Waikiki Beach

Today was a planning/exploring day. We slept in, went for breakfast, then did some planning and then went exploring and found the beach. This is Waikiki Beach. That's Diamond Head behind John there. It was really bright and I couldn't see the screen on the camera very well, and John lost his feet.

Turns out, we're not that far from the beach, though I still think including "beach" in the name of the hotel is false advertising. It's a less than 10 minute walk, and it's so nice and warm and sunny here, with just the right amount of breeze, that walking is fun.

After we found the beach, we went back to the hotel, changed into our suits and went back to play in the ocean. As were were both actually IN the ocean, no one took any pictures of that part. We tried body surfing, but wherever we went, the waves moved over just next to where we were. I'm not kidding, it's like we killed the ocean. We swam and goofed off and then sat in the sun and dried off a bit. It's very shallow in the water. I was able to stand up with my head above the water about 200 ft offshore (John's estimate) and there were people standing up farther out that that.

On the way back to the hotel we saw lots of pretty hibiscus in different colors. We have pinky-purple hibiscus in our yard at home, but after we get back, I might try to get some of these other colors. They're so pretty! And the hummingbirds like them. And I like hummingbirds. I took pictures of them. And other pretty flowers we saw around the pool. Here's a pretty yellow hibiscus.

When we got back, we had a fun video chat with the kids, though we couldn’t get the microphone to work on their end, so we used the speaker phone setting on the cell phone and the video on the computer. It was fun to talk to them.

Right after talking to the kids, we decided we were hungry. We had a late breakfast, so we didn’t eat lunch, just a snack in the afternoon. We ate at the Top of Waikiki Restaurant. Here’s the web site if you’re interested: http://www.topofwaikiki.com. The restaurant rotates around so you get a 360-degree view all around. Except for whatever is behind the kitchen. We had a very nice time there. I had a mahi mahi dish with risotto and grilled asparagus, which was really tasty, and John had a pasta dish with a macadamia nut pesto. We had a mango panna cotta for dessert, which we both thought was wonderful.

I took some pictures on my phone of the different views we had, but for some reason my computer won’t let me import them. It says it’s an unknown file format, even though they’re JPEG, and the computer says their JPEG. Whatever. No pictures for now.

John's going to put in some work time during these extra days so he can get some of his vacation days back to use around Christmas. But next week, he's totally on vacation. I'm planning to sit by the pool (there's a waterfall, and pretty flowers, and it's so peaceful) and read a book. Or nap. I'm not sure yet.

One thing I've noticed is that everything is open here. The shopping centers/malls don't have doors, the hallways are just open to the street, all the stores either have no doors or the doors are wide open. And there are no flies! You'd think with weather like this the place would be swarming with flies. I'm not complaining. It's desperately aggressive fly season back in California and I hate desperately aggressive fly season.

I forgot to mention, in case anyone cares, that the movie on the plane was Harry Potter 6. I watched some of it. And some of it I didn't watch. I was tired, I napped. And they fed us. We had pan-seared mahi mahi in some kind of lemony sauce, with salad and cooked spinach and what might have been mashed potatoes (it may be first class airline food, but it's still airline food). For dessert we had carrot cake, and later on, fresh baked warm chocolate chip cookies and cold milk.

I'm never going to be able to fly coach again.