Aloha From Hawaii

Aloha everyone! As mom stated in her comment, we've made it safely on Oahu. No big problems with the travel yesterday with the exception of David having some head/cabin pressure issues during our last leg. I will make a note to myself not to drink a huge thing of OJ in the morning before any future flights. I swear I had to keep using the lavatory during our first flight. And it was the kind of thing where you had to go NOW. It's not that big of an issue but when you have to make two people move so that you can get out of your seat, that's not cool. We were about 1/2 hour late into Phoenix so we raced to get something to eat and to our connecting flight.

We made it fine and the second leg of the trip was fine. No bathroom problems and we were right near the lavatory so when I did have to go I didn't have to travel far. We were well into our flight when the flight attendant told us that we were in the "chosen seats" and that anything we wanted to drink would be at no charge. Shoot, wished she had let us know earlier. Come to find out since we had the backs to the lavatory and couldn't lean back, but the people in front of us could, we had "crappy" seats with very little room. Ah, didn't bother us none, but I took her up on the offer and had a nice glass of wine. Heck, I'm on vacation. I probably shouldn't have drank though. Right after finishing the glass we hit turbulence. With me being a light-weight with the whole drinking thing, not having anything too substantial in my stomach, and the turbulence, the room started spinning. I didn't feel sick but it did make me laugh and made my head heavy. Upon descent David started to have the pressure issues. He's had the problem before so he started to use the earplugs called Earplanes. They have helped in the past but it wasn't the case this time. It's almost as though his head's about to burst and it even effects his nerves. Weird. He's a bit better today but still battling a slight headache.

Hawaii greeted us with rain. Boo. The sun wasn't shining at all. And we found everything to be outside. Basically the open-air type of thing, including the airport. We got our car and received an "upgrade." We were supposed to have an Aveo-type of car but ended up with a VW Bug Convertible. Pretty cool, but when there's high crime in the area and you can hardly fit your luggage in it, it's not that cool. And we can't even figure out the darn thing. In all honesty I think the thing's broken. Ah well, we didn't find that out until about a 1/2 hour ago and even if we had figured it out at the rental place, nothing would have changed. The whole rental car place was crazy. The guy was handing out upgrades left and right mostly because they didn't have the capabilties to give you anything else. Our gain, I guess.

We hit the road and got stuck in their rush hour traffic. It took us forever to get to our hotel. I had everything mapped and planned out but that totally went out the window. Needless to say once again we have found that we wouldn't be good on Amazing Race. It's not that we were yelling at each other but we were just done. If you think about it, it was about 10pm (eastern time) when we were trying to get to our hotel. Add on top of that no food, a LONG plane ride, and David's head issue, it pushes you over the edge. During our long wait on the highway we came to realize that Hawaii wasn't really what we expected. It's not all paradise and beach for sure. To get from the airport to Waikiki you have to go through some slums. Very sad. We should be desensitized to it considering we've lived in that type of area with New Orleans and all, but I think that's what actually brings it to light even more. You're aware of it more, considering you've been exposed to it. Once you hit Waikiki it gets much nicer.

After getting to our hotel, check-in was a breeze and our room's nice. Small, but nice. We wanted to crash but since it was only 5pm here we decided it might not be that good of an idea. We unpacked our things and headed out to find food. Once again, all of my planning went out the window and we ended up eating at Denny's. How unadventurous is that? People will ask, "What did you do in Hawaii?" And we get to say, "Eat at Denny's." Great. At that point we didn't want to go far and we wanted something in our stomachs. After that we adventured out to check out some of the area. As expected there's a VERY high Asian population here....both tourist and local. The shops are pretty cool. Mostly t-shirt shacks or high-end type of stores. We got a few things for friends, family, and us. We were several blocks away from our hotel when it decided to rain. We're not talking about just rain...it was pouring. Hard. We waited, only to find that it wasn't going to slow down so we ended up running to our hotel...good thing I picked up some running skills in the past few months. By the time we got to our hotel we were soaked. It's so humid that by this morning our clothes still weren't dry. After that we hit the sack.

Sleeping was okay but I'm still on eastern time. At 5am here our bodies decided it was time to be awake and so we were. It was still wet and humid outside. We ended up going to the Aloha Swap meet and the Aloha Stadium. That was an enjoyable, cheap time. While there David got his one and only Hawaiian shirt. We also got some local-made jelly. Mmm Mmm good. It's amazing. We then got some fresh pineapple with something on it. I'm not sure what it was but that guy told us it was the best and that we had to try it. If we didn't like it he'd give us our money back. Oh my gosh. That stuff was good. So juicy. Amazing.

Following the swap meet we headed to the Ala Moana Shopping Center to park and the walked to downtown Honolulu to sight see and take pictures. FYI it's a much longer walk than you'd think. We were exhausted by the time we got back and it was time to eat. Why not look for PF Changs? Shoot. We got lost. Again. But this time we were on foot. At this point I started to get cranky but David kept me going. I think we were looking for it for 1-1 1/2 hours. Once again, we were still on foot. I love my crocs, but they can only do so much. It was also hot and humid with the sun shining. After taking so many wrong turns and asking a ton of people, we finally found it. It was yummy as always. We then headed back to the Ala Moana Center, walked around, headed back to our hotel, and now here I am. We're not sure what the rest of the day holds. Maybe a trip to the beach if the rain holds off. Yeah, by the way, our forecast shows rain all week. What the heck?!

As stated previously so far this vacation isn't really what we had expected. We're not really sure what we expected though. Our experience thus far isn't bad it's just not what we expected. It's been a true adventure. I'm definitely looking forward to checking out the rest of the island, especially the north shore. I wonder what surprises it will hold. David's patiently waiting for me to finish the post so I better get going. See ya'll later!