Hawaii

I was a hula baby for 6 days and 5 nights. Here's what I did on my vacay of AWESOME.

Sat--Leave for the airport at 5:30am and eat at chili's too while we wait for our 8am flight. Land in Honolulu at noon. Robert's Hawaii shuttle to Aqua Continental Surf Hotel of DOOM. Hotel room is sketchy to the max--twin beds, smoke smelling bathroom, I was allergic to something, but at least the view was awesome. case in point:

So then we headed straight to food at the Red Lion where they had fish bowl happy hour drinks and fish sandwiches. Done. Then we headed to the beach and watched a glorious sunset. Shopped for a bit, bought an obligatory kukui necklace and generally took in the atmosphere. Someone gave us a coupon for a $11.95 surf and turf dinner so we hit that up. The place was wonderfully tacky and had good Blue Hawaiis. We were zonked so we went home and slept.

Sun-woke up early to take a bus to Diamond Head to watch the sunrise. Bus driver convinced us we were on the wrong bus. Got off, called dad to discuss the science of where the sun will be rising this close to the equator, gave up and watched the sunrise at the canal. Went straight to Waikiki Beach. Only people for miles. Ate fruit bars and laid around for 7 hours. Pure heaven. Ate at Dukes in the Outrigger Waikiki and had Hula Pie. I fed my 13 year old self's craving and it was just as good as I remembered. Then we took a bus (correctly!!!) to downtown Honolulu to see the Shanghai Circus at the Hawaiian Theatre. Little did we remember that Monday was MLK Jr day so everything was closed and basically deserted so there was very little to see. But we ate at the most amazing French restaurant. I mean, I've never eaten food like this. I went all the way to Hawaii to eat good French food. Go figure. And yes, feel free to put brie on everything you ever cook me. Then we went to the theatre and laughed at how terribly...well...asian the show was. Horrible chinese restaurant music and oohs and ahhs from a blue haired crowd. But some of the acrobatics were impressive and the tickets were cheap--so A plus. Back to the hotel to pass out.

Mon--Picked up at 7:45 am to go to Kualoa Ranch. A day set up of tours of the ranch. Stupid holiday meant we couldn't go on a boat and that we were one of like 5 people to opt for the full day package. They also kept splitting us up into english and japanese speaking people. Go figure. First up was the jungle expedition. Barry led us on a rough and tumble ride through the jungle in a big jeep type van. Kind of like the Jungle Cruise with bad jokes but actually a bit terrifying. At a weird berry. Climbed part of a mountain in a denim skirt and flippy floppies. Then we took Hula lessons. These hips were made for it. Next up was a buffet lunch. Since it was included with the price we both ate two plates. Steve Abba's daughter right here. Then we were the only people to go on the gardens and fruit tour (or it was called something like that). So we got to see the dock from Lost and asked lots of questions. Our tour guide was this little awkward girl but she loved us. Then we finally (!!!) got to go on the movie set tour. Did I mention that it was AMAZING! LOST! JURASSIC PARK! So good. We went to the valley where they pretty much tape everything that is show in Hawaii while we asked the tour guide how we can get jobs at the ranch. I'd do it. It's beautiful there and I could get my big break. And until then I'd be in HAWAII so it'd be awesome.

Napped on the bus ride back. Then we ran into Chez, who was the equivalent of Tony Vegas, trying to get us to pay him to go on this bar crawl. Lesson learned we turned him down. Good for us. We ate some Mexican food--but it was way to expensive so we left about 15 mins after we got there. Then we headed to the Shore Bird where they have nightly karaoke. We sang Fergalicious and were told to keep it clean because we said the "s" word. Sir, it's in the song. Not my fault. Then I explained the song Don't Take the Girl to Jessica and started balling in the bar while I drank another mai tai. It's just such a sad song. Then we sand Huey Lewis' Heart of Rock and Roll and totally killed it. After that we decided to leave because this 50 something guy named Kevin was dancing with 3 generations of lady relatives and it was getting gross. Grandma hit the floor and it was hilarious. Norah Jones swept us into slumber and so ended another wonderful day.

More in the next post...