Hawaii Five - 0

We left Sunday the day after our wedding. Alicia's uncle gave us a free one night stay at his condo before we left for the cruise on Monday. This is the view of Waikiki Beach from our balcony. We spent the first night walking around the beach.

After a taxi ride, we arrived at Sea Life Park to swim the dolphin. Our dolphin was named Bugs. He used to be owned by the Navy where they did experiments on him. He's retired now. He took us on a belly ride, showed us his flips, & gave us kisses. Bugs put his nose on our feet to push us on boogie boards. It was really fun! Sorry, we don't have pictures. You had to pay for them. But here is Alicia at the entrance to the aquarium.

We traveled to Dole Plantation Factory in Honolulu for some yummy pineapple dessert. It was an adventure getting there because we took the city bus and made several transfers.

Monday was our first day of the cruise. In Hilo, we went kayaking with a bunch of honeymooners and one family. It was very embarassing when two teenage girls beat us to the waterfall. We tried our best. Ed was upset. Here is a conversation:

E: "Hurry! We have to beat them. This is humiliating."

A: "Ed, I'm tired."

E: "Left, Right, Left, Right!...Why did you stop paddling?"

A: "I need a break. I'm taking a rest."

There were several restaurants on the cruise ship that we could eat at. We went to an Italian restaurant one night. Boo for the dress code. We usually ate at the buffet place where you could wear flip-flops and shorts. Anyways, the place was nice and we enjoyed a fake candlelight dinner for two. That's right...the light was a lightbulb.

On our second day, we docked in Maui. We went snorkling in Molokini & Turtle Arches where we swam with green sea turtles. We are a lot further in the above picture than we thought we were. We took along our waterproof camera for such an occasion (see Alicia in action below). Thanks for letting us borrow the snorkle gear Roberta!

Alicia Leung sleeps with the fishes!!...er...and sea turtles and corral.

Our second Maui excursion was the famous Maui Downhill Biking where we got to ride down the side of a volcano. It was scenic and very relaxing. They take you up in a van, put you in some rain gear (because it's really cold), and you coast down the volcano in single file. All this is done while trying to avoid oncoming traffic, which isn't as scary as it sounds. Alicia got to lead the group. Ed was behind an old lady.

Try your best to avoid the Brokeback jokes please. Our next excursion took place on Kona. Alicia's horse was named Illey and Ed's horse was nicknamed B.S. We got to ride horses into the clouds that encircled the mountain. Again, the scenery was gorgeous, and riding the horses was a lot of fun..except our backsides were really sore the next day and it rained a part of the time.

Our last, and favorite excursion was on the island of Kauai (in our opinion, the most beautiful island by far). That's why we have four pictures of it. We got to ride "mudbugs" through different trails all over the island. The roads were bumpy and full of potholes at times. They gave us clothes to wear (all we had underneath was our swimming outfits). We got filthy going through mud puddles, as well as from the dirt/dust being churned up from the vehicle ahead of us.

Although we took a shower at the mudbug location, we felt we needed to take another one when we got back to the cruiseship. Can you blame us?

On our final day in Kauai, we just hung out at the beach. Alicia laid out and read a book, while Ed attempted to learn to surf by himself. And yes, that board is twice his size. They say that the bigger the board, the more stable it is.

We raced out of our cabin to take a picture of the land & water before the boat passed it. It doesn't look as exciting as we thought it would.

Ed carved this picture into the sand twice before we were able to beat the tides. You can already see the bottom of it washing away. In a nutshell, the honeymoon was a blast. We got to see as much as we wanted of each other, eat all we wanted, and got to do new, cool stuff all in a week!