2024 Los Angeles and Hawaii Trip
(9/17/2024 - 9/24/2024)
2024 Los Angeles and Hawaii Trip(9/17/2024 - 9/24/2024)
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On Tuesday, September 17th, 2024, Katherine and Brian first travelled to Los Angeles to visit Katherine's family, then we went on to Hawaii for 4 nights partly to visit Alex Knight (family friend). Remember you can click on any photo below for the highest quality original version that exists.
Because movies are interesting, here is an "out of order" movie about a boat ride in Hawaii. Click here for the highest quality original (but it is a huge 25 GBytes).
Back to time order! Below we are landing in Los Angeles for the first half of our trip. That is a huge sprawl of flat humanity down there.
Katherine and I brought Franklin BBQ from Austin. The people below are Will Chung (Katherine's brother), then Yong (용) on the left (Katherine's father) and Ki (기) on the right (Katherine's mother). Ki made some Korean dishes which actually went quite well with the BBQ! There is home made kimchi there (which was a VERY good batch), plus Gochu Twigim (lowest dish in the picture, they are peppers stuffed with a pork filling and fried and also rice noodles (called "Japchae" or "잡채" in Korean).
In the past few months, an area of Los Angeles up against the ocean called "Portuguese Bend" has been land sliding towards the ocean. One of the things sitting on top of this land is a very famous Frank Lloyd Wright building called "Wayfarers Chapel". We went on a little hour long excursion to see it, but we were only allowed in the parking lot, not up to see the actual building (which is very sad). Below is the parking lot.
The ground was a terrifying mess of landslide, and seen at the end of the parking lot below.
This is one staircase, you can see entire steps are missing now.
We swung by the home the Chung family lived in for 40 years on our way back to the NEW home in Rolling Hills Estates. We ran into old neighbors out front of the old Palos Verdes home! In the photo below are Dr Tsai and Mrs Tsai ( facing the camera) while Yong faces away from the camera talking with them.
That night we ate at the Rolling Hills Country Club. We ordered a steak on a salt block, sometimes called a "Himalayan Salt Block".
The view from the Chung residence back yard. That's the Rolling Hills Golf Course, and beyond it is the city of Los Angeles.
On our final night in Los Angeles we went to "La Cabana" in Venice, California and met up with Jason Knight and August Knight. August is a junior in high school in the photo below. I only took one photo thus Jason's eyes are closed, LOL. Not seen in this picture but this was the first time Will Chung (Katherine's brother) had met Jason in person.
On Friday morning, September 20, we got up pretty early to catch a flight to Honolulu, Hawaii. We cannot take Kimchi on the airplane easily since we aren't going home, so I asked for Kimchi for breakfast. It was really good.
Katherine and I had a little adventure trying to find our flight departing the LAX airport. First of all, we were dropped by the shuttle bus (from rental cars) in the wrong location. Then the signs are inexplicably terrible, like notice how there are terminals 1,2,3 and then "Terminal B"? What's wrong with just numbering all the terminals? Or giving them all letters?
Going through security at LAX Airport, there was a sign to remind us not to bring any firearms as carry on items. This is a super helpful reminder, most people would just forget and bring guns onto airplanes otherwise!
Part of our adventure in finding our flight was a very very long trek in LAX airport. And if you read the sign below, and know we are looking for gate 208, which direction would you go? Left or right? Because the sign below is terrible. It is a UI travesty.
Finally we board our Hawaiian Airlines flight. Below is Katherine getting settled in her business class seat in the airplane. Now if you look closely, there are "privacy doors" that can be closed!! There is a privacy shield between Katherine and my seat (which we lowered for the whole flight) but there are also sliding doors into the aisle. All the aisle doors are open in this photo.
Katherine ran into the pilot (Captain Keith) and he let Katherine sit in the cockpit of the airplane before takeoff.
A happy Katherine shaking Captain Keith's hand.
The business class seats we were in required shoulder belts for takeoff and landing. See sign below. I poked around online, and there is some explanation that the seats don't face exactly forward, and based on the byzantine set of rules around seats, there was no way to make them "airline compliant" so eventually the FAA said, "Fine, add a shoulder harness and we'll pass it."
