Hawai'i!
Wheee, so, I've been in Honolulu since about 11am Friday morning, visiting some relatives. It's been good so far.
The flight
The flight from Perth to Sydney had a crying child that cried for the majority of the trip, and for the latter half its sibling decided to compete with it, which started some sort of feedback loop. =/ TVs also weren't working. Killed time amusing the girl next to me with lolcat pics.
Fortunately the Sydney->Honolulu flight went much easier. It wasn't very full, and I got to have an aisle-and-window-seat pair. Killed time listening to music, reading through the DnD4 pdfs, and playing Advance Wars on my DS
Also, had some minor problems with customs, since I hadn't actually obtained any contact information from the relatives I was staying with, and hadn't been able to fill in the address part of the customs and immigrations forms.. oops. Oh well, they were fairly patient and helpful, and eventually I got through.
Went for dinner Friday evening, and then went with my relatives to church. It was.. different. Especially my being Roman Catholic, and we're used to boring formulaic masses. Saw a baptism, which was certainly a bit more full-on (guy was completely dunked in water, as opposed to the usual pouring of a bit of water on the person's head). I didn't take my camera on Friday night, but as soon as I can get some photos off my cousin Pam's camera, I will.
Pam's Graduation
I came for my cousin Pamela's high school graduation. Seems like quite a big thing here, in Hawaii. After the ceremony proper, the students congregate elsewhere to present each other with graduation leis. Here's an amateurish panorama photo to get an idea of how many people were in the field:
Those signs that you see people carrying are mainly to make it easier for lei-givers to find their recipients. :P Here's Pamela wearing her first few leis, together with our grandmother:
Here's me:
Photo will go here when I get it from someone else's camera :P
It was vastly amusing to see some people wandering around trying to wear as many as they could.
Pam and her entourage exiting the field. Her brother acting as pack-mule and carrying her lei-lewts, her sister's boyfriend follows as her standard bearer, and this time her sister was prepared for this photo :P :
It continued until it was quite dark, and Pam left with quite the collection of leis:
Whew! That's it for now. I'll keep adding to my flickr photostream, and will post a few more updates when I can.