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

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

Well we finally got it all together.  Even arranged a ride to the airport from Karl who lives downstairs.  He’s off today and has his cruiser for personal use.  His wife Elen has a new pickup and offered to drive us in that.  We preferred to ride in his cop car with the wire mesh and no inside door handles over the bed of the pickup.  I sure hope he doesn’t insist on cuffing us like most of his backseat passengers.  Gotta go. ... read more

Since we haven't gone anywhere without our good old LER van in many years, and are now relying on others for transportation I have titled this blog NEOCOT (Not Exactly Our Cup Of Tea). Yes, I have made a reservation or three to start this trip. At least for the first two days. Then we will be back into our old groove of, "Where we gonna go next Marty?" One that has done us pretty well over the years as we traveled in all of the lower 48. How will we fare acting like real tourists for a change? Frankly, it scares me. I fear that just breezing into a local hotel, motel, B&B, or whatever, will possibly lead to our spending a night in a tiny rental car. By the way, we are going to ... read more