Layover Pictures

I've been looking forward to this day for almost a year. The day I told my sister-in-law I was planning to go to Hillsong, I also said I wanted her at the airport so I could return the favour of handing over my winter jacket (with a big smile) as I left for a warm place. She was a really good sport.





If anyone has trouble with jealousy, look at this picture and stop here. This one shows just how normal Hawaii actually is.








After over a month of cold in the Canadian Prairies, this was a very welcome site.








My first morning. I had to pass quite a bit of time before I actually got to see this sunrise on Waikiki Beach.








After spending a day at the Polynesian Cultural Center, I realized dance is a major part of their culture. This is a small representation of what I saw.







I rented a Moped (also called a Scooter in some places) and went for a drive around the island. It was quite a weird feeling driving along the freeways with a chainsaw motor on wheels. I was told it had a top speed of 40 mph so I assumed with my size it would be about 35mph. On level surfaces, that was true but most of the road was not level so I had a top speed anywhere between 25 and 45mph depending on how steep the hill was and whether I was driving up or down. Fortunately, most of the roads have a speed limit of 35mph. This was probably my best day as I was outside seeing the real island - which I would say is much better than the tourist locations!




This was just another rock sticking out of the ocean but it looked neat.







Before my trip, I asked some friends who have lived in Hawaii what I should do and they both said "Go to the Northern Beaches." In case anyone is planning a trip to Honolulu sometime, I agree with them. Waikiki Beach is the most popular beach on the island and apparently is the most well known beach in the world. If you like to watch every step to make sure you don't walk all over someone; if you like to be able to get canoe or sailboat rides or rent surfboards and get some lessons along with the other thousand people in the water; if you like to have 500 hotels and 3000 stores within walking distance; if you don't mind a beach where there's more rock than sand under the water and what sand there is is course and was imported from another state; then Waikiki is the man-made beach for you. However, if you would rather have a enough room to lay out your beach towel without folding up the edges and enough room in the water to swing your arms in a swimming motion; if you want nice sand that's easy on your feet and a surface under the water that you can safely walk on; if you don't mind giving up some of the shops and hotels within walking distance and are willing to carry your surfboard a couple hundred feet from the shop instead of 30 feet along the beach; then the place for you is somewhere outside Honolulu. This picture of Sandy Beach was taken in the middle of the day and is typical of the beaches outside of tourist central. When I did the trip around the island, I finally saw why Hawaii is considered a Paradise. The man-made beauty of the tourist areas does not compare to the God-made beauty of the rest of the island.


Here's one of the best places in the world for experienced surfers. "Pipeline" is where a lot of international surfing competitions are held. Warning: do not enter the water unless you are a very strong swimmer and understand the currents. When the waves got to shore, they were still big enough that someone could be standing on the sand completely out of the water and be completely covered by a wave coming in.




Now after I said Waikiki (great as it is) is nowhere near the best beach on the island, this sunset photo was taken there; so judge for yourselves whether this is a beautiful place.





What you see centered in this picture is the top of the USS Arizona. This ship was the site of the largest number of soldiers lost in a single act in US war history. It was sunk by an armour piercing bomb dropped from 10,000 feet. The bomb went through a couple layers of the ship and exploded inside - right next to the ship's supply of ammunition. about 150 feet of the ship was completely separated by the explosion and another piece weighing a couple thousand pounds was lifted far into the air and caused a second explosion when it landed back on the ship. It took about 2 seconds to kill almost 1,200 men (almost half of the total losses in Pearl Harbour) on the ship. In the background, you can see white markers that show the place where some the other ships were sunk. remarkably, most of the ships were actually recovered, fixed, and put back in service; some in less than a year.



On a monument for the USS Arizona was a list of people who died on the ship. I couldn't get the whole list on the picture. I did not get a lot of good pictures of Pearl Harbour, but it was great to be there. It is very sobering to see the place of such terrible destruction at the hands of men and to hear, from some of the people who lived through it, what it was like and what happened.