We did not have internet on the flight from LAX to Honolulu, so I watched a random movie. Below is my little cubical setup with my privacy door to the aisle almost completely closed. My tray table is setup, and I have a "Pogmosa" drink. "Pog" is easy to find as a breakfast fruit drink in Hawaii, and if you mix it with champagne you get a "pogmosa". The letters "P", "O", "G" stand for Passion fruit, Orange, and Guava.
We stayed at the resort called "The Kahala", the front entrance is pictured below. I used the "pano" feature to take the picture, and it turned the blue SUV in the center of the photo into a Smartcar size object. Ha!
Below is a picture of the front lobby of "The Kahala" hotel.
Below is a picture of the main living room (excluding the bedroom) of the suite we stayed at in "The Kahala". It is called a "Beach Suite".
Below is a picture of the bedroom in our suite. The suite has two bathroom/showers, one is on the left pictured below and the other is accessible from the main living room.
Below is a picture I took standing on our private balcony at The Kahala. It is very pretty here and peaceful. We are on the second floor, and to reach the beach it is a 15 foot walk from our hotel room door, and pops out onto the beach in that black "bridge" you see at ground level under our balcony (it's actually JUST beyond our balcony). The bridge is over a little artificial river.
Below is a picture I took standing on the bedroom's balcony. This little area was setup and torn down several times while we were there, once looked like a wedding ceremony.
Random other picture from the main balcony. My GPS tracker (reports my location every 10 minutes) is seen at the bottom center of the photo. It is a Garmin InReach.
View from our hotel balcony at "The Kahala Resort".
At the Kahala Resort, they have 4 captive dolphins in a little pen. You can read about it here: https://www.kahalaresort.com/experiences/dolphin-quest/ Below is a short 30 second movie I took of the dolphins swimming around as we passed by the pen. It was super interesting to be able to see the dolphins so up close, but I really doubt it is a great life for the dolphins in such a small pen that is so shallow. Click here for the highest quality original movie.
The first night after we arrived, I woke up around 3:30am and went for a stroll around "The Kahala" property. There is a little tiny artificial breakwater/paved path out into the water right in front of our hotel room, and in the picture below I'm standing on the furthest point out looking back at our hotel. The lit room on the far far right of the photo below is the public beach access directly next to our hotel room (it is for us and a few other rooms to reach the beach).
Wandering around before 4am, I found this sign that says, "Please drape your lei. We believe that if you take from the land, you must give back to the land."
Later that morning we headed to to meet up Alex Knight on a boat ride out of "Pier E Kewalo Harbor". Along the way Katherine thought it was cute the highways have a MINIMUM speed posted.
On the app "Find My Friends", Alex has just parked and is heading towards our location.
Our boat ride this day (Saturday, September 21), is on "Serendipity". Serendipity is a 47 foot long "Meridian 441 Sedan Bridge". The crew is Captain Jeff, first mate Karen (white baseball cap in picture below), and second mate Jess (grey baseball cap in picture below). Also in this photo is Katherine (far left) talking with Alex Knight who were are there to visit! If you remember we just saw Alex's father and brother in Los Angeles two nights earlier.
A close up of Katherine talking with Alex.
This is the same movie that was at the top of this webpage. It's a 2 minute long movie about the boat ride in Hawaii. Click here for the highest quality original (but it is a huge 25 GBytes).
Alex Knight brought along 6 other friends, and 6 of the 7 are seen on the front of the boat as we drove out of the harbor. They are all either 18 or 19 years old, and their names are: Alyosha ("Osh") Billimoria, Shane Curry, Grayson Wyandnt, Liam Oei, Joe DiMarci, Ryu Kubota, and Alex Knight.
From left to right: Grayson, Liam, Alex, standing at the door with his back to us is Joe.
From left to right: Ryu and Shane.
Captain Jeff at the helm on the flybridge. Honolulu in the distance.
From left to right: Alex, Alyosha (Osh), and Katherine.
We stopped and anchored, and the boys went snorkeling, First Mate Karen is the lifeguard standing on the swim platform with the flotation device.
The boys snorkeling with Honolulu in the background.
My Garmin InReach leaves a breadcrumb trail of where we travelled. The map below shows our route.
