March 4 2011 Hanauma Bay, Last Night in Hawaii

The beautiful Hanauma Bay.

All ready to snorkel!

Ivan (Slovakia) Julia (Switzerland) and Eray (Turkey) ready for dinner!

The last day. There's no single person in the whole group who understands where our days went. Well, here is how we spent that last day. Oh, it sounds so sad. So, after breakfast (which was amazing as always)we didn’t take the bus, like most of the other days. Today we took the vans. Where did we go? Well, an amazing, absolutely beautiful gorgeous place. All 29 of us took 3 vans to go snorkeling. No, we didn’t snorkel in a van. And I would not like to try it. No, thank you! The vans dropped us near the Hanauma Bay. I know that most of you have no idea what it is, and that beauty is not able to be described with words. Even pictures can’t show how beautiful and wonderful it is. But, why not try to describe? Just for you.

What the Bay had in store for us was more than we had expected. Although the weather was somewhat unpleasant with moody rains, most of us were still able to make the most of the time we were given to swim with the fishes. Snorkeling was easily one of the highlights of the trip. Some of us even used the rain as an excuse to get under the water and find Nemo! The number of amazing fish we saw underwater is simply unbelievable, and two of us were even lucky enough to spot a sea-turtle! But soon enough, it was time to leave, and we piled into the vans with the excitement of going to a Luau..

Unfortunately, the weather did not allow us to have this pleasure. But, our coordinator and monitors being as brilliant as they are, immediately came up with a backup plan. And may we say that this plan was completely foolproof because, who can resist shopping? Come on guys, we know you say you hate it, but at the end of the day, you’re carrying those Hollister bags too. The day got better as everyone finally got to eat tons of Sushi and shopped until we were broke (literally), and we headed back to the hotel.

The end got closer as we sat down in the conference room to discuss flight and shuttle timings, and yes, there were tears and “saudade” as the Brazilians like to say. Overall it was a wonderful day with a lot of sentiments, and Belo successfully gave the most fabulous time of our lives. Safe to say, none of us will ever forget these 7 days of surfing, snorkeling, kayaking, hiking, and sightseeing the beautiful sites of Hawaii and all it has to offer. Mahalo, Hawaii, and Mahalo Belo for this blessing! We will certainly miss it and all the beautiful people we’ve met. We love you!

Donata- Croatia and Sanjana- India

March 3 2011 Pearl Harbor, USS Missouri, USS Arizona and Waimanalo Beach

In front of the USS Missouri.

Helping keep the ship look good, our small volunteer project.

Ivan (Slovakia) and Louis (France) enjoy looking at all the guns and details of the battle ship.

Eray (Turkey) behind bars.

History enthusiast, Ivan (Slovakia) gets the perfect picture.

We love group pictures!

The beach is always calling us to run to it!

Today we had another great day here in Hawaii! We woke up a little earlier, to leave for Pearl Harbor at 8. There, we first went to the battleship U.S.S. Missouri, to do some volunteer work at the ship. Basically, we swiped the handrails, and it felt good to help keeping the historic ship nice! After that, we got a tour around the ship and got a good insight in how the ship was used by the military while in service. We got to visit the little barbershop, the laundry room, and even the jail on the ship!

After the tour, we went to the Pearl Harbor Memorial Theatre to watch a short but intense movie about the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, December 7th 1941. When we got out from the theatre, everybody seemed to look at the place in a different way – this was the actual place where the bombing took place 70 years ago. We went on a boat that took us to the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial – a place where you could actually see the sunken ship under the surface. The fact that there were 1,177 marines buried in the ship right under us, was very touching and you could notice it on everyone ’s face who was there. On one of the walls you could read all the names of the people who passed away when the ship was bombed and sank. On a small part of the wall, some names of the few people who survived in the attack, but died later and were buried on the sunken ship afterwards.

So, this was quite a serious day but very interesting and we were all glad that we got to see it.

When we were done at Pearl Harbor, we were picked up by our bus and we went to have lunch at a mall close by. Then we spent the afternoon at a beautiful beach called Waimanalo, and after that, we returned to our hotel before we went out for dinner.

Time flies by so extremely fast here in Hawaii, and tomorrow is sadly our last whole day. We are all very sad that the trip is soon to come to an end, but it really has been the best week in the United States so far!

Aloha and Mahalo!

Eric & Susanna from Sweden

March 2 2011 Diamond Head, Shopping and Bubba Gump Shrimp

Always a beautiful view in Hawaii!

At the top of Diamond Head.

A long hike is worth the view!

Belo students with a "belo" view!

Sanjana (India) approves of the Diamond Head hike!

Daphne joins students at the famous Duke's restaurant in Waikiki.

