Hawaii, part two: Day One, Finding the Beach
After arriving at the Honolulu airport, getting my luggage, and successfully catching the bus (despite theoretically not being allowed to take luggage aboard, but mine did fit under the seats), I made my way to the hostel without getting lost once. Thanks, directions from hostel.com! (Also, the hostel was less than a block from the stop where I got off.) The hostel was great, and pictures of it will follow as soon as I get to the chronological point in my photos where I realized I hadn't taken any of the place yet.
After dropping off my luggage, I decided to hit the beach. After all, what else is there to do in Waikiki? (The answer is shop. Oh, can you shop. Before I ever even made it to the beach I had already purchased two shiny necklaces and a pair of pretty earrings off of carts lining the streets. Later in the trip I was forced to actually learn how to use an ATM by the lack of cash-back at most of the stores.)
Hawaii knows what you're really here for, and has signs to that effect. Which is good, because the number of hotels blocking your way of getting to the beach is great.
Where is the beach?
Down this way?
There it is!
I was able to perfect my photo-asking routine while on the islands. What you do is approach someone else who's on their own or else waiting for, say, their kids to finish surfing and play on their sympathies. "I know it's silly, but my mother likes to know what I did on vacation, so would you mind taking a picture or two of me for her?"
A close up to prove that no, I'm not sad or anything. I'm just looking down because I was trying to avoid the worst of the waves.
One of the side hazards of having to rely on strangers for all your photos of yourself is odd poses and angles. Ah, well. That's what the rotate and crop functions in Photoshop are for.
I originally was just going to find the beach. Then I decided to walk along it. Then I decided to roll up my jeans and just get my feet wet. Then the bottom half of my jeans got soaked anyway, and I said to hell with it. It was hot out, and I dried off walking back to the hostel.
I did buy a pair of sandals at one of the omni-present ABC stores the next day (I didn't have any fit for the beach at home) and was in shorts for most of the rest of the trip. But I'd just gotten off the plane a few hours ago, so I was in jeans for this part.
The hostel was really great, not least of all because it had a plethora of very nice people staying at it. These two are a girl from Canada who was traveling with her mom and a guy from Australia. I knew their names at one point, but I confess everyone generally found it easier to call everyone by their home country or city names. ("Hey, Germany! Pass the beer!")
This might have been a problem if more than four Americans were ever present, but somehow the situation never came up. In fact, people were usually pretty surprised to see Americans staying at a hostel, especially one from Iowa.
Several nights were spent at the "bar" (Actually a raised bar-like table with stools on either side of it, not a place where one can order alcohol. You had to walk to the fridge for that.) chatting. There were blue christmas lights strung around the overhang for lighting after dark.
Fun fact: I am the only person in this photo not drinking. Not that you can tell.
These guys (Russia and I forget where) were very badly sunburned and trying out every possible cream and lotion handy, down to the aloe plant in a nearby planter (which I had to split for them to demonstrate what the hell you do with raw aloe, because they didn't know). They eventually settled on getting drunk. I have to admit, I felt very bad for laughing at them a few days later...