Honeymoon: Day 4

On our second to last day in Honolulu, we hiked Diamond Head.  Diamond Head was once part of the island's defense system and when we arrived, we actually saw some military personnel training.  I can't believe they train in all of that gear in the raging Hawaii heat.  They say to give about an hour and a half to get up to the summit, but it only took David and I about 30 minutes.  They have a few stops you can make along the way and look into the crater.

 Here was our first stop...

 Walking out on the ledge!

 It was still early in the morning, but already so warm!

The walk is on a rough trail and gets steeper as you go up.  Eventually, we made it to some very steep, narrow stairs and through a dark tunnel.  I think the older I've gotten, the more closed spaces scare me!  There were a lot of very winded people at the top and I didn't see any AED's or anything.  Just the nurse in me, but I was worried about what would happen if someone had a heart attack up there!  (Although, I'm sure they had some type of equipment at the bottom of the trail...)  At the top was the bunker.  You had to literally crawl out from a small opening in the bunker to get to the rest of the walkway and up to the top!  But once we were at the top, the scene was beautiful!

 Honolulu, HI  from Diamond Head.  If you look closely at the waters edge, you can see a wall in the water that created tide pools.  This is where David and I hung out when we went to the beach!

 This is the other side of Diamond Head...during the winter, humpback whales can be spotted here.  Definitely going to have to go back to see that!

 In the back on the right, you can see one of the bunkers.

 David with the beautiful city of Honolulu behind him!

 Finally, a picture together :)  We made it!

 And just to prove we actually were there....

 We had our pictures made by the sign :)

We had a fun afternoon of a doctor visit and picking up a prescription.  We still have no idea what I'm allergic to, but my chest broke out in a nasty, itchy rash at some point while we were there.  I just ignored it until it started creeping down my arms.  At that point I figured I should probably do something about it.  The doctor figures it was something I ate, but there's no telling what it was.  I ended up with a topical steroid and a prescription for an oral steroid if I needed it.  I did NOT want to go there and luckily I didn't have to- the topical worked in a few days.

Our "before dinner" pictures :)

For dinner that night, we went to a restaurant called Duke's. Duke was a "descendant" of the royal Hawaiian family and an international surfer!  This was David's favorite restaurant.  It's apparently a really hoppin' place because we had reservations and still had to wait 10 minutes to eat!

  

 Waiting for dinner!  You can see how shiny my chest is with that topical steroid...ugh it itched so bad.

 There was a group of women playing Hawaiian songs and they came over to serenade us at dinner!  I was hoping they would sing "Mele Kalekemaka" or "The Hukilau Song" but they didn't.  :(  It's okay because I sang them for David, ha!

 We had a lot of fun staring at our rings, haha!

Before we left on our honeymoon, our neighbor told us that on her honeymoon, her and her husband picked out something special to bring home.  Anytime they look at this, it reminds them when times are hard how much fun they had in the beginning.  David really liked this idea so we were always looking for something special to bring back.  We couldn't find anything we were over the moon about- until this night.  After dinner we decided to walk around the city.  The streets are always bustling with people and performers and the stores are open late.  David had seen this lady earlier in the week and wanted to go back and check her out.

 She had a rock and put different colored paints on the end of it.  She spelled out whatever name you wanted with different drawings that symbolize Hawaii.  There are copies of these things everywhere, but we had her make one that said, "The Bells".  It's meaningful to us and it's homemade.  Right now, it hangs above our kitchen sink- the perfect spot for an everyday reminder of how special this time was in our lives.

The finished product!  My favorite is the second "L" in our last name.  It's a hula girl ;)  Our time in Honolulu was winding down.  We only had one more day in the city!