Hawaii Part 1 - The Scenery

If you have never flown into Honolulu International Airport, it is something I would suggest doing sometime in your life.  I’ve been to a few of the Caribbean islands and almost all of the other Hawaii islands, and the view as you fly into Oahu is unmatched.  As the plane circles in, the first thing you see (even if you are in the aisle seat) is the Ko’olau Mountain range.  There is almost no other way to grasp the hugeness of these mountains besides from above.  As you hang a right, you’ll see Koko Head and Honauma Bay, and the second right will reveal the famed Diamond Head crater, Pearl Harbor, and the white sandy shores of Waikiki beach.  

This is all beautiful, but nothing, absolutely nothing, compares to the water.  I did not take a picture, because it would not at all be able to capture how amazing it is.  The shades of blue, the depth, the complexity, and the sheer size of it, is like nothing I have ever seen before.  I lived in Hawaii for awhile, and I can get disenchanted with it sometimes, but the flight in never fails to disappoint.

The next delight is the walk to baggage claim from you gate.  Just stop, when you get outside, and tell me you can’t smell flowers.  You are seriously on a little piece of paradise.

Personally, this trip was good.  It is really hard to do all that traveling for just 2 days there, hence why I haven’t gotten a chance to post.  But I have been taking lots of pictures.  So, here is our weekend.  

The first thing I like to do when I get to Hawaii, or pick someone up from the airport who has never been there before, is go see the turtles.  There is a beach on the North Shore, and they are just always there.  Luckily, we had a flashlight, because we didn’t get there until 8PM and in the dark they just look like rocks.

I mentioned last week that we were going to be staying at Turtle Bay on the North Shore.  It was kind of pricey since it was last minute, but you would not imagine our surprise when we opened our door to see this. 

 

A bar?

We didn’t order a conference room...

Or a living room...

Oh, there’s the bedroom.  

Seriously, this room was gigantic.  There were two bathrooms.  The main bathroom had a giant soaking tub with jets, and a separate double headed glass enclosed shower.  Oh, and did I mention there were three lanais?  One off the bedroom, one off the living room, and one off the conference room.  We are not rolling in cash, and this was not the room we paid for.  I felt like Peter in Forgetting Sarah Marshall.  Apparently they were very busy this weekend and upgraded us to a room that normally goes for $2500 a night. 

These are the views from all the different balconies.

Now, out of the hotel room, and on to the island.

We stopped to see the turtles again in daylight.  They're kind of like..our muses.  Whenever we've been feeling stressed, or had a big decision weighing us down, we would go sit with the turtles.  We've gone snorkeling with them too, but its the rainy season right now, which means the North Shore is pretty rough.  

  

Maybe you can see why they live here...

Luckily, there are some calmer places on the island so we could get in the water.  For us, when we only have a little bit of time, the beach we go to, is a no brainer.  We go to Lanikai, on the Windward (East) side of the island.  Since we were on the North Shore, we took the long way, taking Kamehameha all the way down the east side.  We stopped at one of our favorite lookout points.  We were upset to see that it has become a big tourist spot, but it was still beautiful.

The Lizard Rock.  I know it doesn't look like a lizard, there is a legend.  

We stopped in Kailua, which is technically the town that Lanikai is in...sort of...for lunch.   We ate lunch on the beach.

Lanikai, Oahu, Hawaii

That is it for the pictures, but I was obviously there for another day.  We were pretty ordinary though, went to Borders, went to the movies, etc.  

I visited a lot of restaurants, and lots of food stores, and I have lots of stuff to talk about, but I figured this would be horrifyingly long if I posted it all at once, so I will post Part 2 tomorrow!