We are en route from Honolulu to Los Angeles with surf dreaded hair and bellies full of laulau. I'm excited about the next leg of our America trip but also convinced that Hawaii isn't really part of the US anyway. It's not just the language, cuisine or their Royal palace. In Waikiki you can pay for your groceries in yen and every street vendor and homeless person has a smattering of Japanese. The food has been righteous. There's a huge variety of Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese and Hawaiian restaurants and stalls which we have been taking full advantage of. The public transport is cheap so we have been getting around by bus. Yesterday we took one all the way to the north shore. It took about two hours through the country side before we got to a great surf beach called Waimea Bay. It was a nice change from Waikiki which is beautiful but almost always teeming with gringos. On the way back to Honolulu we stopped off at a small town called Hale'iwa and were introduced to the awesome power of coconut shrimp.

Day 1

Waikiki beach

Plane face and Korea dinne

Day 2

Waikiki beach

Climbing up diamond head crater

Aloha shirt shopping at bailey's antiques.

Day 3

Visiting the royal palace