It was another gorgeous morning when we set out on the road up the mighty Haleakala volcano. Mom wasn’t too enthusiastic about the trip but she was a good sport. The road actually wasn’t as twisty as you might imagine and the views over Maui were spectacular of course. At the top, the terrain is other-worldly – looks a bit like mars! The crater is a beautiful red color and you could see for miles – all the way to the big island! Mom even admitted it was worth the trip!!

Afterwards, we visited a lavender farm (which wasn’t in bloom), but it did smell really nice! Upcountry Maui was really different. We finished the afternoon by stopping by the old cowboy town of Makawao. Maui is full of all kinds if neat little towns like this one. We had the most unbelievable mahi-mahi at a hole-in-the-wall bar there!!

We finished the day at the most amazing beach in Wailea. The sand was next to perfect and the temperature was just right. We decided to hang out for the sunset – Hawaii sure knows how to do sunsets!!!

We finished our time in Maui with a (mostly) leisurely beach day. Our first beach was right in the middle of Kihei. This was a more public beach, and we ended up at the… more “mature” part of it… But it was certainly relaxing, and the water was gorgeous! The other beach we visited was Baldwin beach on the north shore – this was another perfect beach. It had bigger waves and more beautiful sand. A great place to hang out.

We also visited the lush Io Valley, near Wailuku. This was a sacred place to the Hawaiians where a massacre took place. The valley contains the 2250′ Io Needle which is completely covered in green. I’ve never seen so many shades of green! There were some trails which delivered awesome views of the valley.

Maui was an unbelievable place that is hard to put into words – and hard to leave! But the big island was calling so we hopped on a short flight to Kona.

We had an early start from the condo in Kihei. It took about an hour to get to the start of the road. It was absolutely breathtaking! The first stop was an overlook just past Paia – the waves were huge!! From there, it is nothing but amazing views through the rainforest. One minute it was the perfect green coast, then it was the forest. There was even some bamboo, which is a bit surreal.

One of the highlights was the black sand beach just before Hana. The black sand and lava rocks against the green vegetation is indescribable! Pictures won’t do it justice. We walked right down to the beach and I hiked out to the blowhole as well.

The other major stop was at Oheo Gulch, part of Haleakala national park. It seems that due to heavy rains, you couldn’t get into the actual pools. The falls were basically rushing rivers. We walked along the coast and stream taking in the views. The most impressive waterfall was actually a bit before here – Wailua Falls.

It was an awesome drive, that is for sure. It has something like 600 curves but is well worth it. Note that the section past Hana is *very* narrow especially with all the tour buses!! One last tip: get some banana bread!

We finished the day in Paia, which is s funky little town of shops and restaurants. We enjoyed a bit of browsing here, and had dinner at the Paia Fishmarket which was some of the best fish I’d ever had. And the waves just outside of town were the biggest waves I’ve ever seen – had to be 15 ft or so.

It was a long day but filled with some of the world’s great scenery. A good day.

Our trip to Hawaii started out early (6am Michigan time) – we had three flights to take on over the course of the day. It took a total of 11-hrs or so flying time to get to Hawaii. I must say that Alaska Air was *much* better than Delta. And Seattle was really beautiful! But it was great to finally get to Maui around 8:45pm HST. We headed straight for our condo in Kihei and crashed for the night!

We decided to take it easy on our first full day on the island. I went to the store to get some supplies for breakfast to enjoy on the lanai. We then headed down through Kihei which is a cool little beach town. We walked across the street to a cute little beach as well. And the weather was next to perfect!

We then took a trip over to west Maui to check out the famous beaches. We visited Kaanapali Beach. It was absolutely sublime… Couldn’t ask for z nicer spot and the water was great for a walk. Everybody seemed to be enjoying themselves.

We then drove even further down the coast for some awesome views of the west Maui coastline. It was rocky and rugged. And it got wetter and more tropical as we went. Breathtaking! I took lots if pictures.

Our last stop was the little tourist town of Lahaina. It’s a cook little place to shop and eat. It was an old whaling town and does retain *some* of that charm today. Mom found a few little things to buy and I enjoyed the harbor views. We walked down to the famous Banyan tree in the town center. It was amazing because there must have been hundreds of birds making all kinds of noise – it was like nothing I’ve ever heard! Almost like something out of “The Birds”! We capped off the day at “Cheeseburger in Paradise” (not recommended). It was a great day! Hawaii is unreal!

Tomorrow we drive the famous road to Hana.

This is also my first attempt at blogging from my iPhone so we will see how that works. I’m hoping this will work every time so I can get this blog up & running again and have everything in one place!

See you from the beach!

