Wow, I can’t quite believe we up to our last day of this 3 week trip to Hawaii. It’s definitely been a nice, long vacation, especially for Kevin who was in desperate need of a proper break from work.
It was another lovely start to the day, with the usual holiday routine.
We headed out a little earlier today, after taking a rather badly lit selfie on the verandah. First stop was starbuck to get some drinks. I am going to miss these Dragon Drinks when I get home. Spotted some cute birds. I don’t know if Hawaii doesn’t have sea gulls or I just haven’t spotted any. Here, in Waikiki it’s mainly pigeons and zebra doves, which is why I was excited when I spotted that white bird in the tree.
We took our Starbucks down to the beach area and found a seat to sit and enjoy the views.
The surfers here are quite a way out and it’s such a different style of surfing with the long gentle waves. It’s easy to see why is a popular place to learn to surf. It always makes me think of “Gidget Goes Hawaiian”. Since I was zoomed right in with my video camera I didn’t know I’d caught a Dad teaching his kid to surf – how cute is that?
After a bit we moved further along the beach and found another place to sit and people watch.
While we’ve both decided that Waikiki and Honolulu in general isn’t for us, you can’t ignore the beauty that is Waikiki Beach.
It was impossible to capture the size of this banyon tree (though the one was saw on Maui was much bigger) – you can just see a person on the left for some scale. Love the little pigeons making themselves at home in it.
Something you may not know about me is that I love watching surfing and surfing movies. I don’t have many regrets in life, but not learning the surf is one of them. I’m very excited to see the upcoming documentary “The Waterman” which is all about Duke, who introduced the world to surfing.
We moved along away from the beach into the shopping area. We had quick look in this cute Christmas shop. I would have bought something if we didn’t already have our ornament from Aulani.
We then visited the International Market Place, which is probably the most beautiful shopping center I have visited. I love how it has been built around the banyon trees.
It is mainly designer stores here and, as you’ve probably gathered, we aren’t good shoppers anymore, but it was nice to have a look around.
They also have some really great photo ops.
I was starting to not feel great by now (too much time walking around without a rest) so we checked out a few other places on the way home and picked up a few gifts to take home. Kevin tried to buy a donut since he really wanted one but they had a minimum buy on credit so he left without one (since neither of us have any US dollars).
We did check out this Plant Based cafe that we just stumbled upon but they mainly had acai bowls and smoothies and I wasn’t quite ready to eat lunch yet. Kevin ended up with his first poke bowl from an ABC store and cooked some (I think) Japanese Sweet Potatoes (and now understands what all the fuss is about). I really enjoyed my nice simple lunch of Japanese potatoes & salad.
I spent the afternoon reading and starting to pack.. Around 4pm Kevin discovered that our flight home was not tomorrow (Friday) as I’d thought, but on Saturday. Oops. Since we were both ready to head home and Kevin wanted a day with the pups before returning to work, we managed to change our flight to Friday.
I was in a bit of fibro pain so we didn’t go to the beach for another swim as planned. Much as we’ve loved the room here, I’ve realized that I really need to see (and have easy access to) places like a beach or pool, that I want to use. It’s kind of like “out of sight, out of mind”.
I read some more and we watched YouTube. Kevin really wanted takeaway/delivery tonight (though we still had some vegan pasta in the fridge). He eventually decided on The Cheesecake Factory since he’s always wanted to eat there.
So convenient that it just arrives outside your door. Probably good we don’t have access to this (as much) at home. Kevin had avocado egg rolls and a banana cream cheesecake. I had the chicken ranch salad (without the chicken). We both really enjoyed our meals.
We went to bed about 9pm and I fell asleep reading only to be rudely awoken by the emergency alarm going off telling us to leave our rooms and proceed down the stairs. Did you remember that we are on the 33rd floor !!! We got dressed and ready to go but looking off the balcony could see nothing. Nor could we smell any smoke so we decided to just wait since it most likely a false alarm. After about 10 mins they announced it was okay to return to our rooms. So glad we hadn’t bothered leaving. Kevin’s knees would be dead and I’m not sure how I would have managed. Definitely don’t want to be having a fibro flare day on a travel day.