Our time in Hawaii has been pretty laid back – basically a recovery week before we head back to work

Most of our time has been spent sleeping, eating, shopping, swimming, and sun baking.  However we have done a few little side trips whilst we are here.

We checked out Pearl Harbour and the USS Arizona Memorial which was pretty moving.  We then went on board the USS Missouri which is where the Japanese surrender in World War II was signed.

Paul went Mountain Biking on the other side of the island.  When he booked it he thought it would be just a nice ride through a valley, but when he got there he realised it is the valley where hollywood does a lot of filming.

Like Jurassic Park

Like Pearl Harbour

Like Godzilla

Like Lost

… and about 50 other movies or TV shows.  The scenery was spectacular, but unfortunately the ride was cut a little short due to the fact that the Lost production crew were there filming scenes for series five of Lost.

Whilst Paul was Mountain Biking, Kerrina and her family when for a bus tour around the island.

We all went to a traditional Luau and ate Pig that was cooked underground, and watched some attractive locals dance and run around in grass skirts.

Finally we have ate a few meals at Duke’s Bar at Waikiki, which has to be one of the best places to eat in Hawaii (and conveniently downstairs at the Outrigger where we are staying).  Duke was the guy that pretty much started modern surfing, and there are a few memorials around the place for him.

Today as I write this is our last day in Hawaii, and the last day of our holiday before we hop on a plane home.  Tonight we leave just before mid-night on our way to Auckland, and then back to Brisbane.  We totally skip Saturday 20 September this year due to crossing the International Date Line, which basically means we are back to work sooner than we really want to be!

We will post a few more photos up here when we get home… but for now, thanks for reading about our holiday and we both hope you have enjoyed seeing what we have been up to!

Paul and Kerrina

Today was pretty much a day lost to travel.

Our first leg was Las Vegas to Los Angeles. Las Vegas airport had been shut down earlier in the morning so there was a bit of a back log when we went to check in. Again we both got “randomly selected” for special treatment for going through security.

The flight from LV to LA is about 35 minutes, however we spent about an hour and a half sitting in the plane on the ground between the two gates. So all up it would have been almost faster to drive.

We had to change terminals in LA because we were switching airlines. That unfortunately meant we had to go through security again. Suprise suprise, when we pick up our boarding passes for the LA to Honolulu leg… guess what – SSSS – we are selected again for special treatment “at random!” We must be blacklisted or something!

The line for security was absolutely huge – people were complaining that they had been in line for over 90 minutes and were no where near the x-ray machines. We kept walking looking for the end of the line.

We thought we found it, and walked down the roped aisle, but as we got closer we realised that we had walked down the First Class express security line. We both played dumb (which we were because we still can’t figure out where the end of the line really was), and the nice TSA man let us through.

Once inside the terminal we still had another 5 hours to wait because our flight was delayed an hour – which meant we made it to Honolulu late in the evening.

Kerrina’s family decided to fly out for a week in Hawaii when we booked our trip, so when we arrived they were already at the hotel waiting to greet us.

Today was a relaxing day were we got to explore around our Casino and lounge by the pool.

We woke up pretty late and headed across to the Bellagio to enjoy the highly recommended buffet over there.  After about 25 minutes in line (it is that popular!) we headed in.  It was great and we would recommend it to others as well.

After lunch we hit the shops looking for a few good deals.  Planet Hollywood is right beside the Miracle Mile Shopping Centre.  It is one giant loop that would have somewhere between 200 and 300 shops, from your cheap tourist stuff right through to your expensive jewellery.  They even have indoor rain storms every 30 minutes which are pretty cool.

We then went to lounge by the pool in the sun.  There were a few VIP tents across the pool from us.  At first we didn’t think there were many celebrities around – there were a few black guys that looked like NFL players but that was it.  But as the afternoon went on a few that we recognised showed up.

There was the daughter out of Gilmore Girls – can’t remember her name, but she was there with here entourage of similarly skinny and nuclear white friends.

But just as we were about to leave you will never guess who showed up… MINI-ME!  Verne Troyer, the guy that played mini-me in Austin Powers was beside the pool with his posse.  We were both surprised by just how small he is – he really is about the size of a baby.  He looked even smaller when one of the suspected NFL players went to shake his hand.

After dinner we went to the show we booked a few days ago – a magic show by Steve Wywick.  It was pretty good, however we had seats in the second row which meant you could kinda see how he was doing the illusions.  The icing on the cake was being able to hear the chains they used to drag in a lear jet when it was supposed to “appear out of thin air”. 

We then headed back into the casino.  Kerrina had a punt on Roulette and did pretty well, pretty much tripling her money.  Paul sucked and lost it all (all $20 bucks).

This morning we had an early start to get out to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.

Not much to say really about today apart from about 9 hours of sitting on a bus watching arid landscapes go past, and about 2 hours at the Canyon.

That being said, we did see a few highlights along the way.

First thing we came across was just outside Las Vegas, where we saw were they filmed some of Forrest Gump – the bit where he runs across America.

