This spring break, we had the chance to tagalong with Owen's orchestra to Hawaii. Um, yes, please! We had a ridiculously early start (5 AM) to get Owen to his school group, compensate for the TSA mess, and a long day of travel (nearly missed our connection in LAX because of weather delays in El Paso!), but we made it! By some miracle, our checked bag also made the short connection. 😅 Once in Honolulu, we got leis from our Costco transportation to Waikiki.
This was the view from our hotel room - you can see Diamondhead with some of the southern part of Waikiki beach and the ocean. 🩷 We could also see Waikiki directly to the right, between two hotels.
After we dropped off our bags, we headed next door to the International Marketplace to get some dinner. We were starving, since it was about midnight our time, and we'd missed lunch what with our sprinting to make our connecting flight and had been up for nearly 20 hours by this time. We checked Hawaiian BBQ off the list and quickly crashed back in our room. (This impressive banyan tree was in the middle of the indoor/outdoor market.)
Meanwhile, Owen's school group had a direct flight with no issues and enjoyed the afternoon in Waikiki with a leisurely dinner, albeit at the Old Spaghetti Factory. (I was able to get pictures of Owen from the chaperones' shared pictures.)
Day 2 - Bright and early the next morning, we secured a rental car and drove to Pearl Harbor. The orchestra was set to play at 10:30 on the pier next to the USS Missouri (requires a bus to Ford Island, separate from the Visitor Center), so we needed to figure out some logistics to see everything we wanted to. I had to make reservations for the USS Arizona memorial several weeks before I knew the exact time of the performance, so we had tickets for 11:15. Unfortunately, that didn't seem like it was going to work with the performance and the various shuttles required, and tickets were sold out. Luckily, we were able to stand by and walk on to an Arizona tour right after we arrived ~8:30.
Honestly, you can't really see much of the ship from the memorial. Time and reflections off of the water made it difficult to tell what you are looking at. We could see the Missouri, where we'd hear Owen play in a bit.
But when you see aerial photos, you can definitely make out the outline of the ship lying below the memorial. It's a little eerie and definitely a somber experience.
The shrine room has 1,177 names (plus some later interred) of those resting below.
Once back at the Visitor Center, we poked around a bit, but made our way to the Ford Island shuttle bus in order to get dropped off at the USS Missouri.
There we found the JET Orchestra warming up! And Owen was easy to pick out in his omnipresent bucket hat. What a setting! With the giant battleship looming over the pier and the Arizona and moody mountains in the background, it was quite a scenic spot. Unfortunately, there was also a good sea breeze, so kids were having to use clothespins to clamp their music to the stands. However, some gusts managed to blow over entire music stands, mostly in the bass section where they couldn't keep their feet anchored to the stand.
They also had to rent cellos and basses, and Owen said they were very out of tune. After tuning and warmup, they started off with the Star Spangled Banner, and all of the tourists on deck came over to the side rail and removed their hats. They continued to play a medley of patriotic tunes (God Bless America, Armed Forces tribute medley, America the Beautiful) and sounded really great. I wish they'd been able to play at the Visitor Center to a more traditional audience. As it was, about 10 of us parents applauded after each song, but they deserved more. I'm not sure how far the music could carry in the wind, but I hope they could hear it on the Arizona memorial! The staff member thanking them after their performance said that they sounded better than a professional group they'd had there the week before.
Since we were already there, we opted to do a tour of the Missouri, which is actually not a part of the National Park. We had a fantastic tour guide lead us around the deck. He was full of interesting facts and stories and we definitely went over time. The Missouri is the ship that sailed into Tokyo Bay and brought Japanese leaders onboard to sign the official surrender and end WWII.
We pressed on to the North Shore, famous for surfing in the winter. It was pretty traffic-y, being a Sunday afternoon, and only a two lane main road, but we soldiered on and eventually found a parking spot on the side of the road. We followed a walking path parallel to the road and soon found a cut-through to the beach.
Hadley was interested in doing the rest of the self-guided tour of the innards of the ship. She didn't really remember when we had done the Midway or the Alabama, so we obliged. But yes, a ship is a ship, a compact floating city that smells like metallic paint and the mustiness of disuse.
Up and down, in and around, we had once again pushed against our limit of hunger, so we made it back to the car and drove to a local poke place. It was small, but delicious. Visiting Hawaii is like being in a resort. If you prepare yourself for resort prices, it's not so shocking. Since we now had a car for a limited time, we continued driving to see some other parts of the island. We stopped at the Dole Plantation, mostly because I thought it was fascinating to see how pineapples grow. But we also got some famous Dole Whips, since it was pretty warm that day, to mixed reviews.
We pressed on to the North Shore, famous for surfing in the winter. It was pretty traffic-y, being a Sunday afternoon, and only a two lane main road, but we soldiered on and eventually found a parking spot on the side of the road. We followed a walking path parallel to the road and soon found a cut-through to the beach.