The picture below is the boys snorkeling. Alex is facing the camera on the left.
About the same photo as above.
The sun got in the picture below but I kind of like the effect. Katherine (back to camera) is talking with Lifeguard Karen, with the boys swimming in the water.
Alex on the left, Alyosha (Osh) on the right.
Snacks after swimming while talking with Katherine.
Below is a panorama of Honolulu from the boat. The motion of the boat rocking while I took the photo kind of gave a little "hump" to part of the coastline, but that's Ok.
The boys having lunch on the boat.
Alex Knight on the far right.
Captain Jeff at the helm. Honolulu in the distance behind him.
The "mountain" on the right in this picture below is of "Diamond Head".
Downtown Honolulu from the bow of the boat.
A group of these one or two person little sailboats came by, it looked pretty fun.
A sailing catamaran, with Honolulu in the background.
The sailing catamaran had the sign "Makani" on the side. I think it is this outfit: https://sailmakani.com/
Second Mate Jess talks with Katherine.
Back to our hotel room after the boat ride, the sunset was really quite impressive from our hotel room balcony over Diamond Head. Picture below...
We invited the boys to an all you can eat seafood buffet dinner in a restaurant in our hotel. The hotel is "The Kahala" and the restaurant is called "Plumeria Beach House". The fact that it was all you can eat was a blessing. These young men eat a lot of food, LOL. From left to right Alex (red shirt), Osh, Joe, Liam (obscured in back right corner), Grayson (blue shirt), and Katherine looking at the camera on the far right.
People would walk their dogs on the beach in front of our hotel, which I think is cute.
Random final photo before we leave our hotel for the next stop.
We were staying in "Dolphin Lagoon Wing" of "The Kahala". The picture below is just to remind me about it. The dolphins were captive in a tiny little lagoon. I'm dubious about how happy the dolphins are here, but you can watch them swim around and even go pet them: https://www.kahalaresort.com/experiences/dolphin-quest/ There seem to be 4 dolphins held captive at The Kahala.
We leisurely checked out of our hotel room at The Kahala and drove about one hour on the route marked below in blue. Our destination for the next two nights is "Turtle Bay, Oahu".
Checking in at the Ritz Carleton in Turtle Bay, below is the lobby area.
This is kind of near sunset in the lobby area of the Ritz Carleton in Turtle Bay.
Our room here in Turtle Bay was a "Ocean View Suite" (see picture below). The problem with calling it a "suite" is it is really just a larger room. I would have preferred if there was some privacy between the bed and the living area, but oh well...
Same moment as the picture above was taken, just a little closer to our balcony to see what is below it.
We had dinner at "The Beach House by Roy Yamaguchi". The food is quite good, that is a Mai Tai in front of me.
I took the panorama below at the same "The Beach House" restaurant, just standing right at the edge of the restaurant looking out at the beach here. What you see is called "Kuilima Cove".
The next morning I woke up earlier than Katherine and read my iPad on our room's private balcony. It was very pleasant early in the morning (maybe 7:30am?)
Below is a terrible panorama I knitted together from 3 separate photos, to show "the scene" from our balcony. Not my best Photoshop work, but you get the general idea. There are dogs here also!! See the lower right corner group of people with a dog.
Breakfast (room service) on the balcony.
Our last night in Hawaii we had a relaxed dinner around sunset at a hotel restaurant called "Sunset at Turtle Bay", see menu below.
Back of the menu, just for the record.
It turns out this restaurant is named that way because of the sunset views. People kind of "camp out" here to watch the sunset. It was nice!
Random picture as the sun sets over the horizon.
I thought the two surfers made a nice foreground for this photo.
Final sunset photo as the sun drops behind the ocean.
When we went back up to our hotel room, we are literally looking down at the "Sunset" restaurant we were just sitting at.
The next morning we get up early and drive to the Honolulu Airport (about a 50 minute drive). The path we took is picture below. And then the GPS tracker tracks us taking off in the lower right corner of the map below.
I took the picture below to remind me of this: the Hawaiian Airlines Lounge in Honolulu Airport is lame. It is the lamest lounge I've ever been in. There isn't any free food, no food you can order for money either, no alcohol served at all (even for money). They had free coffee, and the bathroom was just about exactly as nice as the airport bathrooms. Seriously?! This should be the flag-ship lounge of Hawaiian Airlines!
