Many chocolates from the trip to give to people as gifts and to eat ourselves.
And many magnets organized on our freezer.
I need to get some meds for my upcoming wisdom teeth removal. Four prescriptions for under $12? I didn't think they'd be anywhere near that inexpensive.
They said to buy soft foods to eat after the surgery, like soup. Buy 2, get 3 free, and 4x points? That's going to be a hard deal to beat.
Mixed nuts with peanuts.
It should be called a ton of peanuts with just a few mixed nuts.
Our milk goes sour very quickly in Hawaii. In California it would last weeks, but here it usually won't even make it to one week. We don't drink much milk, so that means we throw a most of it away after a week. We bought this ultra-pasteurized one once, and it lasts a very long time, so we might switch over to that. It tastes a bit different, but we mainly only use it with cereal in the morning, so we don't notice the taste much.
Sunrise.
VP debate.
Ogii doesn't seem too interested.
They're both staring at me way too intensely. Vance looks like a serial killer; Walz looks like his staff told him he needs to open his eyes and look at the camera and he overdid it.
Checking out locations to watch the partial solar eclipse. Some of these hiking websites have way too many ads. One huge one at the top, one on the bottom left, one on the bottom right, and then ads for the writer's social media and blog on the right. I can't even read the web page text.
It's not a total eclipse; the max will be 46% from here.
That still looks neat.
Time And Date has a helpful timeline.
I thought about a few different locations, but I settled on the Hanauma Bay Ridge Trail, so I could get a picture of the sun above the bay. The last time Ogii and I hiked this, we parked at the Hawaii Kai Lookout, a little lot on highway 72, but we had to walk to the Hanauma Bay entrance and then back to the trail, which added a bit more distance than parking on Nawiliwili St and taking a side path up, which is what most people do and what I did this time. There was plenty of open parking.
You walk along the highway for just a bit.
Then turn and go up through the brush.
There's a little path you can follow.
Always look back and remember where you came from.
The entrance has a little piece of paper towel wrapped around a branch.
Of course, nowadays, you can also screenshot where you are on Google Maps, then pull it back up and find the location that way.
A cruise ship far out in the ocean.
Hikers going up Koko Head.
I also wanted to get a picture of Comet C2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS). You can look up celestial objects by name or type on the Sky Safari app.
It's currently the brightest comet (lower magnitude is brighter; the sun is -27, the full moon is -13, Venus is around -4, the north star is 2, the faintest visible to the naked eye is 6.5, the faintest visible with binoculars is 9, and the faintest visible with a large 12" telescope is 15).
It should be just above the horizon. This app has a feature where you can hold it up and it will move the sky behind is as you move the phone, but for whatever reason, it doesn't seem to work quite as well in Hawaii as in California; sometimes it will be a bit too far left or right, so just because the app says an object should be right there, it might be a bit to the left or right instead.
Unfortunately, I think these low clouds, which are common in Hawaii, are in the way.
There were a few other hikers this early, although not many.
I like the Sun Board app to show where the sun will rise. It's much faster and simpler than other sunrise apps.
I walked up and down a bit, but I liked the composition from here.
As it was right in the middle of the bay rather than to the side.
Once the sun came up, there were a few more hikers out.
This woman also takes pictures around Hawaii and was here to get the eclipse.
She takes pretty sunsets and rainbows.
She also had a picture on her phone of another photographer who had taken a picture of the comet in Honolulu, so it must be visible at some point.
While I was at Hanauma Bay, Ogii was back at home. She also could see the sunrise.
Here it comes.
You can see the eclipsed area.
Even more hikers now.
Many of them didn't know about the eclipse, but I had extra eclipse glasses, so I handed them out as people came by. There were even a few bigger groups of around 10 people, so I gave them a few to share.
I was hoping to get a series of photos of the eclipse as it went, but these clouds are in the way now.
Ogii can see it peeking above the clouds from our home.
But I still can't. Maybe she's higher than me?
Now it's above the clouds for me.
There it is (with my phone).
And with my DSLR with a 600mm lens and a solar filter.
