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HONEYMOON : HOLLYWOOD - HAWAII (30th Oct - 25th Nov 2009)

- 30/10/09 (FRIDAY) LEAVING FINLAND

On the bus 02:00am from Tampere to the airport at Vantaa.

Waiting at the airport 04am for the flight leaving 8:05. A warm tea cheered my darling up quite a lot :)

At the London Heathrow airport, 3,5 hours flight from Finland to UK, Had a 2 hour break before the next 10 hour flight to Los Angeles. Between me and Riitta you can see an elder lady at the background, she was really annoyed by our looks, just dunno why. Maybe it was my "über-ferocious" mohawk. :]

- 30/10/09 HOLLYWOOD

We stayed near to mid-Hollywood, just a couple subway stops from Highlands.

The view from the balcony towards the center of LA.

The silhouette of Los Angeles downtown.

This must have been my only life time chance to walk over Britney, finally! (I'm fancy of many of her songs, the older stuff mainly)

Streetful of idols!

Since we entered the LA just on the Halloween weekend, people were starting up the party on friday eve already! My homeboy Sam was kind enough to have a photo with me :)

Changed the latest gossips with Lyn hihi (^^,)

Sunset over LA. (at this moment it was snowing in Finland)

- 31/10/09 CHINATOWN, LA DOWNTOWN AND HOLLYWOOD - DAY 2

We grabbed a subway near our hotel and went to the other end of the track near the Chinatown, which had many interesting smells around with all the food and garbage bins on the streets. We went there to get bottles of water for walking to the downtown area and to get somewhat a lot of attention from the locals. *g*

Downtown LA as seen on many police movies and tv-shows :)

Almost enough mirror to see myself.

A pretty good look-a-like :)

I wonder if he was playing Hugh Hefner? Not much of the look but the same luck, though.

Elvis replica meets "electronic-reincarnation-elvis"

People celebrating Halloween and on this part there were two Michal Jackson -imitators from different decades.

Visiting The Coffee Bean on Hollywood blvd :)

What's cooking doc?

The only Finns we met on the road. And look how cheap they were.

One of the few places to get a decent shot of the sign (an outdoor walking center at Hollywood Highlands, I don't remember the name of this place but it's next to the Guess store).

High Voltage Tattoo. If Kat von D had been there I would've taken a tattoo. Had to take a photo of the front door with the heartagram, as made famous by HIM. The paintings they have on the walls are really sweet in reality.

- 01/11/09 (SUNDAY) LEAVING LOS ANGELES, ENTERING HAWAII - DAY 3

It wasn't warm enough in LA (rough +20'C) so we flew away. (Finland was enjoying -8'C at the time)

Meteors from the sky?

Paradise below!

Honolulu downtown!

- 02/11/09 HONOLULU ZOO - DAY 4

The beauties :)

Bah what is this

Huge cats in sight! :)

He was running wild, mainly staying at the restaurant's yard.

The almighty Tigris of Honolulu!

Enjoying her sand showers

- 03/11/09 WAIKIKI BEACH - DAY 5

Along greasy breakfast, the restaurant of Planet Hollywood had a pictoresque model of the beloved Governator T800.

We stayed at Ohana Malia in Waikiki, just two blocks from one of the most beautiful beaches in the whole world. It was around +26'C to +30'C all the time, while our friends in Finland were enjoying their -8'C snow blizzard. (*bwahahah*)

Here we can see the Diamond Head crater rising in the background. This peak was mistakingly pictured in the movie "2012" as an active volcano with the lava bursting from the top of the peak. The actual crater is inside these rock walls, not on the peak. (we went to see the movie when it came out, and the movie theater resided just a couple miles from the crater.. In middle of the excitement they show a view of Waikiki beach in fire with lava bursting from the peak. You should've heard people bursting in laughter! :D It was a little spoiler for the tense action, obviously the CGI guys had only seen photos of the area and not visited the place itself.)

What an adorable attraction.

Waikiki Beach in the night time.

- 04/11/09 CATAMARAN RIDE - DAY 7

Sometimes we just spent the day laying on the beach, zipping a drink at the beachside terraces and shopping or just walking the shopping malls and wondering around the location. These flowers were growing free on the streets, wereas it's hard for us to get them grow even indoors in Finland (at least the green things don't survive in our home).

