Oahu, Hawai'i: Part Two
I’d normally do some lengthy little intro here, but let’s just hop right back into it. Here’s part two of my trip to Honolulu!:
Thursday, February 13
DAY SIX: WHALE WATCHING & SHOPPING
Thursday morning was a bit of a slower start since I booked us to go on a whale watching expedition which didn’t start until 11am, so when we woke up that morning, we decided to take it slow, have some breakfast in the Airbnb, and do a little bit of laundry. It was a pretty uneventful morning, but it was nice to take a bit of a break considering we had pretty much been go-go-go since we got there.
We got to the marina just before 11am, checked in with the cruise company, Atlantis Adventures - which I might add, also does freaking submarine tours! - and then we waited on the boat until around 11:30am when we left to go find some whales. The boat tour lasted about 2.5 hours, and while we did see some whales, we unfortunately didn’t see a ton. My guess is that it was pretty hot the day we went out, and whales can in fact get sunburned, so I imagine they were hanging out in the deeper water to stay cool that day, and weren’t feeling as energetic as they might any other day. While we didn’t get too see too many humpbacks, we did happen to catch a glimpse of a sea turtle poking his head out of the water, which made me really excited since I’ve never seen a real sea turtle before. By the time we were done and back in the marina, it was about 2pm, so we decided to get the bus back into the Waikiki area, and we checked out the Honolulu Patagonia store, where we both got Pataloha shirts, exclusive to the Hawaiian stores.
After we spent some time (and money) in the Patagonia store, we decided to take a walk to the Queen Whole Foods so I could get some more Beyond Meat Beyond Sausages (yes, they were that good), and while on our way, we found a big beautiful mural that said Aloha, which of course I took some photos of and in front of (anything for the gram!). Later in the evening, we ended up back at The Ala Moana Center because I needed a couple of things at Target, and then we had a generally pretty relaxing evening since the next day, we were heading up to the North Shore for a day trip.
Friday, February 14
DAY SEVEN: HALE’IWA — THE NORTH SHORE
We got up pretty early this morning, and we were out the door by 6:45am since the bus to Hale’iwa from Honolulu is about 2 hours. We grabbed some good old Taco Bell breakfast, and made our way to the bus to get up to the North Shore. After a couple of hours, and some seriously beautiful scenery of the mountains on Oahu, we got to Hale’iwa. Both my boyfriend & I agreed the moment we got there that we wished we would’ve gotten an Airbnb there for a day so we could’ve spent more time there enjoying the beaches & less tourists.
We started the day off at Waimea Bay, which we ended up climbing down the side of a hill to get to because we couldn’t find the entrance, and frankly, just really wanted to get on the sand and in the water. The beach was absolutely beautiful, though busy, had significantly less tourists than Waikiki Beach, and was definitely frequented by more locals. I’m not exactly the strongest swimmer, and the current that day was absolutely wicked, so whenever I spent time in the water, I made sure I was with my boyfriend, clinging to him as an anchor. When I say the current was strong, it was that kind of water that dragged you out, and knocked you over hard when you were trying to get out. I ended up with fists-full of sand in my swimsuit, and a bunch even got in the lining. There’s no doubt to me that I accidentally brought some of that sand back home in the lining of my swimsuit. After a couple of hours, we were both pretty tired from swimming in the strong current, and decided to pack up for the day, and go back into Hale’iwa.
In the afternoon, we stopped at Kua Aina for fries & a burger for lunch, and then ventured out to do a little shopping. I popped into Mahina, which I know I haven’t mentioned yet, but this was the third Mahina I’d been to on the island (they have six locations on Oahu - Waikiki, Hale’iwa, Kahala, Kailua, South Shore and Ko Olina, and locations on Kauai, Maui & the Big Island). I can’t tell you enough how beautiful their clothing is, so if you’re heading to any of those islands, I insist you check them out! After I went to Mahina, and did some damage, we snacked on some shave ice from the infamous Matsumoto’s Shave Ice, where we got the Hawaiian Combination of banana, coconut & pineapple. It basically was like eating frozen sugar, so if you’ve got a sweet tooth, I’m sure you’ll love shave ice! After we had our snack, and watched a wild island rooster roam around for a bit, we took a walk down to the Patagonia in Halei’wa as my boyfriend was desperate to find a shirt that was specific to this store, and happy ending - he got it. Once we finished up there, we took a walk down the street to Wow Wow Hawaiian Lemonade, and wow indeed. We both got the Strawberry Pineapple Lemonade, and holy it was the best lemonade I’ve ever had! I almost didn’t buy a jar, but my mom asked me to get her one, so I did. I’m so happy she asked me to get one because I definitely would’ve regretted not bringing one home! I also made a little lizard friend while we were in there! He was the cutest little thing ever. After we finished sipping on our lemonade, it was around 3pm, and we were both exhausted, so we made our way back into Honolulu on another 2 hour bus ride.
