Blue Hawaii

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My alarm beeped at 3am and I hit snooze and closed my eyes again. Another day starting before 4am. Surprisingly, Kamie didn’t protest about today’s six hour flight so I suppose he was only silently hating me now. Ha We checked our bags and breezed through TSA Pre-check (thank you Lord for this wonderful option). I will say, at Springfield TSA Precheck and LA TSA Precheck, both times, Kamie was pulled aside. He looks like a drug lord but no big o’ bags of money to be found. We both grabbed some Starbucks for breakfast (this specific location in the airport was completely SOLD OUT of the iced pumpkin chai latte). It was cold in the airport and Kamie was cold on the plane yesterday too but he chose to not bring his jacket even after I encouraged him to do so… so we bought him a green hoodie in the airport. It saved the day because it was cold on our flight. Today we flew Alaska Airlines (economy plus which was a little nicer) and it was scheduled as 6 hours but Alaska had their ducks in a row. Flight time was only 5 hours 20 minutes, we took off early and landed early. Kamie and I sat in a row of 3 next to the stewardess’ daughter who was flying there for free. It was a great flight. I was comfortable, slept a couple of hours, had a fruit and cheese tray (you preorder food on Alaska), started to read my new John Grisham book that was delivered on Tuesday (so far, I’m not into it because it seems like a thriller instead of a normal Grisham book so we’ll see), and then the last hour or so, we both talked to the stewardess’ daughter who is from San Francisco. We arrived in Honolulu before 10am. It was beautiful from the plane. The stewardess announced we were in Hawaii and the entire plane cheered and clapped. We got to the luggage carousel and one of our suitcases was basically destroyed. It looks like it got caught-up on something and they ripped the corner and one wheel off. We hobbled out of the airport and the second wheel fell off… at least it had four little wheels. We didn’t see a damage claim desk so we are eating that cost. At least the contents arrived safely. God forbid we lose all these clothes I packed that we will definitely never wear. It’s beautiful here, by the way. Warm and low 80s with a good breeze. Our home for the week is the Hilton Hawaiian Village. It’s basically a big resort. Rooms are not ready until 12:30pm so we shared an appetizer of wings at a beachside restaurant and waited. We were given a 9^th floor room with a decent view. I unpacked the room, hung Happy Birthday signs on the walls while Kamie was outside, and organized our stuff. Kamie came in and asked me if I wanted cheese with those signs. He’s almost refusing to be happy on this vacation just to prove to me that he doesn’t want to travel anymore. I saw this coming a mile away so I’m not surprised. We walked around the resort – it’s 22 acres, 5 towers of hotels and condos, 18 restaurants, and tons of shopping stores. You really don’t have to ever leave this resort but we will… we are on Waikiki Beach so we’ll walk down and explore all the other areas along the beach. Tonight at 5:30pm (remember, that’s 10:30pm Missouri time), we had reservations at Hatsuhauna Japanese restaurant. It was poplar and is in the middle of the village next to a beautiful banyan tree. Kamie ordered steak and I ordered Japanese fried chicken. Neither of us eat sushi but they do have a large sushi area which was busy. Our meals came with miso soup with tofu (it was delicious), sticky rice, some sort of seaweed looking thing, a pre-dressed salad that was good, and dipping sauces. I don’t know what Kamie’s dipping sauce was like but it was a different color and texture than mine. My chicken was pounded thin and breaded with spiced panko. It was decent. My dipping sauce was terrible. Overall, it was a quick and good meal. We walked around a bit and came back to the room because we were both super tired. At around 7pm, I turned off the light and fell asleep. Today was a long day. We are in paradise, the weather is balmy and breezy and feels fantastic, the resort has everything we need and more, and so far, Kamie is semi-cooperating and not so blue anymore. By the way, this resort is where Elvis filmed Blue Hawaii.

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Photos

Aloha
Means Hello basically

Japanese restaurant
Dinner tonight

View from our dinner table at the Japanese restuarant
The banyan tree

"acting Japanese"
Dear Lord, forgive him

view outside restaurant
This little restaurant was packed, however

Christmas store
It was always busy. We always buy one ornament from each place we visit.

My view of Kamie from the room
He sat there a lot. Like a cruise but we were on the side of the building with no breeze, unfortunately.

Happy Birthday Kamie
I hung banners and signs in the room while he was on the balcony

Pigeons
They were interesting at first but later, they would become little poopers and vultures so I wouldn't feed them again until the last day

The view was better in person
It was a quiet room/balcony area

Kamie in our room
We had a King room, balcony, ocean view. All rooms in this hotel had a balcony.

Check-in desk at 12:30pm
Every station was manned and they were moving people quick-quick.

Check-in time
We got there at 12:11pm thinking we would be at the front of the line when it opened at 12:30pm. Ha However, the lines opened early (just a minute after we got there) and we were in our room before 12:45pm and that was after picking-up our luggage from the storage room so they were fast-fast.

Open air lobby before check-in ( a long time before)
this is before the rush

Comments

[Stacy]

Have you heard about the Alaska airline flight yet? It's all over the news. Super scary! Surely you can file a damage report online. Luggage AIN'T cheap! NEITHER OF YOU EAT SUSHI! WHAT A WASTE! YOU'RE KILLING ME RIGHT NOW!

[Eeda and Jahn]

Sushi sucks and so do crazy pilots. That guy needs to be in a mental institution.

[Stacy]

SO COOL!