Here is a picture of DD singing with pleasure at the taste of a hot apple sticky bun because In Hawaii everything tastes so much better! We opened the sliding door of the Lanai and stood out breathing in the warm moist air watching the palm trees across from the canal. There were birds singing in the air and it was a perfect time for a morning coffee. Oh No! There was no coffee in the hotel room!
There was only one of those small packets of decaf coffee that hotels supply with the tiny machine left in the hotel room so I had to use a little ingenuity to make a morning coffee. I removed the gauze circular coffee pocket, made a small slit with my pocket-knife, carefully dumped out the offensive decaffeinated evilness and then surgically stuffed the filter with some of our fresh ground coffee. I then ran the mini-machine with my custom filter bag and while it still isn’t as good as right now as we sit here in the Airport waiting for our flight to Kauai.
Finally having a good cuppa coffee at the Starbucks in the airport. We were up early at around 6am with the chorus of “beep beep beep” from the backing up garbage trucks that seem to descend on Waikiki and wind between the hotels every morning. At least we were high up in the Aqua Aloha Spa that it wasn’t too bad but no matter….we were in Hawaii and still had a fairly good sleep after our busy day of hiking up to Diamond Head and getting used to time change.
It was 10 bucks for these 2 coffee and a bottled water but since I had to surrender my two Pepsis and my water that I had in my carry-on as they are not allowed through the airport security. Ahh we now could sit down and watch the tourists come and go and watch the planes land and takeoff from the observation gallery of the Honolulu airport. I had time to open my laptop and write more in this diary and could think back to this morning as we had our continental breakfast on the lanai with the little red headed birdies who wanted to get at my apple buns. The continental breakfast is served down near the pool of the hotel and was mostly sweets with fruits and juices but the little apple puffy buns were a nice treat and those birds sure seemed ready to do tricks for them!
The pineapple juice was tasty and as we puttered about the hotel packing we watched a bit of the Hawaiian visitor TV channel which gives a nice presentation of the sights and sounds of Waikiki. In the morning newspaper we read about the lava flows that had been progressing over a mile and a half towards two lone residents who have stayed in their deserted subdivision on the big island. Apparently this entire neighborhood had been abandoned several years now except for a few hold-outs who preferred to stay in the danger zone confronting the risk of a lava eruption instead of moving out. One guy ran a bed and breakfast from his home and he said that now people only fly in by helicopter and stay for lunch! Since every night the sky is glowing red from the encroaching lava flows it’s no wonder! Cool!
This picture is DD and some happy tourists smiling away during the early morning continental breakfast. The lobby had no real walls and we were all sitting in the comfortable warmth of a beautiful Hawaiian morning! Anyway,back upstairs we had a shower and then DD told me how some of the toiletries in the hotel smelled a little foul! Hmmm…like “poo” I wondered? Well, I don’t have the same sensitive odor detecting abilities as DD but when it comes to determining the cleanliness of a hotel; she is one of the best so, if there was any chance that there was some yucky bumster juice clinging to any surfaces then she would be the first to spot it!
I admit that I didn’t see or smell anything but I am so excited about being in Hawaii and thought the hotel was fairly clean given the steady stream of tourists who must pour into Waikiki every year. But I wasn’t going to investigate any further as I wanted to enjoy this fleeting moment and not pin-point the bad parts of the hotel, so I went back to the lanai with the birds. Oh well, I thought…this room has a non-stop heavy flow of tourists and I’m sure many of them are not as clean as us…I mean DD found an old receipt under the bed which verified beyond a reasonable doubt the receipt had been there since December 29th and so there was likely no vacuum under the bed since then! She would be a good CSI Agent!! Watch out Horatio!
We got a phone call from the front desk because our Airport Shuttle was actually early so we had to hustle down to the lobby and check out in a hurry. We didn’t have much time to take a final look around the lobby and the open air seating area and rich blue tiles behind the wooden front desk. There is a flat screen tv above the eleavators and they keep playing this same old surfer movie not exactly sure what it was but it was vintage surfers and huge curling surf! So the airport bus ride was like a mini tour past the shops we had visited and the marina and it was bustling with people early as usual. It was great to see everyone from the vantage of the bus…we had been walking everywhere so it was nice to have this “roral” tour of Waikiki! The return trip from the airport cost about $15 per person return so it was much cheaper than a taxi! We got to the airport and made our checkout relatively easy since even the airport staff are working with the Aloha Spirit!
The airport security folks are much friendlier here than on the continent: The Hawaiian Security Agent wanted me to tell him when all my belongs had entered into the x-ray machine so I didn’t suffer any separation anxiety! At least they have a sense of humour! I guess I was still a bit anxious about my two Pepsis that had been confiscated because now I have a half bag of last nights microwave popcorn that we brought from Newark, New Jersey and nothing to wash it down with!
As we sit here waiting for our flight to board there was just an announcement on the Public Address system because someone had forgotten there shoes at the security check-through! They forgot their shoes?!I mean you can tell it`s Hawaii when someone goes through security and is so darned comfortable she forgets that they had taken their shoes off! Aaahh… the easy life in Hawaii, where even shoes are just a second thought! Five minutes later there was another announcement that one poor fellow had forgot his fishing rod!
They just announced our flight is ready to board…so we pack up our stuff and slowly make our way to our Hawaiian Airlines flight to the Island of Kauai.