Miss me yet?

I think this is the longest time between posts since I started the blog. Sorry. The last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of activity – just not the type of activity that makes for interesting blogging. Here’s the summary. Got up in morning and brought niece to school bus, went for lunch with friend(s), went to friend’s place for supper, out for evening, got home sometime after midnight – no point adjusting to Manitoba time since I’ll be back on Sydney time soon. I really enjoyed my time in Canada and for that I can thank the people there. Good as some of my activities were, what really made it good was seeing all of you. I didn’t get a chance to see quite everyone I wanted to see but hopefully you can understand. Now for the part you’ve all been waiting for…

“The sun is shining, I'm on the beach, its 33 degrees Celsius and I just got off the surf board after riding a 20 foot wave in.” I wrote this a few months ago in an email to someone who had expressed some jealousy over me going to Australia. I followed that by a sentence clearly stating that it was not true. This time, it’s much closer to the truth. I’m in my hotel room; the temperature was around 30, and I did ride a wave in on a surf board. I tried catching a bus to a certain bay to do some snorkelling but the bus didn’t show up so I had to find other things to do. Surfing was one of them. There are a few companies on the beach renting out boards and providing lessons. One of them had promised me the other day that if I took a lesson, they would get me wet and tired. Very true!!! And I even made it up on the board a couple of times to ride the waves. The tiring part is swimming out to sea against the waves.

I’m now in Hawaii and making the best of my layover on the way to Sydney. Clouds rolled in around noon my first day here so I decided it was not the best day for the beach. A little colour would be a good thing on my skin before I get back to the powerful UV rays of the Australian sun so there’s actually a good reason for spending some time on the beach. Oh well, I just went off to the next place and enjoyed the day at the Polynesian Cultural Center. Within the park are a number of different centers for different Polynesian countries. Each of them has some type of show or interactive display – very interesting. I only ended up on stage once as a “volunteer” after being singled out together with a bunch of other men and asked to come up. Until now, there have been stories of me dancing but no evidence – strange what you do when you don’t know anyone around.

Today I went out to Pearl Harbour and then got back to my hotel early enough that I thought I’d be able to go scuba diving. I checked into it a bit yesterday and thought the shuttle left at 2:30 so I should have an hour to spare. Well, when I called to book, I found out they actually left at 11:15. And what’s more, I can’t go tomorrow because I’m flying out Saturday morning and I can’t fly within 18 hours of diving!!! So instead of going scuba diving, I’ve rented a moped and plan to see if I can find my way around the island. Could get interesting since I don’t have a good map and my vehicle has a top speed of 40mph; but I’ve been told it’s easy (whatever that means coming from people who have done it a hundred times) so I guess I’ll soon find out.

One more day and then I get in the plane for a bunch of hours and head back to Sydney. If any of you are still jealous of me having this layover here, take a little bit of comfort in the fact that I have to leave my hotel at 5:15AM. It’s getting late and I need to get some sleep before my ride tomorrow but now you have something new to read. Hope you enjoyed. I plan to get some pictures up once I'm back in Australia.

Freakiest Person

I thought it interesting that someone would call me the freakiest person they know (see comments on previous post). What a compliment !!! ;-) I’m sure the comment came with a big smile on your face!

So I went back over my last few entries and you may have a point.

Questioning Veggie Tales title
Sticking out a coloured tongue with some children for a picture
Taking a picture of my food at A&W
Taking a picture of my brother after a fall on the ski hill
…And my sister in law cleaning up a messy table…
Editing a picture to convince my brother I had bought a snowmobile
Showing off a dead Christmas tree
Telling an amusing story of the L.A. airport…

And that’s just part of my Christmas break

Just like I was the one who brought the Veggie Tales issue to light, someone out there has now brought to light my freakiness…the only problem is that no name was left with the comment so I can only guess your identity (hint, hint). I love your comment though.

