Hawaii ~ time for a break from Asia?
After arriving and exploring South Korea for 3 months, Customs requires a brief exit from the country
and then one may re-enter. In August 2001, we decided a nice trip to Hawaii might be just the ticket to fulfill our
exit requirements! (Sneaky Devil, He took her to the prettiest state first!).
One might imagine trying to find an English speaking Travel Agent could be difficult in South Korea;
it was!
Eventually booked a "5-day trip"... Oh, did I mention they don't accept checks or credit cards in South
Korea, and the largest monetary unit is 10,000 Won, about the equivalent of $8.00USD? Since our "all-inclusive" trip
was the approximate equivalent of $3500USD, one can only imagine the stack of Korean cash we carried to pay our agent!
Ahhhh! soon would come a chance for some "normal" food again! We boarded our airplane,
flew all night, arriving very early the next morning only to find that our tour was with a group of South Koreans! The
tour guide was very nice but didn't speak much English, still he tried to include us as much as possible.
Our thoughts after flying all night was a hotel bed would feel awfully nice and would be the first thing
on our agenda... not so! Our first stop was to a Korean restaurant for a Korean breakfast buffet ...
oh joy! Kim-Chee for breakfast anyone???
From there, we stopped at the Pearl Harbor Memorial and could tell it was going to be an all day tour.
We decided to leave the tour early and go to the hotel for some sleep! I guess we just don't have as much stamina as
the Asians!
We soon figured out that our "5-day trip" included travel time each way! Oh well, not to be discouraged
we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, drove completely around Oahu one day, flew to Maui on another day and had
a chance to shop and buy some clothes that actually fit non-Asian-sized people! Did I happen to mention how strong
those Mai Tai's were???
We include a few photo's from our trip and hope you enjoy them!