Saturday, February 15
DAY EIGHT: HANAUMA BAY
Saturday morning we got up nice and early again and made our way to Hanauma Bay bright and early, just after 7am. If you plan on going snorkeling at Hanauma Bay, I’d suggest getting there early in the morning, around 7am (they open at 6am), as when we got there, there wasn’t too many people, but when we were leaving, there was probably 10 times as many people waiting from when we got there! When you get to Hanauma Bay, you have to watch a 10-minute video about conservation of the reef, as the bay is a protected area, along with some safety instructions, like where not to swim, and so on. After you get through the video, you make your way down the hill to the bay.
When you get to the bottom, there are locker rentals which was super convenient so you can leave your phone and valuables in a locker while you’re snorkeling without any worries. So we did just this, and headed to the beach. Hanauma Bay is truly breath taking, with waves crashing within the rocks of the bay further out, what had to be about 20 feet tall. Once we got our reef-safe sunscreen on, and our snorkel gear all attached to our faces, we got into the water and started checking out all of the fish and coral. Since I’m not a super strong swimmer, I didn’t go very far out but you don’t have to to see the fish! We saw probably 5 or 6 different type of fish, and because I had a waterproof case, I got some photos of them. I had a bit of a hard time with my mask suctioning onto my face, so I struggled with keeping myself under water for longer than like 5 seconds, but it was still super cool to see all of the fish swimming around you, and I’d definitely recommend everyone check it out if you’re heading to Honolulu.
After we finished up our snorkeling adventure around 10am, we took an Uber back to our Airbnb, and took a well deserved nap. We were both exhausted! You wouldn’t believe how much energy it takes to constantly be swimming until you do it. We just hung around the Airbnb for the afternoon, off and on napping, and taking it easy until our dinner reservation at the Maui Brewing Company later that night. I’m not sure if it was the palm trees, ocean breeze or if it was truly the best plate of nachos I’ve ever had, but wow, they had the best nachos I’ve ever had! Truly a testament to the whole you don’t need a ton of toppings for something to be delicious.
Sunday, February 16
DAY NINE: BACK TO THE BEACH
As we were nearing the end of our trip, we took it a lot easier the last few days given that we’d done a lot of what we wanted to do earlier in the week, and we also were pretty tired from being on the go the entire time we were there. We started the day off with heading back to the beach in the morning, and spent a good chunk of the morning there just enjoying the sun, the sand and watching the surfers, while dipping our toes in the water from time to time to stay cool. We also brought some snacks and drinks along with us to have a mini picnic on the beach. When we were beached out after a couple of hours, we went back to the Airbnb and took yet another nap. I’m not kidding when I say we were pretty exhausted by the end of this trip. We were both up really early, and asleep relatively early too, and on average were walking between 15,000-20,000 steps a day. For someone like me, who works at a desk all day, it was a lot of physical exercise that my body was definitely not used to!
As I was about to doze off for a nap, we suddenly hear a blaring alarm going off saying there was an emergency in the building and we needed to evacuate. Long story short, we grabbed our important documents, and headed for the stairs… all 38 floors of them. We got to the bottom, to be greeted by a security guard telling us there was no emergency, but someone pulled the fire alarm. I was pretty annoyed, but thankful there was no actual emergency. We headed back up, my legs sore as anything, and I decided I definitely deserved that nap now. Once we woke up from our nap, I noticed my tip for my waiter from the night before still hadn’t come off my card, so we first stopped at CB Prime for dinner, and then walked back down to the Maui Brewing Company so I could give my waiter a cash tip. He happened to be working and appreciated the gesture so much, and my conscious was at ease knowing he got his tip. (Plot twist, I got home and the tip had finally come off my card, so he got a really good tip! Haha) After we checked out the T Galleria Mall which was a completely duty-free mall of almost entirely designer stores that we could not afford, even duty free, haha!
