Hawaii: Ali'i Kai Dinner Cruise

I want to kick off this post with one of the weirdest ads I've ever seen. We were walking through a little mall and this poster was in the middle of the walkway.
How weird is it that they've hired what looks like a Japanese librarian to pose with a very serious looking weapon in her hand, while wearing a smile that seems to say, "I cannot WAIT to fire this bad boy at something!". Aaron informed me that in Japan personal firearms are banned, so I guess when they visit Hawaii it's popular to go to a shooting range because it's not something that they can do at home. Still, "women and children are welcome"? Creepy.

Anyway, we frittered away Tuesday morning and didn't end up hiking Diamond Head like we'd planned, but that was okay with us. We got some lunch then spent a little while walking on the beach, wading in the water then relaxing in the sand.

I love these little birds that we saw. They look like something that would be in a pet shop at home, not just hanging out in a park.





These banyan trees are so cool.

Aaron said he felt like something was about to reach through those roots and grab him and pull him inside the tree.

We'd booked a dinner cruise/luau on board a catamaran that night, so after bumming on the beach we headed back to the hotel and got ready for that. This is just a picture of the harbor and some other really big boats that were docked there.



We had a nice time talking with the couple sitting across from us and enjoying the sunset.



Unfortunately we were seated directly in front of the band so we had to kind of shout to hear each other.

Throughout the evening there were dancers and other entertainment, but I didn't try taking any photos because my camera doesn't do well in low light. Still, I couldn't resist snapping a photo of everyone else taking pictures.

We got to do some dancing ourselves and had a pretty good time. The biggest bummer was that being on that boat seemed to give us vertigo for the rest of our trip, and even after. I wanted to make people call me Lucille 2. (Raise your hand if you get it!