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Published: August 9th 2015
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Ah holidays and a sleep in until 9-30am was in order to set up the system for the northern hemisphere.
Our plan today was to walk along the waterfront and head towards the military museum.So a light breakfast of cereal and banana
at 10am in the kitchen area started our morning. The nearby ABC shop is perfect for picking up things like milk and odds and ends, yesterday we did a toiletry shop at The Food Pantry which is a regular supermarket on Kuhio Ave,a 15 minute walk from here. But as you will know if you know me, my day really does not keep working until I have a coffee, sometime after
10am is best and it has to be the real deal. And as luck would have it a Starbucks is about 200 metres from this hostel. So with the largest latte in hand we walked along and into the land of the rich and famous.Louis Vuitton, Rolex, Jimmy Choo, and you name it are all within the downtown area of Waikiki along Kalakahua Ave. Some of the hotels are so opulent and none more so than the first hotel ever built in Waikiki, right on the beach, restored to
its former glory; the old grand lady of Waikiki, The Moana hotel, built in 1901. Colonial architecture at its best, opulent, decadent, and so smacking of the white man in the tropics.Each of the hotels have huge open plan gardens and lobbies that everyone can wander in and out of, with their own shopping malls and interconnecting walkways and beachfrontage that they own.The US Army museum of Hawaii in the Fort De Russy complex is well worth a visit, Martin could have spent all day there, but we sufficed with 3 hours. It included both the history of Hawaii as well as the U.S. involvement in all the wars.There was a lot of history about the Japanese who are Hawaiian by birth and their involvement in World War II.Spoke with a lovely lady cleaning all the windows displays whose grandson is in a school that is Hawaii immersion until grade 4. Her husband was NZ Samoan. The volunteer running the museum told us about how he moved to Hawaii with his Japanese born wife. They are the second largest ethnic group here after the Philippinos. I am sure they are here working in the hospitality industry.A return walk saw us
dining at The Alantis Steak and Seafood restaurant, huge cold beers, but small portions of food, not particularly well cooked or presented.The famous shrimp tent near Maccas offered us a meal for $14-, 10 garlic prawns, salad and rice sitting on the Waikiki beachfront with a coke. So tonight we set off for a dusk swim, in the beach area with the huge concrete breakwater. This is designed to stop the sand from being washed away as well as providing a safe swimming area. All the sand is imported from midway island on a regular and often basis. Waikiki is not a naturally sandy beach. Waves wash over the breakwater all the time. The surf area is right beside this with a very rocky underfoot. Laundry night tonight, a game of cards and a couple of drinks with some new found French boys.
10pm curfew at the hostel is seeing us with a bag of chips, a bottle of drinks on the 4th floor balcony playing with the wifi when it decides to come on.
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