Waikiki, 11/11/11 and APEC Part 1- 11/11/2011

It was Veteran's day and also happens to be 11/11/11 and I have a day off.  Unfortunately, due to the APEC security measures, it wasn't really worthwhile to be stuck in traffic so I used the best mode of transportation to get around.. walking.  I didn't want to take my Canon because I wanted to feel like a tourist so I took the Panasonic Lumix and got quite a bit of mileage out of it.  I took a bunch of photos w/ the banners they had put up for the APEC all along Kalakaua Ave.

I was at the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center and noticed how cool that the lily pond made the pink hotel become like a water color.  This shot is actually flipped upside down.

A lot of barriers had gone up in preparation for the meetings w/ the world leaders.  It was like a military zone.

This ugly fence became a traffic nightmare as it prevented traffic from getting onto Kalakaua Ave. during the day of the meeting.

I can't believe they moved all these cement blocks just over night.

The fence ran all along the road to Hale Koa Hotel.

The road blocks prevented the normal traffic and turned the place into a near ghost town.

Thought it was cool that each cement block was embossed.

I was crossing the street and when I looked down, I found these Hawaiian words embossed on the newly paved sidewalks in Waikiki.  I found around 10 different words on my walk..here are a couple of them.

Some of the words I didn't even know the meaning of until I saw it.

In the morning of Veteran's day, I heard the rumbling of the fighter planes doing a fly-by for the ceremony at Punchbowl cemetary and ran out onto my lanai w/ my 70-200mm lens...I was lucky to get two shots before it was gone.