sad trombone

 the view from our walk to brekkie

This cute little trolley car was once iconic for Waikiki but doesn't run as often now, the service having been affected by good old covid,  this is the only time I've seen it. A lot of shop keepers have thanked us for coming back, I guess a place like this would have been terribly affected both economically and emotionally by covid but it seems to be rebounding now if the crowds are anything to go by. Mask wearing is varied, we wore ours inside and sometimes outside too because of the crowds, but there were a lot without masks. Many conversations started with "when I had covid ..." so perhaps there's a feeling of getting back to 'normal' when a large percentage of the population has had it, or perhaps it's just a longing for pre-covid freedoms.

Our sad trombone is for our farewells to my cheesecake-loving compatriot Erin, seen here enjoying our other love - butter bread

and also for our own packed luggage awaiting transport back to frosts, boring food and grandbabies whose feet will not touch the ground for a solid week.

I leave you dear readers with 3 things

1. If you're coming here don't eat for a month before-hand and then go straight to the cheesecake factory and have the s'mores

2. family is exhilarating and wonderful - cherish each other

3. 10 hours goes exponentially faster in Business class on the way to a holiday than in cattle on the way home

let the relaxing begin

the  view from my window this morning

and during the day

While MGM, Tony & Erin hiking up some pretty steep stairs and, it turns out, an unexpected very squeezy dimly lit tunnel, to Diamond Head I was looking out at this and drawing or reading. So the relaxing was more for me than the others but they caught up with me after lunch with a nap before swimming in that gorgeous, oh so warm water you can see out that window.

This relaxing idea did catch on though because that's pretty much what I did for two days (I think Tuesday & Wednesday - I am in that blissful holiday state of not knowing what day of the week it is).

For certain there has been more than two days worth of eating in my last 48 hours. It's both extremely pleasurable and slightly alarming, I'm just not sure how I will ever be able to manage without the Cheescake Factory in my life now. I mean look at these ones we had tonight (Wednesday)!

Lemon Meringue

      

S'mores (...S'MORES cheesecake I tell you)

We just pick our destinations at random and, with the notable aberration of an absolutely disastrous meal at IHOP, every place seems to be better than the last place (although PF Chang's remains the highlight). 

Tony found this pace for us and we all had salads but oh man what a salad ...

 This is what they call Beetroot salad!

Tony suggested Haggen Dazs was on our way home and we all groaned because ... soooo much food. Two of us did, however, joyfully succumb to the Hawaii way of over indulgence in delicious things

Brekki is good too, all the food is good. Don't make me come home to cook my own boring dinners pleeeease!

 

misty Pearl Harbour

the view from the [fishtank] window this morning 

feeding time, what a great job! and she was clearly enjoying herself too.

On this misty Monday morning, after a relaxed brekki at the cafe downstairs, where MGM confused the waitress by asking for a scone instead of a scOHne and she confused him by producing a blueberry rock cake and saying "your scOHne sir" (he had the good sense to take & eat it avoiding further confusion), we headed out to Pearl Harbour.

It's a pretty precinct with interesting American-centric (as you'd expect) museums. That line you can see is the the reserve line for the USS Arizona memorial so we opted out of that one, choosing instead to take the shuttle bus to the USS Missouri. 

Officially commissioned in 1944 and serving in WWII, the Korean conflict and the Gulf war this was the battle ship upon which Japan signed the papers that would end WWII. I am my engineer grandfather's girl at heart, I just love big machinery &, oh my goodness, this did not disappoint.

You'll be pleased to know I wore my best wire antenna headdress in honour of the occasion 

(honestly you just can't get good tourist-passer-by photography these day *eye roll) 

my fave view through a window today is from the captain's chair

The self-guided tour ranged all over the ship. It was so interesting to try an imagine what it would be like working, living with 2,000 others on this floating city whilst at war, when this was cutting edge tech, 80 odd years ago.

The below deck areas were as interesting to me as the massive ordinance and machinery above. How different some people's lives are. We really have no idea until we see something like this.

Not much sun today, but the misty rain kept us cool and probably kept the crowds down a bit.

On the way back to the girls, who didn't join us on the ship tour, we passed the aviation museum. This view from the bus window shows a tower originally being built, pre 1941, as a water tower. After the planes and ships were destroyed so efficiently by the Japanese in 1941 it was repurposed as an aviation watch tower.

