Hawaii

The Windward Coast, Oahu

Posted on September 30, 2018 by julieallen36

Kailu Beach

Lanikai Beach castle

Paddle board paradise

Marchers

Late afternoon, Lanikai

Dog On Board

Mayor Mary Mare

Most decorative 💩 bin

Hello there!

Hulla girls

Nice board!

Lanikai lazy

Wow

Surfer dude

Kailua heaven

Aloha Queen

Today we woke up very early again which was good because we could watch a bit of the Ryder Cup live and as we needed to go and collect our car rental at 8am. We picked up a Kona coffe from the cafe downstairs from our AirBnB and then went to the Enterprise offices also downstairs. This is the best place to stay! After some bureaucracy and Jane getting the slight hump about the cost of insurance, the nice man took us upstairs to the car park. I made a joke about the white Porsche being our car but then couldn’t believe our luck when he went no we are looking for a small car…how about this one? He was pointing at the most gorgeous red , soft top Beetle!!! I thought he was joking then I was so excited when he said he wasn’t! I was all discombobulated and so it was a good job we weren’t driving off just yet.

Instead we were heading upto Kalakaua Avenue to watch the Aloha week Floral parade. This is one of the main streets here in Waikiki with lots of big hotels and posh shops. We had to hang about quite a bit in the heat (it was only 9am) because as the policeman told me, they were operating on Hawaiian time. Whilst we waited we discovered our new favourite store, Coco Cove, where we’d come back later and pick up supplies for the day…including beach mats, sandwiches, fresh pineapple, cuddly pineapple and my $14.99 boogie board. We were all set …

Anyway, eventually the road closed and the parade began. It was very sweet with marching bands, Hawaiian queens on horse back with beautiful floral decorations. Even the mayor was on a horse. There was a bit of a lack of hula girls but generally it was all very nice and bits of it brought a lump to the throat (overtired) including the Little League (baseball) World Series Champions 2018 and Brook Lee , Miss Universe 1997!

I understood, from the tattooed local I’d made friends with in the pool the day before, that there would be representations from all of the Hawaiian islands and we hadn’t even left Honolulu yet. So we left them to it and headed back to Seaside Avenue and after a spot of lunch we got in the car to make our way over to the Windward Coast. I was rather nervous of driving as it had been sometime since I’d driven in the US. To help find our way around here we’d included Sat Nav in our rental but this just made it all the more stressful and she was rather shouty and insistent. I did initially make some school girl errors to do with red lights and getting in the wrong lanes and momentarily forgetting which side of the road I should be on! Jane took this all very calmly…not! Hahaha. Anyway, after a while I got use to it and by the time we reached the scenic lookout all was well with the world. We had headed up the Pali Highway into the misty, clouded mountains. The scenery was stunning…very dramatic and some beautiful pine trees we’d never seen before.

After this little stop we dropped down into Kailua to try and find the beach. Here the Sat Nav lady was worse than useless but eventually we found a little car park and waited for a space to free up. We walked onto the beach…and it was indeed absolutely beautiful. Kailua Beach is about two miles long of soft, white sand and lovely turquoise sea with gentle surf. It wasn’t even crowded and I was straight into the sea with my new board. I LOVED it. I soon found, that I still had the skills mastered when I was about 14 with a wooden board, down at Trebarwith Strand in Cornwall. It was great fun. You might wonder what Jane was upto all this time. Well, the sea was a bit too much for her and she was generally trying to avoid the sand!!!

After a couple of hours here we were back in the car, now with the roof down and feeling like Thelma and Louise and heading to our next stop. However, what we came across next was the actual Kailua Beach Park which was probably where I’d intended us to stop. It had a much bigger car park and we wandered down to the beach here to take a look. It was much more sheltered and the sea calmer and there was more shade from the pine trees. There were lots of families at this part of the beach.

Next stop was what we’d been looking for, Lanikai Beach. This was a beautiful spot..in fact all around here the development is low rise and really lovely. The beach here is narrow but very idyllic with its palm trees and tropical islands in the background. By now it was quite late and the sea was a lovely sky blue colour and really clear. But overal, I’d really enjoyed where we’d based ourselves with the surf.

We headed back to the city which is only about a 40mins drive. After a refreshing shower we headed out for dinner and a shot glass at the Hard Rock Cafe. What another fabulous day!

Categories: Hawaii | Tags: Hawaii, Oahu, Sharks Cove, Windward Coast | 3 Comments

Aloha Waikiki!

Posted on September 29, 2018 by julieallen36

After our long journey we finally arrived at Honolulu Airport and caught our SpeediTranfser bus to our Airbnb. I’m pleased to report that this is quite splendid and Olivier our host has been very helpful so far. We are in an apartment on the 20th floor of this big tower block called the Island Colony. The room itself is fine and we have a great balcony overlooking the Ala Wai canal, some other tower blocks and with a partial view to the sea. There are also views beyond to the lush green mountains which were shrouded in smokey clouds.

