Pearl Harbour

Its warm in O'ahu. I'm sitting here in shorts and t-shirt drinking a nice cold beer, and not a small one either its 710mls - lovely and light beer so half the calories (which means I can drink double the amount!!!!).

Anyway back to the blogging. We visited Pearl Harbour this morning which was a short minibus ride from Waikiki to Honolulu. Five of us from the hostel went, me and 4 lads. When we got there we had the opportunity to look around the museum and look at the memorial from the harbourside. To be completely honest, after we had looked around the museum I still had no idea why the Japanese decided to bomb Pearl Harbour. Neil ( one of the guys from our little group) started to inform me but then it was time to go in for the theatre presentation.

Well as it turns out, the Japanese were as bad as the Nazi's during the second world war. They too wanted world domination, but they wanted control over Asia and the U.S. It was a very powerful and emotional film, whole families (well, husbands, sons and brothers) were killed in this quick and brutal attack. It focussed around the sinking of the USS Arizona and the memorial has been built over what remains rusting at the bottom of the harbour.

We got the opportunity to go by boat to the memorial site. It was very windy. As a mark of respect we were asked to speak in hushed tones and only if necessary, as this is a mass grave. Hundreds of men still remain entombed in the USS Arizona and their names are engraved on the wall of the memorial. When we looked over the side, you can still see oil on the surface of the water - it is still seeping out from the Arizona to this day.

On a more cheery note - I am LOVIN' O'ahu! It's warm, it only rains on the mountains but the winds are so strong that it sometimes carries the rain to Waikiki and showers us like a sprinkler. It is over so quick that people don't even move from the beach - in fact its very refreshing when you're sunbathing.
We are off to the big island tomorrow (Hawaii itself), to look at Volcanos and maybe do some snorkelling. Well Alan will snorkel and I'll splash about a bit and try not to get my hair wet. Oh and try not to drown.

Hawaii

Hawaii is the best place we have visited so far, it has everything, sun, sea, sand and bars. We are currently staying in Waikiki which is the most touristy place in the island of Oahu. Its very nice though with golden sandy beaches (are you jealous yet?). The tan is coming along nicely.

I had my first surf lesson yesterday which was really cool. With the instructor pushing me into the waves, I was able to stand up from my first go, however later when I had to catch the waves myself I didn't fare so well struggling to get on any waves.

We went to Waikiki aquarium on wednesday and saw lots of multi-coloured fish including nemo (clown fish) and 2 Monk seals who rolled over and did tricks for their food.

We are off to the Big Island on monday for a few days to see the lava flows and when we return to Oahu, we have decided to head to the norh shore, as almost everyone we have spoken to has recommended it as the place to see. They have waves as big as houses!

Anyway its back off to the beach for now.

Americans

We recently received a comment, asking us if we were finding the americans irritating yet? Well thats a hard one because recently we have been sitting having a quiet pint and an american has started chatting away to us and offering some invaluable advice on the best places to visit.

However, I'm find them annoying because they live in the nicest climate, yet they cause so much damage to the environment with their massive trucks. This wouldn't normally bother me too much, but before we left Blighty the chancellor was raising the price of many things that damage the environment, under the "green tax" banner.
A prime example of the americans ruining there environment was when we were walking along the beach in Santa Monica. We were looking out to the sea and on the horizon was this layer of brown smog. It was so nasty and probably the reason I am now an asthmatic again.

Anyway rant over now. But the people we are finding VERY annoying are the Japanese, especially the woman that walked past me, whilst I was sunbathing on the beach and dropped ash on my leg!

Los Angeles

We have been reading back on our last 2 posts and to be honest they're a bit pants, we've left sooooo much out. So here's a quick recap on events........

Monday - we arrived in Hollywood and spent the whole day on buses trying to get back from LAX, where we had dropped off the car. The piccie is a view fromthe Pacific Coast Highway.

Tuesday - we walked along the Walk of Fame ( which was right outside the hostel), Visited the Kodak theatre and the chinese courtyard and got accosted by an Elvis. After a little rest we walked to the Hollywood sign. In the evening we watched the open mic night at the hostel, which was very cool and heard some great new music.

Wednesday - Valentines day! Me and Alan decided that this year we wouldn't buy cards or pressies for each other as we have no where to put cards and we don't need or want anything. We agreed to spend the day at Universal studios and get chinese takeout (in those little boxes you see on tv/movies) in the evening.

