The Emerald Isle: Our Trip to IRELAND :)

We had such an amazing holiday in Ireland! We were up at 4:15 am to catch our 6:30 flight to NYC. We were having a 7 hour layover, so when we landed at JFK we got on a bus to Time Square because we had a few hours to kill, and really, how often do we get to hop over to Manhattan for lunch? :) We ate at the Hard Rock Cafe in Time Square which was fun, but we looked pretty dorky because we had to carry all of our luggage with us. After lunch we walked around Time Square and took in all of the overwhelming sights and busyness. We went to the huge Toys R Us with the Ferris Wheel in the middle. It used to be FAO Schwartz where the piano scene from BIG was filmed.

Us in front of the Ferris Wheel in Toys R Us.

We were only there for a few hours before we had to head back, but we didn't want to miss our plane, and the bus ride had been over a half an hour. Mike had never been to New York though and we were glad we went. It was a lot of fun! :)

Time Square.

NY taxies and a double decker bus.
"Watch out, the yellow ones don't stop!" from Elf :)
Nuts for Nuts, my favorite NY snack!
We bought 3 bags so we would have a snack on the airplane :)
On the way back to the airport.

On the ride back we kept seeing signs for the Van Wyck and it made me think of that Seinfeld episode where Elaine was trying to get her annoying ex-boyfriend out of her house and to the airport. "Did you take the Van Wyck??" :)
On the plane from NYC to Shannon Ireland, we met a neat 87 year old lady who grew up in Dublin. She told us some interesting stories about Ireland and told me that I had to try a Crunchie candy bar. She was right!! They are amazing! A chocolate covered honeycomb candybar. Mmmmm!
After we landed the first thing we did was go to Bunratty Castle and Folk Park. It was really neat. We got to explore a medieval castle complete with drawbridge, great hall and dungeon. Along with the castle there was an entire village made up of thatched homes of commoners all the way up to what would have been homes of the town doctor and nobles. It was really fun to explore the thatched cottages and see how everyday people lived during medieval times. The cottages were so cool! Some were just one room that would have been home to a poor landless laborer, while others had a bedroom or two off the main room, maybe even a loft or small dining room. There was even one where the living area was split down the middle by a trough in the stone floor because the families cattle lived in the house with them.

Bunratty Castle front view.
The Yield sign really takes somethig from the medieval feel of it don't you think :)

Mike on the drawbridge to the castle.

Hand painted stained glass window in the Great Hall.
Us in the Great Hall where the throne would have been. There was no flash allowed :(
The roof and turrets where archers would have been posted.

Roof of the Castle.

Veiw from the roof. They built the castle here so they could channel river water for the moat, and use it for transportation and drinking water.

Beautiful Castle.
Us in front of (the back of) the castle :)
A modest 2 bedroom thatched cottage.
This cottage was really neat. It had a sweet little loft!
The sweet loft. I don't even want to know what is living in that thatched roof!!
Some of the cottage furnashings.
The house with the trough in the middle. Livestock lived on the far side and the people lived on the other side. Must have been stinky!
Do you think some of his relitaves lived inside that house with their owners?
This thatched house was actually quite large with a half upstairs, 3 bedrooms, a large dining room and a large living area.

A courting buggie of the day where the chaperone would sit in the front and drive while the couple would sit facing away from each other on the seats on either side of the buggy.
These reindeer were in a field at the castle. I am not sure why. They were pretty, but SO amazingly stinky!!

There was a beautiful walled garden. There were paths wandering around and through the flowers. The air in the garden was heavy with the scent of rose. It was lovely. There were bumble bees everywhere diligently doing their job flitting about and pollinating the flowers.

Bumble Bee in the walled garden.
Can you see the butterfly?
Oh, there he is!

Artsy flower and bee shot :)

This church was moved stone by stone from where the Shannon Airport now is. It was put here to depict what a village church might have looked like.
At the village center the post office and other shops were turned into gift shops. We visited the local pub for a snack. Mike had a Guinness and we shared a bowl of potato leek soup. It was amazing! Soo good!

Mike enjoying his Guinness and and soup. If you look closely, you can kinda see the shamrock that the waitress traced in the foam of his drink. It was pretty :)
After our snack we wandered through the grounds and back to our car in search of our hotel and a shower!! We went to a local pub for dinner and fell into bed at 8:30 pm local time which was a bad idea because we were up at 4:30 am (8:30 pm the previous day at home) alert and ready to start the day. We were just too tired to try to stay up past 8:30 though :) Jet lag and all.

Me in a European telephone booth. This was actually our first picture in Ireland. It was at a shopping center where we parked across the street from the Bunratty Castle.

And that is day one of our amazing trip to Ireland. More pictures to come! Enjoy :)

Oahu, part one of our trip to Hawaii

We had such a fabulous time in Hawaii. We flew out early in the morning so we could have more time in Paradise.

Us on the airplane

We stayed on Oahu in Waikiki for the first part of the trip. After we got situated at our condo, we took the short walk down to Waikiki beach and walked from the Outrigger Reef down the beach towards Diamond Head. It felt so nice to finally be in Hawaii. It was a beautiful day and the warm air smelled like plumeria. I love it there SO much. It just feels like home to me. We walked farther then we ever have, past the Duke Kahanamoku statue all the way down to Kapi-olani beach and the tide fed pool. We walked down to the end of the pier that forms one side of the pool and sat down, just enjoying the aftenoon.

