Punalu'u, Hawaii, United States

Punaluʻu (pronounced [punəluʔu]) is a census-designated place and rural community in the Koʻolauloa District on the island of Oʻahu, City & County of Honolulu, Hawaii, United States. In Hawaiian, punaluʻu means "coral dived for", or in the case of the fishpond once located here, possibly "spring dived for". There is a very small commercial center located beside Punaluʻu Stream, and several condominium projects, including a high-rise building, located at Haleaha Beach and Kaluanui Beach. At the 2010 Census, the CDP had a population of 1,164. A fringing reef extends off the shoreline. There are several beaches and a beach park in Punaluʻu, including Punaluʻu Beach Park, Punaluʻu Beach, Haleaha Beach, and Kaluanui Beach. Sugar cane was once grown on the narrow coastal plain inland from the highway.

Venice Beach, California, United States

Tate Donovan rides the sweetest Linus bike. We know, because we saw him walking it down Abbot Kinney last Saturday. Abbot Kinney is our new favorite drag and Venice Beach is our new favorite town. Perhaps we're being presumptuous- then again it's our thing to be presumptuous- when we say that Venice is our home away from home. In other words it's Brooklyn with a tan, and a sunnier outlook. We took the long way through a sleepy Culver City that afternoon, picked up a soft green and white striped towel at the Mollusk Surf Shop while admiring the Mollusk branded trunks in perfectly faded colors of orange, blues and greens (on sale $40). After a 2-hour cat nap on the beach, in between watching the longboarders and an 8-year old girl wonder in in elbow and knee pads shred the skate park, we hit up Abbot Kinney upon which our love for Venice came into full bloom. We recommend the softest sweats (ever) at Aviator Nation, playing table tennis in front of Jack Spade, shopping the sale rack of swimwear next door, the kimchee quesadilla from the Calbi Korean taco truck parked on the west side of the street, the denim shorts at The Stronghold (1st denim company in Los Angeles), the bikes at Linus, and everything at Steven Alan. 

Punalu'u, Hawaii, United States

Dang if these trips are never long enough! Hawaii is such a fascinating geological wonderland, but lest you think I ignored the beaches, I can say that in the tradition of the true tourist, I did in fact visit some beaches. I, uh, didn't snorkel, or surf, or boogie-board, and I tended to be picky about the particulars. Not the sand and sun, mind you, but what backed up the beach. The nice ones have cliffs.

The Big Island of Hawai'i is not actually noted for having lots of cliffs, being that many of the volcanoes are still active, and being shields, they tend not to have overly steep slopes. But on the northeast coast there was a massive landslide hundreds of thousands of years ago that formed some of the most scenic coastal cliffs on the islands: Waipo and Pololu.

Waipo Valley, seen above, is a thousand foot deep valley that ends at a black sand beach. It was once as much as a thousand feet deeper, but the island has been subsiding, and the valley has filled with alluvium. There used to be a village on the flats, but most of the buildings were destroyed by tsunamis in 1946 and 1960. A few people live very simply in the valley today. The drive down the road is for 4WD vehicles only.

The other beautiful beach is north of Waipo, and is accessed by a road out from Hawi on the northernmost point of the Big Island. A wonderful trail crossed the cliffs, but was severely damaged by the 2006 earthquake

Towards the south end of the island, there is a black sand beach at Punalu'u that is a favorite resting area for sea turtles. Most of the rock on the island is basalt or basaltic glass, hence the occasional black sand. If there are coral reefs and coral-munching parrotfish, the beach sands will be white or tan colored, being composed of small fragments of the coral. The one kind of beach that doesn't occur is a quartz sand beach, as there is no quartz to be found anywhere on the islands, except as an occasional agate filling vugs in basalt flows. In a few instances, olivine is the dominant mineral on the beach, leading to a green sand beach!

Back on Oahu, there are some beaches that are just almost stereotypically beautiful, especially on the north and east shores, away from Waikiki. The beach in this picture is Lai'e, which is on the close to the northern tip of the island, near the Polynesian Cultural Center. Your impression is correct: no crowds, easy access, and nice shade trees.

The beach is also called Pounders Beach, probably for what happens if you surf too far to the right side of the beach. Some of the beach sand has been lithified (hardened), and is being undercut by the waves into the striking overhanging cliff (one heck of a wave-cut notch).

