May 30th, 2019
We took an early shuttle from Long Beach to Los Angeles Airport for our next flight. We saw cousin Taylor on the plane as she had our same flight to Australia. I had not seen her since Argentina, and it was good to catch up. Unfortunately, she had badly re-sprained her ankle in California and had a brace on that was pretty uncomfortable. She modified her travel plans to spend time in Hawaii and then go back to South America. After six hours in the air we landed in beautiful Oahu, Hawaii.
We had booked a hotel room close to the airport so we could take advantage of their free shuttle service. Upon landing we were reminded of “island time” as everything seemed to take forever (we were sitting on the ground an hour before we could get off the plane, then it took forever to get our luggage). I remembered that when I traveled to Hawaii before, it usually took a couple days to adjust to “island time” and slow down since we are so used to rushing around a million miles an hour. After getting our bags we said goodbye to Taylor and went to our hotel.
We didn’t stay long in the room because I had planned to go to Diamond Head so we could hike to the top and get the pretty views of the island and city. Uber was a bit expensive so fortunately we were able to figure out the city bus system and get to Diamond Head that way. The only problem was that it took a long time to get there, and they stop letting people hike up at 4:30pm. We finally made it to the trailhead at 5:15pm and I was trying not to be disappointed if we couldn’t go to the top. Much to my surprise the guy at the ticket booth said if we hurry and go really fast, he would let us go. This was a time I gave thanks for the island’s laid-back approach to time. We paid the $1 entrance fee and started rushing to the top. With the temperature somewhere in the mid 80’s, we were not used to hiking in such heat & humidity. Brendan gave me a look like ‘are we really doing this’ when I started off at a speed walking/jogging pace. It was short though and we made it to the top in 17 minutes! The cool part was that we had the top and the view point to ourselves as we were so close to closing time. After taking in the beautiful views we headed down at a much more enjoyable speed.
At the bottom we caught a bus to Waikiki. I found a coupon book at a bus stop and we decided to try a restaurant that advertised a free ceviche appetizer. It was a really cute rooftop restaurant right downtown and the free ceviche was excellent.
We were starving as it had been a rush to get to Diamond Head and we had not eaten since the snack on the plane that morning. We also shared a huge burrito which filled us up. After the restaurant we went to the beach for an evening stroll.
We also walked around the city streets in Honolulu. The city and the beach were very nice. We had not been to this island previously and it was cool checking out a new place. We walked until we were exhausted and then caught a bus back to the hotel getting in after 10:00pm which was 1:00am in our bodies. I was so tired; I fell asleep on the bus and luckily Brendan was looking out and woke me up at our stop.