The next thing we saw (a lot more impressive than a bit of straight road that Tom Hanks jogged on) was Hoover Dam.  Dissapointingly we are one of the last few that will be able to drive over the dam – next year they will have completed a bypass which means you will only see the dam from a distance.  Why?  You guessed it… 9/11

We then continued into Arizona and finally to the Grand Caynon.  Yep… its a canyon, and it is certainly grand. 

After photos and video at a few different spots, we got back on the bus towards Vegas.  A very long day but well worth it.

Today we backed our bags to head to VEGAS!!!

Seattle was a bit of a pain in the behind with regard to what our Travel Agent booked for us.  They were thoughtful enough to book a transfer for us, just forgot to book one that actually would pick us up from our hotel (slight technicality!).  After a phone call back to Australia, and some rather strong negotiation (Paul told them what was going to happen)… we hoped into our Corporate/Town Car and headed for the airport.

Only Kerrina got randomly selected to get the special treatment by the TSA… however waiting in “the Pen” is something we have got used to on this trip.

The flight from Seattle to Vegas was pretty uneventful.  There were some great views out the left side of the plane when we flew over the top of Mt Rainier.  Pity we didn’t have easy access to a camera because it was spectacular.

We landed in Vegas around lunch time, and then spent about 40 minutes taxiing to our gate.  It was unbelievable how busy the airport was when we arrived – there were 11 aircraft lined up to take off, and a constant stream coming in to land.

We found our bags after our baggage carousel was changed without telling anyone, and headed straight to the strip!  We stayed at Planet Hollywood which has to be one of the better located casinos in Vegas – directly across the road from the Bellagio.

We arrived, dropped our bags and then started to explore.  One of the first places we came across was the Fat Tuesday Dacquiri Bar.  Now these are not your standard Treasury or Jupiters Casino dacquiris – these were strong and about 5 or 6 times the size. 

Once we had a few drinks we went to book our tour to the grand canyon and a show, before heading into the casino proper and checking out the scene.  Did you know that there is an eBay pokie now!  We tried it – it was pretty stupid (maybe because we didn’t win anything…)

That night we dressed up and headed out to check out the Bellagio Fountain at night – it was a pretty impressive show, however a lot shorter than we thought it would be. 

After the fountain we went back inside to the fancy resturant at Planet Holywood – KOI.  Kerrina reliably informs me that a lot of the hollywood celebrities hang out there.  There were none this night, but we still had a great Japanese meal.

Finally to end the night we hired a stretch limo for an hour to drive us up and down the strip.  We highly recommend it – it was only $45 bucks, and a lot cheaper than the night tours you can do.  We saw all the sights, like the Las Vegas sign, the wedding chapels, all the casinos (and even the dodgy ones down the end of the strip).

Once we were back at the hotel we pretty much collapsed after a huge day of travel and sightseeing.

Today we headed to downtown Seattle.

In the morning we hit the Pike Place Markets for a few hours. This is where you might have seen the fish mongers throw the Salmon around. We were just in time to see them through a few around which will look great on video – but we forgot to take any stills to share with you at the moment

Pike Place is one of the better markets we have been to. It is pretty big, however the quality of the goods is top notch. Kerrina could not get over how cheap and how pretty the flowers were.

Across the road from the Pike Place Market is home to the very first Starbucks store. We poked our head in for a quick look – because Pike Place has some heritage regulations they can’t change the store too much, so surprisingly it is a Starbucks that is actually a good coffee shop, instead of those cookie cutter Starbucks you get in Australia.

After spending the morning downtown we jumped onto a ferry to do a cruise on Lake Washington. They call it the “Bridges and Billionaires” cruise, because you see a couple of bridges, and the homes of Seattle’s wealthiest – including Bill Gates (picture of just a bit of his house below), a heap of Microsoft executives, the guy who started Amazon.com Jeff Bezos, the guy that started Costco, Starbucks, and more. It was a pretty nice cruise, and gave spectacular views of Mt Rainier in the distance.

After the cruise we made our way back to the hotel in the middle of nowhere for the last time

This morning we woke to another fabulous day in Toronto.  After breakfast down in the hotel restaurant we hopped on our tour bus for the first time.

The tour group are pretty good, however there are a few special people on board, and one in particular from New York who is getting on everyone’s nerves already.  She has already invited herself to stay with us in Australia, and again, we politely ignored her request.

The bus took us out of Toronto around the edge of Lake Ontario.  On the trip we passed through or past a number of interesting places.  The first was a town which is basically Canada’s equivalent of Newcastle – a big steel town which today looked like Beijing with all the smog.  Apparently the steel mill there is owned by an Australian company, I am guessing BHP.

On the way they played us a DVD about Hydro Power in Canada, and about how they built the hydro plants at the falls.  Was interesting to hear that during off peak tourist times (basically before 8am) they divert half of the flow of the falls off to be used for hydro power.