Well, on our way to the metro station (think the London ungerground), we walked across a busy road using the pelican crossing and got stopped by the LAPD. Yes, the LAPD! They gave us a valentines card and 2 pens for being such responsible and safe pedestrians. I have kept this card in my travel journel.

Universal Studios was awesome!

Thursday - we moved to Venice Beach.

Friday - Spent the day on the beach and then went out for beer and tequila with our Irish roommates. After we went to bed, I went for a little sleep walk around the building, I remember walking down the fire escape and fully waking up on the toilet 2 floors below! I think I got a little confused or was a little drunk - we had a ensuite in the room.

Saturday - Walked around Beverley Hills and thought we saw David Beckham drive past us in a very nice BMW convertible. I am reliably informed though by Sharon that he was getting sent off at Real madrid when he was supposedly in LA.

Sunday - Walked up and down Venice Beach. Packed up all our belongings getting ready for leaving for Hawaii.

Venice Beach

We spent 4 days in Hollywood before packing up our stuff and moving to the beach, as the weather reports said it was going to be a warm and sunny weekend. So it was goodbye to the Hollywood sign and hello to sea and sand.

The USA Hostels shuttle delivered us straight to the Venice Beach hostel door, which was an unexpected bonus! The manager then proceeded to make our morning even better by giving us a free room upgrade - our room has the most fantastic sea and beach view! Not to mention a film crew right outside our bedroom window ( sorry Jess - they left yesterday and we didn't get in there film, but we did highjack their wireless internet connection).

There are no laundry facilities at this hostel and we made a BIG mistake not doing our washing whilst at the previous hostel, but the manager assured us she would keep the room private for as long as possible. So we rolled up our sleaves, hung up the washing line and did our washing. An hour later an Irish couple walks in, to a chinese laundry - our washing had taken over the entire room. I don't know who looked more shocked us or them, we were slightly embarrassed about our pants drying everywhere but as it transpired over several beers and some tequila last night, they were expecting an empty room.

We spent yesterday lying on the beach and today we have trekked around Beverly Hills and Santa Monica. Tomorrow we're having the day off in preparation for going to Hawaii on monday.

Hollywood

We blagged 2 free nights at the USA Hostels, Hollywood! We arrived to find a total contrast to their sister hostel in Las Vegas. It had friendly, welcoming staff who greeted us and kept our luggage safe whilst we returned our hire car to LAX.

Returning our hire car was quite an ordeal in itself. It took us 20mins to drive to LAX and then it took 3 buses and 2 1/2hrs to get us back to Hollywood boulevard.

We did many cool things whilst staying in Hollywood such as visiting the Kodak Theatre (where they host the Oscars), the chinese courtyard (hand and footprints of the stars), mooched up and down the walk of fame (even saw a few we recognised e.g Woody Woodpecker) and Universal Studios.

I had reservations about going to Universal Studios thinking it might be a bit OTT, but when we got there it was actually really good. We arrived just after the park opened at 10am and it took the whole day to see all the shows and do all the rides, as we left the last show Shrek 4D at 6pm. It was a really amazing, yet thoroughly tiring day but I would recommend it to anyone.

Tea!

We have been away now almost 4 weeks and having a fabulous time. However, I haven't had a decent cup of tea for that long either and as everyone knows, I have at least 10 cups of tea a day ( more on my days off - my kettle is always boiling).

The Mexicans and Americans haven't a clue how to make a decent cuppa. In fact, in Mexico they drink mostly herbal tea (peppermint and camomile), much to my disgust.
I sent an SOS to my mum over a week ago, because she is sending some books to Hawaii for me, to enclude some tetleys or PG tips.

But yesterday, in Hollywood I went into a supermarket and there sitting on the shelf, looking at me was a packet of PG tips (40 tea bags). So currently I've had 10 cups of tea and have a 2 days supply left - LOVELY!!!!.

Pacific Coast Highway

The pacific coast highway - number 1 drive in the world (for rally drivers maybe)!
Well our adventure began before we had even left rainy San Francisco (yep, it was still raining), we, or I navigated us up the wrong way of freeway 101, so that we were heading north to the Bay Bridge. Luckily Alan had the foresight of hiring a GPS navigation system with our huge monster of a car, so within a few minutes of programming it, we were off down highway 1 aka the pacific coast highway.

