hawaii - recap

i went to hawaii for a week with g. it was kind of a random "last minute" trip. basically i took over her husband's ticket. there was quite a bit of drama on my end before we left but i didn't want to mention anything to her since she's going thru a hard time right now. i also figured that once we were there, things would be different. they were not so much. lol.

day 1 - arrived mid-day. from our driver we learned about a bunch of local places eat. all on one street, conveniently located reasonably close to our hotel! annie also got our driver to take us to a lunch spot before she went to make another pick-up. that afternoon we walked up the main drag of waikiki.

we pretty much ate our way round the island, lol.

day 2 - circle island tour! was introduced to a lot of beautiful places. also hit up a lot of the usual tourist spots: dole pineapple farm, chinaman's hat, north shore, macadamia nut farm... no pearl harbor however. which was actually fine since neither g nor i really wanted to go there anyway. ha! that night we went to first friday in china town, which is like an art walk.

 

day 3 - we went surfing (something we both really wanted to do)! well, "surfing". the waves were no more than a foot high, the instructors pushed us out and told us when to stand. but who cares, it was awesome! we also paddled in an oc6 for like half an hour too and actually surfed the wave. amazing stuff! i didn't know oc's did that. at night we saw two parades: the pearl harbor memorial parade and the christmas parade for honolulu city lights.

view from diamond head

day 4 - we hiked diamond head (something g really wanted to do) which is a short though kind of difficult hike that gives you views of honolulu on one side. after getting back we hung out at the beach a little in the afternoon.

day 5 - snorkeling at hanauma bay (something i really wanted to do), which was awesome! the coral there is actually really high (or the water really low) so at some points you're less than a foot away from the coral right below you. it's kind of scary actually. i did much better at snorkeling this time. i still got scared and definitely freaked out some in the beginning, but i really started to get the hang of it later. i think that it isn't open open water really helped. also the ground didn't drop off as steeply as it did in catalina. this was my highlight from the trip.

hanauma bay

day 6 - on our last day we decided to rent a car (tho it was quite expensive) and do our own circle island tour. we wanted to hit up north shore and eat at the garlic trucks, matsumoto's shaved ice, and watch the pipeline surfing competition. we also wanted to do another hike if we had the time (we did not). that night we went back to duke's to have our last meal. one of the guys we met the night before had been texting annie during the day and eventually drove us to tantalus, which was very pretty at night and must've been beautiful during the day. it was pretty cold and kind of rainy tho so that also put a damper on the view.

pupukea beach

day 7 - flew back. the flight was super ugh. sitting right next to us was a group of 7: a couple, their three young children, and a set of grandparents. during the first 4 hours of the 5+ hour flight at least one kid was crying in every five minute interval. i had to sleep thru most of it altho i wasn't tired because i couldn't stand it anymore. thank god for ear plugs and my nearly superhuman sleeping powers. i actually started to wonder about choking the kids out. i mean, some regular kids do it to themselves. hold their breath so long they pass out. they don't seem to suffer any long term effects so it should be safe, right? ugh. and before you say anything about how i hate kids anyway, no. these were bad parents. i have examples but whatever. ack!!