December 10th First full day in Waikiki

Orientation day

Harry got up and off to work without disturbing me, which was not my plan, I planned to be on his schedule, but I guess it will take some time to get my inner clock dialed to 5 am! I woke at 7:30 and planned my day. I thought it would be best to get oriented to the room and the beach first. How nice to have enough days here that I don't have to worry about 'wasting' a day.

I got familiar with the room first, then dressed and had a bowl of cereal for breakfast. I did some tidying of the kitchen and washed up the barbeque grill that Harry had used recently to cook chicken in a sugary sauce. Then I went to the front desk and met Chardonay face to face finally-I've talked to her on the phone several times and read some great reviews about her on TripAdvisor.com.  She gave me the dates we will have to change rooms. I needed to know whether or not to completely unpack. If we were changing rooms in a few days I wouldn't want to get out anything but the essentials. Turns out we will be here until the 27th, so I felt like I could settle in and unpack most everything.

From there I headed to the beach. My plan was to walk down and get familiar again with the different beaches and see if there are any spots that might have fish for snorkeling fun. I wasn't sure how far I would walk, my heel is still not better and walking on it a lot could really set back the healing.

The beach nearest our hotel a the end of Waikiki Beach and beginning of Kuhio Beach

It was still morning, so there was shade enough that I could stop every little bit and sit on a shady bench and just look at the view. I was also looking to see if anyone was snorkeling. I expected that it might be kind of dorky to snorkel this area and wondered if there were maybe only a few other touristy newbies like me trying it.

View towards Honolulu

Surf breaking over the breakwater wall

My heel did fine and I walked on much farther than I originally planned. There were a lot of big white canopies at Kapiolani park and I read on the notices about parking space closures that the big marathon is this weekend. 30,000 people run it, so it is a BIG deal. We almost had to move to another hotel that night, since it was the one night they were all booked. Cancellations saved us from that though.

As long as I was that far I went on down to the place I wanted to stay, the Diamond Head Beach Resort condo building. It is nice and quiet down there but would have been a longish walk for me to get to stores and places to eat lunch and the sandy beaches.

View of beach from first jetty

I had walked down on the park side and walked back along the beach walk. When I got by the Aquarium I could see several kinds of fish on the plentiful rocks, especially on a sandy area between rocky areas. There were what I was calling Pipe fish, but turned out to be Needle fish, and the Hawaiian state fish, which looks like a modern painting. There were big silver ones and little yellow striped ones-I really need to get a fish guide!

View from first jetty I snorkeled here the 2nd day

I took some photos and a video of a spreading Banyan tree. I think that may be where I got a couple of mosquito bites on my arms. The tree was full of birds and I took the video partly to record their twittering.

I had walked out on one jetty that has a roofed viewing area at the end of it and saw some fish along the jetty wall, then as I walked back there was another narrow jetty with no viewing area at the end. There were some people on it, so I went out to see if it was any better. At first I was mostly taken with the little crabs that skittered around my feet and clung to the side of the jetty. They were so much the same color as the wet rocks that I might have missed them if I hadn't seen the little ones.

I saw quite a variety of fish also, and a man there with his teen children pointed out a large mass of some sort off a ways from where we were standing. He said it was moving around and we wondered if it could be a Lion fish. I didn't realize they would be around so close to the beach, I thought they were more coral reef fish, but it did really look like it could be, even as indistinct as it was through the water. Later I asked a young woman who had been out there if she'd seen any, and she said she'd seen several. On the fish finder card I looked at there was a similar looking fish that was called a Hawaiian Turkey fish, but I've also seen a photo of a Hawaiian Lion fish also, so I'm not sure what the whole story is about that.

Feeding fish and birds on the jetty

Walking back along the jetty, I encountered a man who was feeding the fish the remnants of a sandwich. They were massed below him, and boiling around the bits he threw in. There were also quantities of larger birds standing around that area and some teeny brown ones that would come and land on his hand, and let him feed them. Sometimes they piled on 6 at a time, jumping up on each other's backs trying to get at the food in his hand.

Homeless in Paradise
While orienting myself to the beach I couldn't help but be aware of the ever present homeless population mixed in among the tourists and locals. I noted that picnic shelter number three along the beach seemed to be a homeless gathering spot, with many on the benches and sleeping, and some seated nearby. One Banyan tree with a sheltered center area had had a sleeping quilt spread over its roots that was there the next day too. It looked like a good place to sleep.  When I got down to the end of Kapiolani Park I started to use a bathroom there, but noticed half a dozen men in the area, including one having a sponge bath at a sink on the outside of the building. I decided this wasn't a good place for me to use... Then when I was leaving the condo area I noticed at the base of a fence there was a pile of small bags and cases. I think that was where someone dumped the bags he/she had stolen from the beach and emptied of valuable contents. That let me know I need to be especially careful of what I take to the beach. There are a few of these people begging, but most are not, they are just wandering, sitting, or curled up sleeping somewhere.

Heading back and unpacking
I stopped at a big ABC store on my way back and got an oriental chicken salad, some cut up pineapple, and two 1.5 quarts of bottled water. The water from the tap is warm, flat and tastes not too great. Back at the room I showered, ate lunch, including a chocolate filled puff pastry from the box of pastries Harry left and rested a little before tackling my unpacking. There was plenty of places to put everything. I had brought a hanging sweater organizer and an over the door shoe organizer. With the big closet there was plenty of room to hang the sweater organizer and stash specialized items in it like beach wear. The shoe organizer went over the bathroom door which opens up against the sink. there is little real storage for small items there, no shelves, drawers or medicine cabinet, so all the small items go into the pockets and are right at hand as needed.

Organizing the closet

I set up a charging spot in the closet where there is a plug half way up the wall. I put my big suitcase under it as a shelf to put things on and plugged in a power strip,  Then I went down and got the Wi-fi password and checked mail, etc while watching TV. I was also writing a list of things I needed to get from Walmart or Target. I talked with Harry on the phone about getting to the store and looked up directions to the nearest store, which was a Walmart.

It turned out we went to Safeway instead because he was too tired to find a store he'd never been to. I tried to keep the purchases there to a minimum. They were so expensive, even the little I got was over $35. Even a 70 page spiral notebook was over $4. I later got a similar one at Walmart for $1.00.

We went to Zippys for dinner. I had deep fried Mahi-mahi with rice and macaroni salad and got a little spam snack for later. I'd read about it in the guide book. It is a piece of fried spam on a cake of sticky rice wrapped in sushi seaweed wrap. We also had a slice of Chantilly cake from the bakery there where Harry gets his pastries.

The late dinner and heavy food did a number on me and I had acid reflux later and ended up staying up late sitting up, then sleeping sitting upright until midnight. Note to self: no more heavy dinners!

We slept again without the AC and windows open, but with the white noise machine on.