Sleepless And Maskless In Honolulu

​Books by Patti Liszkay
Available on Amazon
​"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888

​SLEEPLESS AND MASKLESS IN HONOLULU

...Continued from Yesterday:

     I made a reservation for the next morning, Sunday morning, for breakfast at the Koko at Kalia,  a restaurant located at the Hale Koa,

...which opens all around to the outdoors and  beautiful ocean views,

...and which offers the most sublime breakfast buffet on the planet,

... at least in the opinion of this family of food critics. 

​       On this first morning only nine of the eleven of us were present for breakfast, as Tommy and Emily arrived in Honolulu a day later than the rest of us. 

​      As it turned out, when I made a reservation the previous day for breakfast at 9 am my brain had forgotten about the time differences between Hawaiian-Aleutian Time and all the other time zones  we’d traveled from: there was a six-hour difference for those of us coming from Columbus, Ohio,

...a five-hour difference for the Chicagoans, 

...and a three-hour difference for the L.A. crowd. 

​     Subsequently most of us were up by four am. A few of us had been up since two am. By 9 am some of us were ready for lunch and others of us were three-quarters of the way to dinner. I made a note that I would make future breakfast reservations at the Koko for 7 am, which I did and which worked out well, as within a few days most of us were managing to stay awake until 9 or 10 pm and to sleep until 5 or 6 am, though every morning the first question to go around the breakfast table was, “How did everyone sleep?” The answers varied from day to day and person to person, generally skewing more favorably as the week progressed.
      Besides the time zone changes, there was something else we found ourselves having to acclimate to: going maskless.
      The Hawaii mask mandate had been lifted, the COVID numbers were low on the islands, and we were all at least triple vaxxed, so we decided to cautiously ease into masklessness.
     We also felt encouraged by the fact that the Hale Koa is mostly an outdoorsy venue.
     The lobby is a vast, breezy, meandering open-air terrace, 

...that overlooks a garden courtyard.

...in the center of which is a massive tree known as Gus,

...which at night glows with a beautiful blue light.

     The courtyard leads to a path that rambles through a botanical garden, 

...past a small restaurant called Happy's

...where we enjoyed quite a few noshes,

...including some most excellent soft-serve cones.

      The path also passed a pool, 

...an outdoor bar,

...and a little further on a much larger pool area,

...that included a snack bar,

...​ a children's splash pad,

...and an infinity pool that looked out over the beach.

    The path ended at Waikiki Beach.

       And where the beach began was where the Fort Derussy-Hale Koa  property line ended; For in Hawaii all beaches are open to the public, even the beaches attached to the hotels. 
      Here no one owns the sand and the sea,

...which is how it should be.