San Francisco to Monterey was a wet but nice drive, it took us about 3/4 hrs with a little stop for lunch along the way. We stayed in a Motel 6 just outside of Monterey that night.

On sunday I felt we should have a big breakfast before setting out on the second leg of highway 1. Well, let me tell you what a mistake that was.......
The Monterey to Santa Barbara section of highway 1 is ALL hairpin bends and sheer drops to the ocean! It was a white knuckle ride! We crawled along most of it doing no more than 20mph and even then it felt a little too fast for my liking, especially when Alan is looking a little nervous and "oh shit" keeps coming out of his mouth.
About an hour and a half later when we are both looking green from the constant winding roads, the road straightens out and the hills (or mountains) disappear. We were driving alongside the ocean and we stopped to get some fresh air and have a look at lots of sea lions and their babies basking in the sunshine (yes, it had finally stopped raining).

Although the second section of the Pacific Coast Highway made us more than a little nervous ( and that was generally because we were in an automatic car, which had a mind of its own), the scenery and views are breathtaking. The ocean was turquiose in places and the waves were huge. There was also lots of places to pull over and take photos.

We spent sunday night in Santa Barbara and got there before it got dark, so we walked along the pier and watched the sunset, and the oil rigs. Santa Barbara also has quite a few bars that we frequented too.

Joneses get everywhere

Jones street is just around the corner from the hostel and stretches all the way to Fisherman's wharf. Thats a good 5 miles! (by the way, I don't know who my mate is)

It has rained in San Francisco since Wednesday, which has meant the pac-a-macs, have been dug out of the backpacks and used. But it hasn't actually been that cold.

We went out for dinner at Fisherman's wharf on Thursday night. I had crab and Alan had sea bass washed down with a couple of 22oz red rock ale, which wouldn't have been out of place at the Cotswold Beer festival. We mooched down to Pier 39 for another beer after dinner and got wet again on the cable cars on the way home. Because we were already damp, we decided to dry off at another pub just up the steepest hill from the hostel. We got half a pint free at this pub - bargin!

On Friday, we got wet again trying to arrange a hire car for Saturday. But we did visit the Cheesecake Factory at Macy's department store. Alan ordered the chocolate brownie cheesecake and I ordered the Godiva chocolate cheesecake to takeaway. The slices were HUGE, it took me all day to eat my slice and in the end Alan helped me out. Even though our cheesecakes were takeaway orders, they still came with thick whipped cream.
We had a lazy evening, which involved watching one of the last 3 episodes of Gray's anatomy - series 3 (Sharon I'll email you about it - its GOOD!).

We are off to drive the Pacific Coast highway today, we have rented another small 4x4 and will get to LA on monday.

San Francisco

After a two hour delay at the airport in Las Vegas, we finally got our plane to San Francisco.

Having arrived in San Francisco and after getting a bus to the downtown area where we are staying, the first thing we noticed were the hills. The city seems to have been built on the bumpest piece of land around and we had to climb a mountain to get to the hostel.

We took a walk to the supermarket Tuesday (following the directions given to us by the hostel) and found that the higher up the hills you go, the steeper it gets to the point that the pavement turn to steps. The view from the top of the hill was awesome you could see miles down the road.

In true Samantha & Alan style we then got distracted before the supermarket in a bar offering happy hour (always good). Having been to the supermarket we walked back on a different road only to find it went round the hill and found that we actually didn't have to climb the big hill to get to the supermarket (thank you to the hostel for the great directions!).

San Francisco has cable cars to get you around, these are really trams as cable cars are those hanging things and these run on rails but they are the best ways of getting up and down the hills.

We went to visit Alcatraz on Wednesday which was really cool. There is a ferry that takes you over to the Island then you get to explore on your own with an audio headset tour. I thought this would be crap but it was actually really good. The audio directs you here, there and everywhere in the jail itself and it was quite bizare seeing everyone walking round the same as you. Anyway, despite my plan to get Samantha locked in a cell, I was foiled by them not opening and closing the cells for us. Oh well I'll have to hatch a new plan.

