Lost Tour and VIP sighting!

Here are a whack of pictures from our KOS Lost Tour from only two days ago. I'm going to go WAY into detail some time soon, but you can see the pictures and I'll fill in the details shortly.

I hope you like them.

On the way to the Ka'a'awa Valley (where a big portion of the 5 hour tour is held) you pass by a few locations that you don't really have time to stop at. For example, we quickly drove by The Searcher (Penny's boat), the hotel that Locke is pushed out of, and the convention centre that the airport scenes are filmed at, and the street corner where Nadia is struck by a car. You don't really stop at these locations, so you've got to catch a shot as you're passing by.

In this picture you can see where they filmed the Oxford University scenes between Faraday and Desmond.

You also stop along the way to see where Anthony Cooper's residence was, and almost right across the street was where they filmed Eko's death scene / where Jacob's Cabin was filmed, too. They're both on an old road connecting one side of Oahu with the other. In the Cooper shot there's some guy gardening or repairing something, and that's all it is. It's not the Lost crew prepping for another shoot.


Then, not far up the road from there is the location where Sayid was working with Habitat for Humanity. It appears to be a little spot where someone has a boat trailer or something. There's another location on private property along this road as well, where the remains of the actual airframe they used in the pilot is stored. The Lost crew was at that location as we drove by setting up for a shoot. It appeared like they were prepping for an interior shot, they weren't using the airframe for the shot - it's under a big tarp just sitting in storage.

There are a few more stops before you make it out to the Ka'a'awa Valley - which includes the Waikane Pier (where they film some of the submarine, Pala Ferry and Jin's fishing village scenes) but the pictures are dull and require a lot of imagination to transform them into anything you'd recognize from the show.
Some interior scenes are filmed out there, too, where Eko murders some drug dealers (which is also the same location as where Sun is filmed in Korea. There's a window in the background of the scenes that you can recognize in both scenes.

At the Ka'a'awa Valley you basically tour through a long circuit around the interior of the valley, and lots of Lost scenes and movies are filmed in there. I first felt that the Hummer was a bit of a novelty that the tours used to attract people - you know, like a specialty vehicle to add excitement to the trip - but some of the places you drive around in this valley require a big four-wheel drive vehicle.
So once you're driving around the valley, the first thing you notice is how vast and awesome it is. It's very cool being out on the track seeing the scenery - its awesome even without the Lost locations on it. There are horseback tours and some ATV tours you can take out back there, too.


One of the first stops once you get back in there is where Goodwin and Anna Lucia have their fatal chitchat in The Other 48 Days. Those two logs are still sitting right there.
This is also the very same location where Ellie Hawkins and Daniel Faraday have their chat on the way to the Jughead Bomb. You get an opportunity to re-enact the scene if you're with someone - our guide Aaron provided the rifle, I don't travel with one.



The next stop is the scene when Hurley's entourage pushes the VW van down the hill to jump-start it. It would have been quite a chore to get that van all the way out there for filming, let me tell you. Anyhow, once again, Aaron appears from the back of the Hummer with a toy VW Van. With a little trick photography, you can re-enact pushing it down the hill, too.

Then, just around the corner from that scene there are two more spots. One was the infamous old bridge that Hurley and Charlie cross in Season 1 and the other was from season 1 as well, when Boone and Shannon are scaling a mountain-side ridge. Basically, they were both filmed at the exact same spot with the camera in different angles. Pretty neat. There were a few shots like this in the valley.

Here you can see a shot from Season 3 when Ben intercepts Jack and company on their way to the radio tower. The establishing shot for the valley is located down below as our guide is holding the picture. Then, the scene where Jack beats Ben up for a while, that's filmed in this exact same location - they just took all the other people out of the shot for it, even though it looked like Jack took Ben aside.

The next stop is the Jughead bomb structure which is still standing. Normally these things would be taken down, but for some reason, the crew has left it up. Do they still need it for season 6? I have no idea.

