Blogs from Hawaii, United States, North America - page 230

Another day spent lying on the beach, we rented a couple of surf boards for the morning and attempted to put our new learned skills in to practice, we quickly got tired of this though as it's a totally different ball game with no-one telling you what to do and that, here all the posers are just waiting for you to fall off, I traded our boards for a couple of lie-lo's and we were far more comfortable, I still tried to surf on mine while Fiona used it as a comfortable matress on the beach. It was roasting today, no clouds, little wind and nothing to do but lie there, we could really get used to this life I tell thee. Got a bit burnt so stayed in again at night, went to the shops ... read more

It's still in the 80's today but a bit cloudy first thing, not to worry though we'd already decided to go for a trek up Diamond Head today, it was some Polynesian name but I can't remember or pronounce it so let's stick with the white man name. It's an extinct volcanoe and has a nice park and that around it, it's a fair trek from Waikiki so I'm glad Fiona made plenty on sandwiches, all in all it was nice to see but not a patch on the Dundee Law, now that's a volcanoe!! Stayed in at night with some beers and that, we're currently spending more that twice our budget but Fiona keeps assuring me that we'll save money in New Zealand, I'm starting to doubt it. ... read more

I'm happy to announce that it finally stopped raining in LA this morning, just as we were leaving, in fact in was an amazing morning, about 70 degrees and has been since, maybe we weren't meant to be there, anyway it was good for us as our flight to Hawai'i was on time, in fact we just made the flight, the shuttle bus guy who picked us up from the hostel (Danny Glover) was obviously auditioning for another version of Speed, but in this version he couldn't go over 25MPH, "What was the movie called when they had to stay at a certain SPEED, and if the SPEED dropped the bus would blow up or as soon as the SPEED went up it would blow up, you know, the one with the SPEEDing bus? Ah I ... read more

Arrived in Honolulu airport via Guam and very polite and friendly immigration/ customs reception. Definitely a pleasant surprise. Must be the Polynesian spirit hasn´t been corrupted by the stink of the mainland yet. Spent the first few days in Waikiki which is interesting in its own way but certainly not my idea of a beach paradise. The beach itself it very nice but also super crowded and back by endless high rise hotels, chain fast food reataurants and shopping malls, bith swanky and tacky. Stayed in a hostel called Waikiki Beacfront Hostel (very original). This was also an interesting place for the variety of guest to be found. The hostel not only catered to backpackers travelling through but also to new settlers on the island looking to find a more permanent home in the near future. ... read more

We slept in until it was after noon.  Waking, dozing, relaxing, then napping again!  This is no later than many normal days at home.  The thing is, when we rolled out of bed it was only 8 AM Hawaii time.  We even got down to the hotel restaurant for a decent breakfast.  Pretty unusual for us to get breakfast during the normal hours.   We took a short walk around the hotel.  There wasn’t much to see since the street ran under a multilane freeway type road.  Then off we went to catch the city bus to the Waikiki area.  The bus driver was a woman and very nice.  She only charged us a dollar each since we are so old.   The bus ride took an hour or so to get to the end of ... read more