Triscribe

Category: Honolulu

  • Hard Sell

    The package included a free breakfast, which we were shuttled to. It turned out to be the vacation equivilent of a timeshare lecture. What a hard sell. At least we got out of there by 9. We went to the Maui Divers center, where they make Hawaiian coral jewelry. Very very nice.

    We drove out to Pearl Harbor, going to the Arizona and Missouri memorials. Very moving to have gone on All Souls Day. Arizona marked the beginning of World War II with more than a thousand hands lost on board. Missouri is the Pacific version of the Intrepid; the Japanese surrendered on its deck at the end of World War II.

    Driving back, we got stuck on the highway during rush hour. We got off at Chinatown; it was mostly closed by the time we got there, but we had some good Vietnamese food. It was way too much food. Afterwards, we were trying to find the Sony Expo at the Ala Moana Hotel; instead we were snagged at the Ala Moana shopping center, the largest open air mall in the US. It’s already Christmas (Mele Kalikimaka) season here, so everything was out. There’s a supermarket in the rear of the mall, where we loaded up on cheap fruit drinks and water.

  • Cloudy Arrival

    The clouds were ominious when we arrived. Dark, swift clouds contrasted deeply with a bright sunset. We arrived at Honolulu to be greeted by an American Airlines staffer with lei. We had no idea that our super discount package included it. We were totally dazed – the 12 hour flight made those butt-in-seat miles really do a number to the tail bones, and there was a Hawaiian couple with 2 young kids that were bobbing around the whole trip. It was a good thing that we swapped seats with them. The movie was “Must Love Dogs”, which wasn’t that hot either.

    The compact car that we got was a full sized Impala, which was more than enough car for what we wanted. We checked in and got upgraded to an ocean view room on the 23rd floor – which was nice and quiet, but I knew this going in that an ocean-view room doesn’t really mean much in the dark.

    We were starving when we arrived, so we went to the sushi buffet known as Todai. The air conditioning wasn’t working, but it just meant that they got the fish out there much faster (their chilling tables were working). Really really good – we were stuffed.

    Hit the mandatory ABC store to get supplies, and then passed out.