Sunrise, Shopping and Mahi Mahi

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Normally, I'm not the type to bounce out of bed near dawn, but this morning, I woke up just before 6:00 a.m. and since I was up, I grabbed my camera and headed for the beach figuring I'd see if the sunrises here are as photogenic as I'd heard. It was warm at six in the morning. Not too warm, but warm enough to remind me that I was in Hawai'i and not in Washington state.

After the sunrise light went away and the sun disappeared behind the clouds, we all went back and showered and headed to Honolulu for a bit of shopping. I needed some beach shoes and some walking-around sandals, and everybody else wanted to shop for various things and supplies. We started at the Ward Center and looked at the Birkenstock store, but they didn't have what we wanted. We had some lunch (interesting and tasty local cuisine) and then went to Nordstrom. It's the place for shoes, let me tell you. I picked out some Tevas for walking around in and some Keens to wear to the beach and then spent the better part of an hour watching Barb and Cheryl and Laura try on shoes (Judy and John were off elsewhere in the shopping center).

Finally, the shoe mission was completed successfully and we headed to Hilo Hattie's, which is a lot like Ikea or Bass Pro Shop, but for Hawai'ian stuff like floral print shirts, mu'umu'us, and dresses, macadamia nuts in every imaginable configuration and all kinds of kitschy touristy stuff. I got five shirts, all stunningly flowery and loud, of course. The Monkey got a grass skirt hula girl kit (warning: educational content ahead - The grass skirt, fast hip-shaking hula dancing from every Hawai'i movie you've ever seen is not actually Hawai'in hula; hula is all about the hands and is very graceful. That other is from Tahiti, and while impressive and fun to watch, it is not hula.) Barb ended up getting a really cool sarong.

After spending what seemed like 5 or 6 days in Hilo Hattie's, we finally checked out and piled back in our rental van to head back to Waimanolo (we stopped along the way and took pictures; i'll do a separate entry for that, though) where we hit the beach for a while and then came back and grilled some mahi mahi and some chicken for dinner. The mahi mahi was very tasty and everybody tried some, even the ones who don't like fish (Hi, Barb!).

It was a pretty full day and we went to bed early.

As usual, for more photos, see my Hawai'i 2006 Flickr set.

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