Pedro "Forrest Gump"

All smiles for the camera.

Ready for some Bubba Bump!

Today was the 5^th day of the BELO USA travel group of Rotary exchange students in Hawaii!

Our day started like every day at 9 o clock in the morning. We started of the day with a little warm up for our “little” walk. After we were done with the warm up we started our way up to the top of the Diamond Head. (It used to be a volcano) It was a beautiful walk for our eyes but not for our legs, since we were all still kind of tired from kayaking yesterday. On the other hand nobody felt this pain in his/her legs because we are such a wonderful group and had so much fun together on the way up to the top of the Diamond Head.

After we reached the top of the mountain everybody realized that this one and a half hour walk was it worth, because the view from the top of the mountain over the entire island was just amazing! You had on the one side downtown Honolulu and on the other side the nature part with the blue water and the mountains.

The way back down was for everybody a lot easier since it was less crowded and everybody was looking forward for a sip of cold water/soda which made you want to walk faster. After 4 hours of hard work we finally arrived back to the hotel without sunburns and the lost the 5 kilos we all gained in the last few days.

The next point on the schedule was free time. Some people went to the cheese cake factory and had a lot of fun with the funny Hawaiian people who are working there, other people went to the restaurant Duks where you got a buffet which will make you feel bad at the next time when you check your weight!

The next option we had after lunch was hanging out at the hotel, hanging out at the pool or going to the beach and play some volleyball, soccer or have fun with your friends. A few of us decided to have some fun on the beach and enjoyed playing volleyball in a little group.

Once our free time for lunch was up we got picked up in the bus and went to Ala Moana mall. We arrived at the mall and had from than on time for shopping until 8 o’clock. Most of the girls thought that this wasn’t enough time to go to all the stores they waned to go to and to buy all the stuff they waned to buy. Most of the boys thought that this was more than enough time to go to all the stores. Typical!

We ended the day with having dinner at the Bubba Gump Shrimp restaurant which is related to the world famous movie Forest Gump. And what do you eat at a restaurant which is related to the person who is in love with the ways how you can cook shrimps ? Of course SHRIMP! It was delicious!

Sebastian -Germany

March 1 2011 Pali Lookout, Kailua, Kayaking and Hard Rock Cafe

Chantal and Julia at Pali Lookout

A plethora of beautiful flags!

Happy to be in the sunshine!

Enrico bravely jumps into the pool of water!

A beautiful view from Moku Lua (Island Two)

Proud to have finished, Donata (Croatia) comes back from kayaking.

Rock on.

A beautiful new Hard Rock Cafe welcomes it's visitors with many guitars!

Anxious girls ready to eat and have a good time!

Enrico (Italy) and Eric (Sweden)

Today we were expecting a long and really fun day and it was. We had very good weather. We went to the Pali Lookout where we could take very beautiful pictures. We made some noise for the video camera and waved our flags around! From there we went to Kailua beach to go kayaking. Those four hours that we spent kayaking and hiking were amazing. We all had fun. It was kind of tiring because they were doing all the work, haha just kidding, the girls did a lot of work too. We stopped at an island, mocu lua, and it was really nice. We were even able to jump into a natural pool there. It was awesome. After we were done visiting the island we went back to the beach where we began. On the way there we stopped at one of the most beautiful beaches in the world, Lani Kai. Once back to the beach we returned to the hotel to get ready for dinner. Everyone ran to their rooms and prepared for the night because we were going to the amazing Hard Rock Cafe, Honolulu. It had such an awesome set up. It was decorated with guitars all up to the ceiling. But wait, we are here in Hawaii, there were surf boards on all the walls as well! It was an amazing place to have diner, and luckily I was able to spend my birthday there with all my new exchange student friends. We even went crazy dancing to "I got a feeling" and danced on the chairs! It was really an awesome day, probably will be remembered as one of the best in the whole trip, and even in our whole exchange year.

Joao- Brazil

Feb 28 2011 City Tour, North Shore, Haleiwa and Polynesian Cultural Center

At the capital, Honolulu.

The Iolani Palace

Torill (Norway) and Cristina (Spain) enjoying Dole Whip

Waffel cones are the best choice! mMmM!

Ludovic (Belgium) goes big with the pineapple split.

Pauline (Germany) and Sanjana (India) show off the beautiful flowers from our bus driver Rhonda.

Cristina (Spain) conquers the famous pineapple burger in Haleiwa!

Belo Monitor Megan looks good in blue, as does the VW!

You can never get enough pictures of the beautiful Pacific Ocean.

Sunset Beach!

Learning the Tahitian hula.

The boys also learn how to dance.

Practice makes perfect!

Samoa is always a favorite!

