USA: Hawaii – Waikiki & Honolulu

18.02.2008 – 24.02.2008

Sunday 17th February was the longest day of our lives – 46 hours in total?! We started the day off by waiting around the beach and sitting around until 11pm for our flight. Once we finally got on the flight we were unfortunate enough to sit next to a huge man who snored the entire journey, leaving us with a couple of hours of very disturbed sleep. After finally arriving in Hawaii we were then asked tons of questions about where we were going, where we had been etc and then we were also asked for a bag search!

After finally getting through that we managed to find our way to the hostel. Due to passing over the time line we then arrived at our hostel at about 10am – still on Sunday 17th February! We were not able to get into our room for a couple of hours and decided to have a wander around. We were instantly amazed at how cheap everyhting was and how huge all of the food portions are in the shops. After a little wander around we went back to our rooms to catch up on a couple of hours` sleep before having another wander around in the evening. We found a really good market to have a look around and also lots of places for cheap food (yum).

We went to our second location in Waikiki and after some confusion we finally got it sorted (long story!) We had booked the second location for a week which we were so pleased with as it was a really lovely place. We had a great view from our room, a TV, a coffee maker, microwave…….. our own bathroom with wait for it…….a bath!!! (OK – please remember we have only had showers for the last 8/9 months!) We were so happy to be here! We stocked up on the essentials (beer, milk, noodles etc!) and had a good look around Waikiki.

It really is lovely in Waikiki, the pavements are all really wide and lined with lots of trees, plants and fairy lights in the evening. Luckily, the $ is very weak to the money from the UK so shopping for us was really good! We found a good shopping centre, just a few minutes walk away from our hotel and went for a shopping day to celebrate ‘S’s Birthday, it was so good to go shopping and buy “luxury” things. Later that evening we went out for a meal of ‘S’s choise at Tony Roma`s. We chose ribs and had a nice bottle of red to go with it.

One day whilst here we decided to go for a late breakfast and found a typical American 24hr diner/cafe – it was very amusing inside and felt as though we`d stepped into a film set! We ordered as many pancakes as you could eat which came with bacon, eggs and a selection of syrups – we decided we had to try the combination as it`s all the American`s seemed to eat for breakfast, not that we liked it!

We went to Pearl Harbour one day. Unfortunately you need to get there really early in the morning in order to get on the boat which goes really close, so we missed that, but all in all it was good and we got to have a really good look around. The bus took an hour and a half to get there due to the crazy traffic in Honolulu.

Diamond Head is the extinct volcano which dominates the area. We wanted to walk to the top of it and set out at about 11am without really knowing where to go but heading towards it! We went the wrong way around the base of Diamond Head which probably made our journey longer by an hour or two (which we didn`t realise until we got back!) The Army once used the inside of the volcano as their practice area though now it is open for the public to have a look around. When we got back (at about 7.30pm!)our feet were very sore and we had sore heads from being out in the sun though it was well worth it (in the end!)

The weather was really lovely whilst we were in Hawaii – lovely and hot but with a slight breeze, most days we got up, had some breakfast and sunbathed for an hour or so before entertaining ourselves somehow in the afternoon. There is a really good Nike Town store near the hotel and a famous Galaxy football player was there when we were there (not that I know his name now!) We also found it amusing that Victoria and David Beckham were in the restaurant a few hundred metres away from our hotel whilst we were there to celebrate Brooklyn`s Birthday.

We were sad to leave Hawaii as we had such a lovely, lovely time here