We took the one hour catamaran ride on Kepoikai, which you can grab at the shore of Waikiki. If you're interested of cheap booze on the sea, you should get one of these rides for 15-20 bucks and enjoy their Mai Tais for $1 each (the more expensive $20 rides have drinks for free).

The Waikiki area with it's rough 40 floors high hotels was around 1,5 miles long and 3 blocks thick strip on the beach. The backside was lined with a canal, so it was sort of surrounded with water from both sides.

- 06/11/09 (FRIDAY) SEA LIFE PARK - DAY 9

A dolphin encounter!

I'm feeling the urging need of making sushi out of that fish-animal every time I see this photo. Naeh kidding, these honeys were adorable :) We actually saw also the only "WOLPHINE" in the world which they had swimming around in the same pool - her mother was a 400 pounder dolphin and father was a 1600 pounder whale (don't remember the exact species, you can google this for more info). It was thought this combination was impossible but there it was, swimming with us.

Dolphin jump!

This is the wolphin I was talking about, a glad fellow! :)

We don't see this stuff in our local dolphinario.

All together! :)

Atlantis restaurant, right above the main street of Waikiki. One of the best drinks ever!

Every friday Hotel Hilton had this nice fireworks display, roughly equal to the fireworks we see in our hometown Tampere annually on every independence day evening.

- 07/11/09 DIAMOND HEAD - DAY 10

We took a bus from Waikiki (I believe it was connection nr 22) to Diamond Head's root on this yet another sunny hot day, to have a hike through the crater and up the mountaint to the peak of Diamond Head. You may notice we had captured some color during our stay, but it didn't help walking in strict sun light up the mountain. The whole walk took around 1h30mins.

But what a view we had towards Waikiki! (around 300 meters in height I think)

- 08/11/09 O'AHU ISLAND ROUND TOUR - DAY 11

This is the beach where Elvis shot his Blue Hawaii pictures.

The Dole plantase. As a fan of pineapples I was thrilled to get here, and man the smoothie drink made of the fresh fruit was great!!

This is where a huge outdoor garden ends (I don't remember the name of the place but they had a valley full of different kind of plants and flowers). This is the area where they shot "Jurassic Park" movies and you can sometimes also see this exact same waterfall in the TV series "LOST".

This is one of the most sought-after surfing strands in the world. The time we got here the sea was pretty calm with only around 2 meter (7 feet) waves. Usually the wave height is at least 3-4 meters and at windy times the height can catch up as high as 10 to 13 meters. There was a program on a local TV channel where a surfer pro told about his luck for hitting here in 2003 when they had 21 meter (69 feet) waves! This guy had a helicopter flying him to the best spot to catch the waves size of a block house!

Here we can see some sort of a view of the spectacular land scapes. Come to Finland if you don't want to see any kind of a land formation at all, it's all flat in here. Just behind the photographer (me) was the windiest places on Hawaii, the wind speeds could build up really huge.

- 10/11/09 PEARL HARBOR - DAY 13

The USS Arizona Memorial. Before the ship journey to the memorial site everyone were seated in a small movie theater and shown a movie about the second world war. As an outsider it felt a bit weird to have a theater full of japanese tourists, while the movie was showing how the japanese bombed the area and what were the casualties in the site (around 2500 men). At the end of the 10 minute movie the narrator told the US made a counter attack to Japan and ended the war, but no number of casualties, not to mention the civil casualties, were told. The overall propaganda and patriotism stinks from an outsiders view at many places, but it was an entertaining trip in overall.

Some very interesting architecture on the road back to Waikiki. I heard ths deepening part in the upper floor was a 6 stores high office apartment of some company boss?

- 12/11/09 SUBMARINE TOUR - DAY 15

This is one of the two submarines that go under the surface of Waikiki. We took the bigger one that can carry 64 persons (it has bigger windows for better viewing, recommended if you take this trip!)

An artificial reef for divers and fish.

Deep love at 33 meters :)

Can't remember the name of this fish.. but it's the one that's impossible to photograph from the front.

We saw two wrecked aircrafts, the other one being a US military aircraft.

And also two sunken ships, the other one being a korean ship trooper.