Fresh coconut water for Chantel. Cheers!

Hello everybody,

I hope everyone had as amazing day as I did. We started at around 7:30 by getting ready for this "difficult" trip in Lulu`s Waikiki – our breakfast place connected to our hotel. Every single bite was very important. At 9 we left for the journey to the North Shore. On the way we did a short city tour and there we stopped at the Capitol and the Royal Palace. The next stop was the world's most famous Dole pineapple plantation in Wahiawa. There we got to eat a lot of goodies made of guess what? Yeah, pineapple. We ate pineapple whip (frozen yogurt), bought some souvenirs and ate some more pineapples.

After that we drove to Haleiwa – one of the world`s best surfing places. Haleiwa is a little town on the North Shore. It's archicture is pretty much as it was in 1910, still just as beautiful. There are a lot of little buildings – souvenir shops, surf shops, caffeterias, and small restaurants. There are many spots where you can enjoy shaved ice. Shave ice consists of little pieces of ice, almost snow, with fruit syrup drizzled on it.

After we left Haleiwa, Rhonda, our very knowledgable bus driver, took us to the Turtle Beach. We deffinately wanted to see some turtles. Well, they were not as excited for us as we were for them so they did not show up. I bet the turtles regret missing this opportunity now! After a couple of pictures at Sunset beach we headed to the Polynesian Culture Center. This place offers an undescribeable ammount of information about all the Polynesian islands like Hawaii, Tahiti, Samoa, etc. It was the Samoan guy who made us laught the most. Actually there were two of them. The first one shortly described Samoa and its villages. This is the typical setup of a Samoan village saying "that building is the chief`s hut, the largest building in the village... and this is the most important hut – Pizza Hut, the kitchen." This is just one of very many funny comments. The other one made fire, cracked a coco nut, got the milk out and etc. "Milking" the nut is a process of strong squeezing the white matter in coco fibres. We were strongly advised not to go home and milk a cow like this!

After the small shows we had an awesome dinner in a local buffet but the best was still to come. After dinner we went to see a play called "Ha, Breath of Life" which tells a story of a man growing up and different parts of his life are showed through different Polynesian islands and cultures. It was breath taking. At some moments (esp. fire tricks) we could not say anything but "Oh my God!"

Once the show was finished we just boarded the bus and headed back to the hotel. I honestly don`t think that there was anyone not tired and not happy to go to bed. Even though the day was really tiring we had a lot of fun and learned a lot. Carpe diem – Seize the day! We most certainly did. Aloha!

Ivan

Slovakia / Pennsylvania

Feb 28 2011 Catamaran Ride and Surf Lessons!

Rotary Chaperone Daphne enjoys the view from the catamaran.

Susanne and Eric embrace the Swedish flag.

David (Switzerland) bravely jumps into the Pacific Ocean off of the catamaran!

Brazilians taking over the beach!

Ludovic (Belgium) "hangs loose" at the beach.

All smiles at the beach!

Ready for surf lessons!

Listening closely to the surfing basics.

Practice makes perfect!

Emma (Australia) poses with one of the surf instructors.

Aloha everyone!

We spent the morning tossing and turning, anxious to begin our first day in Hawaii! (also a little jet lag too) We got down to breakfast and the view was so beautiful! It looks right out to the Pacific Ocean. We all enjoyed a huge breakfast, some people had bacon and eggs, others had stuffed French toast or banana macadamia nut pancakes. YUM! There was plenty of coffee to keep us going for the whole day! After breakfast we met in the lobby to head to the beach.

Making our way through Waikiki, we enjoyed the scenic walk to get to the beach where we would spend most of the day. Once we got to there we had sometime to get to familiar with the area and lay out. (Don't worry, we wore sun screen!) Then we got to go on the catamaran ride! It was so great! We couldn’t believe the color of the water. It looked so fake! We saw a few sea turtles and lots of fish! We even saw a few whiles in the distance. We loved having the music playing as well. On the way back to shore we were able to snorkel and swim close to the fish and turtles!

Everyone was already hungry so we all had time for lunch and time to enjoy the beautiful beach. No sooner were we finished then we had surf lessons! We divided into two groups and we all got lessons on the basics of surfing. Paddling out to the waves was probably the hardest part! We all caught waves and stood up! We actually did it! We surfed!

After a long day at the beach we went back to the hotel to clean up for diner. It was so nice to shower! We then walked down to California Pizza Kitchen and had a little time to shop before eating. The pizza was really good! There was lots of pizza and everyone was so full! After a long day we came back to the hotel and everyone was exhausted.

The first day went by very fast! It was a great start to a great week! I know the next few days will be just as fun!

Marie- Denmark