Las Vegas

Las Vegas was an experience! It really does have to be seen to be believed - the place is total fantasy. When we arrived we had to walk over a mile to the hostel, Alan keep making us walk miles to hostels with our backpacks on, if I don't arrive back in the UK a size 10 (haha) then there really is no hope for me. The greyhound bus driver, who drove us to Las Vegas, was quite amusing - he was taking the mickey out of the british ( something about a brit walking into a bar in San Francisco and asking for some fags!)

The Hostel was pretty average, so we went to Fremont St ( which is the "original Vegas") for the first night, had a whopper of a hamburger (the american portions are huge, we lived on one meal a day) and then tried a bit of gambling. I won abour 10 dollars (5 quid) but put it all back in the slots. We also drank a football of beer (it was an British rugby ball) and watched the overhead light display in the Fremont Mall. It was absolutely freezing though.

On saturday we bought a 24hr bus ticket for the strip ( Las Vegas boulevard) and it took over an hour to get from one end of the strip to the other. We then got out at New York, New York Hotel and Casino and had a mooch around, with our mouths wide open. It was massive and had restaurants, shopping malls, ice cream shops, gambling, bars etc all under one roof - you would never need to go out.

After we escaped, we some how ended up in the M&M factory shop, where we bought a fivers worth of M&M's, in our favorite colours ( I got peanut and chocolate M&M's in pink! Alan got black and white).

We also went to the Bellagio, Flamingo, Stratosphere and Tropicana casinos. In the evening, we watched the Bellagio fountains, which were amazing and fabulous. We were a bit cold then, so decided to go for a beer to warm up, but the barman asked me for ID ( me being so young and all) but I had left it back at the hostel - so he refused to sell me a beer!!!!!!!!!

On saturday, we went to the Bodies excibition at the Tropicana casino. We tried to go about 4 years ago when the excibition was in London but the queue was about 5 miles long so we went to the pub instead. It was fascinating seeing real human bodies, the tissue fluid ( natural water) had been replaced with a silicon polymer so appeared plasticy. It had a fantastic fetal development display.

To all my PICU chicks - I am 100% still a Jones. The wedding chapels were incredibly tacky and Vegas is very unromantic. Alan hates Vegas!

Arrrh Driving in the US, in the Snow.

Although there was still over an inch of snow on all the roads around Flagstaff, the lady at the hostel still managed to convince us it was a good idea to hire a car and drive to the Grand Canyon. Never having driven on the wrong side of the road and not being that confident driving in the snow I was kaking my pants.

We got to Budget Car rentals and I think I was running on adrenaline, I was so nervous but the renting part was easy. All ready to set off and Samantha found that she had forgotten her inhaler and we had to drive back through town to get it. This sounded pretty easy to start with except most of the roads in town are one way and all the road markings are covered in snow.

After a tense few minutes we had Samantha's inhaler and were ready to head for the Canyon. The first 20 miles were well dodgy with snow covered roads and a side wind after passing through a snow drift area, the road cleared and it was plain sailing.

It was then easy up to the Canyon and back as far as the snow drift area, where we were faced with two snow ploughs, one on each side of the road heading towards us. I thought to start with that the one on our side would move over but I was wrong! We had to drive off the road into the deep snow. Luckily we managed to drive out again unlike the car behind which seem to plough about in the snow for ages before rejoining the road. The road beyond this point had cleared whilst we had been at the Canyon and we managed to get back to Flagstaff in time to return the car to Budget before they closed.

After this driving elsewhere in the States should be easy!

Grand Canyon

Today started off a little shakey, because when we woke up, there was still a blizzard in Flagstaff. Oh well, we thought - not going to see the Grand Canyon today and maybe we are going to have to spend some serious money doing a tour from Las Vegas.

However, there is a really nice British woman who works in the hostel and she encouraged us to consider renting a car and driving to the canyon ourselves, as the weather had improved considerably within a couple of hours.

So, thats what we did. I rang the rental place and asked for a small 4x4, as Alan said there was no way he was driving anything smaller in snow.

But we made it to the Grand Canyon and WOW!!!!!!! I was overwhelmed by the beauty of it and the amazingness of this natural structure. But it was bloody freezing! My hands were shaking whilst trying to film it, so some of the video footage is a bit whobley. We stopped at 2 viewing points along the south rim, luckily the second one had an observation area that was inside and warm, but it was full of posing germans.

Off to Las Vegas tomorrow.