A Wonderful Trip to Hawaii, Part 1. Honolulu-Big Island

2013 was a tough year. There are ups and downs, laughs and sobs, awesome adventures and deep regrets. So, I decided to treat myself a once-in-a-lifetime trip, the trip to the wonderland.

Here are my basic schedule during the trip:
12/15 Honolulu, O'ahu
12/16-12/19 the Big Island
12/20-12/23 the Island of Maui
12/24-12/26 Honolulu

After I landed on Honolulu International Airport, I took the city bus to Waikiki Beach that is near my hotel. It was in the evening but the city was so busy and alive. Travelers, restaurants, hotels, bars, and souvenir shops, they were running through all over the place near Waikiki area, making my following trip more exciting. Later on, I realized my overexcitement due to the long time living in Texas...

Next morning, I walked along the Waikiki Beach as my hotel had a super nice location! I got to see the Duke's Kahanamoku Statue which surrounded by many tourists. Having walking on the beach, I suddenly saw an old couple holding hands in the water and I felt so warm even it was like summer.

I had to catch the flight from O'ahu to the Big Island so I left Honolulu early in the afternoon and I would come here again in Christmas Eve!

Waikiki Beach

Next day, I woke up early in the morning and headed to Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park where is located at the south of the big island. Due to the active movement of the volcano, all the hiking trails to lava were closed. Driving was the only way to go around the park. The world's biggest active volcano is here! It was not really active as I expected though. In the evening you may see the red lava coming out if the vent of the volcano but not in the daylight. There are several sightseeing spots all over the park. Most of them are the lava remains in recent historial time. The weather close to volcano was not stable, sometimes raining and sometimes sunny. The amazing one to me is the one goes into the ocean. I climbed onto the cliff where the lava goes into the sea and I felt I see the end of the world as the the sky and the sea disappear into the same horizonal line. The wind was quiet strong at here. I almost got blew away. 

Mauna Loa

Apua Point

Plants inside the lava flows

Driving all the way to the south, I arrived at Black Sand Beach. It is the best place to see lazy turtles and unsurprisingly, I saw to turtles lying on the beach, which was really funny at first because the tourists seemed more happy than the two turtles!

Black Sand Beach

The two turtles

The next day, I was supposed to see Mauna Kea, the highest spot here and a good place to watch stars at night. The Web Cam showed that there was snowing which was so weird and the road was closed. Also I could't find the way to Captain Cook after following the GPS. When driving to Mauna Kea, I found out the diversity of vegetation in Big Island. Coconut palms grow along the beach and dry grasses grow on the mountain. After failed to follow the plan, I decided to drive to the south of Big Island. So pretty much got to see all the view there.

The road to Mauna Kea

In the afternoon, my first time air tour happened! The small plane took me to the popo oo volcano. The pilot drove as close as possible to the vent of the lava flows. I could see the burning trees right down my feet. The black and grey lava was evading the forests little by little and the trees had turned into dry barks after got influenced by the air movement above the lava. I really had the hard time on the plane as I had the fear of height and hated the felling of falling down. I kept imagining what I would be like if I was skydiving...

Lava flows

More pictures, please visit Yubin Wang Photography



To be continued...

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