Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
We had quite a long travel time to Hawaii, we had a flight from Vegas to Long Beach and then from there up to San Francisco, spent a night there and then got up early and had a 6 hour flight to Honolulu.
Hawaii is 3 hours behind San Fran so it was only half 11 when we arrived so we made our way to the hotel to see if we could check in early. Not only did they let us check in they upgraded us for free as well! We got sorted then headed out to have a look at Waikiki beach and grab some food. We found a nice looking burger bar and stopped there but couldn't believe it when 2 burgers, a plate of chips and 2 cokes cost us nearly $40! After lunch we headed down to the beach and it is awesome. The sea is turquoise and that clear that when you are up to your neck in water then you can still see your feet. There is no seaweed or anything apart from a few little sea plants floating in the water, it's brilliant. We stayed in the water for about 2 hours then chilled on the beach for 10 mins before heading back to the room. We have been up since 2 in the morning Hawaiin time and we have just spent 2 weeks in Vegas drinking every night and not getting too much sleep so we were absolutely exhausted. Jodie was asleep by half 7 and I was out for the count at half 8!
We woke up quite late and didn't head out till about 12. We headed to Dennys for lunch then found out where the HI hostel is as were going to be staying there from Sunday. We then headed to the Waikiki town centre, which is a shopping mall full of little stalls selling homemade jewellery and Hawaiin shirts and dresses. That is what I imagined Hawaii to be like, not like the chain stores that it is in the touristy area. We then went back down to the beach and just chilled out in the sea for a few hours again. That night we didn't really do too much again, just chilled out and watched tv.
Next morning we got up pretty early and went out. We were going to head to Diamond Head and climb the mountain but on the way we got distracted by the Aloha festival parade. They had a load of Hawaiin dancers, bands, horses and the Princes and Princess of tribes going down the street in their floats. They even had Miss Hawaii paraded down the street. Every 2 minutes all you heard was "Aloha" and nearly everyone in the street said "Aloha" back, it's ace.
After it had finished we started heading towards the mountain again, the directions we had said it was only a mile away to the entrance but we quickly found out that the directions were completely wrong and were taking us to some shop! We got another map and started walking and about an hour and a half later we finally reached the gate. We paid to get in and got a leaflet with details and how to get to the trail to get to the top. In a visitors guide it said the trail was quite easy and that it was just 100 stairs to the top but we found out that it was a 1.5 mile trek over rocks and gravel and then 77 steps up to more rocks then 99 steps up to another load of metal circular stairs, and we done all this in flip flops! We got some strange looks from other people as everyone else seemed to be wearing proper hiking boots! It was worth it in the end though, the top of it was an old army lookout point that was still painted in camouflage and the views from the top were absolutely brilliant. You could see all of Waikiki beach and town, Pearl Harbour, the mountains on the other side of the island and other towns and bays up the coast, all the sea was torquise as well so it looked like proper paradise! We enjoyed the views for a while and then made our way down the long trek to home.
When we reached the hotel we were both dead to the world after our marathon so spent the rest of the night in apart from when we went downstairs to the hotels restaurant and had the worst meal ever, we had to change our order 2 or 3 times each as they didn't have any food in and yet we still got s***e off the waitress for not tipping 15%! Hate the Yank culture!
We are checking out of the hotel today and going down the road to a hostel, really don't want to go back to hostels but I suppose we have to at some point! The hostel is not a very good one, the rooms have no air con (in Hawaii!!) and the hostel doesn't really offer much. We are not going to do anything big today as the hike yesterday really killed our legs so after we get all settled in we just head down to the beach. We just spent the afternoon chilling in the sea, the sea is so nice that once you go in you don't want to come out.
That night we just spent it in the hostel looking at other places in Hawaii we can go to. After looking at loads of places we finally decided a place in Maui.
Next morning our legs felt better again so we headed down the other side of town to see what was down there. I'm happy were staying where we are because down the other side it is just expensive shops everywhere. They are all on the street next to probably one of the most famous beaches in the world yet there is no mention of it and no way to get down to the beach for about half a mile while all the shops are there. It's a shame that they are all there because it doesn't feel like Hawaii, it just feels like any other American city. We then finally found access to the beach so checked out what it was like up near all the expensive hotels and it wasn't really any better than where we were.
We headed back down to our side of town and went to the beach. We spent a few hours chilling in the sea and then I decided to go and climb on one of the walls that's in the ocean for a look around. I thought I stubbed my toe as I climbed the wall but later that night I found about 15 spikes in my big toe! Took all night to get them out and yet I still found one the next day! Later found out that I stood on a sea urchin, little b******!. Our hostel is shockingly bad, it has no atmosphere or anything so we had another quiet night and just booked our first weeks stay in Fiji (which just so happens to be the resort they filmed Celeb Love Island!)
We looked into doing a couple of tours today but as everyone else will be here next week we have decided to leave the expensive ones and do them with them. Instead we jumped on the bus and headed over to Pear Harbour. There is 3 different memorials and 3 museums to go round, each takes about 2 hours each so we are going to come back with Sue next week and do a couple of the museums. All around the harbour they have things to remember the dead and have torpedos that were used in the war. The main memorial is the USS Arizona which is the ship that went down with 1100 men. You have to get a boat to a white memorial in the middle of the harbour which is where the boat was when it sunk. The Arizona is still at the bottom of the harbour with around 900 bodies still on board and the memorial is right over the middle of the ship. From the memorial you can see different parts of the ship that are sticking out of the sea and all you can smell is oil. Every so often you can see little black beads of oil rising to the top which they call the black tears and they estimate that it will carry on leaking for the next 50 years. There wasn't much on the memorial but it was really good seeing the ship. Later on we had another quiet night (boring hostel!) and a bit of an early night as we had an early flight to catch to Maui!
- comments