We arrived in Hawaii at 5:30 p.m. local time which was 10:30 p.m. Nashville time. Needless to say it was a long day of travel but we forced ourselves to stay up until 9:00 local time so we could get or body clocks adjusted to Hawaii time. We were starving so we dropped our bags in our room and headed out to find food. Speaking of our room, the view was amazing. The Hilton is right on Waikiki Beach and our room was ocean view. These are pictures that I took from our balcony the first night.
We decided to grab a bite at one of the many restaurants in the Hilton Hawaiian Village. We ended up going to a deli and two sandwiches, two beers, and $50 later our tummies were full and our wallet was empty. As we were warned, Hawaii is super expensive but the food is great! The next day, we woke up early and decided to walk around Honolulu. The iPhone came in very handy in helping us figure out how to get around the island.
Here is a picture of the entrance to our resort.
These trees were all over the island and I thought they were really neat. I think they are called Banyan Trees but I could be wrong.
One of my roommates and friends from West Point was stationed in Oahu for a few years and gave me a long list of things to do and see while we were there. One of her best suggestions was a coffee house located right across the street from the Hilton. We ate there every morning except for one. For $5.75 you got two eggs, bacon and all you could eat pancakes. We ate so much for breakfast we usually just snacked for lunch and saved our money for a nice dinner. Thanks for the tip Melissa!!!! After walking around the city most of the day, we decided to head to the beach for a bit. Here is a picture of the strip of Waikiki Beach behind our resort. The mountain in the background is actually and non-active volcano crater called Diamond Head. We hiked to the top of Diamond Head on our second day on the island.
After the beach we got dressed and went to eat dinner at The Ocean House, a seafood restaurant in one of the other hotels on Waikiki. The food was great and the view of the sunset was even better.
Our waiter took these pictures.
After dinner we went to Duke's, a famous restaurant/bar known for a frozen drink called Lava Flow and a dessert known as Hula Pie. The place was absolutely packed. Apparently, Sunday evening is when all of the locals go to Duke's. It was pretty much shoulder to shoulder in the bar so we ordered one Lava Flow each and then headed back to our room.
Monday morning we did some more walking around Honolulu and also ended up sitting through a time share presentation. We had no interest in buying another time share, however, just for sitting through the presentation we got a two day jeep rental for $10 (originally we had booked the rental for $150) and we also got $20 off of a kayak rental. We thought it was worth the 1.5 hour presentation. After that, we decided to go hike up Diamond Head. Most people take a bus to the base of Diamond Head and then start their hike. However, Daniel and I decided to just walk from our hotel. Three miles later we were at the base of the crater and still had 1.5 miles to hike straight up! Needless to say, we decided to take a cab ride home after we hiked back down. The hike was definitely challenging but the view was well worth the hike. Here are some pictures from the hike and from the top of Diamond Head.
Finally at the top. This is inside one of the lookout points.
It's hard to see, but the little peninsula that you see below has some amazing homes. This is where Tom Selek lived while filming Magnum P.I. I know my mom would appreciate that little tid bit of information.
While waiting for the bus to pick us up after hiking the crater, we met another couple who we ended spending a lot of time with. Dave and Melissa were in Hawaii visiting from Ohio. Dave is a pharmacist in the Air Force and is about to be deployed. Melissa is a speech therapist. We shared a cab ride back to Waikiki and decided to meet up with them for dinner that night at Duke's. The restaurant was much less crowded that night and the food was AMAZING!!!
After dinner we walked down Waikiki Beach back to our hotel and were suprised to see that there were still a large amount of people still out in the water surfing. I guess that's what you do when you live in Hawaii!
I'll post more about the rest of the week in the coming days!
2 comments:
Oh wow it looks like you guys had an amazing time! Wish it would have worked out for us to go too. Can't wait to hear about the rest of your trip!!!
You relived my honeymoon! We also stayed at the Hilton Hawaiian Village. A few years later we stayed at the Hale Koa, it's very nice too. Looks like you had a great time. I'm jealous :)
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