James and I took a Hawaiian vacation-slash-tropical honeymoon from Sept 4 through Sept 17. I say "slash-tropical honeymoon" because it wasn't our official honeymoon - we had that following our wedding last year. And while our official honeymoon was lovely, and we got to see the whole country, it wasn't tropical (which we originally wanted for our honeymoon), it also involved days of 8 to 10 hours of driving, and not a whole lot of relaxing. So we thought of the Hawaiian trip as Honeymoon 2.0, in which we would do a lot of relaxing and partake in plenty of romantic tropical togetherness.
And it was awesome.
Time seemed to slow down in Hawaii, and we really got to relax and enjoy ourselves. Two weeks seems to be the perfect length of time for a vacation. We were really able to unwind without the stress of going back to work staring us in the face at the end of the first week. In fact, by the end of the first week, it seemed liked we'd been there for ages, and it felt like we had ages left before we had to fly home. It was delicious.
For the first half of the trip, we were waking up anywhere between 4:30 - 6:00 every day due to the jet lag. All those early starts to the day really helped us pack the most into our trip possible. We had so many amazing adventures!
Sept 4 - Sept 6: Oahu
We arrived in Honolulu at 5pm on Sept 4, after something like 20 hours of travel, and on about 4 hours of sleep. The first main event was an unhappy one: when we got to the car rental place, James couldn't find his driver's license! There was some freaking out. We went back to the terminal but couldn't find anyone from our airline to help us (they'd all shut down for the day). More freaking out. Then, we went back to the car rental place, defeated and upset, only to find out that the bus driver had found the ID on the floor of his bus! So everything was fine! Huzzah!
Our first full day in Oahu was gorgeous and so exciting - we were so thrilled to be there. We got up super early and walked from our hotel to Waikiki beach, strolled along the sand, and wandered all through Waikiki. Of course we got our photo taken with the famous Duke Kahanamoku statue.
In the afternoon, we drove over to Kailua to go to the beautiful beach there. The drive over was gorgeous, too, through these jaw-droppingly beautiful rugged mountains. The beach was amazing - the water was crystal clear and turquoise blue. There are a couple of small islands offshore that make the view from the beach so deliriously tropical and beautiful. We really enjoyed our time there - relaxing on the sand, bobbing around in that gorgeous water, strolling along the sand and taking in those incredible views. I want to go back!
Our second day on Oahu, we went to Pearl Harbor in the morning to visit the USS Arizona Memorial. It was such a sad place, but I'm glad we went, to pay our respects. It was a pretty emotional place for me, because the 1,177 men who went down with the ship during the Pearl Harbor attack are still entombed inside. The rusty, urchin-encrusted ship is clearly visible just below the surface of the water when you're inside the memorial. It's heartbreaking. There were two survivors from the Pearl Harbor attacks at the visitor's center that day, and we got to shake hands with one of them, and thank him for his service. So that was nice.
That afternoon, we had a bit of a foodie tour of Honolulu - we walked from our hotel to the Rainbow Drive In for lunch, then to Lambert's Bakery for dessert, then back to Waikiki Beach for a swim. It was a long walk - about three miles total according to Google maps, during the hottest part of the day. But it was so worth it! At the Rainbow Drive In, we split the loco moco plate, a Hawaiian dish consisting of two hamburger patties on two scoops of rice, smothered with gravy and topped with two fried eggs. It was delicious! And filling and cheap, too.
At Lambert's, we got haupia malasadas, which are coconut-filled (haupia) giant donut-hole-like pastries (malasadas). Malasadas are a Portugese desert, but apparently very popular in Hawaii. These were also cheap! And they were still warm. So delicous!
Our foodie walking tour ended at Waikiki beach, where we took a lovely dip in the ocean. After that, we went back to our hotel to change, then drove up to the north shore to try to find the beach where they filmed Lost. Along the way, we saw some amazingly bright rainbows!
I'm fairly sure that we found the beach. We had to walk a long way from the access point to get to this very remote beach, but it was a beautiful walk right at sunset. After 30 to 40 minutes of walking along the sand, we came to a spot where the beach opened up (until that point the beach was a relatively narrow ribbon between the water and the grass/plants). This section of beach was huge and pretty flat, with plenty of room for the crew and their mountains of equipment. We watched the beginning of the pilot when we got home, and it looked right. The forest at the back of the beach wasn't nearly as thick as it appears in the show, but I think that could have been easily enhanced in post-production.
After we decided that we'd found the right spot, we hustled back to our car because the park where we'd left the car was about to close. We drove over to the nearest town - the north shore is much more rural than the southern, Honolulu side of the island! - and had a delicious dinner before heading back down to Waikiki and our hotel.
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