We arrived at Narita airport late in the day on Sunday, where we were able to get the Navy shuttle to Yokosuka (a bit south of Tokyo), where John lives. It was interesting to see all the signs and such in such a totally foreign language (at least with Spanish and French, I had a clue). But most of the people we encountered could at least speak some basic English so it was easy enough to get around (and most things are also signed in English). Yokosuka was a strange city — it had a very American vibe to it, probably because it was a base town. Overall, it seemed like Japan did have a fair amount of western influence, but yet was so very different as well.

On Monday, John had to work, so we played around a bit in Yokosuka, getting a bit used to the new country and getting over jetlag (even though I didn’t really have any). I did wake up super early the entire time I was there, however. We headed across the street to the train station/mall, where we hit up Mister Donut for some ramen and donuts! Seemed a strange concept to me, but I guess it’s normal for them (and really yummy). Afterwards, we walked down towards the port where there was a pleasant little park with a Japanese warship. There was also a nice choreographed fountain. Quite a relaxing day overall.

On Tuesday, we went to Tokyo to check out the big city. The guys were specifically interested in an area called Akihabra — or Electric Town. This is a huge district of nothing but electronics stores as far as the eye can see. Basically, this is where Japanese geeks come to hang out! I guess we fit right in!! We spent forever there, but it was fun to see the culture of Japan in that sense. We also made a brief stop in Shinjuku, which is a really busy area with lots of huge skyscrapers.

On Wednesday, John was off and available to tour us around his area. We slept in a bit, and then headed off to check out “Big Buddha” in Kamakura. This is a nice little tourist area not far at all from Tokyo (and even closer to Yokokusa). It was probably about 30 mins or so by train. There are many shrines located here, which always come with ice cream shops! I still don’t know about the green tea ice cream, however… Anyway, the Giant Buddha was indeed giant, and I took tons of pictures. We then walked over to the shrine in Hase, which was within walking distance. This is a beautiful spot with nice views over the bay, etc.

Afterwards, we went to Yokohama, which is a huge city just south of Tokyo. There were many electronics stores here including one of the largest one I have ever seen — something like 12 floors of nothing but electronics! We were there for what seemed like forever, as my friends are major geeks (but I mean that in the best possible way). Then we visited the waterfront, where there is a large tourist complex with malls, ferris wheels, and other attractions. The tallest building in Japan is located here as well but we had no time to go up. We had dinner at a place called “Cajun Joe’s” — in Japan! NOT a good idea!!!

On Thursday, John had to go to the base again, so I decided to head off on my own. I wanted to get my money’s worth from our railpasses! I had read about a nice place in the mountains called Nikko. This is where the founder of the shogunate, Tokugawa Ieyasu is buried. There is a huge shrine in his honor, along with many other shrines as well. It is a nice day out. Unfortunately, it seems that all the shops were closed on Wednesday!! I think it would be a great place in the summer, as it’s in the hills, and there are supposedly monkeys somewhere around there. We did meet a very nice man at the tourist office when we asked for directions. He gave us free chopsticks as a souvenir. The town itself is quite beautiful, nessled in the foothills of the mountains with huge cedar trees all around. The shrine itself costs about $10 to visit all the shrines, so not really too bad. It’s interesting that you have to take off your shoes to enter the shrines and temples. It was extremely cold there, so maybe that explained the lack of popularity!

Friday was to be our only overnight trip, when we would venture down to Kyoto. This is the historic capital of Japan, and it is a beautiful spot, with still more shrines and temples (something like 800 of them or something like that). After taking the bullet train (only about 2 hours from Yokohama), we head for our hotel. We passed a huge temple (Honganji) near the train staion, which is one of the largest wooden buildings in the world. Very impressive! They were actually having some sort of service inside but they didn’t mind people popping in for a visit. Our hotel was a tiny place, but it had mats for all four of us for a fairly reasonable price, so it was well worth the effort. The ladies at check-in were quite beautiful dressed in kimonos!

We then head for Higashiyama area in eastern Kyoto, where many of the most popular shrines were located as it is hilly and wooded. One of the first sites we passed here was a huge cemetery. These don’t look anything like western cemeteries however — the tombstones are vertical! We then visited Kiyomizudera, which is an impressive shrine located right at the very top of the hill. The views over Kyoto from here were excellent, and I would say it is highly recommended. From here, there is a street called “teapot lane”, which is pretty much what it sounds like — a street lined with gift shops! I bought many a souvenir to take back home. By this time, it was getting time for dinner, so we found a nice little spot where they served some good [teppanyaki], although I didn’t actually try it. We then walked through Gion (geisha district) on the way back to our guesthouse.

