Aloha!

Here I am in beautiful Honolulu, ten days into our holiday. I'm using a computer in the business center of the building to update this.

First, the accommodations. Spacious, with an unbelievable view of the mountains and the shore, and mere steps from the Ala Moana center, a mall that rivals our very own Mallywood for variety. The one "d'oh"? All those windows, no curtains or blinds. Sure, you say, that's no biggie on the 18th floor. Yeah, but how about the past week, when the window washers were working? Biggie. However the work on the glass is all done now.

The weather has been more cloudy than sunny, but hot - 89F today. We have done some wandering about on our own, and I took a tour of Pearl Harbor and visited the Arizona Memorial. We also went on a guided hike up into the mountains on the windward side, saw a gorgeous waterfall and got our clothes & shoes stained up with red clay mud. Today we went to the Honolulu Academy of Arts Museum, then took a private guided tour of Doris Duke's Diamond Head estate, Shangri-La. Ms. Duke, a gigibillionaress, was enamoured of Islamic art and made her home here a shrine to that passion. By the end of the tour I was drooling - and trying to figure out how to translate some of her concepts into my own renos.

Tomorrow we're going to the Kualoa Ranch - the man will ride an ATV while I tour the fishpond & gardens, then we'll connect for a hike up to a lookout point on a cliff, followed by a buffet lunch. Not much else is planned for the rest of our stay except some more shopping - solo for each of us - and dinner at Duke's one evening, to watch the sunset on Waikiki Beach.

So, I guess it's time for me to head up to the glacially air-conditioned condo where my houseboy is fixing dinner........aloha, all!