Hawaii, Waikiki and Luau's

We landed in Honolulu after a bounce through Los Angeles.  We caught a taxi from the airport to our hotel and were pretty pleased with our hotel - nice location and spacious rooms with a semi-ocean view - if you don't mind looking through the palm trees to see it!
We crashed the first night, both pretty tired after the trip.  We visited the tour desk the next morning and booked a few tours for the next few days, then we wandered around Waikiki, Yumi quickly taking advantage of the local Pick a Pearl shop and managed to score a nice cheap Taihitian Pearl and then had to figure out what to set it in.  After much debate she decided not to have a setting for the pearl just yet - it's a bit of a scam really, they give you a cheap pearl and then a bunch of expensive but nice looking rings, earrings, pendants, etc to secure your pearl in and show it off.  But the process is fun - you have to pick out an oyster from a pile first and then rap the shell three times and shout ALOHA and what colour/size pearl you get is luck of the draw.
We spent most of that day wandering around and enjoying the place - and had a nice dinner that night at Tiki's Bar and Grill - the local restaurant for our hotel, and also had a couple of cocktails there.
Monday we had breakfast by the pool listening to a husband and wife team play songs and do the Hula dancing by the pool, then we headed down to the beach for some sunbathing and swimming.  Then we decided to catch one of the free shuttles to Hilo Hattie - which wasn't really that interesting, though we got to see a bit more of the city and the downtown area at least.  We headed back in the early afternoon and got changed for our evening Luau at Paradise Cove which we'd organised for our anniversary.
Paradise Cove was pretty awesome - they picked us up from the hotel and our driver pointed out the highlights along the way as we made ourselves to the other side of the island.  Once there we were each given a Lei and told to enjoy the activities they had on offer.  We tried our hands at spear throwing, Yumi made a headband using banana leaves, there was an outrigger canoe ride and tattooing which neither of us tried, an example of fishing net casting, and a bunch of special events such as the shower of flowers - where the chief would climb the tallest coconut tree and throw flowers down on top of us all.  Then we enjoyed a beautiful sunset over the beach and some dancing before theg y pulled in the nets.
Finally we had an Imu ceremony which was unearthing the roasted pig from the underground oven.
We settled back for a feast after that, with cocktails and a huge show of Hula dancing, Fire dancing, Hula dancing, Hakas, Hula dancing, Samoan rituals and dance and of course, Hula dancing.  There was even a special form of sitting-down Hula dancing.
The guys wore loincloths, the girls wore coconuts and skimpy outfits and much enjoyment was had by all.  Many photos and videos were taken - don't worry.