Australia/Hawaii 2002, part 14: California

This is the last entry (which I accidentally left sitting in draft for over a year, oops!). My trip report finishes up the last 2 days of the journey but it's all about wedding stuff in California and what we did in the Carmel area. I arranged my 2002 Australia/Hawaii trip around a friend's wedding; coincidentally, in 2011 I would arrange my 10-week trip to Europe around the wedding of another good friend. Trivia and By The Numbers are at the end of this post; no pictures today of the travel prior to the wedding.

Friday, October 4: Oahu to Los Angeles to San Jose to Carmel
Is Richard Simmons a good omen or a bad omen?

Even if everything had gone exactly on time, I still would have only had an hour to get my luggage from one terminal and check in at another. But at 6 a.m. on a Friday morning, how many people can be at the airport?

I managed to catch somewhere around 3 of hours of sleep on the plane. I practically flew out the door where the Continental flight arrived after I got my luggage, and was lucky that the shuttle bus was right there. And fortunately I didn't have to wait very long to get to the next stop, but it still took time. It was there that I found myself in line at Southwest at 5:50 a.m. asking the gate agent if there was enough time for me to make the 6:05. I got an "are you serious?" look but he said he'd do his best to help me, then he slapped a "late" tag on the bags. Just in case I didn't make it, I had already made a backup plan. Vanessa was driving in from San Francisco to San Jose to pick me up around 7:30, and I'd call her if I didn't make my flight. The next one was only an hour later, so we still had plenty of time to get to Carmel by 3 pm.

Australia/Hawaii 2002, part 13: Oahu (day 3)

I mention below that one of the graves I sought out at the Punchbowl was that of Space Shuttle Challenger astronaut Ellison Onizuka. In 2011, ten years later, I got the opportunity to meet his widow Lorna at a NASA function, and told her how much his death affected me as an aerospace engineering student at the time, how it inspired me even more to get into the job that (as it turned out) I loved, and that it was out of respect for all that that I visited his grave. She was very touched and thanked me for thinking of him like that and for telling her that story. Today's pictures are here.

(Turns out this post has been in draft for over a year, I thought I published them all. Oops.)

Thursday, October 3: Oahu
I can see for miles and miles …

Like all "last days" somewhere, this was the day to think about doing all the stuff I didn't have time for – I wanted to go up to the top of Diamondhead, go snorkeling in Hanauma Bay (both off to the east), go up to the Punchbowl and maybe do some shopping (both off to the west). As usual, I didn't get to do all of that. I quickly decided to blow off shopping and reluctantly pushed snorkeling to the bottom of the list. Yeah, it would have been cool, but I had just gone scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef and anything else would have been anticlimactic. So with just Diamondhead and the Punchbowl left on the list, I could be somewhat leisurely.

Australia/Hawaii 2002, part 12: Oahu (day 2)

The music I listened to in the car in 2002 was on CDs. Now I would have hooked my iPhone up to Bluetooth, or at worst plugged the phone into the AUX jack and listened to mp3s. But it still would have been the Beach Boys and Jimmy Buffett. Today's pictures are here.

Wednesday, October 2: Oahu
Chasing a rainbow on the Kamehameha Highway

I had decided that today was going to be my day to explore the island outside of Waikiki – get a rental car and just drive, stopping where I want and seeing what there is to see. All within reason, of course, as I had to drop my rental car off by 7 pm, so that left me roughly 12 hours if I picked it up when the place opened. I actually picked it up at 8, and then drove down the H1 Highway to Pearl City to see the USS Arizona Memorial. Tunes for the trip are courtesy of the Beach Boys Greatest Hits and the 4-disc Jimmy Buffett set, "Boats, Beaches, Bars, and Ballads".

Australia/Hawaii 2002, part 11: Oahu (day 1)

I called my family and friends on my cell phone from the beach in Hawaii, and everyone was amazed. In 2011 I talked to my friends and family via Skype, text message, and FaceTime, and nobody thinks twice about it. Today's photos are here.

