard to explain.

This plaque is only for those lost before and after WWII.

For me, however, the Lost Submarine Memorial was even more emotional. There are no multimedia presentations, no crowds, very few who came, seemed even to notice that it existed. Just a large circle of individual plaques--one for each submarine that was lost in the Pacific during WWII. So many men lost at sea, far more than at Pearl Harbor--most without us even knowing for sure where. They simply did not return from their final mission.


That is the horrible price of our freedom!

Here are some more photos:

PB Office Blessing

On October 9, 2007, the new PB Transit Office in the Pauahi Tower in downtown Honolulu was "dedicated."

It seems a little strange to us in Utah where not only is church separated from the state, but also persecuted by the state, but in other states it is not so. Especially in Hawaii. The have "Blessings" for everything and talk openly about spirituality.

We had a native Hawaiian priest come and he blessed the office in hawaiian. During the blessing he sprinkled "pure water" from a mountain spring on the door posts and lintel and key manager's hands using a bunch of Ti leaves.

I also included a couple of photos from my lanai:

October 6, 2007 Dives - Kewalo Basin Pipe & Secret Reef

On Saturday, October 6, 2007, I dove with Ryan from Dive Oahu. We did two dives, Kewalo Basin Pipe, a 60 foot deep dive on a shallow coral reef and an old outflow pipe off of Ward Center, and Secret Reef, a 45 foot deep dive on a shallow coral reef.

I was still a little nervous about the deep dives, so I decided to be a little conservative again and I chose 2 shallow reef dives for my second dive adventure in Hawaii.

We descended along the bow mooring line to the pipe. Right after getting there, I saw and took a photo of a Zebra Moray Eel which is pretty rare. Swam slowly down (Makai) the pipe to the end. Saw lots of reef fish and eels. Took photos along the way. At the end of the pipe, there was a moray and a school of Bigscale Soldierfish in the very end of the pipe.

Swam slowly to the west and then mauka back to the mooring line. Ascended slowly along the mooring line and got back on the boat with 900 psi to spare.

The second dive was really from the same place. Once again Ryan and I swam around to the bow and descended along the mooring line. We swam mauka along the pipe and the reef along side for a ways.

Turned to the east and swam over to Secret Reef. Swam around the reef and looked under overhangs and saw the whole reef. Swam back to the pipe which sucked up all my air. Only had 400 psi left and Ryan found two Day Octopus swimming. I got a quick photo and ascended.

I took lots of photos, but not very many came out so you could see what was supposed to be in them.