DEC 1 – 5
Our tale begins on December 1st at 6:30am at the Logan Airport in Boston. At this time, I was waiting in line to check my bag and looking a little paler than usual, possibly because of the early hour, but more likely because I was feeling the usual symptoms of… err… let’s just call it post-jolly juice, shall we?
Anyway, I met up with my cousin Meghan, who lives in Melbourne and very kindly offered me the extra room in the apartment she shares with her boyfriend, which made this entire trip possible.
After an extremely enjoyable flight on Hawaiian Airlines (for real, the nicest flight attendants and SO MUCH included food! Like 3 courses worth and chocolate galore) we landed in Honolulu!
We then waited at baggage claim until the belt stopped, only for my bag to never appear. After a quick chat with my new friends at the baggage claim counter (one of whom had never been told a zipcode with a zero at the front of it), it turned out someone had taken my bag by mistake!
Don’t fret too much, I ended up getting it back later that same night, so I was not in crisis mode for long. Though I was in my stinky travel sweatpants and t-shirt for much longer than I wanted to be.
Anyway, less whining, more fun stuff!
I wish I could eat at The Sunrise Shack every day! This was my first ever smoothie bowl and it tasted like creamy, fruity heaven.
We went to the Honolulu Zoo and aquarium, but I didn’t get any good fish pictures and the monk seal wouldn’t pose for me. Here is Rafiki’s cousin and Marty’s uncle though!
We TRIED to hike the Manoa Trail but it was closed for clearing or something stupid like that. We found a different hike which was attached to a some sort of tree garden (?) and hiked that instead. I say hiked, but it was more like a short muddy walk to what was supposed to be a waterfall, but actually turned out to be more of a “fast trickle” as Meghan dubbed it. On our way back down we found the welcome attendant for the tree garden sobbing, but when we asked him what was wrong he said he wanted to be left alone. Immediately after that it started to downpour. At this point we gave up on our outdoor excursions and took and Uber to the Maui Brewery where we proceeded to buy a few pints and many stickers.
We returned to our hotel room that night to find this note. My bed was so messy with all of my belongings the cleaning lady felt the need to apologize for not being able to make it for me. I’ve never had someone apologize to me because of a mess I’ve made before.
Meg and I signed up for a tour of the island (Oahu) which turned out to be made up of stops at lookouts and tourist trap gift shop things. The name of the tour bus driver was Chief and he brought donuts made with taro flour (which turned them purple) so he instantly became on of my favorite people. I meant to take a picture of the purple donuts, but I ate mine too quickly. In the afternoon we stopped at Fumi’s for lunch. It was good fried food, but I guess it is famous on the island. Also, everyone carves things into the leaves of the trees where the seating area is!
The coolest thing we got to do was go snorkeling with Sea Turtles!!! The only bummer about that was I didn’t see any…! The dumb kid who stepped on dog poop earlier in the day and tracked it onto the bus was the only person who got to see one. Apparently we didn’t get to go to the usual snorkeling spot because it was hammer head shark mating season… so there’s that.
That night, Meg and I enjoyed a divey bar called Arnold’s Beach Bar (which was not on the beach) and a slice of pizza from Slice of Waikiki Pizza. I definitely recommend the pizza place, they braided the crusts! We also went to this underground collection of Japanese restaurants. Honestly, I had enough jolly juice at Arnold’s Beach Bar to partially wipe my memory of where it is, but I have pictures of the mini arcade games and a fun neon ramen sign!
We were supposed to leave on December 4th but after receiving an email saying that our flight was delayed a day because of an ENGINE MALFUNCTION, we had another day of activities instead! The one thing left on both of our lists was to hike Diamond Head, the crater of a volcano and a former army lookout. If you take anything away from this post, let it be that you go and hike Diamond Head if you are anywhere near it. It was so fun! It was really what I would categorize as a “hike,” but being able to climb through all the old military stairways and tunnels was really cool.
On our last night we decided to do something really special which also helped us get out our frustration over our delayed plans (which we were honestly not too frustrated about). We found a place called Blade & Timber that let us throw axes! Yes mom, you read correctly, throwing axes. Unfortunately WordPress won’t let me upload the video of when I threw a BULLSEYE. So just imagine how cool it was and you’re probably close. Also Uber Eats REALLY messed up our pizza order so I decided to share my little homemade meme instead.
Sitting in the airport on the day we left I watched my Spotify year in review and my Artist of the Decade is The Killers. This has nothing to to with my trip, but now you know so enjoy.
I have now been in Melbourne since December 6th, so I promise there will be more posts to come. Stay tuned!
Much love, Syd
Into the Mystic 