Waikiki Weekend

Sandy had to go to Oahu this weekend to officiate a swim meet. I tagged along to see another island and hang out at Waikiki beach! Our flight was early, and it only lasts 30-40 minutes, so we were done traveling by 9:00. We went to target first, because Maui doesn't have one, and Sandy looked for things to put in her student store. I bought a new suit, because Sister Laura said I had to. :) When we were done there we went to the Pali lookout. It is up on the mountain a ways, and it has crazy strong winds. The day we were there the winds were clocked at 68.2 mph. Here are pictures from the lookout. 

This is the wind tunnel. The fastest winds come through here. You could stand here and lean forward into the wind and it would hold you up. It would also take off any clothes that weren't securely on your body. A few girls were there in dresses and you really can't fight a 70 mile per hour wind if it wants to blow your dress up. I was glad I was wearing shorts. :) 

This is what my hair looked like after we made it back to the car. :)

We left the lookout and went to find our hotel. It was an old one right across the street from the beach, and it was a circle. We got a room on the top floor, and the view was awesome. 

Technically a "partial" ocean view. Good enough for me!! 

We brought our stuff inside and then we walked down and stopped at a restaurant called Tiki's for lunch. I had the Island Crusted Ono, which was a white fish served on purple potatoes with baby bok choy and an awesome citrusy chilli sauce. It was delicious. 

After lunch we walked back to our hotel, and on the way we stopped in a couple ABC Stores. These stores are everywhere along the beach. There's two or three in every block! They have pretty much everything you could ever want. Food, souvenirs, toiletries, clothes, jewelry, wine, etc. They were all packed full of anything and everything a tourist might need. 

We went back to the hotel and Sandy got ready to go to the pool where the swim meet was. I went down to the beach and just walked around and hung out for a while. I watched the surfers and I tried to tan my legs a little bit. :) Eventually I went to an ABC Store and bought a wrap for dinner (sorry Laura I mean supper) and I sat on the beach and ate it while I watched the sun go down. 

It was a really peaceful evening for me until a random guy started talking to me. It was no big deal really; there were lots of people on the beach still. But then he asked to read my palm and I was like oh look at the time! It's weird o'clock! And I went back to the hotel. 

On Friday, Sandy was gone before I woke up. Around 9:30 I had my suit on and I was heading out to the beach. I laid out and swam for a couple of hours, then I went back to the hotel and changed. I had to pace myself on the beach because I really didn't want to burn. I walked along the beach and shopped for a little while and ate lunch. Then I went back to the hotel and put my suit back on. I walked a little farther down the beach this time, and I swam and tanned again. 

This was my view for most of the weekend. :) 

When Sandy got back from the pool, we walked down to another hotel and ate at Duke's, a restaurant named after a famous Hawaiian surfer. I had a mai tai for the first time, which was delicious, and I ate opah, also called butter fish, that was fantastic. 

The mai tai. 

The opah. I think this was my favorite thing that I ate over the weekend. It was so good. 

After we ate, we went to the international market and bartered for a ring. That was a new experience for me. It was 10:30 by then, so I think they were about to close, which is part of the reason that we were able to knock 90% off the price. 

It matches my necklace. :) 

We also walked through a store called the Stupid Factory. They had some hilarious shirts and knick knacks. Here are a few pictures from that store. 

:)

Saturday morning I walked in the opposite direction of the beach and checked out all of the shopping that way. There were a bunch of fancy stores that I couldn't afford, like Prada, Coach, Chanel, etc. but it was fun to walk around in them anyway.there was a cool store called sand people that had lots of things for the home in it, but I didn't buy anything because Sandy told me there was a bigger one on Maui. I'll have to check that out sometime. 

When I got back from shopping, I went out to the beach again, this time with a raft, and I floated around in the water for a couple of hours. They have a sea wall in certain places on the beach, which keeps the waves from coming to the shore and kept me from getting pulled out to sea on my raft! 

At 3:30, I walked about a mile to another hotel because I scheduled a massage for 4:00. :) It was an 80 minute full body combination massage. It was wonderful. I was 110% relaxed after that. 

We ate at Ocean House for dinner that night. The restaurant opens right onto the beach, which was pretty cool. I had macadamia crusted mahi mahi. 

Blurry :( 

This was also very good, but it couldn't beat the opah from the night before. 

We walked back along the shore and did a little bit of breaking and entering. We wanted to wash the sand off our feet, so we found a hotel pool and went in there. I'm pretty sure if they didn't want people in there they wouldn't have made it so easy for me to open the gate. :) It was an awesome pool; there were lounge chairs in the water, a waterfall, and a slide. We were curious to see where the slide ended, because it was built above the water fall with a bunch of rocks. Again, if they didn't want people up on the slide at night they wouldn't have made the rope in front of the stairs so low and easy to step over. :) No worries, we didn't get in trouble.

Sunday (today) we got up and packed our things, then we went to Cheeseburger in Paradise for breakfast. I had pineapple pancakes, yum! We were ready to go early, so we checked out and went to the airport. I called home and talked to Dad and got to wish him a happy Father's Day and hear about their fun day and told him a little bit about my trip. Then we got on the plane and flew back to Maui! It was a very short flight. Less than 40 minutes. I took a few pictures as we were flying. This one is from my phone. I got some better ones with my camera that show two of the islands. This one is just ocean, but it's pretty. 

This was just when we landed. The mountains looked pretty so I took a picture. 

Kevin picked us up at the airport and now we are back! That is all for my weekend vacation on Oahu! Enjoy the pictures! I may be posting some from my camera on Facebook later this week.