Oahu

I stayed in Honolulu, a thriving city where 3/5 of the jobs are directly dependent on tourism. You've probably heard of Waikiki Beach. The land that Honolulu is built on used to be a swamp. A canal was built to drain the land. The beach was also built.

(Note: pictures are about 35K - 50K in size.)

Waikiki Beach, Honolulu
On Waikiki Beach. Yes, the birds are real. I bought this picture from a vendor standing on the beach under an umbrella. He would take your picture with his pet birds and deliver the prints to your hotel the next morning. A bit expensive, but a nice souvenir. The "Y" sign I'm making with my left hand means "hang loose." Hawaiians like to hang loose with a stress free lifestyle.
As you can see, the beach was not crowded.
The view from my hotel balcony. You can just barely see the ocean.
My hotel was one block past the hotel in the picture, and one block to the left. (Of course! One block to the right would be in the ocean. :-) There is a war museum along this stretch of beach. Most people would plop down on the beach directly in front of the hotels, but fewer would sit in front of the museum.
Panaroma of the beach (90K). You'll notice the palm trees and coconut trees in front of the war museum.
Keeping in mind that 3/5 of the jobs are dependent on tourism, you will find lots of small vendors all over the place. Never pay the sticker price. It seemed to be popular to give a discount if you were the "first customer" of the day. Given the five hour time difference with PA, it was easy to be the first customer.
The world's largest Wyland Art Gallery is in Honolulu. It was only a block or two from my hotel.
Dancers from the Polynesian Cultural Center on the other side of the island could be seen giving free performances outside the mall.
This is the inside of the mall. There is no roof over the center display. I guess with no roof, it was more like a four-story strip mall. With the nice weather, many things are done out in the open like this.
A few would gather on the beach to watch the sunset promptly at 5:58 PM.
Paradise Cove Luau
A luau is nothing more than a pig roast with a show. There was lots of cultural dancing and singing. Here, the audience was invited on stage to learn a few hula steps.
Tourists were encouraged to participate in various activities before dinner. Here a girl learns how to weave coconut leaves into a bracelet or headband.
You could get a temporary tatoo...
You could try your hand at throwing a spear...
Or you could just pose for a photo with a few of your buddies in traditional dress.
This is just a nice picture of part of the coast at Paradise Cove.
Diamond Head Tour
Nuuanu Pali Lookout was a nice place to look out over the valley on the southeastern coast. Unfortunately, my pictures were not very good. Even the picture of the sign is bad.
Our tour guide was pretty cool. He was really into the cultural history of the islands. Here we look at the base of a temple. The base is simply made out of rocks piled up to form a large, flat platform. Wooden structures were then built on top. Again, the picture does not accurately reflect what we were seeing. You can just make out the red plants around the base, which warned that this was a sacred location.
A few people snorkling in the ocean. The water really was that blue.
A few mountains along the way. I was impressed by the mountains. They were very rugged and covered in lush vegetation.
More mountains.
Panaroma of Honolulu (143K). The Diamond Head tour went around the southeast corner of Oahu where the Diamond Head crater sits idle. However, our bus was not allowed to stop there. We simply drove past. Later we stopped at a spot that overlooked the entire valley of Honolulu. You can see Diamond Head off in the distance.

Polynesian Cultural Center

The center was created by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) to preserve the cultures of the area. Seven island cultures are represented, each having their own section of the center: Hawaii, Tonga, Fiji, Tahiti, Samoa, New Zealand and Marquesas. You can plan to do a good day and a half here, maybe two. Small demonstrations are given at each island village. After dinner, the day concluded with a show (1.5 hours long), where six of the islands performed traditional songs and dances while in traditional attire. It was very nice, but by the end of the week, I was ready to get away from all the dancing. :-)

The center employees 1000 students from the Brigham Young University.

The neighboring Mormon temple was established in 1919.
In the Somoan demonstration we learned about the food and food preparation. They eat green bananas by boiling or baking them. They also eat fish, chicken and beef. This man is holding up a Tora plant. The root is pounded into a pasty goo called poi. Poi is a gray/purple color and tastes sort of like nothing much at all.
Here a Somoan cheif shows us how to start fire. In the picture, he is blowing on a smoking coconut husk.
The chief was a big hit at the center. Here he poses for pictures. There is a lot of cultural significance to the tatoos on his body. He wrote a book about them. He was also the first World Fire Knife Champion, back in 1993 (I think). He put on quite a show with his batons on fire. Come visit and see the video I picked up.
I forget what village this was in, but notice the decorative walls and things lying on the table.
The house consisted of three rooms. This is a picture of the bedroom, taken from what I guess you would call the living room.
In this village a table game was demonstrated. You slide the puck down the table to the other end. Then you throw another puck at it, trying to knock it off while leaving the one you just threw on the table. Play would continue until you rolled both pucks off the table.
Drumming is big in the Tonga culture.
They would grab audience members to participate in the demonstrations. Here, I had the privilege of drumming and screaming foreign words in to the microphone in front of about 150 people. (The photo is 104K, but well worth it.)
We even got a short canoe ride.