I'm not sure if these are the ones that were built in Finland? They have operation also in Guam and in the Caribbean.

Some nice ship cruises were also available. If you plan to make a full grand islands tour, prepare to spend one extra week on one of these ships.

21pm, warm weather outside, beach terrace, the best company. I had to SMS my friends at work what they were doing at the moment. :]

Zipping a Mai Tai after yet another beautiful day :)

- 16/11/09 AN INTER-ISLAND FLIGHT TO BIG ISLAND - DAY 19

While being in Hawaii, we wanted to have a visit for one of the other islands of Hawaii, so we decided to book a flight to the Hawaii Big Island and get a helicopter ride there to see the active lava fields from up air (you need to book this forehand). The Hawaiian Airlines are comfy and these days the only fast way to change the residency between the islands.

Bill Gates wishes us a save journey.

The Rainbow Falls. This photo did cost us $400. Why? Because the weather was so bad at the volcanic area the helicopter company cancelled the flight after 2 hours of wait on the airport and refunded their program for us. There we were on the Big Island's airport with a rough 2 hours of spare time to spend before coming back to the airport to get a flight back to Honolulu. So we asked for nearby attractions and took a taxi to take us 20 minutes drive away to the Rainbow Falls. The driver was an elder german man who had moved away from Germany 38 years ago and he was kind to guide us and tell about the place. We left the meter on and hiked to the falls.

Then we drove even further up-stream to see Boiling Pots, which also had a nice waterfall view at this time because it had been raining there and there was a lot of water on the move. The cab maestro took a couple of photos for us while the meter was running. Some real "fastourism" I say! :D

Some nice cloud formations on the sky when we flew back, it was rainy for a couple of days but still warm and a lot better than in Finland. :D

- 17/11/09 RANDOM WALKAROUNDS - DAY 20

Quite often we visited this outdoor snack bar at food market place in the centrum Waikiki, which had a lot of nice fruit food for snacks. The best ones were stuff that had pineapple in to them, but they had everything ranging from rambutans to coconuts. This one looks like it's going to crack up and give a birth to a baby raptor dinosaur.

A few days earlier I enjoyed a pina colada from a fresh pineapple *drool*
In overall we ate a lot of freash fruits and salad, but also white meat and a lot of fish. We hardly had any red meat during the time and I also felt better in overall. Afterwards I heard I must have lost weight, and I think it's the lacking of the red meat that I fancy so much usually.

- 18/11/09 HELICOPTER FLIGHT OVER O'AHU - DAY 21

Honolulu from up air!

Waikiki from up air! You can see the golf course behind Waikiki.

Waikiki straight from above!

A lot of houses built next to each other. The land costs a really lot here, so the houses were small and cranked, but they had new shiny cars in front of them. The movie stars and other millionaires/billionaires had some really nice residencies further away though :]

She did a great job in both flying + guiding us through the sights!

The "Blue Hawaii" beach from up air :)

Some of the scenery where they shot "Jurassic Park" and "51st Dates".

Waimanalo Beach. How does your backyard look like? On the inter-island flight I met a man who was actually selling Finnish saunas, and he told me about his sauna with a flowery backyard and a view to Mauna Kea volcano. What kind of a backyard does your sauna have?

Honolulu in distance.

The small island is called The Chinaman's Hat.

The secret falls. It would take 4 days to get here by walking.

The northern side of the island of Oahu had a lot of this kind of sunrays.

Pineapples from air!!

The Dole plantase with pineapples! :)

The Dole plantase and they say this is the biggest maze in the world.

The Pearl Harbor from distance.

The USS Arizona Memorial from up air. Here you can see how one of the oil tanks of the ship still leaks after 60 years of it's sinking. Isn't this some sort of a threat to the nature?

The airfield airplanes - It looks like if we were in a flight simulator.

An interesting angle with Sun and the rotor of the helicopter :)

After the flight, it was yet another dream come true! :)

Sun settled down

It's getting dim.

Some night views at shore

The Outrigger Reef restaurant on the left had some reaaaaaally nice coconut shrimps that I won't forget!!

Our friend Tiki masters the art of caricatures and we ordered a work from him by e-mail. Two days later we picked up the art from him at the beach side Kalakaua avenue and it was marvellous! :D

- 19/11/09 RANDOM WALKAROUNDS, EPIC SUNSETS - DAY 22

This still picture I took with Canon HFS10, reminiscent of some photos from Ibiza.

