After a good night's sleep, we decided to take it easy for another day as we wind down our week in Kauai. We took a short drive to Wailua Falls.

Even though it was another hot day, we just had to get some noodle soup at Pho Kauai in Lihue, which I highly recommend.

Later that night, after dinner, we went to the Coconut Marketplace to get some ice cream from Lappert's, and everyone enjoyed their scoop!

Back at our resort, I took the kids to the beach to light up the rest of the sparklers, and I managed to take some awesome pictures using delayed exposure. Here's one with 1/3 second exposure.

And 0.6 second exposure. This turned out to be my favorite shot.

And 1.3 second exposure. Very cool looking!

Lastly, 2 second exposure.

After 2 hectic days of driving and sightseeing, we took it easy on the 4th of July. Sudi got a bunch of beautiful flowers for only $5 and some fruits from the Farmers' Market.

And Isabel was enamored by what I could only call "hanging Birds-of-Paradise" flowers.

The kids were getting very anxious about seeing the fireworks, so I let them light up a couple of sparklers.

After dinner, we headed over to Lihue and got the perfect spot for viewing the fireworks show. I repeatedly played with the settings on my camera until I capture some really good shots.
 

We had a couple of hours to kill before the luau, so we hung out at Po'ipu Beach, where the boys had a lot of fun getting splashed by the waves.

Upon arriving at the Grand Hyatt, we saw a couple of rare black swans.

The hotel was definitely very nice!

There were probably 500 people at the luau, and the weather was just perfect.

Isabel couldn't get enough of the very sweet pineapple. She must've had 8-9 pieces!

And I couldn't get enough of the Kalua pig! I had 3 big servings of it!

I managed to get seats very close to the stage, so we got a very good view of the dancers.

And she was definitely my personal favorite! :-)

Known as the "Grand Canyon of the Pacific," the Waimea Canyon was something that we just had to see. On our way there, we get a little teaser view it from a scenic lookout.

And it's another hot day in Kauai -- about 90 degrees!

About a 1/4 of the way up the road towards the Waimea Canyon lookout, we saw a cool little water fall.

And then, after another 20 minutes of driving, there it was -- Waimea Canyon! Truly grand and beautiful!

I just love this picture of me and Joseph!

Sudi and Bambi cut up some very sweet papaya, and we just sat there talking about how amazing this place was.

And then we took one final picture before leaving the canyon.

We stopped by a scenic overlook of taro fields.

And it was great to see the kids being so happy and playful.

We then visited the famous and grand Princeville Hotel, where Isabel (after having such a nice, long nap at the beach) kicked back in the lobby.
 

Everyone together now .. except me taking the snapshot. Joseph was not happy because he was extremely hungry and tired at this point.
 

On the way out the door, we saw a couple of Tahitian dancers.
 

Since there wasn't a reasonably priced restaurant in Princeville, we went back to Hanalei in search for a quick dinner and found the Polynesian Cafe in the Ching Young Village, where we ordered authentic Hawaiian twice cooked pork, which Isabel loved.

On the way back to the car, we saw a couple of a very cool looking tree with leaves that look like butterflies!

After 50 minutes of driving on our way to Ke'e Beach for our hike on the Kalalau Trail, we stopped at Ha'ena (a.k.a. Tunnels) Beach to check out its cave. Marichu and Sophia stood in front of the massive monolith with roots of trees dangling all around. It was weird and awesome at the same time.
 

Here's what the whole monolith looks like.

The cave structure is located at the bottom left of the monolith, and it is massive! Yes, those tiny figures in the middle are us!

Here's a close-up shot of us.

After waiting 20 minutes or so for the rain to subside, we drove for a few minutes to reach Ke'e Beach and then started hiking the Kalalau Trail. Marichu carried Isabel about half way up to the top, and amazingly, Isabel hiked the rest of the way, which was about a 1/2 mile of steep, rocky climb.

At the top, we rested, enjoyed the amazing view and fabulous breezes, and decided that it would be safer for us to head back rather than proceed onward for at least another hour through a steep, wet, and treacherous descent down the other side of the trail.

We then spent the rest of the afternoon swimming and snorkeling at Ke'e beach, which had a large reef that provided fairly calm waters and plenty of colorful fish.

And Isabel was exhausted and took a 2 hour nap!

The girls were up very early today. They're still on Seattle time, I guess.
 

We started our Sunday by going to the local St. Catherine's Catholic church for mass.

Then we had very tasty burgers at Bubba Burgers near Kapa'a. I can now vouch for their slogan, "Always Juicy, Never Greasy."

I decided to start our week by going to the highly rated and popular Lydgate Beach Park, and it definitely did not disappoint. The kids had a marvelous time. Joseph said, "This is the best day of my life!"
 
 
 

It's hot - 85-90 degree temperatures at 6PM!

And the kids are loving it!

We see a few mountains (and a volcano, I think).

And pass over the famous Diamond Head of Oahu.

Joseph already adjusting to the 3 hour time change.

And Isabel, too.

Here are some really great pictures I took while we were back in the Bay Area during Easter break (April 9-13). The day was perfect -- clear, sunny, and warm -- at Baker Beach in San Francisco. I almost lost these pictures because my harddisk crashed. Fortunately, only the OS partition had bad sectors, so I was able to recover all of the pictures. Whew!

Well, not really. Just atop the hill above U.C. Berkeley where the Lawrence Hall of Science is situated. We had a great time with MJ and her kids.

