A Hike Up Diamond Head, The Beach, Honolulu Boy Choir

We got up early this morning, headed once again over to Eggs and Things for another wonderful serving of macadamia nut pancakes with cocoanut syrup. MMMmmmmmmmmmm, delicious. Then we jumped on the bus and rode up to Diamond Head. It's about a half mile walk up to the parking lot, then .8 miles up to the top of diamond head. Did I mention there are also about 250 or so stairs, and a couple of tunnels. It's really fun, though, and the views up top are fabulous. After we'd been at the top about 10 minutes, it started pouring down rain, though, and then everyone wanted to congregate in the tunnels. The view on the left is what I think is Doris Duke's place, I think that's her dock that just out into the ocean -- sort of a long black line

Or it could just be my imagination.

After we finished hiking up Diamond Head (with a big rainstorm about ten minutes after we got to the top, and which made the trail down pretty slippery, but there are handrails all the way, so it was more fun than treacherous. But as you can see, we then made it to the beach for the afternoon, had a picnic there and managed go get back to our room, shower, even wash my salty hair, and get to the Embassy Suites in time to get the last table for the concert at 4 p.m.

Getting there on time was kind of a challenge -- my hair is quite unmanageable after a swim in the ocean.

One of the things I always hope will happen when we're in Hawaii is that the Honolulu Boy Choir will perform. This year they were performing twice. We missed the first one, because we didn't get back from the north shore early enough to get to the concert, but we caught them tonight. They are so good, and so professional sounding. The boys win scholarships to participate in the choir and they choose boys from all over Oahu based on talent and whatever else they go for.