Tuesday, October 1 (again): Oahu
Aloha from the beach

I woke up and it was October 1st again. Hmm, déjà vu… didn’t I wake up yesterday in Sydney and it was October 1st then too? Ah, the joys of crossing the international date line. I experienced the night of 9/30 to the morning of 10/1 twice, in exchange for not having a 9/15 on my way out to Australia. But it’s Hawaii, what’s there to complain about?

Australia/Hawaii 2002, part 10: SYD to HNL

For a 3-week trip to Australia and Hawaii in 2002, I took a 30" suitcase and packed it with 32 kg (70 lbs) of stuff. In 2011, for a 10-week trip to Europe, I took a 26" suitcase and packed it with 19 kg (43 lbs) plus a 4 kg (8 lb) backpack. I think I had about 8 days worth of clothes on this 2002 trip, including 2 pairs of jeans, vs 6 days in 2011; also, I packed all of my scuba gear to save a few bucks on rentals, my suit and dress shoes for the wedding at the end of the trip, and I had bought a few books to take home.

Tuesday, October 1 to Monday September 30: Sydney to Honolulu
The Time Zone Shuffle

Sigh. I don’t want to get up, I don’t want to have to leave. But circumstances demand it. I checked out of the hotel and caught the second shuttle to the airport. I planned to take the Airport Shuttle bus as part of my SydneyPass (which includes a free round-trip to and from the airport). When I inquired at the front desk they insisted that the shuttle would pick me up at the front of the hotel, which conflicted with the official map of the bus route, as that indicated the stop was a couple blocks away. Sure enough, at 7:30 the airport shuttle showed up – a shuttle VAN, hired by the hotel and requiring a payment, not the shuttle BUS that I had already paid for. Luckily the next bus stopped at its regular place about 14 minutes later, and it was off to the airport.

Australia/Hawaii 2002, part 9: Sydney (day 5)

I did my city bus tour on my last day, because I didn't plan well - that should have been the first day. And the fact that the flight from Yulara was mid-day didn't occur to me, so I lost a day that I might have tried to gain back by staying one less day in the Outback so I could stay one more day in Sydney. Of course, had I not been going to a wedding in California on Saturday, then I could have stayed another two days in Sydney, but this trip was planned around the wedding. As it was, there were a number of things I didn't get to do that I had wanted to, but there's always next time. Today's pictures are here.

Monday, September 30: Sydney
Where did the time go?

Monday – my last full day in Australia. It’s bittersweet, although I’m looking forward to getting back to the US, I really don’t want to leave. I love being here and I already want to come back.

Today is “leftover day”, originally planned to be my trip out west to the Blue Mountains but I’m all natured out for a while, so I’ll try to hit all the things I missed over the last few days. Impossible, I’m sure, but I’ll see what I can fit in.

Australia/Hawaii 2002, part 8: Sydney (day 4)

I found out in 2011 that Zenbu had closed a few years before. And in 2002, they didn't have Skype or any of the VOIP internet phones, so we had to use calling cards. The view of the Sydney skyline from Taronga Zoo is one of my favorite images of my whole trip. The rest of the pictures from today are here.

Sunday, September 29: Sydney
Koalas, Sharks, and a Zenbu (oh my!)

Happy Birthday, Mom. Although when I wake up at 9 a.m., it’s still 6 pm on the 28th, so I have to wait til tomorrow my time to wish it to her in person. She doesn’t know that I’ve arranged with Dad to call her at home at 10 pm on the 29th (Houston time, which is 1 pm on the 30th in Sydney). In preparation, I bought a phone card that gives me international calls for just 50 cents a call plus 4.9 cents a minute. Thanks to the “backpacker” culture that exists in Australia (and all over Europe too), there’s a large infrastructure here that caters to the extreme-budget traveler, in the form of hostels ($10 per night, as long as you don’t mind sharing a dorm-style room in bunkbeds with several other people – though that’s a good way to meet people), special tours, discounted meals, internet cafes, and phone cards. For $10, I get a card that gives me about 3 hours of talk time to use over the next 48 hours or so.