Round the world in 28 Days

We arrived in Hawaii(you say it "Havwhyhe" apparently)  before we left Sydney! Got the stamps in my passport to prove it.. Oh the joys of international datelines.  By the time we caught a taxi to the hotel it was Monday all over again. Was weird seeing the traffic going the wrong way on the expressway, and it was really really quiet at midnight on a Sunday night in Hawaii. Taxi ride took 25 mins, cost USD$35. Thought it was weird that the driver gave all the change in $1 bills... then gave me a dirty look when I thanked him for the ride.. turns out the problem was I didn't give a tip... doh!

We checked into the room and the staff were friendly and efficient. Ended up on the 23rd floor with a partial view of Waikiki beach, and the sunset we saw was stunning! The beds were doubles, but they seemed small.. much comotion ensued about the beds as mum and sis were sharing one. Mine seemed fine.. :)

Up at 6:30am the next morning to go for a run along Waikiki beach and back in time to catch breakfast which consisted of cereals, bread(bagles), muffins fruit salad and yoghurt. Not bad at all, "much as you could eat", long as you had a room key.  They even provided a "doggie bag" you could fill and take away, which we did and this provided for lunch as well. Only slight issue with it was the amount of packaging that was involved everything was individually wrapped, everything!.. so you ended up with mountains of packaging... very American I decided.

We missed the intro tour I'd planned, so mum and I went walk-a-bout by ourselves. Caught the free bus(because it was free) to Hilo Hatties, which turned out to be a Hawaiian souvenir shop on steriods. The trip was fun, mum got a sunhat and we weren't pressured into buying anything. On the way back we got off at Ala Moana shopping centre, something like 400 shops over 5 or 6 city blocks. We wandered around for about 1hr, and probably saw about 20% of it. Spotted some sandals in Sears(kinda like Kmart or Target) on clearance and mum picked up a pair for USD$7.84 which included 4.7% tax. That became annoying cause they added it at the register not before. Like the 99c apple that bacame $1.05 grrrr!

We were pretty pooped by the time we got back. Decided to have dinner in the restaurant downstairs in the hotel, Tiki's bar&grill. Turned out to be a great place to eat.. Service was excellent, food was superb and it wasn't too expensive. After some amazingly yummy taro buns, we got through a Hawaiian steak and the House special Salmon in record time before disposing of desert too.  Smiles all around, its just what we needed at the end of a long flight/day.