First Day in Hawaii
Trip Start
Nov 26, 2009
1
7
Trip End
Dec 04, 2009
Where I stayed
Honolulu, Hawaii
Friday, November 27, 2009
We got our early start in Seattle heading to the airport at around 6:30. We were able to catch some of the Black Friday shoppers along the highway. It looked like some of the stores were only letting in a few people at a time.
The flight was one of the more enjoyable flights we've had. One of the dudes that got on near us had terribad B.O. All I could think is "Man, I know we're all nervous about flying, but come on put on some preemptive deodorant". Luckily he sat a few rows behind us. I had POG juice the whole way over in the spirit of the travels, at least Zach was brave enough to try its' fruity goodness. Our pilot must have been haulin' over the ocean because we ended up landing in Honolulu over 1 hour ahead of schedule.
We arrived in Honolulu about 12:30 PM local time and grabbed our rental car, which we ended up upgrading from some small 2 door Hyundai to a convertible Sebring for like $2 more a day. I've had a crush on those new Dodge Chargers for a while now, and I was hoping we'd get to cruise around in one to try it out, but really the convertible sounded like more fun.
Apparently Hawaii also just made it law that you absolutely cannot drive around in your car and talk on a cell phone (in Washington I guess it's only a secondary offense, so you have to be speeding or doing something else for them to ticket you) so there goes that favorite hobby of mine for now.
We drove straight to our hotel near Waikiki (Zach saw a hobo with no pants on along the way..ah.. the beautiful scenery) where Zach decided to go ahead and upgrade our room from a city view room to one that directly overlooks Waikiki Beach. The front desk clerk went ahead and threw a night of free parking and a bottle of champagne for our anniversary, so the upgrade ended up being totally worth it, plus the view is just awesome.
We spent the night walking around the main stretch of stores around Waikiki. It's pretty much like a Bellevue Square Mall spread out over a mile. There are two Coach stores alone that I've found. There's also the always exciting and unique restaurants (does that internet sarcasm come through?) like Cheesecake Factory and PF Changs in case you miss that comfort of home. Zach is trying to avoid those places like a plague, so for lunch we had Puka Dog, which is basically a delicious polish hot dog garnished with tropical fruit and spicy fruity mustards.
We took one of those "booze cruises" that are all over the beaches here. It was fun, gave us a chance to get some pictures out on the water. While walking to dinner we happened upon a fun street parade. I guess it was a holiday parade as there was several local high school and military bands pumping out Christmas tunes, but there was also some Pearl Harbor survivors cruising around in some sweeeet Mustangs and also some creepy dancing clowns, so it was an odd combination. For dinner we hit up this Hawaiian/Asian restaurant called Roy's. They're on the pricey side, but we figured it was officially our anniversary, so why not? Zach even opted to try some of the crazy fish that I got for dinner.
We ended up going to bed about 10:30ish Hawaii time, which is 12:30 AM our time, so we were pretty much exhausted. That free bottle of champagne is going to have to wait until tomorrow. Please excuse all the Louis Vuitton pics I've added, I think we all know who they're for : )
Comments
Your trip sounds wonderful and the description was marvelous, I felt like I was there!