The sun went down in a minute, got it all in full HD with a stable stand.

The cold weather in Finland was a really distinct thought.

The regular sunsets at Waikiki ahh!

Another one.

- 20/11/09 RANDOM WALKAROUNDS - DAY 23

Duke Paoa Kahanamoku (1890-1968)
The father of international surfing.
Duke introduced surfing and hereby also Hawaii to the world. He was also the fastest swimmer in the world at the time. He won 3 gold medals, 2 silver and 1 bronze in four Olympics. He became a hero when he saved eight lives from a capsized launch at Corona del Mar, California in 1925 using his surfboard. A movie actor from 1925-1933 he was elected Sheriff of Honolulu for thirteen consecutive terms from 1934-1960. He has been recognized as Hawai'i's Ambassador of Aloha since 1912.

Grilling :)

Liquid skies

There's plenty of room left :)

The east side

The local police office looks like this, there's a water fountain on the right side.

This year the Santa is coming with his bike.

Local natural stuff

There were a lot of limos, too many even so that it wasn't anything special anymore - the reason we didn't take one even though the prices were starting up from 20 bucks.

Waikiki night from the eastern end.

Something nice by the Hilton :)

- 21/11/09 LAST EVENINGS - DAY 24

The last evening at Waikiki Beach. Now afterwards I can see I wasn't all that healthy at the time. We spent the second last night in hospital because this previous evening I had a fever rising up at +38.2'C and we had a shark cage trip booked for the next early morning, so I needed the doctor's papers to get the booking cancelled and my money back (either from the shark cage company or from the insurance company). We got out from the hospital at 5am after well over 5 hours wait, and during this time the doctor had listened to my lungs with a stetoscope and the same for Riitta. Riitta also had her lungs examined with an x-ray. Before we got out, they gave us a bill of $1,444 which had to paid there instantly before leaving. Luckily they accepted Visa Electron and gave a web PC for me for making transactions. I'm not nagging about the 80e bills I get from Finnish doctors anymore. The shark cage company charged their $250 even though I faxed them the doctor's papers. The insurance company paid everything back though!

The men in white! They had mimics and stuff all across the Kalakaua Avenue, the nearest avenue to the beach. There was a lot to see in the evening time too, but the Waikiki night was a bit of a disappointment with only a few regular night clubs that weren't all that special as I had thought (Level 4, Zanzabar and Lotus).

- 23/11/09 LEAVING HAWAII - DAY 25

The last climpse on the warm grounds.

We had medications that luckily took the fever down and made us feel a lot better, so travelling wasn't all that hard as we feared at first.

The islands of Maui and Molokai

Mauna Kea in the horizon!

Los Angeles up air by night. Gazillions of lights. The black spot was a block that had an electric breakdown and 865 people were out of electricity, it was all over on the evening news.

Booking in to hotel Hacienda in LA, somebody's tired.

- 24/11/09 LEAVING LOS ANGELES - DAY 26

After having a nice night snack and morning breakfast both at Carl's Jr, we had a few extra hours to spend before going to the airport. So we grabbed a cab from our hotel and I gave directions for the driver to take us to Samy's camera shop. When we got there he left the meter running while I went shopping and got back with a nice wide converter lense for my camera ^_^ Then the next directions took us to Ed Hardy's store a few miles away, and Riitta found herself some really nice shirts (not to mention the bag she bought from the LAX airport's shop! :D). The taxi driver waited 25 minutes for us on the parking lot with all our luggage, and then we drove back to LAX international. I gave him extra 40% tip because he had waited for us and he was seemingly glad about this generousity (though the gas is really cheap there which affects the taxi prices to be low on the "northern european scale" and he really waited us there without hijacking all our bags!) :) "Fastourism" in action once again! :D

The LAX airport mexican food restaurant must have had the second biggest salsa chips I've ever seen!

Sunrise of Atlantic

- 26/11/09 BACK HOME - DAY 28

03:40am in the night. Happy to be home again but feeling esoteric and unreal about everything.

Just look how exotic it looks here in compared to the past month. Uaaaaah!