Venice Beach, California, United States

Today was the last day of our USA vacation as we’re leaving tomorrow morning. The Sandman Inn kept providing positive surprises still today. The breakfast was well better than our expectations. We thought we’d get just some cereals and toast but there was everything from different fruits, lots of breads, eggs, yoghurt, muffins etc. So for once we got a really good breakfast to start the day. After checking out we drove to the Santa Barbara beach to enjoy the nice weather. It was once again sunny with about 20°C. 

After a few hours of walking we jumped again into our Jeep and drove south for a while to Montecito. We found ourselves again on the beach because there were some picnic tables and we had a little snack. During the day we drove in several stages. After the snack we drove to Oxnard, then to Malibu. We thought to find a place to eat there but it was not made for our student wallets.
 

We had the same problem in Santa Monica too so we decided to drive to our next hotel in Los Angeles and look there for a restaurant. That proved to be an excellent decision because we found a wonderful Vietnamese restaurant. We asked our waiter to help us to choose a tasty meal and he proposed us to take some egg rolls as appetizers and a noodle soup with a lot of well-done beef. We had no clue how to eat the soup as we got also some salad and sprouts on the table.
 

Man hat Lust auf Urlaub, sollte stattdessen aber eigentlich lernen? Warum nicht Nützliches mit Angenehmen verbinden? Eine EnglischSprachreise in die USA zum Beispiel macht das möglich. Mit seinem Surfboard unter dem Arm und den Badesachen im Koffer auf an die Westküste Amerikas um gleichzeitig die schönen Strände, Sonne und Meer zu genießen und mit den Locals sein Englisch aufzubessern. Klingt einfach? Ist aber so.

Eine Sprachreise Los Angeles wäre eine Möglichkeit von vielen, wenn es darum geht den geliebten Sport in seinen Auslandsaufenthalt mit einzubauen. Mit knapp 4 Millionen Einwohnern ist Los Angeles nach New York die zweitgrößte Stadt in den Vereinigten Staaten. Alleine deswegen lohnt sich schon ein Besuch der Weltmetropole an der hippen Westküste im sonnigen Kalifornien. Doch das ist noch nicht alles, denn Los Angeles hat natürlich noch einiges mehr zu bieten, als nur Meer!

Entscheidet man sich bei seiner Englisch Sprachreise für Los Angeles, so spielen da sicherlich viele Gründe mit rein außer nur das tolle Wetter und die viele Strände, wie der bekannte Venice Beach. LA ist nämlich auch noch für Sehenswürdigkeiten bekannt, die keine andere Stadt zu bieten hat. In der Westmetropole ranken sich bekanntlich die Stars und Sternchen der Filmindustrie. So muss man nicht nur die Villensiedlung Beverly Hills besucht haben, nein auch ein Foto mit dem berühmten Hollywood Zeichen gehört zum Pflichtprogramm. Außerdem muss man mindestens einmal über den Wolk of Fame laufen, um sagen zu können LA wirklich gesehen zu haben.

Für die richtigen Film Fans ist bei einer Sprachreise Los Angeles ein Besuch der Universal Studios  unvermeidlich. Und wer es gerne noch asiatisch mag, der sollte auch im Viertel Little Tokio vorbeischauen. Hier leben die meisten eingewanderten amerikanischen Japaner und so kann man hier am besten japanische Kunst bewundern und kaufen, sowie die zahlreichen Sushi Restaurants testen oder das Kulturzentrum besuchen. Auch das  Man’s Chinese Theater ist sehenswert. Es ist das Gebäude vor welchem Hollywoods Creme de la Creme mit Auszeichnungen und ihrem Stern auf dem Walk of Fame geehrt werden. Also nicht zu übersehen, wenn man über diesen läuft.

So ist Los Angeles definitiv nicht nur einen Strandurlaub wert, sondern ein spannender und abwechslungsreicher Aufenthaltsort, wenn man darüber nachdenkt seine Sprachkenntnisse aufzubessern. Und wer weiß, vielleicht hat man Glück und trifft auch noch Johnny Depp oder Angelina Jolie, wenn man gerade unterwegs ist. Man sollte bei seinen Strandbesuchen auf jeden Fall die Augen offen halten.