The view of the canal from our lani.

Me on the lani.

The view from the top floor of our building, where the pool deck and hot tub are is amazing. You have a 360* view of Honolulu with Waikiki beach, the Ala Moana canal, the city, the mountains, and Diamond Head. It is especially beautiful at night with all of the stars shining on the ocean!

The Pink Lady and Waikiki from the roof.

Waikiki

The Canal and Diamond Head Crater.
Diamond Head
The Mountains

That evening we walked through the International Marketplace and stopped to listen to the steel drum band that plays there. I bought one of their cd's last year. I love to listen to them, but this time they didn't have any cd's, which was a bummer! We walked all around the Waikiki shopping district, enjoying the scenery and the beautiful night. Before dinner we decided it wold be fun to go inside the Moana Surfrider (the first hotel on Waikiki beach). We took a self-guided tour and wandered around absorbing all of the amazing architecture and reading the articles posted on the walls upstairs.

The Moana Surfrider.

Me on the balcony of the Moana Surfrider.
A beautifully carved column at the Moana.
Mike on the staircase.

The Moana was so beautiful! We had dinner reservations at Dukes at 8:00, so after we done at the Surfrider we headed over to Dukes in the Outrigger hotel on the beach to see if our table was ready. I had the fameous cesar salad and taro rolls, and Mike had a seafood thing that was really good. After dinner we had a romantic walk on the beach. It was the perfect way to end the day:)

Dinner at Dukes

My first Blue Hawaii of the trip :)

The next day we scheduled a bus tour that went to some LOST locations and other points of interest. First we took a drive to our favorite ice cream shop on the island. On the way we stopped at a few of the scenic viewpoints a few miles past Hanauma Bay.

The beautiful Pacific, just past Hanauma Bay.

Dave's Ice Cream, our favorite little local spot.

Me with Kona Coffee and Coconut and Mike with Mudslide icecream.

After Ice cream we drove back to Waikiki and met up with our tour. The tour guide was like one of those nature guys with their own tv show where they go out into the jungle and build a hut to live in and go fishishing with bamboo poles they made themselves, complete with hooks they carved from shells. He was intense! But we got to see some places where episodes of LOST were filmed, so I still enjoyed myself. :)

A clif at the edge of a pool of water (If you lool closely, you can see some people at the top. They were jumping in!) This was the place where Kate and Sawyer went for a swim and Kate found her luggage under some plane wreckage in the water.

We also visited this really cool place with amazing views (unfortunately I forget what it is called). It was up really high on a cliff (apparently a major battle took place here in ancient Hawaii where an army was driven over the cliff. Gross) and it was amazingly windy there, but the views were fantastic!

The view out to the ocean.

The view of the Kualoa Mountain range was breathtaking!

A closer up view of the coast and Chinaman's hat (the island).
My hair going wild because of the crazy wind!

The tour group heading back to the bus.

After we got back into Waikiki from the tour we grabbed a really late lunch and walked down the the beach. I love walking on the beach!! Because of the late lunch, we weren't really hungry at dinner time, so we just went back to Dukes and had Kemo's famous Hula Pie, my absolute favorite desert ever!!!! If you are ever in Honolulu you have to go to Dukes and try it!!! It alone is worth the flight over from the mainland!

Mike and the Hula pie. YUM!!

The next morning we went sailing. While we waited for the boat we had the breakfast bar at the Shorebird in the Outrigger Reef. The coconut pound cake was really good (though a strange breakfast choice) as was the bread pudding, but my favorite, of course, was the fresh pineapple. I can not get enough of it. It is sooooo good!

The inside of the Shorebird. Note the bird...

The view of Waikiki beach from the Shorebird Barefoot Bar and Restaurant. :)
After breakfast was sailing!!! Mike and I absolutely love to sail. They took us out pretty far and let us all dive in and snorkel. It was awesome. There were so many sea turtles! There was even a baby one. It was so cute! There were lots of neat fish too. The were feeding them, so there were lots of them swimming all around us. It was so much fun. Mike especially liked it. He loves to snorkel!

Us on the sailboat!
Mike

A view of Waikiki beach and the Pink Lady (the second oldest hotel in Waikiki).

Diamond Head.

The Diamond Head Lighthouse.
Heading back to shore.

We had so much fun sailing! After wandering through the outdoor International Marketplace, we took a trolley to Hilo Hattie's. We had never been before and Stephanie said it was a cool shop, so we decided to check it out. It had good prices and I bought a few things, but it was just a store and because of the stop we didn't get to finish the hike we went on afterward.

Waiting for the trolley to pick us up at Hilo Hattie's.

A cute little bird we were feeding banana chips in the parking lot at Hilo Hattie's.

When we finally got back from Hilo Hattie's, we took the Moana falls trail and were going to hike to the falls, but it started to get dark before we reached the falls, so we had to turn back. Since this was our last day in Oahu for this trip we didn't have a chance to go back, but we will go next time because it was really beautiful. There is this stream that winds all around and you have to keep crossing it to stay on the trail. There were also lots of ginger blossems growing all over the place that smelled wonderful! Since we didn't get to finish our hike, Mike drove us out to Kailua beach, and went for a moonlit walk. The sand was powder fine and we walked barefoot in the surf and kissed. It was a beautiful end to our last day on Oahu. :)
Check back for pictures of our time on the Big Island.