On the second day in Kyoto, the weather was not nearly as cooperative. It rained pretty much the entire day. Since I figured it wasn’t exactly like I’d be in Kyoto everyday, I thought we should push on (not everyone agreed). We visited several more shrines, where I took a ton more pictures. There does seem to be a bit of a difference between the Buddhist and Shinto shrines, but it was sometimes difficult to learn about the differences when you don’t speak the language, unfortunately. What I could say is that they are also extremely gorgeous to see. After lunch, the weather did clear up a bit, and we took another walk through Gion during the day. There are many traditional Japanese places here, so if we had more of a budget, we may have dropped by! The final shrine of the day Kenninji had rather extensive grounds, and was apparently of the Zen order. It was unique in that you were allowed to take pictures inside!!

Sunday was another day of rest for the guys (which I don’t really do), so I decided to head for Nagano. By this time I was pretty much an expert on Japanese trains. Honestly, this isn’t saying much – they must have the simplest and easiest train system in the world! Even if few people speak your language, all the signs are in English and it is organized extremely well with signs and arrows everywhere. This was another rather poor day weather-wise, so I didn’t really get to see much of the Japanese Alps. This disappointed me a bit, but I did see a lot of snow from the bullet train. This was the first snow we saw in Japan! It was lovely in Nagano, and there was yet another shrine to visit so the trip was worthwhile.

I also stopped off in Tokyo on the way back. I first visited a youth/trendy area called Harajuku. This is a cool area, with a quaint little train station next to a big park. Unfortunately, it was raining even harder at this point. This is where all the beautiful people hang out. It is VERY westernized, which is a bit amusing for me, but it was fun to see all the English words, even if they didn’t know what they meant (although I did hear they can read English better than speak it). It actually reminded me a bit of some places I’ve been in Europe. And the umbrellas made it quite colorful. I also dropped by Shinjuku for one more look around, and had dinner at a Burger joint, although they taste a bit different. It was pretty exciting to be in a such a bustling city!

Our final day we spent on the Shinkansen going into northern Japan. It turns out, however, that there isn’t much at the end of the line at all!! It reminded me a bit of Houghton or some town way up in the UP. Like a town that time forgot. Perhaps they are busier in the summer. It was quite cool there as well, but it was interesting to see a less traveled part of Japan.

Anyway, Japan was such a different culture that it was really enthralling to see. I was actually surprised how easy it actually was to get around, and how nice the people were. They would also bow and say nice things (in Japanese of course). I don’t think of Japan as a popular tourist place to go, but maybe that was part of its charm??

There are lots more pictures in the Japan Photo Album

I arrived at DTW a couple hours before my 1:40pm flight to Atlanta. It was a nice day and I was expecting a relatively relaxing day at a couple of airports. I had all my reservations planned and all signs were pointing to a nice weekend. While waiting for my flight, however, I noticed they were predicting a bit of snow for Atlanta. This made me a bit nervous as I know the south isn’t so good at dealing with snow. I went onto Delta’s website and found warnings and cautions about traveling to Atlanta! I was now concerned.

Since there was no good reason (other than it being Delta’s favorite hub) to go to Atlanta, I got in what was to be my first of MANY lines to talk to the gate agent about putting me on a different flight (something Delta.com had suggested I might add). However, the agent was terribly unhelpful, and told me all the flights to San Jose or San Francisco were “sold out”. I was pretty skeptcal as I think they likely could have routed me through another hub. She assured me that there were no delays down there and “everything would be fine”.

However, everything was NOT fine! When I got to Atlanta, it was snowing very lightly. I thought maybe the flight would still take off as planned. This was around 4pm. My flight was scheduled for 7:01pm (DL1579). Even though many flights were canceled, mine was still scheduled. They didn’t actually cancel it until after 5pm. So I trudged down to the service center for my first “rebooking”. They claimed there was no way I could get to SF until the next evening, and offered me a flight to LA instead that was taking off that evening. I grudingly accepted it (knowing full well I would have to rearrange all my plans in the process).

So I was put on a 9:30pm flight to LAX (DL2099) that had a delayed departure time of 11pm. I figured this was better as I could still salvage Saturday anyway. So I waited at the gate for hours, and they were booking people, making announcements about the flight, etc. All seemed good to go until about 10:30 when they suddenly delayed the flight to 11:30pm. It wasn’t long after that they canceled this one as well. So it was after 11pm, and I was in yet another line. Obviously too late to get to any hotel, I know knew I’d be spending my night at the airport. It was well after midnight by the time I got rebooked onto a morning flight to LAX (DL2083) at 9:45am. Still seemed hopeful as I’d have half a day on the west coast now…. But it was getting a bit silly at this point. They obviously weren’t very willing to work with me as I kept trying to get them to send me back to Michigan, but they claimed there was nothing available.

