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Published: February 16th 2017
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Its about a 30 minute flight between Lihue and Honolulu. Our pilot decided to be tour guide, over the intercom he explained about Pearl Harbour, the mountains and even the weather. Oahu was receiving some vog from the volcano on the Big Island creating a light haze over the city. Honolulu traffic was as expected, slow. It took about an hour to get to our hotel. Dropped our bags off and walked the 2 blocks to Waikiki Beach.
The beach looked just like the photos, I thought as I walked the busy stretch of sand. It was warm, the ocean breeze pleasant and the backdrop of Diamond Head was just plain great. The Royal Hawaiian is the world famous big pink hotel on Waikiki. Thats where we stopped to have an afternoon drink. It’s Mai-Tai bar is right on the beach with great panoramic views. Sun, cold drinks, great views, this felt more vacation like. In fact I had some sort of fascination with this big pink building as I seemed to be taking pictures of it or walking towards it most days.
It had been 11 days of hard travel, we were tired and
feeling unambitious. The gameplan for Waikiki was to relax, enjoy our last few days on the road and well just do whatever we felt like. Our time consisted of lovely morning walks on the beach watching the early morning surfers get started. Lunch, afternoon drinks, visits to the endless amounts of shopping plazas. It really was take it slow time and we were good at it.
Waikiki is pretty, downright gorgeous with it’s well kept streets, sand beaches, crystal blue water, ocean views and Diamond Head. Even nicer at night when the wide streets are well lit with plenty of people on the streets or in open air bars. We did stumble across a huge line-up for a udon noodle restaurant. Later we read the good reviews about Marukame Udon and then needed to eat there. Over the next few days we ate there twice and only encountered small line-ups. The food was absolutely great with a fair price. It is a neat concept as the udon noodles are made on site. As you wait in line you see the chef rolling out the udon dough, the next chef is cooking them in a huge steam table.
You order by number of the bowl, then pass by the heat lamps with different garnishes to add to your meal.
Unfortunately we did not snap out of taking it really easy mode. We didn’t see much else of Oahu. But the slow pace was fantastic, it was nice to wander around enjoying the pleasant weather. It just felt quite good wandering about watching it all unfold. Waikiki is a busy place hosting tourists from everywhere.
Hawaii, what a whirlwind of a trip. Flight delays, weather problems, bad sleeps and we were even targeted by criminals. It was just a crazy trip and I felt ready to go home when the time came. The highlights of this trip were fantastic. Watching the sunrise at 14,000 feet, watching lava pour into the ocean and the breathtaking drives are all-time highs on my travel list. We joked at the start of this trip with our flight delays that it was going to be a grinder of a trip. In hindsight that sounds like an accurate description of our trip. We saw amazing sights, had some great food, met some nice folks, more importantly made some memories
and have some photos for the wall. Hawaii for a small place has plenty to offer and we had seen all we had set out to accomplish. Stunningly beautiful, unreal landscapes, surreal colours and peculiar sights to see and do. There is no place like it. That may have something to do with it’s location in the middle of the Pacific. At the airport I felt happy to be going home and happy for the last 2 weeks. It is a long way and I am pretty sure I wont be stepping on Hawaii soil in the near future. Too many places to see and I am already thinking where next. Mahalo Hawaii.
On the way home we joked what could go wrong next. Well plenty was the answer. Left Vancouver late, missed connection in Montreal, spent the night in Montreal. Next day flight delayed again for an hour. Had to call my parents to meet at the Moncton airport to give me a drive home. I got home to discover the license plates had been stolen off my car. So life advice, never joke about what could go wrong next.
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