We found Wendy and Erin where we left them and then reclaimed handbags, which we had to surrender (at cost mind you) before entering the complex. eeeeek I was not emotionally ready to separated from my handbag, (deep breaths, run back to get my glasses, deep breaths, panic a little about the other things I'd forgotten I could not do with out - this did not come up in my research, clearly I did not read the fine print. Okay I'm  calm now) before going to the next scariest experience of the day - the American shopping mall.

I mean this Ala Moana Centre is small city-sized

Some shopped, some napped, some blogged the afternoon away ... choice: the joy of holiday days.

North Shore day 2

 the view from my [train] window today

Apparently it is a crime to come to the Dole plantation as we did yesterday and not part take of the famous Dole whip. I was chastised to this extent on a number of fronts so we returned today to remedy this gross misdemeanour and I am not to proud to say that, yes Jo and others you were 100% correct it was worth the return visit. We really enjoyed this little relaxing and informative train trip around the plantation. Who knew this was how pineapples arrived on our tables?!

And yes this stuff ... ummm so yum

so let me explain this last pic. This is my eldest Bec. She loves Hawaii. She loves her cousin. She can't quite wrap her head around the fact that Erin is here without her so I this is the next best thing, Bec comes to dinner etc. by proxy with us via this photo complete with glitter photos stand. We're exceptionally odd, us Allans, but to be fair the Bests did not bat an eye lid when I produced this pic for our first meal. they just said "this would be a better angle for the photo"

The next thing we did not do to acceptable standards yesterday was lunch. Food trucks are essential it seems and we're nothing if not compliant travellers so it was off to find a delicious lunch that we went after our delicious ice-cream breakfast. thanks to Yelp we found this deliciousness where we purchased our garlic butter shrimp (comes with rice salad and pineapple) and took it to the seaside, albeit past some scaryish murdery parts of town to enjoy

MGM was worried but this turned out to be okay

look at at the lava flow beach - bit ouchy on the feet I reckon

the weather was coming in so we headed home for a nap

Well MGM napped I did this

before we went out to Wendy's (no I'm not talking in the 3rd person - my SIL's) birthday dinner at the absolutely delightful PJ Changs. SO . GOOD.

How swish does it look!

I had the best smoked old fashioned (well two actually)

the service and the food was TDF, just look at this delicious cake

 and fortune cookies! hurrah!

I love the walking to and from for dinner and the people you meet. This lady was so happy to talk to us and let us pet her little Jack Russell, who actually rides on this scooter and surfs on a surf board. What a great happy holiday place this Hawaii is.

 

North Shore road tripping

 Today's view from the [car] window

This countryside, with it's red volcanic soil paddocks, dramatically craggy mountains and consistently blue skies was very entertaining on our North Shore road trip today.

First stop, the Dole Plantation where, thanks to Mr early riser we arrived 40 mins before opening so had enough time to visit a local coffee bean farm and partake of their fine fare before returning for a quick visit.

This place is massive, a maze, beautiful lush gardens and a working pineapple plantation. 

Back on the road we discovered that our journey was going to be made slightly more interesting with crowds and diversions for some sort of local sporting event, a triathlon  maybe. Mike suggested we follow a sign to an historic village sounded fun, however. the traffic was such that we drove through this not uninteresting little town at a pace that allowed him to step out of the passenger seat to assist some locals catch a poor little scared puppy (cutest thing you ever saw) without Tony having to pull over. Our daughter Emily would have been so proud of his efforts to keep that puppy from running into traffic.

At this point I'm pretty sure we drove in a circle, I wasn't driving and am in awe of anyone who can drive on the righthand side of the road, so I didn't mention it. When we were back on the move the scenery was so beautiful. Most spots were pretty crowded but Wendy spotted this and made the "photo stop!" call. Excellent call.

ooooft finally some waves (surprisingly flat out the front of the hotel) and the water was sooo warm and delightful I nearly went in fully clothed (but did not), instead

we designated a touching rock for Bec

                We had lunch at the Kualoa ranch and admired the Jurassic park scenery. 

Then drove home admiring more mountains,

some of us swam, some of us napped the afternoon away. 

We waded through massive crowds, wow there's a lot of people here, at the night markets to not have turkey or onion rings at IHOP for dinner