Aloha from the islands of Hawai’i!
So this blog is a combination of the inability to sleep and boredom of having nothing to do at 2am in a dark hotel room trying not to wake Shauntelle...
Shauntelle and I arrived on the beautiful central pacific island of Hawai'i very early this morning – at 6.45am to be exact. During the flight here though, it was not exactly a conductive flight for sleeping. Upon boarding, we were greeted with the sight of about half a dozen or so children under the age of 5 sitting directly in front of us (there were only 2 rows between us and the exit…). Lets just say children are group screamers and criers – one sets off the other in a chain of events and then eventually, you get a whole choir of them in full voice. One of the mothers jokingly asked us “who put us in the no sleep section of the plane?” We laughed at the time, but about 6 hours later, not so funny… Eventually once we were at flight level, the kids began to rest the vocal chords and that was when it hit – turbulence. The little bit of silence everyone was treasuring was broken by the instant piercing of all the children crying out at the same time. The flight ended up experiencing turbulence a number of times during the 9-hour intermittently spaced throughout the flight for maximum discomfort.
Once we arrived in Honolulu (with just 2 hours of sleep under my belt), we caught the coach transfer to our hotel, the Aqua Waikiki Wave but as it was still 8.30am in the morning, we had to wait until 3pm to be able to check in. With HOURS to kill, we wandered down along Waikiki beach and downtown Honolulu including one of the worst’s breakfasts at a Maccas ever. I think we’re pretty lucky to have decent Maccas at home (proper bacon rashers, proper egg and all cooked in canola oil). The only redemption was pineapple as a side with the breakfast, but that was immensely disappointing – tasted nothing like actual pineapple.
After a wrong bus ride, thinking we were on the correct bus to Ala Moana shopping centre (it did help waste some time), we finally made it to a shopaholic’s heaven. We ran errands for Jenna (thanks Jenna for letting me feel like I was actually shopping for myself!) and then just began looking around stores for ourselves. Personal favourites as usual were Hollister, Abercrombie and Fitch, Ruehl No925 and American eagle. Credit card spent ($180 on t-shirts later…), we caught a Waikiki trolley to come back towards the hotel, but passed a tattoo parlour where Shauntelle was distracted and ended up getting a tattoo (as you do, but it did look very good).
Upon check in at the hotel, we found out we had been upgraded to the top floor (Yay! I heart free upgrades!) With views of the ocean and also of Diamond Head, the room is really nice for the low price we paid! Once again, Trip Advisor has pointed me to another great hotel. Grabbing some food for a late lunch/early dinner, we came back to the room and showered off the flight and our first day in Honolulu before crashing for the night.
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