Wow, it's almost 3AM, and I'm still wide awake. I guess the +8 hour difference creates a "jet forward" rather than a "jet lag" effect. I'll probably be very tired tomorrow (er, later today) since I will not have gotten much sleep by the morning.

Anyway, it took 9 1/2 hours to fly from Seattle to Copenhagen and another 1 1/2 hours from there to London. Add to that the 1 hour layover and +8 hour time zone different, and I’ve just lost a day out of my life. Being in Business Class partially made up for it since I was able to plug in my laptop and work for 3-4 hours on the way to Copenhagen, but I almost didn’t get any work done if I hadn’t stop myself from drinking all of the alcohol they served! I can recount at least 6 occasions when they offered me something to drink. I ended up with a glass of champagne, 2 glasses of Pinot Noir, a glass of Argentina Merlot, a glass of port, and a glass of Cognac. Fortunately, I did not drink more than half of all that!

I arrived in London around 4:30PM, and the sun was already setting, but I managed to take a couple of pictures during the cab ride to my hotel before the sky went dark:

London is full of these classic, multistory buildings! I'm staying at the Sheraton Park Place Hotel, which is right on the Piccadilly, the main street in town. It has a very cozy lounge (pictured below), but I didn't have time to rest because I wanted to check out London at night.

So, I walked down (heading northwest) Piccadilly and saw:

Again, these types of buildings were everywhere! And I haven't even ventured over to the Buckingham Palace or Westminster Abbey or the like! I plan on doing that tomorrow -- I mean, later today.

Although I hate to eat out by myself, I decided to have dinner at the (supposedly world famous) Nobu London restaurant just southwest of my hotel, and I'm so glad that I ventured out because it was some of the very best sushi I’ve ever had, and I've had plenty.

Here's more info on Nobu. Yes, "snooty wait staff" is true. Everyone wore all black (including many of the customers) and looked like models, which provided a bit of ironic contrast with the middle aged Japanese chefs wearing all white at the sushi bar, where I sat. There was even a celebrity sighting tonight -- some British models/actresses here early for London’s famous Fashion Week next week. Fake kisses/hugs/laughs all around – very annoying.

But I really shouldn't complain because the food was marvelous. The (tuna) sashimi salad was wonderful as was the toro (tuna belly) tartar with caviar. The uni (sea urchin) tempera was unique, very fresh, rich and buttery -- I'd recommend it to anyone, who has been turned off by not so fresh uni or uni sushi style, which can be quite an acquired taste. There were many other very tempting signature dishes available. The ama ebi (raw sweet shrimp) melted in my mouth, and the shrimp heads were fried to perfection, which also melted in my mouth. The hotate (scallop) was the freshest/smoothest I've ever had. And the dessert -- I forgot the name, but it was some kind of sake laced ice cream with very finely diced pineapples -- was to die for and a perfect way to end the evening.

   When we were living in Orinda, Marichu had taken the kids here quite often. On the 23rd, we took a nice, easy 2.75 mile walk around the reservoir with the kids and a few of their cousins. I snapped this picture, which would be my favorite from the entire trip. I even got the hawk (several were soaring above the reservoir) in the picture thanks to the 20mm wide angle lens that I got right before our trip.

   Here's a few post card worthy shots.

   And here's a zoomed in shot of a hawk that soared directly above me. The photo turned out very crisp thanks to the "image stabilizer" feature of my 28-135mm zoom lens. Too bad I didn't have my 300mm telephoto lens, which would've provided an extreme close-up of the hawk even though it was a few hundred feet up in the sky.

   We left Bellevue on the morning of the 20th and scheduled an overnight stopover in Eugene, Oregon because we didn't want to drive at night or take any other chances given the recent tragedy with James Kim's family and his death while on their way driving to the Bay Area.

   Although the kids were mostly well behaved during both legs of the road trip...

...Isabel became very restless after being in the car for more than an hour.

   We managed to get to my brother-in-law's house in Stockton around 7:30PM on the 21st. And the kids started having a great time almost immediately.

   This past Saturday, we took the kids to Seattle for some site seeing and touristy stuff. Living in Bellevue and going to Seattle is kind of like living in Oakland or Emeryville and going to San Francisco. The one significant difference is that both bridges connecting Bellevue and Seattle are toll free, so there's rarely a long traffic jam like what so often happens behind the toll gates of the SF/Oakland Bay Bridge.

   Prior to leaving, I checked out the recommendations from Three Perfect Days in Seattle, but since we only had one day (er, more like just 5-6 hours max due to having 3 kids in tow), I picked out the following must-do’s:

• Space Needle: Instead of just doing the usual trip to the Observation Deck, I decided to take the family for brunch (available on Saturday and Sunday only). At $38.95 per adult and $15.95 per child, it was definitely not cheap! But the food was actually pretty good, the view was simply amazing (on a clear day), and the reaction of my kids to the restaurant spinning 360 degrees was priceless.
• Public Market: We saw the fish fly at the famous Pike’s Fish Market!
• Nordstrom Flagship Store: My wife is a huge fan and (more-than-my-liking) patron of Nordstrom, so she just had to see (no, experience) “Store #1.” Well, it did not disappoint – what, with free hors d'oeuvre and Italian mineral water, live piano music, four city block size floors of merchandize, numerous circular aquariums, and a top notch café.