It was stiflingly hot and humid yesterday when we arrived and so we decided to just spend the day relaxing locally. We went down to our pool which felt lovely to swim in and then did some shopping at the mini mart shop also on the 6th floor. It gradually clouded over more and more and eventually there was even a bit of rain and thunder.

We were started to struggle a bit with jet lag so we decided to head out for early tea at the Cheesecake Factory. This turned out to be a huge , busy place on Kalakaua Avenue just two blocks from our Airbnb. We had a drink at the bar whilst we waited. I had a Pineapple Mojitos and Jane had a Longboat lager. For dinner we just had a Hawaiian pizza to share and then we each had our own cheesecake. I had mango key lime pie cheesecake and Jane had pumpkin and almond cheesecake. They were very sickly and we had to ask for about half of both to be boxed up.

The next day we woke up terribly early still due to the fact that I turned the air con back on and it was very noisy. So by 5-30 we were up and drinking tea. We phaffed about quite a bit getting very hot in the apartment but eventually we set off for our walk along Waikiki Beach. We started off by catching the Number 20 bus to the Honolulu Aquarium. When we arrived here the views to the sea and beach opened up and so we walked across the park to take a closer look. It really was quite stunningly beautiful with all shades of blue in the sea and sky.

Anyway after Jane thought she was going to be eaten alive by red ants that got on her shoe, we went to visit the fishes. It was really good and we enjoyed seeing all the things in the tanks that we hope to see for real through our own masks next!

After watching the nice man feed his Hawaiian Monk seal, we started our walk back to the busy part of Waikiki. It was absolutely stunning despite slightly iffy weather. We watched surfers and body boarders and even saw some fish whilst standing on one pier.

Eventually, we came to the statue of Duke , the founding King of surfing and decided it was time for a drink. So we wandered into the Outrigger Hotel and found Dukes barefoot bar . We had lovely cold beers and Shane spotted that we were actually hungry so we ate here too, sharing quesadillas and salad.

This seems to me to be a very odd thing here. Basically anyone can wander into these hotels and enjoy the facilities and to prove the point later on, we went into the pink palace that is the Royal Hawaiian village and found the Mai Tai bar . I went for a swim in the beautiful surf here and then joined Jane for a Mai Tai . Well I had to didn’t i?!

I must admit I hadn’t expected to like Waikiki , thinking it would be way too busy and commercial, by actually I love it . After this we went back to our place and cooled down in the pool. What a fab day.

Categories: Hawaii | Tags: Hawaii, Honolulu, Oahu | 6 Comments

Staying in da hood LA.

Posted on September 28, 2018 by julieallen36

Quite a journey to get all the way here to Honolulu! Seems like we have been travelling for three days. Luckily it’s all been pretty pain free up to now. (Touch wood…). Clear journey down to Heathrow and a nice stay at the Crowne Plaza ..despite not upgrading to club class there Dave! Made pleasant use of their wine bar and the Indian restaurant although afterwards thought this not the ideal preparation for a long distance flight…

Woke early the next morning to catch the shuttle bus to airport and whilst checking in were persuaded by the machine to upgrade our seats for extra legroom. It turned out the Virgin flight was half empty so not only could we upgrade but also we could have a spare seat in the middle of us. This was a great result as the flight was then extremely comfortable. Watched lots of movies on the plane to while away the ten plus hours flight time.

We arrived at Los Angeles airport and even customs and immigration checks were very painless so we were soon in a yellow cab going to our hotel. It’s was only something like 10-30 in the morning. We were staying at the Diamond Inn. It was a bit of a rough Diamond . Classic old style American motel…the sort you get in Dexter where it generally turns into a crime scene. I stood watching an army of ants parade up a plant all the way out of the rubbish bin as Jane checked in. It wasn’t promising to see the man spraying the rooms with imsecticide but perhaps even worse to hear the man shouldn’t bother with our room. The decor was more Huggy Bear than Dexter mind you. I particularly liked the sign that said you could upgrade to a jacuzzi room but on this occasion we didn’t get pulled in.

After a short rest we were on our mission to stay awake until 8pm. This is Janes theory for preventing Jet lag ie you must stay awake not just given in the the urge to sleep. To help with this Jane had arranged to meet up with Sonya her friend from the Legal ombudsman, who had recently moved back to LA. Sonya came and picked us up and drove us across town to the Manhattan and Hermosa beaches. It was very lovely and busy with locals ..not tourists. We went for Happy Hour at Hennessys Irish bar and had drinks and something to eat. It was all very sociable and I think we coped with the tiredness well.

Sonya told us that she lived not far from where we are staying and said it really was a bit of a ‘hood’ what with the Harley bike gangs, the prostitutes and their pimps and of course the drug dealers. Lovely.

Anyway it all passed off rather uneventfully and worked v well in terms of staying awake. We slept pretty well and then the next day continued our travels onto Honolulu with another 5hr 25 mins flight.