A little further around the valley is Hurley's golf course, which you'd never recognize, I don't think. Then the tour guide, Aaron, pulls Todd McFarlane's Hurley figure out of the back of the Hummer and you get to have your picture with him. More trick photography ;) In some instances these pictures turn out so well that you can fool your friends, having them believe that you actually met a character out of Lost. I would imagine that if you actually met Jorge Garcia, he likely wouldn't pull out a golf pin with boxer shorts on it just for your picture, though.

What you didn't know about Hurley's golf course is this: it's filmed on the same location as the Gallimimus stampede in Jurassic Park. The log that Tim, Dr. Grant and Lex hide behind while the stampede is going on is still there on the grounds. You can get your picture with it, as well.

More trick photography, we didn't actually hide from a tyrannosaurus. Although, in real life, I'd sacrifice myself to the dinosaur instead of feeding it my wife. Probably.

If you turn around from that very same location, there are three or four big Godzilla footprints from the Mathew Broderick film. They're big - apparently they used to be like 7 feet deep, but horses and cattle fell into them, so they were back-filled before PETA found out. (I'm only guessing about that part about PETA).

The next thing you find up the road is where the 1950's military other's camp is located when Locke meets Richard Alpert for the "first time" chronologically. The tents were all set up amongst those coconut trees. After Locke flashes away to another time, he's literally standing in the same location he was in - but they tore the set down between takes. That was impressive to me, considering all they had to do was point the camera 20 degrees in any direction and you wouldn't be able to tell (and it would have saved hours in tear-down time). But they filmed it right at very same spot, which looks awesome.

Then, on your way out of the valley, you pass by an old military battery. The Ka'a'awa Valley park is privately owned and (if I recall correctly) is like 4,000 acres or something like that. The military back in the old days commandeered about 1,000 of those acres and used the location as an air strip and a way to shoot boats off the coast. All of that is in the past, but the battery is the site of the Tempest Station from Season 4. Inside there are a bunch of posters and autographed stuff to look at.
The next day, on the way to the airport I had a brief opportunity to take a shot of The Searcher, which was Penny's boat in the Season 4 finale. I think they filmed the Season 5 stuff of the Oceanic 6 (+ Desmond and Lapidus) on there, as well. I wish the shot was a bit better, but we were in a shuttle taking us back to the airport - there wasn't really time to stop. The Searcher is the boat on the right, if you zoom in you can see its name on the hull.

This was the second last day of our honeymoon. We didn't see any cast members or crew while we were on the tour BUT we totally bumped into Terry O'Quinn while at the airport the next evening. He was super nice.
We were scanning our carryons through the x-ray machines when my wife spotted him. He was singing to himself, carrying a piece of carry-on luggage and his little guitar. You can't see it, but he was wearing a hat. He was nice enough to stop and let us take a picture. He said they didn't need him for the episode they were filming, so he got a little extra time off. We didn't get to chat much more after that because another couple interjected so that they, too, could get a photo. Otherwise, I'm sure Terry and I would have been close friends.
He didn't ask if he could get a picture of us together on his camera - and I forgot to mention how much I enjoyed his performance in Old School, which I'm sure he would have appreciated ;)

Check it out

More like, we're checking out.

This is it! Our last day on honeymoon. The Lost Tour from KOS was a good time. We've got to wrap things up here in our hotel room and get out, or else I'd post some more pictures and tell you more about the trip. I've got some plans for all the pictures and things that we took - hopefully it turns out well - and we'll be able to give you a better idea of how surreal the last few weeks have been. We left Peterborough exactly two weeks ago today to start prepping for our wedding - and life hasn't fallen back into a routine since. I can almost see how rockstars can get a bit crazy while they're on the road for long stretches.