Monday, February 17
DAY TEN: EXPLORING WAIKIKI & A NEW TATTOO!
Monday morning started off with doing a little bit of cleaning up, knowing this was our last full day, and no matter how hard you try, sand. gets. everywhere. After doing some vacuuming and tidying up, I finished off the remaining food in the fridge, and we headed out on our last full day of adventure. For some reason, and I’m not sure why, we walked all the way down to Waikiki Beach, decided we wanted to go back to the beach one last time before we left, went back to the Airbnb, got changed, went back to Waikiki Beach, and we hung out in the waters there for about an hour or so, just soaking up the last time we were gonna be in the pacific ocean waters for who knows how long. After that, we walked back to the Airbnb again, but this time on our way back, I stopped at a tattoo parlor to ask some questions about pricing, if they took credit, and what not. I was determined to get a little tattoo before I left Honolulu. I got my answers, and decided to come back in a couple of hours.
We got changed & showered, and went back out again, back to the same area, but to check out the International Marketplace. We shopped around in there for a little bit, but didn’t end up buying much (I was pretty much at my maximum spending limit I could bring back home, courtesy of the ABC Stores & Mahina) So we once again, headed back to our Airbnb. We relaxed for a little bit, but my boyfriend decided he wanted to go get some Japanese food, so I told him while he did that, I’d go get my tattoo. And that’s exactly what we did! We finished our final full day off with sunset drinks at the Mai Tai Bar in the Royal Hawaiian again, and we happened to get lucky that there was a luau happening on the grass right beside the bar! Luau’s are about $100USD, cheapest, per person, so we decided we weren’t going to bother trying to go, so it was kind of like a little blessing that we decided to go to that bar that night. It was absolutely amazing to watch the hula & fire dancers, hear the traditional Hawaiian songs, and frankly, see all of the traditional tattoos on the male dancers! If you’re going to Hawaii, just invest in going to see a luau. It’s worth it!
Tuesday, February 18
DAY ELEVEN: EXPLORING & FLYING HOME
Our last day in Honolulu. This place was truly so beautiful, and amazing, I was devastated that our trip was actually ending today. The vacation flew by, and we didn’t even get to do everything we wanted. We got up and headed to a local restaurant called Eggs ‘n Things for our final Hawaiian breakfast, which was super delicious, and I’d definitely recommend it to anyone! Once again, you want to get there pretty early because a line starts really fast.
After breakfast, we gathered up the last of our things at the Airbnb, brought our luggage down to security to hold for us, and officially checked out of our room by 10am. We were now, as my boyfriend likes to call it, in our homeless phase. We ended up having a pretty uneventful morning. We started off by walking back to The Ala Moana Center, checking out stores, keeping ourselves busy for a couple of hours, and then we popped into the Foodland Farms, which was like, the most extra grocery store I’ve ever seen, but so incredible. We hung around in there for a couple of hours while my boyfriend got a sandwich and a beer. We then decided to head back to the International Marketplace, and grabbed a couple of beers at a restaurant called Mi Almita Cantina.
After we ate, we walked around for a little bit, and then all hell broke loose. We got an email saying our flight was delayed two hours from 11:30pm to 1:15am, which meant we were going to miss our connecting flight home. Essentially, we rushed back to the Airbnb, got our luggage and headed straight to the airport at 6:30pm. We got there and there was no one from our airline there, so we called and got re-booked onto a later flight home. Long story short, our flight from Honolulu didn’t leave until 2:30am, making a 5 hour flight to Vancouver from there incredibly exhausting. But I guess I can’t say that our vacation didn’t have a little adventure towards the end with the fire alarm incident & the delayed flight!
I hope everyone enjoyed reading all about my Honolulu adventures. It truly was a magical trip, and Hawai'i is truly something so, so special that I believe everyone should experience at some point in their lives. The photos I took don’t even begin to do the beauty of the island any justice, and it’s just something you have to see for yourselves. Thank you for reading along, and see you next week, xo.
* The Airbnb we stayed at. Shujie was a fantastic host, and the condo was very clean upon arrival. I can’t recommend their condo enough to anyone who is looking to do Honolulu on a budget.
