Semi Lost Stuff And A Great Day On The Island

No filming this day, a Sunday, so it was a day to do regular Hawaii stuff that wasn’t Lost-related. Oh okay, who am I kidding, the whole reason we went there was for Lost stuff, so we made our way back to the Hawaii film studio. During our talks with various fans, we learned that the sub was there, but we hadn’t seen it our first time around.

Sure enough, we did see the sub, a very cool thing for any Lost fan. The back of the studio butts up against both a park and another business and we had to climb down a rather steep hill to get the shots of the subs but this time we were wearing sneakers and not our flip flops so it was a tad bit easier than last time.





We also saw Jughead, which was there the last time we came to the studio, but somehow missed it. How, I don’t know, maybe because we were in a tither over seeing the FDW and trying to peek inside the building so we could see the latest prop being built. I must say that Jughead didn’t look nearly as impressive as it did on the show, especially with all the peeling paint. Still, cool to see both and we were still happy.







Our next stop was to hike Diamond Head, which wasn’t quite what we thought it’d be. Of course it was very busy with tourists, aka stupid humans, but I suppose that’s to be expected on a Sunday. Here's a picture of a sign there, with a good aerial shot of the crater:



Here’s a picture of me by the main park sign:



The hike itself was pretty easy in my opinion, but then I enjoy hiking mountains and have hiked tougher terrain in my time; this was basically a clear path up that wound up the side of the volcano. It was very hot and humid though, and another hazy day, but we had plenty of water with us.

A bird I saw at the beginning of the trail, not sure what it is but we certainly don't have them up North:



Other random shots on the way up:







So the hike was pretty easy up until we reached the Stairs From Hell – 74 steep and narrow steps – which were quickly followed by Tiny Claustrophobic Tunnel Of Terror, a very long and narrow low ceilinged tunnel that went right through the crater.



I was ahead of Paul a bit and started in, but then felt that panicky feeling squeezing my chest and turned around, telling him I wasn’t sure I could do it. I’m very claustrophobic, to the point where I feel like I could get a panic attack and have in the past. So I really wasn’t sure I could find it myself to go through that tunnel, but then I stood there for a second thinking to myself “Wait a minute Steph, when the hell are you ever going to be here again, hiking a volcano? Never.” Not only that, but hiking Diamond Head was on my must-do list while in Hawaii.

Still, at first I tried finding out how long the tunnel was so I could mentally prepare myself, but the women I stopped didn’t speak English very well. Paul was being really nice about it, it’s kind of embarrassing to be in a situation like that and he took me very seriously (maybe I looked freaked out? I dunno). In the end I found some courage and told him I’d see him on the other side and went in, keeping my head down so I couldn’t see over the visor of my hat, my eyes on the floor and just didn’t think about what I was doing. Let’s just say I walked very, very fast, nearly trotting and tried not thinking about where I was or the looming rock over my head that felt like it was pressing in on all side. I felt a bit panicky so was pretty close to breaking into a run, but then I was suddenly through the other side. Once through I decided not to think about how I’d have to go through it a second time around, but let’s just say I wasn’t looking forward to it.

There was a lookout we stopped at, with a nice breeze which we both sorely needed as it was friggen hot and we were sweating bullets.





All was well until we saw The Stairs From Hell Part Two: The Revenge Of The Stairs. Very steep and very narrow and seemingly never ending when you’re walking up them especially since by now everyone is sick of friggen stairs. Ninety-nine of the little bastards on the second set and it quickly turned into The Incident #3 (Incident #2 by the way was trying to find a stupid grocery store using google maps). Finally at the top:



Still, worth it for the view of Waikiki and just the fact that I was standing at the top of a crater like that. Even hitting my head on this big metal thing up there was worth these views:







The city of Waikiki, which is where we stayed. The boxes that you see are pillboxes, used in WWII:







Crater done and being super huge Lost fans, we then headed to find the place where in the show Desmond accidentally killed Inman, a place called China Wall. I remember watching that episode for the first time and telling Dave it’d be fun to walk around there, and sure enough, it most certainly is. By then the sky had cleared of haze to blue and we had a great time climbing around. I’ve never seen rock formations like that and probably never will again unless I go back.

After a bit of detective work via screen caps, we found the spot where that particular scene was filmed and had to geek out even further. Yes, I actually posed on the rocks like I was dead Inman and no, you cannot see the picture of it. It’s bad enough that there were other people there, no doubt wondering what the hell I was doing. It was also very uncomfortable and I skinned my elbow on the rocks, which is of course actually lava (duh). Still, we got some good pictures of non-geeky things too. A lot of them:





































This is the spot where the actual scene was filmed:





As you can see the shoreline here is pretty crazy, the water not exactly safe to swim in. I'm pretty sure this is the area where the signs say not to pose with your back to the ocean, so you don't get swept in. It's pretty wild as you can see:













Once done with that we took off again, driving along the East side of the island on the coast. We saw the Pala Ferry Dock, which is on private property so you can’t get out there, but didn’t find a place to stop to take pictures even from afar. Both of us wished we had turned around to find a place to stop, but oh well I suppose.

Some shots I took on our drive:



Rabbit Island:



As we were driving along I saw a sign that said baby-back ribs for $7 so very urgently told Paul to stop, that I just wanted a ‘snack’. My snack turned out to be a huge plate of very yummy ribs, with rice and macaroni salad. A typical lunch plate, as they call it there, always has rice and mac salad. The mac salad sucked, but everything else was very tasty and we fully enjoyed our food. Not bad for seven bucks from a truck on the side of the road and I of course ate all my ribs, but then, I don’t think I’ve ever left a rib behind on a plate in my life.

Here’s me waiting for my order to come up. It smelled so good there, I’m surprised there’s not a puddle of drool at my feet:



After that we finally made our way back to our favorite place, that’s right, the North Shore. Clearly that was our favorite spot on the island, probably my second favorite place on the planet after Sterling Pond, part of the Long Trail, on top of Smuggler's Notch. We hit a Starbucks and I was feeling pretty tired and quiet (I had woken a bit hung over from the drink on the night before), so when we pulled off at a likely spot as the sun started to set. I sat by myself while Paul took some pictures, the one for my avatar for this blog is a picture from this spot, here are a couple more:





I really enjoyed sitting there watching the waves and just thinking as I inhaled my mocha java. Some guy was surfing out there and I watched him for a while as the sun finally slipped over the horizon.







My sunset pictures I took, they didn't come out great but are still decent:







Once Paul got the shots he wanted, and the sun set we left for our hotel; I was still really tired and flipped around the TV until I found Office Space, one of my favorite comedies. It was badly dubbed and I mean horribly. Some of the key terms that had us rolling were “What the hand” instead of “what the hell”, “Pound you to ash” instead of “pound your ass” and “Suck my eye”, I can’t even remember what that one was supposed to mean. We of course ran with those terms for the rest of our trip but by now we had already deduced that our maturity level had dropped about ten years from our general silliness.