Our flight isn't until quarter after eight o'clock tonight, which is like two in the morning in the EST zone - then we get into Dallas/Fort Worth again (around 7:45 in the morning Dallas time). Then we leave Dallas around 10:45 a.m. and fly back to Toronto (getting in around 2 p.m. EST). So - 2 a.m. Friday morning to get home

That's a long trip of flying around, esp. doing most of it overnight. I hope that we're able to sleep on the plane, or else things might get really uncomfortable for us later on.

Besides that - after we check out, because our flight isn't until much later on this evening, we're going to visit the zoo for a while. I doubt we'll get to see everything, but it should help eat up someof the day while we wait for our flight.

We'll be back soon. Take care.

Sunset Cruise

We took a nice sunset cruise this evening with a buffet dinner, some dessert with plenty of entertainment all evening. It was very nice - and here are some pictures of it.

First off, the boat was very nice - its name meant "Royalty" which basically boiled down to King of the Sea, or something like that.







Jeez, the guy in this picture sure got allot of sun today.












There was some Polynesian dancing that was displayed for us after dinner.











Our event host was named "Cousin Big Mac," and I have no idea what his honest Christian Name was, but I was considered "Cousin Rya'an" even if my nametag said otherwise. We had a very nice time on the sunset cruise, and there was a very nice couple from Pennsylvania who shared our table.

Oahu Day: 02

Well, we're staying at the Hilton Hawaiian Village - and we think it's in Honolulu, but it also appears to be in Waikiki - we're still not entirely clear on where we are. But that all being said, we're in a much more urban area than we were before while we were in Ka'anapali.

From yesterday during our travels to Oahu from Maui:

- Before we left Maui, there was a neat shot of Molokai (I think that's how you spell it) where a rainbow is basically only at water level, so it's not quite a rainbow, but rather a rainbubble, or something like that.









- Here is a hula gorilla













- After checking in (which was a bit rude, to be honest) we toured around a little and found a pond with both turtles and penguins in it, which my wife loves.








Here are a couple of neat shots from our tour today.
- Some crabs while we were crossing a little bridge.














- A neat view while we're crossing another bridge.













- On the other side of the bridge there was road work, but ... there was also this really excellent view of a neat hotel that was basically standing alone, with the backdrop of some fantastic green hills.









- Here is a neat row of hotels as seen from behind a golf course, which is neat.












- Another shot of stuff through a fence by the golf course. I think this is in the direction of something called "Diamond Head National Park."











- Here's the view from our hotel room, showing the Waikiki skyline, which is very neat. The hotels and shops around here are all very classy. It's kind of like walking the strip in Vegas, or what imagine Rodeo Drive would be like in Hollywood. Pretty neat.








- Finally, I had never seen a pineapple that's still growing. I didn't know that grew out of the ground, and have no idea how they work. Here is what they look like when they're growing, and it looks weird. Never seen anything like this.

West Maui Day: 07

Sorry we missed an update yesterday, but frankly, we didn't take any pictures of anything. We didn't do a whole lot more than lay low, read by the pool and eat dinner. It was great - we even watched a Stephen King movie called "Sometimes they Come Back," which wasn't great, but it was a nice restful way to wrap up an evening.

Anyhow - all of that aside, or adventures in Maui will conclude tomorrow as we check out of the Westin and return our rental car, heading over to Honolulu on Oahu (where we've got the Lost Tour and a Dinner Cruise to look forward to.)

As for today - wait till you see what we got up to! First off, you can see that we were just standing around a beach out by the hotel when ....

we wound up on a li'l boat that ferried us out to another boat called the UFO Parasailer - which, as it names suggests, actually dragged you behind it while you're harnessed into a parachute, and then they drive you along and yank you 600 feet up into the air!

It was totally calm and peaceful at the other end of the line. We didn't have our camera up the parachute with us, but the view was cool. And it wasn't noisy, it wasn't jerky, it was just this quiet and relaxing trip around the bay between Molokai and Lana off the west coast of Maui. Very cool.

