Barbara B.'s Adventures: Hawai'i: Oahu's Eastern and Northern Shores

Sitting on the couch on a weekend, it started something like this:

M: "I could go to Hawai'i."
B: "So could I."
M: "What's the weather like there in September."
B: "It's always nice there."

I didn't think any more of it, but a week later on a Monday morning I got flight options in my inbox. I responded with which ones I liked, and we were booked. After that, both of us fessed up that neitehr of us was really serious about Hawai'i when it first came up, but so we spent an awesome week on Oahu. We stayed at a really nice condo at the Hilton Hawaiian Village; they're timeshare units, but owners weren't booked in, so we could have it. 23rd floor overlooking the ocean, Waikiki, and Diamond Head. This was so different from vacations I've been used to.

Thursday, September 22

I worked until the afternoon and the flight was at 4:00pm. This meant that the entire day was a rush. With ten minutes to spare, I finished my work deadline. A friend gave me a ride home, even though I live a mere 12-minute walk from work. And off we went. By the time we got through the line, we had missed check-in cut-off, but apparently WestJet doesn't care. While transfering in Vancouver, US Customs showed us photos of our suitcases on a screen, so we figured suitcases had made it too. The flight to Honolulu seemed endless. My time difference calculations were off, and to this day I haven't figured out why Hawai'i is three time zones behind us, but was four hours behind (no daylight savings or something?). This meant that the flight was an hour longer than expected, and with the long walk through terminals in Vancouver, there was no time to grab a Timmy's sandwich for dinner as we had planned. Oh well, at least we were going on vacation. The flight out of Calgary was really cool for I recognized all the palces: Glenmore Reservoir, Forgetmenot Ridge, Moose Mountain, Mount Allan and Nakiska. After that it clouded over.

Arriving in Honolulu, we were bombarded with humid 30ºC weather. It was dark, and I figured I didn't need a map. We got the rental car and off we went. I knew Waikiki was east, so I drove towards taller buildings. And sure enough, with not a single wrong turn, we were at the hotel in 12 minutes. To say the resort was huge was an understatement. There must have been 20 check-in spots in the main lobby. That one wasn't for us apparently, so I went to find a parking stall (a challenge in their 5-storey parkade with over a thousand spots), and 15 minutes later we rolled our suitcases over to the other check-in lobby. Surprise! M. had called the resort earlier to try our luck and request a room higher up and on the east side - overlooking Diamond Head and not the harbour. The resort manager on duty that night was the one talked to and she disappeared into a back room and came back with leis for us. Quite embarrassing, but after sweating in the Hawai'i heat, the fresh smell of orchids did us good. And so we found our room just below the penthouses, walked in and out onto the balcony. Wow. We ended up staying up until 5am Mountain Time.

Friday, September 23

We figured we'd stay on Alberta time, so we were up by 6am Honololu time. Breakfast just after 7, and we were out the door by 9am. We were curious to get an overview of the island (I had been there about 20 years before, but didn't remmeber much). The island's only about 50 miles long, so I figured after three hours we'd have seen it all. Wrong. With maximum speeds of a whopping 25mph (40km/hr) all along that winding 'highway', it seeme dto take forever and we decided to break it into two chunks, going back again two days later.

We saw Hanauma Bay, stopped at Sandy Beach, saw the seabird sanctuaries from Makapu'u Point, stopped at the macadamia farm, had a burger at the former Kahuku Sugar Mill, stopped by Waimea (which we'd go back to two days later), saw trypical fruit stands, pineapple fields, and topped the day off by watching the Friday night fireworks at Waikiki from the balcony.

Hanauma Bay

Sandy Beach

Seabird sanctuaries from Makapu'u Point

Macadamia Nut Farm

Former Kahuku Sugar Mill

Kahuku Grill

Fruit stand

Pineapple fields

View from our balcony - Diamond Head in the distance

View from our balcony - lagoon

View from our balcony - fireworks

Palm tree shaped fireworks

Saturday, September 24

After a couple of days on the go, we decided to have a lazier day around the resort. The night before we had a note under our door saying that the road by the entrance would be blocked until noon due to an annual flower parade, so we decided to check that out after breakfast. After that we checked out the property some more, and in the evening took a walk through the Ala Moana Shopping Centre.