Man-made Extravagance

 In contrast to God's  extravagance of tropical flowers is the man-made extravagance at the Hilton Hotel Waikoloa .  It's a sort of Hawaiian Disneyland, on a small scale of course.  A 1,240 room facility, it also has 3 pools, 3 spas, tennis courts, 2 golf courses, and 9 restaurants. 
In the lobby are several loud parrots who sometimes condescend to repeat "hi" or "hello"  when you greet them. 

 Waterfalls cascade down into one of the pools.

 A bed on the beach! That's my idea of the ultimate beach experience. 

 Terry poses by one of the many sculptures from Thailand, Japan, and China.

 When we were at a SOWER project in Florida, we looked in vain for for flamingos .  Here they are in a pool!

A typical Chinese-looking sculpture.

Turtles in the lagoon, which actually opens out to the ocean.  After walking around the path encircling all these sites, it was a relief to step inside the climate controlled "bullet train", a shuttle that took hotel guests from the lobby to one of the three wings of the hotel, for a brief ride.
We spent the next hour on the couches in the breezy lobby, so relaxing I fell asleep. 

This visit reminded me of Sunday's sermon:
Ecclesiastes 2:1 says
I said to myself (says King Solomon ) "Come on, let's try pleasure.  Let's look for the good things in life"  But I found that this, too, was meaningless.