Ah, the beautiful North Shore. A little less touristy, and our spot was right by the Banzai Pipeline where many surfers (20+) were trying to catch some waves at the end of the season. Our rental car actually came with two camp chairs, which was an awesome bonus! We set up our chairs and looked for shells, splashed in the water, and people-watched for a while.
Eventually though, reason set in and we knew we were more than an hour's drive from our hotel, so it was time to head back. We kept going to the east coast and stopped for eats, including Hawaiian shaved ice. Yum! We ended up doing one of the most scenic drives in the dark. Oh well.
Day 3 - The next day we had reservations to hike up Diamondhead. You get a 2-hour window at the park because this destination is so popular. It wasn't really our favorite kind of hike; the trail was basically a line of people going up and a steady trickle of people coming back down the other side. However, the view at the top makes it worthwhile. You can see 360 degrees, from back in the crater to the beaches of Honolulu.
We sat and ate some snacks at the trailhead, watching various birds and mongoose, before leaving with plenty of time to spare. Then we sought out Timmy T's (like Jimmy John's) for sandwiches. Since we still had the car for the rest of the day, we headed east to find another low key beach for the afternoon. We settled on Kawaikui Beach Park, which seemed like a park for locals with lots of parking, grass, picnic tables, and restrooms.
Again, we set up our chairs, this time in the shallow water and just relaxed with no agenda. We watched locals come through to put in their surfboards, kayaks, and stand-up paddle boards. Some teens even appeared from the water with their spearfishing finds.
Around 5pm, we returned the car, showered up, and finally got to use some of our drink vouchers at the hotel's cafe. Then we stood in a very long line at a popular seafood counter-order joint in Waikiki. (Owen and orchestra spent this day at the Polynesian Cultural Center, but he didn't show up in any pics.)
Day 4 - The next morning we didn't have anything planned, so we slept in a bit and ate our hotel breakfast (we also had vouchers at the cafe every morning). Then H and I finally got to spend some time on Waikiki. The sidewalk to the beach is lined with these surfboard lockers, which I thought was a good use of space, as well as public art.
The water at Waikiki is an amazing turquoise color. There were a lot of beginner surfers in lessons here, but H and I chose to spend an hour paddle-boarding. It was a little overcast and choppy, but we managed to have a good time.
The orchestra went out on a snorkel tour on this day. The choppy waters affected them too, because they were just off Waikiki, and half the kids (no exaggeration) ended up getting motion sickness and barfing. They had to cut the tour short. I had to laugh because in most of the pictures, Owen (bucket hat) is heartily eating. Although he's had his share of motion sickness from the car, he wasn't bothered on the boat. And the choppy seas made the water cloudy, so they didn't see many fish either, but at least a sea turtle greeted them when they were about to depart.
After some recovery time, the orchestra spent the rest of the afternoon at Waikiki, before their dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe, but we had already left.
By late afternoon, we were picked up by our luau shuttle. This luau was up on a mountain with an overlook down to Honolulu. We had the slowest talking, driest humored shuttle driver, named Kaipo, but he did take a nice photo of us at one of the overlook spots. His tour was mostly about where and what to eat while we were here, but his delivery reminded me of a human sloth. 🤣 "For the best malasadas, you'll want to go to Leonard's on Kapahulu....they put sugar on them.... some people like Penny's better....I haven't been there...." 10 minutes later and we're still talking about malasadas! Oh, and apparently we drove by the guy that invented Tetris' house.
It's a smaller luau than some of the bigger productions, but they still put on a funny, entertaining, and educational show with lots of music, chanting, dancing, stomping, hula-ing, spinning, and of course fire.
The food was actually pretty good! I enjoyed everything, except the pork steamed in banana leaf, which tasted a bit like steamed spinach. The lilikoi shortbread cookies were especially tasty, and thankfully no poi was served. After dinner, it was back down the mountain with Kaipo, whose long, droning, pointless tales nearly lulled us all to sleep.
Day 5 - It was finally our last day. While we had to check out of our room at 11, we weren't getting picked up for the airport until 5pm, so we had some time to kill. There was rain in the forecast, but we took our chances and made our way wandering down Waikiki. We didn't want to get wet/sandy before our long plane ride, so we stuck to the sidewalks and shops. We tried some musubi (spam sushi), malasadas (sweet, filled donuts), and were waiting for our Korean street food lunch when the rain decided to start in earnest. We had our raincoats and sat under patio umbrellas, but we still got wet! We headed back to the hotel and stayed dry until our shuttle arrived.
At the airport, we reunited with Owen and orchestra for the flight home. Unfortunately, it was a red eye flight, and none of us really slept on the plane. We were delayed slightly, the plane meal was terrible, and John was fighting off sickness so the pressure really messed with his sinuses. When we arrived in Houston ~9:30am, it was time to start another day! We were all exhausted and a bit delirious, but glad to be home. Aloha!