We may not have pictures up of what we get up to tomorrow - but we'll be on a new island, in a new hotel, and exploring a new resort, so we may have some cool updates.

I hope you're liking the updates!

Flying over Maui in a helicopter today

Hi - today we flew over Maui in a helicopter, and it was very cool. We actually took 100 pictures - far too many to post up on the blog; so I'll put a few highlights and ... some videos of the flight!

We flew with Sunshine Helicopters at the Kahului Heliport, located on the backside of the main airport just off Highway 37 (Haleakala Hwy). They were really great. We flew in something called a Whisper Star, and it was really great. We even upgraded to "First class" so we could ride up front right beside the pilot and get some really great photos out the front of the chopper.




Pretty cool, eh?



Toward the middle of this video you can see where it's a bit drier and there are some windmills. That's out in the direction of Ka'anapali, where our resort is. This was right at the beginning of the flight - we later went on to the other side of Maui and got some really excellent pictures.


In order of appearance:

1) A 500' waterfall;


2) The Haleakala Crater of the Haleakala National Park;

3) Jurassic Rock (from 1993's Jurassic Park - when the helicopter is approaching the Isla Nublar, this is the rock formation that you see); and

4) the Lahaina windfarm that's not too far from our hotel. Hope you enjoy the shots. I'll try and put all this stuff into a movie of some sort to show you - again, there's about 100 shots - far too many to post all at once. I hope you're enjoying everything so far.

West Maui Day: 05

So this morning we had ambitions (after our wonderful buffet breakfast - it's awesome) to go to the Maui Ocean Center where there's a great aquarium. It was a really great visit - but there are some truths that must be told before you go for yourself. But before we get there - I'll walk you through our visit and share our photos. ... I must warn you, however, that I do some awful, perverted things in the pictures to follow - so beware.

We saw some great stuff and actually learned allot about the local wildlife. Most of what you see at the aquarium is local wildlife - they haven't imported things you wouldn't expect to see - but rather showcase the many fish and aquatic animals that you'd find snorkeling and scuba diving around the islands.

I especially liked the seahorses and the crabs - those things are definitely weird and wonderful. But, to be honest, I did some terrible, terrible things that aren't acceptable. First off - I was totally peeping at the seahorses. Peeping is not cool - and I apologize. Also, not long after peeping at the seahorses, who were awesome, I also molested a starfish. To the starfish I harmed and to all starfish, I apologize. I take full responsibility. But for the record, the starfish was asking for it.


I had no idea that pineapples were grown in the ground. Then again, I didn't think they grew on trees or anything. Here's a shot of some pineapples that are growing - my wife says that the fruit will emerge in the middle of the green shoots, not underground, like a potato.

NOTICE:
So here are some of the things that you should know before you head out to the Maui Ocean Center. Their website indicates that there are many animals at the exhibit, but in some instances they get a bit liberally with the term "home" when they say "Maui Ocean Ceneter is home to hundreds of marine life in over 60 exhibits!...." and then list a variety of animals with drop-down bars. Basically, it would lead you to believe that all of the animals that are on this list would consider the Center "home." Read it for yourself and see if you come to the same conclusion.

So when you can see which animals consider the Center "home" and scroll down to see Humpback Whales, Female Humpback Whales, Hawiian Monk Seal, Spinner Dolphins, Bottlenose Dolphins, and Blue Whales. Now - I was as doubtful as could be that there was a Blue Whale on location at the Maui Ocean Center - seriously, the largest mammal to ever live probably isn't in captivity in an aquarium. But then again, if this place contained all of these animals - maybe a Blue Whale isn't out of the question.

Turns out - NONE of these animals are there. There are some informational plaques on these animals - and most of them are mentioned on one of thost plaques, but that certainly does not mean that those animals call the Center "home." So, that was a disappointment, although it would have been an unbelievable surprise if they actually had all of that stuff. There were supposed to be three species of seaturtles as well - which they did not have.