A lot of the walkways between things in the Honolulu airport are indoor/outdoor type of hallways.
Our flight home was a direct, non-stop from Honolulu to Austin, Texas. It took about 7 hours. My GPS tracker says it was at 40,385 feet altitude and 595.87 mph. In the track below, I think it is interesting how it stays in USA airspace by going just a little deviation to the north so not to cross over Mexico.
Below is a 2 minute movie I took of our flight taking off from Honolulu Airport (HNL). Everything is gorgeous in Hawaii, even the view from airplanes. Click here for the highest quality original.
And unlike the flight we took from LAX to Honolulu, our departing flight (destination Austin) had Starlink Internet. And it was free, no charge!! I streamed Netflix and YouTube videos in high resolution. It was glorious. I think Hawaiian Airlines is my new favorite domestic airline because of Starlink! But in full disclosure I would choose any airline that had Starlink internet over anything called "Gogo". The "Gogo" internet product on airlines is my nemesis. I have hated Gogo with a burning passion for at least a full decade. Gogo only works about half the time, and is very very slow. Think of "Gogo" as "dial up modem internet in the sky" but where your sister picks up the phone and destroys the dial up connection (you would have to be 60 years old to get that joke). I think of Gogo as a great way to blow 30 minutes of time trying to give Gogo money, then to not actually get internet connectivity. It's like an emotional roller coaster of "wait, I might have internet for this flight?" then "wait, I wasted $20, now that money is gone, and these Gogo bastards cannot even provide any internet connectivity at all?!!" I would avoid any flight anywhere in the world that has Gogo internet offered on it, just out of general principle. The company Gogo NEEDS to die, and the sooner the better. It is run by people who don't have any idea what they are doing. I'm not even talking about Gogo's internet connectivity (which is a bad experience, spotty, shuts off literally for hours, and is terribly slow). I'm saying the technical support of Gogo is terrible, the Gogo website is **HORRENDOUS** and needs to be shot, a stake needs to be driven through it's heart, and that website needs to be buried 6 feet underground. For the sake of humanity. Gogo's billing system is a UI/functionality travesty. Gogo literally offers payment options that won't work, no matter how hard you try. There is almost no payment that will work (out of Credit Card, Amazon Payment, Paypal, Apple Pay and a few others offered, literally none of them have ever worked for over a decade of Gogo's operation but they flatly refuse to remove the OTHER payment systems from this utter crap-fest of a billing webpage), and the website just conveniently forgets to recommend that 1 working path to you! (Side note: I'm a programmer, and seriously, the programmers at Gogo need to be prevented from working at any company ever again, they are that bad: they should be barred from my industry as an utter embarrassment to our profession.) Gogo is the absolute epitome of how to run your business badly, crash, and burn (airline pun intended). And luckily, now we have Starlink to crush them. A thousand times the bandwidth, always available, never fails, amazingly awesome: Starlink. A billing page not built by morons. Gogo is doomed, and we can all thank our lucky stars Gogo is doomed. Gogo internet means you are forced to read an old fashioned, paper book on your flight. Because Gogo is really that bad. Go awaiian Airlines!! You showed taste in banning Gogo and going with Starlink!
Because we had an internet connection, I could also run "FlightRadar24". The picture below is a screenshot of my iPhone's screen, the airplane in red is our airplane we are on, Hawaiian Airlines flight HA82.
Almost immediately after takeoff we passed by Molokai Island, Hawaii.
This seat configuration was interesting and came with no built in TV screen, but a little "bar" that held iPads and phones and such. The meal had "taro rolls" (the purple bread).
The seats in business class are 100% lay flat beds (if you push the correct button) and Katherine took a long nap, as seen in the picture below.
Here we are landing in Austin. My phone kind of struggled with blurriness.
And the final picture is us all the way back in our home in Austin, with our little dog Ava and three cats. Ava hadn't seen us in 7 days and was completely excited and happy to see us. The cats hadn't seen us in 7 days and didn't really care that much. :-)
This is not for you! Stop reading! I'm old, I forget
things, this helps me remember for next time.
That's it! That's all the pictures. All done!