Honolulu & Pink Lladros

Time for a Saturday double post: Sightseeing and Pink Saturday. Pink Saturday is hosted by Beverly of http://howsweetthesound.typepad.com/my_weblog/. Please visit Chandy at http://whatnowtablescapes.blogspot.com/. She has some sights that she wants to share with us too. She is usually ready with her post at midnight, central time.

Now, let's go to Hawaii for a little sightseeing, let's go to Honolulu in the island of Oahu. This was the first time we ever took my granddaughter AJ, on a vacation so a lot of the photos are focused on her. She was 5. I had to really convince her parents to let her go because the trip was almost 2 weeks long and they knew they would miss her a lot. But I was pretty persuasive and I finally succeeded, insisted it was educational for her.
We went to theRoyal Hawaiian Hotel on Waikiki Beach to attend a reception party. We passed by it everyday because we stayed at Sheraton which was right next to it. Hey this pic qualifies for Pink Sat.! Do you think we could pass for Hawaiians? Click and enlarge the pic and tell me what you think. There's AJ right outside our hotel. She swam every single day and never got tired of it.
The hotel had a program for kids and we registered her and everyday they would have different fun activities, like hula dancing lessons, building a volcano on the beach and she even learned to speak some Japanese words after playing with lots of Japanese kids. I was so amazed when one day we were walking to the pool and when a Japanese woman walked towards us, AJ said "Kunichua!" to her and the Japanese said "Kunichua" back. I asked her "What was that?" and she said she was saying "Hello" to her. I thought that was so cute coming from a little 5 year old.
Site along Waikiki Beach
the beautiful beach
The flea market was a walking distance from the hotel and it was AJ's and my favorite hangout while John was in meetings. They had daily hula shows there which we enjoyed a lot.
and best of all, the shows were free.

We rented a convertible and drove to the Dole Pineapple Plant.

Our little Pineapple Princess!

We passed by this on our way to Hanauma Bay to go snorkeling. It was one of the most beautiful sites that I have ever seen and we just had to stop. I am not really sure what it is called but you know I have seen it on one of the TV show "Lost" locations. Please click to enlarge the picture and you'll know what I mean.

And here's Hanauma Bay. It has the most beautiful fish and reefs.

There is a funny story to this photo. One evening, about midnight, AJ suddenly came up with an idea of making money, to buy stuff and sell them for a profit. She asked John to take her to the store, so late at night, they both went (I refused to go because I was already in my pj's). They came back with a bunch of Hawaiian souvenir key chains. The next day, while waiting for the tour bus to take us for a whale watching cruise, the 2 of them were peddling these keychains. LOL! And she sold quite a few and I could not believe it. After all, these tourists could just go to nearby stores and buy them at 1/2 the price cause they were everywhere. Then I found out why she was selling them. John was secretly giving the money to the tourists to buy a keychain from her. LOL! But you know, some of them would not accept the money and just bought anyway, just to please the little girl. Aren't they nice?

Have you ever seen a shirt big enough to fit 3 people?

That's the boat that took us whale watching and it was truly amazing to see the whales in action.

During a catamaran sailing, AJ insisted on staying at the end of a netted floor. I was getting nervous so I asked John to stay there to hold her leg.

Here's one of the views we saw during our sail. It was so breathtaking.

AJ enjoyed her little surf board.

I hope you enjoyed the sights of Honolulu as we did. Thank you for joining me today for another Saturday sightseeing.

And now for Pink Saturday! First I would like to wish Beverly a Happy Anniversary and a big congratulations for having a very successful year! And don't forget to visit her blog and all the other participants. It will be a treat. Thank you so much, Beverly, for hosting this wonderful meme.

For today, I would like to show you 2 of my pink Lladro figurines. The first one is the one on the right below. She is "The Dreamer" and she was originally issued in 1978.

This one "Waltz Time" was issued in 1974 and is # 4856 in the Lladro book.

Thank you so much for visiting again. I enjoy having you. Thanks Beverly for hosting this and congrats on the pink anniversary again.