Skip to main content

Weekend in Waikiki

We took advantage of the lack of tourists on the island to spend a weekend at the Hale Koa in Waikiki.

We usually avoid Honolulu as much as possible because the traffic is horrible, streets are crowded, and the wait to get into any restaurant is interminable.  


But right now it's quite nice. 

We spent a nice weekend walking around, checking out places we don't normally visit, just being tourists while everything is slow.

On Saturday morning, Kerry and I got up and went for a walk, only to get caught in a sudden rainstorm.  All the normal paths back to our hotel were blocked off because they are limiting entrances to make sure only registered guests are on the grounds.  Where we normally could have scooted down a side path back to the hotel, this time we had to walk all the way around the hotel to the front entrance.

We got very wet.

Ben, Noelle, and Katie came down to have brunch with us.  
Katie stayed and spent the night with us.



We spent a lot of time just floating in the infinity pool at the hotel.  They've added a couple of water slides since the last time we were there.  We went down those a number of times.  

We would wait for the whistle for "adult swim" time.  No kids were in line for the slide then - they'd been banished to their lounge chairs, sulking about the unfairness of it all.  Then we would slide over and over with all the other adults who wanted to be kids for fifteen minutes.

We ate at Duke's Waikiki.  It's an iconic restaurant that we'd never been to.  Amazingly, we got in with only a short wait.  Check that off the bucket list.


It was July 4th and we had hoped to see some fireworks although we had already been warned that all fireworks shows had been cancelled to keep crowds from gathering and spreading the virus.

We saw two rouge fireworks set off by people on the beach.

It was really nice to see Waikiki the way it must have looked before tourism became such a huge industry here.  This is a beach we normally never visit because it is usually so packed with tourists you can't see the sand much less find a place to sit or enjoy the water without bumping into other people.  

It won't be long before it is back to being one of the most popular beaches in the world, so we are going to enjoy it while we can.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ben's Feet

Ben went camping with his youth group this weekend. He said it was the best weekend he's had since we've been in Hawaii, and possibly in his entire life. The one negative part was that he stepped on some coral out in the water and cut his feet up pretty good. He swears it was all dead coral - you shouldn't touch live coral, much less walk on it because it damages the coral. No one ever mentions that it also damages your feet. They just tell you not to damage the coral. Also, coral is a living organism . If you step on live coral and a tiny piece breaks off in the cut, it will continue to grow. Did you see the movie Alien ? If some creature incubates in Ben's feet, then breaks out and eats us all one night, I'm going to be quite miffed. (Make sure you read the inscription on his tee shirt in this picture. It's quite appropriate.)
Post a Comment
Read more

Mammogram

I'm having my annual mammogram today. I always hear about how painful they are, but honestly, I've never thought they are that bad. Not the most comfortable, but not painful either. Every time I have a mammogram, I'm reminded of this story. It won the Erma Bombeck Writing Competition and I still get a kick out of it every time I read it. So I'm posting it here today for your reading pleasure: Erma Bombeck Writing Competition 1st place in Humor Category Winner Leigh Anne Jasheway of Eugene, Oregon "The First Time's Always the Worst" The first mammogram is the worst. Especially when the machine catches on fire. That's what happened to me. The technician, Gail, positioned me exactly as she wanted me (think a really complicated game of Twister - right hand on the blue, left shoulder on the yellow, right breast as far away as humanly possible from the rest of your body). Then she clamped the machine down so tight, I think my breast actually turned inside o...
1 comment
Read more

Japanese Fishing Shrine

Here's an interesting little spot we stopped to see. I'd passed this many times before and had never stopped to see what it was. Since GG and Sherry were here, we decided to check it out. There is a shrine of some sort with a statue and a carved rock. There was no information on sight as to what it is that I could find. There were flowers, food and incense left around the base of the shrine. There was a ceramic statue and a rock with a figure carved into it. None of the food was old or rotting (although plenty of it had clearly been pecked by birds) and the flowers were all fresh which made me think it must be cleaned and cared for on a regular basis. After we got home, I did some research and found this article about it from the Hawaii Star Bulletin, our local newspaper (I have edited out some bits, but otherwise the article is unchanged): "Maintenance" of the monument has been assumed by a group of Vietnamese Buddhists - Shingon Shu Hawaii, the Buddhist temple th...
2 comments
Read more