After about two hours on the road we arrived at the falls.  It was one of those moments were you have to pinch yourself to realise you are standing at the place that you have seen so many times in movies, tv shows, in the news etc etc.  We pulled up and took a heap of video and plenty of photos.  Unfortunately we STILL can’t share them with you because this is the second Internet cafe we have been to that has the computer locked up… which means I can’t plug my card reader in   .  As soon as we find one that can we will make sure we upload everything you have missed so far.

Anyways… Kerrina, fearing that her brand new shoes would get wet when we went down to the falls, ran into the souvenier shop and bought an emergency pair of thongs. 

After some more photo opportunties up the top of the Horseshoe Falls (the nice looking ones!) we walked down to the Maid of the Mist.  The Maid of the Mist is a company that runs those boats up the river to the base of the Horseshoe Falls that you see in all the photos.

After donning our blue rain poncho’s, and Paul figuring out the best way to hold the video camera without it getting wet (for the record, if you wear your poncho sideways you can push the camera out through one of the arm holes)… we got onto the boat for our quick trip up the river.

The first falls you go to are the American Falls.  Whilst impressive, they didn’t really get you wet.  There is a walkway on the US side of the river (forgot to mention that the river the Falls are on is the border between the US and Canada) that you can use to walk down to the very edge of the falls, and there would have been at least 200 people down there when we went past.

After the American Falls the boat goes a little further up river to the Horseshoe falls.  At first the Maid of the Mist lived up to its name.  Then as we got closer, it wasn’t really mist anymore, more like standing out in the middle of a severe Brisbane summer thunderstorm downpour (as Forrest Gump would say “big fat rain”).  It was so heavy you couldn’t actually see the top of the falls!

After about 5 minutes at the edge of the falls, the boat turned around and took us back to the landing.  After taking the poncho off we were both pretty dry which is a bonus, beacuse we were about the only people on the tour who didn’t bring a spare change of clothes.

Then we hopped on the bus back to Toronto.

Later that night we dressed up and had dinner at the top of what is currently and officiallythe tallest free standing structure in the world – the CN Tower (techncially the Burj Dubai is taller, but it has not been completed, nor the official height been declared, so we can still say we were on top of the world for one night).

It was just like any other tower revolving restaurant like you would see in Sydney or Auckland, just a little taller.

It also has a section of glass floor.  Because the CN Tower is right beside the Rogers Centre (where we watched the baseball the night before), we spent some time watching the Toronto Blue Jays play the Boston Red Sox from about 1000ft above the stadium.

We took the lift down the tower, then hopped on the bus back to the hotel for our last night in Toronto.

Hi all,

After what felt like a lifetime… we finally made it from Brisbane to Toronto.  All up it took about 30 hours to get from home to the hotel room.  Here is a quick recap of the highlights.

1. Brisbane Airport – Paul got the explosive trace test and special hands on treatment by a very nice security man at Brisbane Airport - the security guard must have been bored because we were the only ones going through security at the time.
2. NZ136 (Brisbane to Auckland) -  Air New Zealand’s in filght entertainment was pretty good, managed to catch three episodes of 30 Rock.  Paul scored a middle seat.
3. Auckland Airport – We spotted Mark Occhilupo (the old Aussie surfing world champ) getting on our flight.  Also we think we saw the kid from Billy Elliot… although now he doesn’t look like a kid, more like a guy with really skinny legs.
4. NZ6 (Auckland to Los Angeles) – 12 hours of economy class sucks.  Period.  Managed about an hour of sleep each which meant that the flight felt like it lasted forever.  Movies that we caught include The Worlds Fastest Indian, Kung Fu Panda, and Drillbit Taylor (the later being responsible for our sleep, because it sucked!).  Paul scored a middle seat
5. Los Angeles Airport – We spotted Mark Occhilupo getting off the plane.  No sign of Billy Elliot.  He may be still on the plane stuck in a crack between two seats.  Went through Customs, did the fingerprint and photo thing.  Collected our bags and noticed that somewhere along the journey someone had ripped the tags off, which meant having to re-check in at the Air Canada desk.  Not a problem until we realised because we checked our bags in twice for this flight that it put us on the “Special Treatment” list by the TSA.  Which mean that Paul got the special hands on treatment by a nice black man this time.  Kerrina got to join in as well, apparently her black woman had very soft hands.
6. AC744 (Los Angeles to Toronto) – We sat beside what has to be the only Chinese man who lives in Townsville.  Had a got chat to him which kept us awake for the 4 hour flight.  Paul scored a middle seat AGAIN!
7. Toronto Airport – We landed on the runway at Toronto airport where an Air France plane landed a few years ago and burst into flames (not that they told us that on the plane).  The Canadian border control chick looked like Avril Lavinge, and acted like her too…
8. Toronto Airport to the Hotel – roadworks on the highway leaving the airport (just like the Gateway at home!).  Spotted the CN Tower in the distance, which at night looks spectacular - they light it up with different coloured lights that cycle through).  Finally got to the hotel about 12:30am (about 2:30pm Brisbane time).  And then finally some sleep after a couple of very sleep deprived days.

Paul and Kerrina