I kept taking pictures until the eclipse was over, and thankfully there were no more clouds. The maximum was at 6:45, the sun had come out from behind the clouds for me at 7:05, and it ended at 7:52, so the clouds didn't block too much; just a little before and right at maximum.
Time to head back down.
Can you see the little trail marker?
There it is.
I like to pick up garbage from the trails when we hike.
Here's another bottle.
Almost done.
A bit more garbage.
I got a bag full.
I tried to make a timelapse of the eclipse and put it on top of another photo of the bay, although it looks rather fake. I purposely made the sun bigger so you could see the missing section, but I couldn't the sun to look right no matter what I did; maybe the color is wrong or something else.
Ogii bought some Russian dolls in Europe. The last one is tiny.
I use this tea jug to water the plumeria.
It looks like it grew some algae, though.
Another spot. Time to get a new jug.
I drove to Makapuu Beach Park to try to get a picture of the comet. You can park on the side of the road here.
And walk down this little path.
Here was a picture someone else took of the comet a few days ago from this beach.
But I couldn't see it, even though, according to the Sky Safari app, it should be there. Maybe I'm at the wrong part of the beach and the comet is behind the hill? Or maybe it's behind the clouds? I can't think of anything else.
I was originally south in the middle of the beach, so I moved north some more.
Into a more rocky area. I also noticed there is a parking lot here on this view, so if you're going to the rocks instead of the beach, that would be closer to park.
I think it's too late and bright for the comet now, but the waves crashing on the rocks were neat.
With the DSLR. Like a wave curled around the sun.
All the way around like the splash is holding the sun.
Two separate splashes.
It looks like there could be some tide pools here, too.
Although I didn't see much for animals except for crabs.
The sun about to come up.
Family photoshoot.
Looking south.
And north.
Chickens were on the path back to where I parked.
Nobody else had parked here. I guess they all parked in the lot.
Safeway has a San Francisco 49ers football display.
Google has some phone upgrades. Translation.
On-screen QR code reading.
AI info on what you're looking at.
Photo editing.
Wallet storage for QR and barcode passes.
Even automatically, like how Google Calendar will pull appointments from GMail.
Texting effects.
Ogii trying a fake background with that expensive dress.
I had had a bit of a mild cold since coming back from the trip, but it wasn't COVID.
Assuming I did the test correctly.
You would think the self-service station at the post office would be faster.
But it's often not, even if there's a longer line for the counter, because you have to type in all of the address info on the screen rather than on a keyboard, so that's much slower.
This store a block west of the Bank of Hawaii building is for lease.
Empty inside.
Although it's a little farther west than most tourists are, I think.
Fun bunny with a surfboard at the Waikiki Galleria Tower.
I picked up lunch from IO Waikiki Korean BBQ Restaurant.
Their eat-in menu.
Their take-out menu.
While waiting for the food, I wandered around the Waikiki Shopping Plaza. A St. Luke's Clinic. I don't think it's associated with the hospital in Aberdeen.
There are many small offices down hallways where no tourists walk.
Vision Mobile Hawaii. Is that a van providing mobile eye exams?
Ah, no, they have wifi devices.
For tourists to take to Japan.
The Korean BBQ is done, but it seems really heavy.
They messed up and gave us almost triple what I ordered, so I gave them another $20.
Rivals is a small sports lounge in the Waikiki Malia hotel.
They're showing the UFC fight. We might have to check it out for that, although the $20 cover is rather high, or a football game.
Rain over the ocean.
Watching Friday night fireworks.
A video.
Colorful sunrise.
The dessert bar is open until sold out.
All kinds of croissants.
This rainbow one is pretty.
The crookie looks good, too.
Croissants and dessert.
UFC fight.
He got really cut up.
Getting close to done with Seinfeld. There are 24 episodes in the ninth and final season. Episode 10 has Festivus, which is hilarious. I don't know why they didn't title the episode that instead of The Strike, which wasn't nearly as funny of a story.
Even though we pay for Amazon Prime, there are still a ton of ads now. I thought ads were supposed to be a thing of the past now, but I guess the streaming companies want even more money.