So, then, we arrived in Honolulu late Tuesday evening.
We had to wake up early on Wednesday morning - but not as early as we ended up waking up on our own anyway, Tom and I being both so double jet-lagged first from the Columbus to L.A. flight, then a couple days later from the late-in-the-day L.A. to Honolulu flight.
Anyway, we needed to be ready early for an all-day tour of Pearl Harbor.
Views from the ferry to the Arizona memorial:
During the tour Tom and I hit it off with another couple, Joe and Janet. Joe is a retired state worker and Janet a retired teacher. They're from suburban Philadelphia and it turns out that Janet grew up in Northeast Philadelphia not far from where I grew up.They have six children, so between the subject of their kids and ours, Janet and I found endless topics to cover. They were really nice folks. |
Tom and I finished the day with dinner at the Koko Cafe and a walk along the beach (see post from 4/2/2015).
Yesterday, Thursday, morning, our last day in Honolulu, we decided to venture off post for breakfast. A few blocks from our hotel we found a great little hole-in-the-wall place called The Seaside Grill.
In the afternoon we decided to attempt to hike up to the top of the extinct volcano Diamond Head,
It was a 'way steep hike, but we made it to the top.
On our way back down we saw a sight we'd never seen before:
This time I went with the meat-stuffed eggplant parmesean, boeuf bourginnone, tri-color potatoes, cauliflower a la polonaise and honey butter glazed carrots with macadamia nuts. Don't ask how good it was. Tom and I have decided the Koko Cafe has the best food we've ever eaten. And we've eaten a lot of food. |
In truth we hope there will be a next time. Because in just two days we've come to love Honolulu the place and especially the kind, friendly people.
But now it's 4:45am on Friday morning and we are sitting for the last time on this trip in the beautiful lobby of the beautiful Hale Koa Hotel on the most beautiful army post in the world waiting for our Speedi Shuttle to pick us up and take us to the airport where we'll catch an inter-island flight.
Next stop, Kauai.