Sleeping at the airpot is terribly un-fun. First of all, they don’t even dim the lights, so unless you have an eye mask or something, you are stuck sleeping in the light. I’m not a very heavy sleeper either, so everytime I heard a sound I would wake up. And it’s very difficult to sleep anyway, when you are all stressed out about being stuck at the airport! Delta gives you a crappy overnight kit, but nothing resembling a blanket or pillow. By the time I got there, there were no decent benches left either. Needless to say, I got maybe an hour’s worth of sleep… and was awoken to…

MORE CANCELED FLIGHTS!!! At this point, it hadn’t been snowing for probably 8 hours or so. Apparently, they have absolutely no facilities to deal with cold weather in Atlanta, which is, btw, the world’s busiest airport…. No, I don’t quite get it either. Anyway, I got in line this time at about 6am… it was probably close to 9 by the time I actually talked to an agent. I’m thinking I spent a total of EIGHT HOURS or so in that same line!! Nuts if you ask me! Anyway, yes, they put me on yet ANOTHER flight to LAX, this time at 1:45pm (DL2087). Gosh, this was getting old…. it was a bright sunny morning in Atlanta, btw. Beautiful morning for a flight. Unfortunately, I wasn’t flying international as they apparently took precedence.

Still, i finally did get half an hour of sleep while waiting for this flight. And at this point, I had pretty much given up on anything approaching a productive vacation. I was gonna have to be content with some decent weather and actually getting to see the ocean. But, alas, this one wasn’t to be either! I guess even though they canceled thousands of flights, the attendants for those flights were nowhere to be found! Without flight attendants, no flight, I guess!! I don’t remember the exact departure time but it was pushing 5pm by the time we actually left. I will say this, once the flight attendants DID arrive, they really expedited getting us on the plane.

So eventually, I did get to LA, and Delta rescheduled my return flight so that I could also return from LAX as at this point it was obviously not going to make much sense to get up to San Francisco. All in all, I was VERY disappointed with how Delta dealt with the whole situation. Most frustrating of all was the fact that they had ample opportunity to reroute me in Detroit, but ignored the pending problem and sent me into the storm anyway. I also felt they needed a lot more agents and customer support to deal with all the people. They had 2-4 people staffing the Service Recovery Center. It is unacceptable to have to wait 3+ hours just to get a rescheduled flight if you ask me!

The only cool part of the whole ordeal was that on my final flight (the one that actually took off) were two actors. Ian Somerhalder (from Lost and the Vampire Diaries) was standing right next to me talking on a cell phone. And Dennis Haysbert (better known as President Palmer from 24 or from the Allstate ads) was there too. I wasn’t sure until I heard his DEEP voice. Kindof cool, if I must say so!!!

Moral of the story? Book direct flights whenever possible!!!

I’m currently working on several new articles from my trip to LA and SD last week, but in the meantime I wanted to make a quick post on a new airline I’ve just heard about, Skybus.

Skybus is a new airline with a hub in Columbus, Ohio. They are offering shocking low rates. I don’t know if it is just because they are new but they have one-way flights as low as $10! That is a really great deal. If you live in OH, this is a great deal for you. Even for me, driving to Columbus to board a cheap flight can still save me a lot of money. They fly to the following locations (from Columbus):

Seattle (Bellingham, WA)
San Francisco (Oakland, CA)
Los Angeles (Burbank, CA)
San Diego
Kansas City
Boston (Portsmouth, NH)
Hartford (Springfield, MA)
Richmond, VA
Greensboro, NC
Jacksonville (St. Augustine, FL)
Ft. Lauderdale

The way it seems to work is that they offer a certain number of very low fares ($10) on each flight. These sell out very quickly. So if you are planning further ahead, you will probably have better luck. I found $10 fares to Boston and Hartford for later this year. But for me, the west coast fares are the really good deal. I found $50 O/W fares to Seattle, San Franciso, and LA. This comes out to $120 R/T after taxes and fees. For Seattle, anything under $300 is a good deal so that is just awesome!

I can’t really call this a “review” as I’m yet to actually try out the airline but I’d like to do so soon. I may take one of these cheap $36 flights to the east coast just to see what it’s like. Unfortunately, weekend flights are not nearly as cheap.

Note also that they keep the fares low by not offering *anything* for free. You pay for things you might usually get for free on another airline. Drinks are $2 a pop and you can get small meals for $5. Even a blanket costs something! And it’s $5 to check a bag. But even if you add in these fees, it still sounds like a substantial savings over traditional airlines. I, for one, hope this business model takes off!

Skybus.com