2nd August - Hawaii

Last day in Hawaii before coming home. I got up early and went for a swim at the hotel pool, then lay in the sun until 9am. Early but the sun was still hot at that hour. I then headed up for a shower and dressed in time to meet Larry at 9.30am. He was everything I had imagined him to be and it was so great meeting him after all these years. I was saddened that his wife Suz couldn't be over to meet us too. We headed up to the hotel pool and sat in the cabana bar and talked all morning, took photos, made him write in my book. Then we headed up to the hotel room to get bathing suits as we were going to the zoo and then to haumanu bay for swimming. However, we found out it would take us an hour to get to the bay, so decided to only go to the Honolulu Zoo instead. Larry dropped us off there, but it really wasn't far. He then went on to audition for a major role in 'LOST'. I hope he gets it :)

The Zoo was small. Didn't really allow for good photos as the cages were still those old fashioned black ones. Many of the animals were not there, or sleeping as it was so hot. Some exhibitis had no water which I thought was terrible. The rainforest aviary was good though and I managed to get some good photos there. Honolulu also had two Komodo Dragons. Highly endangered and rare, it was interesting seeing them, but were smaller than I had imagined them to be. Guess Jurassic Park had influenced my perception of these jurassic animals :)

It was really hot at the zoo, and we were finished by 2.00pm. We headed over the road to the beach and walked back to the hotel via the beach with our feet in the water to try cooling us off. Some of the waves drenched us but it was nice. It took about half a hour (about the length of three beaches) to get back to the hotel. Both Mike and I were really tired, the beaches were crowded, so we decided to relax at the hotel pool instead. So we would swim when we were hot, then lie in the sun to warm up. Blissful. Very blissful. At one stage the sun went behind a cloud and I felt cold. I laughed as in just 24 hours we would be in the winter of Auckland and it'd be much much colder.

For dinner we headed to the restaurant where we had breakfast and had an all we could eat buffet for $12.00. That included dessert, which I had a pineapple and mint mousse. Sounds horrible but was really really nice.

After dinner we headed to the Pacific Beach hotel to see an aquarium that took up two whole floors. Great spootted stingrays, and all sorts of tropical fish - was very interesting. A diver was in there feeding the fish when we got there so that was worthwhile seeing. Over to Macy's where I bought Anne her Clarins stuff, and through the market again. I decided to try one more time for a Pearl. I was able to draw a voucher and this time got a 40% off, chose an oyster, and this time got a rather large black pearl. The black pearl was larger than the other 3 I got the night before. So I was very pleased. Decided to leave it at that, and headed back to the hotel to pack. Took me about an hour to pack up everything, then hit the sack. Home in the morning - and I'm more than ready to get there.