Day 6 Hawaiian Cruise

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Day 6 Honolulu Oahu, November 1,2011
Today's Forcast: Mostly Sunny High 82 Low 73
Sunrise 6:36 Sunset 5:58
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We pulled into the dock ten minutes late at 7:10 am. I got up on the deck to take photos of the surrounds.

I saw a double beautiful double rainbow off the decks and to the East.

We were ported in the dock closest to the Aloha Towers.
I had my usual cappuccino on deck 5 with the usual pastry assortment. Sue wanted me to to check out the "get off the ship" clearance and report back.
I was off and looking for Diamond Head and maybe Waikiki.

My morning walk took me after 2.5 miles to the county park of Ala Moana. It had a good view of Diamond Head . Many people were jogging the park in the morning. It was not crowded on the beach or on the trails. Three were people swimming in the area before the breakers and several people on very long boards doing paddle surfing on the flats in front of the breakers. The breakers seem to be a quarter of a mile away from the beach. This is not what I imagined.. but good.

I was having a pleasant time when I felt a gentle mist blowing in the wind the had picked up. Then suddenly a tropical downpour occurred. It was huge. I tried to find cover under the Banyon tree. It helped a little but I was drenched. The downpour continued for 25 minutes . It reminded me of heading toward the trees or the car when a rainstorm would hit when we were fishing in the rockies.

This rain was pouring out of the sky. It lacked the coolness of the Rocky Mountain thunderstorm. There was no lightening in this and no thunder.

I rolled into the nearby Starbucks and the cashier noted my condition. I earned my Hawaii badge under the banyon tree. A native Hawaiian also headed for the tree at the same time I was there.
A banyon tree is a ficas relative. There are a million ficus trees in homes across the country but I will never look at the indoor tree in the same way again.

I had lunch at the Ward Farmer's market on the way home. No farmers but a grocery store for the Asian population. It also had a "junk souvenir" stand out in front. Inside they had a section of the store devoted to making sushi. 8 people were working making sushi in an animated way. I bought a bento box for $6.69 that had a thin piece of cold salmon the width of my hand, a shrimp tempura piece and a chicken on a skewer tempura piece. there was rice and three different salads. No wasabe or pickled ginger. also no chopsticks... fingers worked.


Another rainstorm hit and I was glad I was under some cover.

I took the bus back to the ship 2.50. Sue wanted to get out and move along the streets with her power chair. I thought that we might do the upscale mall right along the side of the ship. We did those and bought a few items. Then she wanted to go to the park that I had been. As we made it out along the streets we realized that the power chair was not fully charged. We had a mix up and got separated. She barely made it up the ramp to the elevators and to the room to plug the beast in.

On the way back I noticed that the water in the port had cleaned and the little reef that the port made had dozens of Angel fish and trigger fish swimming around it. No snorkel mask needed.

Dinner: Because we were in Honolulu there was reduced dinning room support. They told us all to use the anytime dinning if we wanted a formal dinner on the ship instead of our usual spot.
Pat:
Bratwurst and fries from the hot dog stand on ship. Copra (a kind of Italian salami) and a couple of chicken skewers from the buffet.
Sue: Hot dog with cheese roll, fries and some brough from home fruit roll ups and a nut bar

During the dinning hours teh captain came on the announcements and stated that there was a higher than normal admission to the Drs for gastro intestinal outbreak  Norwalk. He said that we should be vigilant regarding our hand washing and that he was enacting new procedures today in the self serve sections of the food areas.

It was obvious that self serve buffets were no longer self serve. Everyone was "served" in the buffet. No passenger was allowed to "touch" tongs or even in the hot dog bar pump their own mustard.

I sat down at the table and an "older lady" sat across from me at the buffet tables. She said that she was hit by the malady. She was signed up to go with her grown kids to the Polynesian Cultural center all day long excursion. She sent them on in the morning. She tried to send word out that she could not make it on her legs. She slept the entire day. She was hoping that they would cancel the cost of the excursion..$375. There was no one down at the excursion table to collect her request. She had not been to the Dr on the ship. I told her that she needed to do that if she hoped that the excursion would not be billed to her account. She said that she was up all night but slept the morning through to the afternoon before she could get up again. The Polynesian Village excursion was to leave at 8:30 in the morning and get back about 10:30 at night.

The captain reviewed again the Norwalk procedures and did not shake hands with anyone that night at the captain's reception for the Captain's Circle members. At our cabin we responded by wiping everything down again with the disposable sheets we bought at the walmart in Hilo.

Overall there was a large contrast to between the rural sort of run down look of Hilo and the urban Jaguar car feel of Honolulu.

We saw some homeless  (a few) camped out corners along the road in Honoulu. None of them were begging like ours. Some people were living out of their cars or vans, living the idealistic surf bum life.

Oddly there were not many tourists in the areas we walked except for ship borne folks all carrying their free blue princess bags.

I also had a chance to visit the Ward center. Its a 3 story "outdoor" mall and a group of parking spots between the two wings. There were empty store fronts and a little food court with a DQ and Orange Julius combined. I had a pumpkin blizzard.. pumpkin pie flavored soft serve with some cookie chucks that had the texture of crust tossed in.. I approved. the McDonald's was advertising their baked pies in Hawaii... bananna.. I didn't try.. got to save something for the next trip!
I took some photos of the sunset across the port.. The lights came on and streaked across the water of the port as the sky turned orange.
Overall a great day.. although it had its moments!