valley of the temples

Our Christmas day wasn't too orthodox.. maybe next year we'll be more on target. But for this year we were able to explore a bit of Oahu before we headed back on a 9 pm flight. It was a rough trip, so I'm happy that we had this nice day to enjoy a bit of exploring. It started off with my parents at the Byodo-In temple and continued to Bellows Air Station where Mont got to meet a beach going Santa Claus from Arizona.

These koi fish were ginormous!

The details on these buddhist statues are beautiful... Makes me want to put on some jewelry!

I love old wooden chairs and benches, don't you? Not that I'd want to sit on this one, but it sure was interesting to look at.

There was a huge bamboo grove off the beaten trail with so many names, symbols, and other words and letter combinations. When I got up close to them it sounded like there was something heavy climbing around up in the leaves, but when I looked up I only saw them swaying back and forth, creaking and buckling under the sheer weight of their thick boughs. I haven't read over all these etchings, how could I? Look how many there are! Hey Mom! I see an Ethel!

It was a Merry Christmas for us, just two days later.