furniture & accessories

Using a rental car and occasional
local transportation, our family man-
aged in one short week to tour Pearl
Harbor, check out the North Shore's
legendary BIG surf, join a whale-
watching excursion, discover
uncrowded beaches beyond Waikiki
and explore several lush parks and
historical sites.
Along the way, we did our best to
pronounce vowel-rich Hawaiian
words such as Humuhumu-
nukunukuapua'a (the state fish);
enjoyed island music, hula dancing
and beautiful sunsets and, of course,
spent time shopping for Macadamia
nuts, Hawaiian coffee and the obliga-
tory Aloha shirts.
We also met other families, more
ambitious than ours, who hiked some
750 feet up the extinct volcano
Diamond Head for postcard views and
well-earned bragging-rights.
One adventure no family should
miss is snorkeling at Hanauma Bay, a
sunken volcanic crater-turned-marine
sanctuary just 30 minutes from
Waikiki. Here, in the warm, shallow
water close to shore, even little tykes
and non-swimmers don rental masks
and fins to view exotic tropical fish
dart about the inner reefs.
"Snorkeling is like a dream — just
you, the fish and the coral," observes
10-year-old Justin, who is captivated
for several hours by the underwater
show. Just be sure to arrive early in
the day while there's still room to
park and play.
At nearby Sea Life Park, children
ages 13 and older also can swim with
sea creatures — in this case, dolphins.
Younger kids enrolled in Splash U are
thrilled to touch and "command" dol-
phins to dance the hula and shake.
hands — er, flippers. The park also is
home to the world's only wolfin, a
cross between a false killer whale and
dolphin.
En route, check out Halona Point,
where seawater spouts up to 50 feet
in the air through a blowhole in the
lava rock. The spot overlooks the
secluded cove showcased in From Here
to Eternity where Burt Lancaster and
Deborah Kerr shared a memorable
1953 embrace in the surf.
A bit inland at the Pali Lookout in
Nu'uanu, with its gusty winds and
exhilarating panoramic view, a dra-

If You Go

Information: Contact the Oahu Visitors
Bureau at 877-525-OAHU or online at
www. visit-oahu. corn.

Accommodations: Waikiki boasts more
than 30,000 hotel rooms, so there's some-
thing for every budget. Outrigger Hotels
offer family friendly lodging choices in var-
ious price ranges. Call 800-688-7444.

Weather: Hawaii boasts near perfect
weather year-round Average winter high
temperatures are 80 degrees, 87 in summer:
The ocean hovers between 72 and 76 degrees.
Winter months, October through March,
have slightly higher rainfall and cooler tem-
peratures. Most months receive less than two
inches, but Waikiki can get an average as
high as four inches in January.

matic 1795 battle wasn't immortalized
in film, but certainly would be box-
office material today. High in the
green, serrated mountains, King
Kamehameha I succeeded in uniting
the Hawaiian Islands when his war-
riors forced more than 400 opponents
to fling themselves off the rocky
precipice to their deaths below. Their
spears and western firearms were no
match for his cannon.
Back in Honolulu, families may
experience another free history lesson
at the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl
Harbor, where a video with some
actual footage of the surprise Japanese
bombing attack vividly conveys the
horror of World War II in the Pacific.
(Look for Pearl Harbor, a big-budget
Disney movie starring Ben Affleck, to
do the same when it's released in the-
aters next year.)
Our children, whose grandfather
served at Guadalcanal, peruse the muse-
um displays with interest and are
intrigued by the memorial itself, a stark
white structure, 184 feet long, that
spans the mid-portion of the battleship,
which sunk in nine minutes on that
infamous December day in 1941.
Crossing the harbor on a Navy
launch, we clamber aboard the
memorial and read the names
inscribed in marble of some of the
1,177 fallen crew members who are
entombed at sea where they died, just
below where we're standing. After
watching volunteers solemnly raise
and lower an American flag, we gaze

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