Deep Question

I’ve been asking quite a few people a question for the last while and I wasn’t able to get a satisfactory answer. “Why are the two big stars of Veggie Tales, actually fruit?” Now I’ve run into a glitch with the question. I asked the question of someone and it led to a discussion on the different characters. I now realize I’ve been asking the wrong question the whole time. The question should be more like “Why are only a few of the characters actually vegetables?” Now I don’t claim to be a Veggie Tales expert (I’ve actually never seen an entire show but that’s changing since I’m watching a Veggie Tales show with my nephew as I write this) but I went online and looked for a list of the characters. I don’t think I was able to find a complete list, but here’s the result of what I did find. I’ve compiled a list which includes the botanical classification.

Bob the Tomato Fruit
Larry the Cucumber Fruit
Junior Asparagus Herb
Laura Jay Carrot Vegetable
Percy Pea Grain
Jimmy and Jerry Gourd Fruit
Madame Blueberry Fruit
Nebby K Nezzer (zucchini) Fruit
Mr Lunt (gourd) Fruit
The French Peas Grain
Pa Grape Fruit
Petunia Rhubarb Herb
Ann Scallion (onion) Vegetable
??? Lemon Fruit
??? Bean Grain

Now, like I said, I don’t think this is a complete list (actually I’m sure it’s not a complete list) but it’s the extent of what I found; but from the list above, you should be able to see why I’m asking the question. Now it’s your turn. If anyone has an answer for me, please answer for me why Veggie Tales has more characters that are not vegetables than those that are vegetables. (In case anyone is still wondering; yes, this is an attempt at getting more feedback on my blog).

Birthday Party

So I was invited to a birthday party and had a great time influencing some young boys in the finer details of life – namely, what to do with coloured icing on a cake. Here’s the result.

New Year's Eve

I feel like I’m missing something special in the New Year’s celebrations in Sydney. I’ve already missed the Christmas celebrations with Hillsong and now this. I even watched a bit of TV and saw parts of the celebrations from other cities around the world – but they missed my home away from home. My New Years Eve will be spent in bed laying some groundwork on my recovery from a severe head cold that has had me in rough shape for a couple days now. I came back to Saskatchewan yesterday after a great time in Alberta but I insisted my brother drive because it would not be safe for me to do so. Upon my arrival home, my brother and sister carried my luggage to my room while went to crash in bed.

I managed to make my way to church this morning to share but it was a struggle. I was determined that I would not be kept away from sharing what God has given me to say and I know it impacted some people. Only God knows the extent of the work He’s doing through my life but I pray that it will continue to increase.

While in Alberta, I was able to spend some quality time with some great friends. My brother and I enjoyed phenomenal hospitality spending the nights and quite a bit of our waking time with long time friends of mine who happen to be husband and wife. I also really enjoyed catching up with another friend I hadn’t seen in 4 ½ years. After a short night, my two brothers joined me in hitting the slopes of the great Canadian Rockies. It really was a great trip. Here are some of the pictures…



Got some real A&W food – unlike the wannabe restauraunt we were at in Sydney







Upon arrival in Alberta – we caught the beginning of a snow storm in the last half hour of driving. Ended up with about 20 cm of fresh powder which was still partially there when I got to the slopes two days later.





Traffic on our way to the ski hill. Also note, if you climb to the highest point in the Blue Mountains outside Sydney, then climb half that distance further, that’s the same elevation as I was when I took this picture. I’m basically at the base of the Rockies.







My brothers and me ready for our first run down the mountain.






And the second run...








It was truly a great mountaintop experience.







If you zoom in on this picture, you can possibly see the distances to various locations. Sydney is almost four times as far as the North Pole, I guess I travelled a long ways to get here. (sorry about the picture quality when you zoom. I need to keep the file size small for dial up internet service.)




Nice finishing touch on the way from the ski hill.