Around the World with McKay, Danielle & Cambri

Countries:Austria
Belize
Canada
Costa Rica
Czech Republic
Dominican Republic
El Salvador
England
France
Germany
Gibraltar
Guatemala
Honduras
Hungry
Mexico
Nicaragua
Panama
Portugal
Puerto Rico
Scotland
Slovakia
Spain
Switzerland
United Kingdom
United States
States:
Alabama
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
North DakotaOhio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
Washington DC
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming

This last December we had the chance to go to Hawaii to visit McKay's parents while they were living there on sabbatical. We had the experience of a lifetime while we were there. Here is a list of the top ten favorite things about our visit.

10: Shopping. On the south side of the island next to Waikiki was a shopping mall called the Ala Moana shopping center. It was huge, and had almost any kind of store you you think of. One of the things that I loved is that the hallways had no ceiling to them so you could look up from bottom floor and see the sky, and they had the biggest food court I have ever seen.
We also made a couple of trips to the swap meet. If you want to buy something in Hawaii this is the place to go. You pay a small fee to get in, but everything is so cheap that it would be dumb to buy it someplace else. Basically it's just a bunch of little shops set up all around a big football stadium. Great place to get sandals, t-shirts, jewelry, luggage, purses, and souvenirs of every kind, but it's only open on certain days of the week for a few hours so if you plan on going to the swap meets you have to find out when they are having it.
The other place to shop where everything is cheap is at the Wal-mart. Sounds crazy but they had so many Hawaii souvenirs and the most inexpensive macadamia nuts. This was the biggest Wal-mart I've ever seen.

9: Community and Ward. Since McKay's parents were living there they got to see Hawaii from a locals perspective. We got to experience a little of that with them. We went to a ward Christmas party, a party for the ladies that work in the costume shop at the PCC (which McKay's mother Marlene worked at), and other things thrown by the locals. I can tell you that Hawaiians know how to party. They are so nice and accepting and they always have great food.

8: Temple. One of our goals is to visit over 50 temples together so every time we travel, if there is a temple there we make time to go to it. It is really beautiful temple. Kind of small but still very pretty.

7: Pearl Harbor. It was nice to learn about the events of Pearl Harbor and to see the actual place where it happened. We were able to take a boat ride out to the memorial which is right on top of the SS Arizona. You can still see oil coming from the boat surfacing to the top of the water. There was also a small museum of things that were found there after it was over.

6: Dole Plantation. This was the first things we did after getting off the plane. We learned about Pineapple Fields and how it take over a year to grow one pineapple plant. We learned how to slice a pineapple the Hawaiian way, and had the yummiest pineapple ice cream.

5: Poli Lookout. This is a lookout that over looks the whole Southeast corner of the island. It was so pretty see all the green of the island next to the blue of the ocean. It was so so beautiful.

4: Diamond Head. This is an old volcano that the US military used as a lookout during world war 2, next to it is a crater that they used to store military supplies. It was about a half hour hike up.

3: Food. We ate really good in Hawaii, we had multiple shave ices, which are like a snow cone where the ice is shaved really fine and it has ice cream in the middle and sweetened condensed milk on top. We also fell in love with the Chocolate Houpia (coconut) pie from Ted's Bakery, one of the favorites to all the locals there. We had dinner at the PCC twice, the second time was the best, it was a buffet of sea food, we are big lovers of sea food. All you can eat shrimp and crab legs... so so yummy. Another place we really liked was Pizza Bob's in Hale'iwa.

2: PCC. During the day we walked around all the little villages that they have and learned about all the different Island cultures that live there in Hawaii. The ones I remember are the Samoan Village, the Tahitian Village, the Fiji Village, the Hawaiian Village, the New Zealand Village and the Tongan Village. In the evening we watched the show, which is a conglomeration of the different kinds of dances they have from the different islands.

1: The Beach. Almost every morning we went to swim in the ocean water. The water was so nice and warm and it was so beautiful. It was the perfect way to start out your day. There was one day that we woke up really early to watch the sunrise on the beach. We didn't actually see the sun because it ended up being pretty cloudy but we could see the sun turning the clouds beautiful colors and it was still so wonderful to see.

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Sunday, March 30, 2008

Places Danielle Has Been

Places McKay Has Been

Hawaii