What we did in Hawaii
OK, we just got back from Hawaii last night and I am semi-revitalized and ready for, um, ugh, nothing.
People keep asking what I did, so this is what I did:
Thursday, we got to Oahu after a 2 hour delay, a sit on the tarmac, a 5 hour flight and a 1 hour shuttle ride. Then we went to Blazin’ Steaks for lunch, walked around on the beach and went to bed by 9 p.m.
At 4 a.m. I was woken up by all the tourists getting back from their crazy nights. Clearly, I was on the wrong tourist schedule.
Also, it turned out someone (Steve) has incredibly shaky hands. That’s like a sign of a disease or something, right? All the pictures of me looked kind of like this for awhile:
Friday morning I got up to meet Rachel for swimming. Only, Rachel slept in. I swam instead with a bunch of really fast guys, who were used to swimming in open water. I was half-scared of sharks and half-scared of looking like a jackass, so I swam incredibly hard and still didn’t make the interval.
Then, we climbed up Diamond Head, which (for an unknown reason) Steve kept calling Krakatow. Yes, my shoes do match my shorts. Thanks for noticing.
See, how pretty it is:
We intended to go snorkeling after climbing up Diamond Head, but it was quite a strenuous walk/bus ride. Instead, we did some more walking on the beach and a little bit of laying.
Friday night, we tried to take advantage of the $1.75 happy hour specials, but mistakenly ate a huge order of nachos after being asked for a deposit to sit at a bar table (?). Then, I had kareoke shut down on me in the middle of my song because I swore (as part of the song). Yes, I was performing Eminem -- it’s kind of like my party trick, if you haven’t seen me perform Eminem you probably just haven’t known me long enough. I got to finish performing, though, and I was informed I was “bitchin” according to my biggest fan (which was not Steve btw).
Saturday morning, we rented bikes and rode up Pali Highway to Kailua and back along the coast. The way up was like a rainforest, but down we had to go through two sketchy tunnels at about 40 mph on the highway. It was a little fun, too. It was supposed to be an easy ride, but ended up closer to 5 hours with only two minor detours.
Saturday night we went to a Halloween Festival in the street in Chinatown. The street party itself was cool, with lots of crazy costumes and a few naked people. No, I forgot to take pictures. Weirdly, we came out of a club at 10:30 and the party in the street was over. There were still people, but no more bands and no more food. We went in club after club and none of them were playing any recognizable music. Eventually, around midnight we were forced to walk the 4 miles or so back to our hotel, because we had no cash for the bus. We did, however, get to walk through the drive-through at Jack in the Box.
Sunday, we sort of woke up and took the long, long bus trip to Pearl Harbor, a place of serious thought and remembrance. And big guns.
Walking around the USS Arizona and the museum and taking the bus was so exhausting. Steve went to sleep on the beach when we got back and I fell asleep in the hotel, because I am whiter than Steve and terrified of the sun.
We tried to stay mellow that evening, but ended up eating a lot. Again.
Rachel also emailed me that she had been at the hotel right by ours the whole weekend, but hadn’t had her phone or internets. Some people might take this as a sign that she obviously hates me because I am ugly and emailed her with too many question. But not me. I emailed her again.
Monday morning, Steve had to go to urgent care because he had a bad ear infection. Then, we went on a semi-miserable bike ride up Tantalus. It was gorgeous. But you know what it also does in a rainforest -- it rains.
Then, we went snorkeling at Hanamau Bay. We saw two sea turtles swimming around. The first one this teenage boy tried to jump on. I don’t think he watched the video. We had to watch a video before coming in the nature preserve. The video said don’t touch the animals, definitely don’t jump on them.
We went to Wamanalo Beach for a little bit, but it was late and kind of raining and we’d spent the morning running around getting Steve’s medicine and walking around the food court.
So, we had a giant brownie in a pan instead.
Tuesday morning, we drove over to the North Shore, where they filmed Blue Crush and Lost. Because of the rain and storms, etc., the waves and current were worse than usual.
You were only allowed to go swimming, according to the lifeguards, if you had fins. I didn’t have fins. I was just playing in the shallow water, but slowly inched out. I really, really wanted to practice my swimming in big waves. I never get a chance to practice swimming into and out of waves, because we don’t have big waves in the Bay, so whenever I have a race in the ocean I fall down a lot. This was the best chance to practice.
Finally, I figured out the whole diving under the waves as you head out through the surf. Instead of letting the waves smack you around and knock you over, you can dive under them. I got pretty good at it and got out past the break. I rode some waves, floated, was having fun. I rode a wave back in. But.
But.
While I had figured out how to get out through the break, no one told me how to get back in to the beach through the break. I rode one wave. But, then, I got a little smashed by another. I was still coughing from swallowing water when the next wave came, so instead of trying to ride it I just went under. But I didn’t give it enough force to dive under the wave and when I went to come back up, I didn’t come back up. There was just more and more water. I was kicking as hard as I could, but wasn’t reaching the top. I can’t see under water, because if I open my eyes I lose my contacts, so it was all black and I wasn’t sure when I would reach the top. I couldn’t feel it. After the longest time ever, I finally broke the surface and this old guy was just staring at me and wanting to know if I was ok, really? Yeah, totally. I smiled. See.
But I think I kinda blew out an eardrum. Can you do that, temporarily?
We went to Waimea Valley and saw the pretty flowers. Steve liked the giant leaves.
And he made me pose by the waterfall. He kept telling me to turn my head more.
The peacocks were everywhere and the wild chickens kept wandering out into the road. Is there such a thing as wild chickens?
We ate lunch at Turtle Bay Resort (fancy) on the beach. It was the first burger I had since my unfortunate burger poisoning back in April.
On our way back, there was this little tidal pool. It stopped drizzling briefly and the water was the clearest I’ve ever seen and the waves didn’t come in past the rocks. I swam into the middle of a whole school of fish that shimmered in the sun.
Of course, we stopped at the Dole Plantation on our way home. Did you know this is what a pineapple looks like?
Yeah, I didn’t either. We even took the mini-tour of the plantation on a mini-train. You could buy pineapple chocolate, pineapple coffee, pineapple ice cream covered in pineapple (that’s what we tried), pineapple stuffed animals, pineapple cookbooks. Did you know Dole actually owns one of the little islands -- which is a giant plantation?
Then, we had another giant brownie. Actually, we each had a brownie with ice cream and macadamia nuts at Jimmy Buffet’s -- which has its own pool, walls that are movies, “lava” flowing under the ground and a live band. It’s a fantastic place.
Then, we went home, after going swimming on the beach for a little longer and almost missing our shuttle.
This is actually at the airport:
At the airport, we got pulled over by security. They wanted to know if we had yogurts in my backpack. Of course, I emptied the fridge into our bag. They said that’s cool, you can sit here and eat the yogurts. And, oops, I had apples and mangos too, which would be a $10,000 fine. That’s ok, we can sit in security and eat the. So we did. But, there are no pictures, because they frown on you taking pictures in the security area.
Good bye Hawaii!
Thursday, November 5, 2009