It’s Christmas Eve. We spent the morning at the Ala Moana Beach. It was a big logistic exercise to get that many adults, and an almost equivalent number of kids and infants, organized, packed, and ready to go. It was a really hot day, but that didn’t matter at all to the kids. The adults had to smear lots of sunblock lotion on them though.
We did some research the night before on what transport to get. We wanted to get an MPV, or what the US folks call a mini-van. It turns out that every rental company seems to be out of mini-vans. We decided to go for a “mid-sized” vehicle from Enterprise. It turns out to be quite a largish vehicle, at least by Singapore’s standards. I’ve driven several times in the US, so I am not unfamiliar with left-hand drive and driving on US roads. But this would be the first time I drove out of the car rental lot without a navigator sitting next to me.
We didn’t really do much on day five. We had become a little exhausted taking care of Vanessa and Ian. Especially Ian. Sometimes he just wouldn’t stop crying. By the time we could “move out”, enough of the day had gone past. We decided to just go somewhere nearby, and that would be Kahala Mall. There wasn’t anything particular in Kahala Mall that we wanted to get.
Hello, from the Ala Moana Beach Park in Honolulu, Hawaii. It’s a really hot and sunny day today. I think we’re going to get sun burnt.
— Posted from my N97 Share Online.
Sunrise view from outside my bungalow in Honolulu.
— Posted from my N97 Share Online.
Looking out to see from the Halona Blowhole at Honolulu. There was no water blowing out to see though.
— Posted from my N97 Share Online.
We went to the Aloha Tower today. It’s supposedly ten storey high, the tallest in its time. It does look quite stately. Ten storey isn’t very high at all by today’s standards. But it’s plenty high enough if you want to go up and find that the elevators aren’t working. That’s what happened to us. As we were contemplating whether it would be worth our while to climb up the stairs, we noticed that the stairs were also sealed off. It was then that we realized that the tower was basically closed till some time in January due to renovations work.
The highlight on day three is about food. We headed over to Waikiki beach again, where they had this restaurant called The Cheesecake Factory. I thought it was a factory that made cheese or cheesecakes, where you could go to tour, sample their products, and maybe they had a little cafe somewhere you could sit down to have tea or coffee with some snacks. I was quite mistaken. I was wondering what the fuss was about having to go their on an empty stomach. It turns out it’s really a restaurant where, among other food, they serve a great variety of cheesecake.
We’re staying somewhere not in the “hottest” areas of Honolulu, but today, we took a bus down to the famed Waikiki beach. We were told that there actually isn’t much of the beach to see because they’re pretty much covered up by tanned (or tanning) bodies. It turns out that was slightly over exaggerated. But Waikiki beach isn’t really all that big, really. I’d think Patong beach in Phuket is bigger, although Waikiki has more developments around it.
Day one in Hawaii was spent doing nothing touristy. Not unless recovering from a long trip is considered a touristy activity. When traveling with kids, especially infants, I think everyone, adults and the children, all get very tired. So the entire day was just spent recovering from the trip. I took about a 1.5 hour nap in the afternoon. I’ve travelled much longer distances before, but I think this time is definitely most tiring. When I woke up, I was like in a daze. Suddenly all the muscles in the body remembered they were tired and overworked.
I think we had 11 oysters each, from The Line restaurant at Shangri-la Hotel. It's a big buffet with plenty of food.
Lunch at Lerk Thai some weekends ago.
