Tuesday, January 6th Last Sunset in Waikiki

I've tried not to be too boring with sunset photos. It was my favorite time to be on the beach. Often I would stop whatever I was doing at our room about 5:30 and grab my camera and scoot the two short blocks to the beach. Our hotel was behind the Hyatt Regency which is located at the point where Waikiki beach ends and Kuhio beach begins. I always thought of them as one continuous beach, and they are, but there is an artificial division there marked  a stone jetty that divides one beach from the other.  
 

My usual spot to wait for the sunset-the big angled rock

I liked to find a spot just below the jetty at the edge of the beach where there was a stone that was just right for sitting on. There I could sit and watch the sun go down along with all the other things that were happening in the water and on the beach at the same time. Behind me there was a raised grassy area used for sunbathing in the daytime and on Tuesday evenings as a stage for a live Hawaiian music program. On Tuesdays (this was a Tuesday) there was recorded Hawaiian music playing as the sun went down.

As the sun drops, more and more people line up on the jetty with cameras

Just below me was an eroded stone wall embedded in the beach, and my rock was level with an extensive concrete platform. In the beginning weeks I took photos of the wall. The first time there was a guy building a sand castle on top of the wall. The next few times There was even less sand around it and the tide was right so that the waves were splashing  up against it creating beautiful curtains of spray. The interesting thing on this last night was that the big windstorm the Friday before had resulted in most of the wall and all of the concrete platform being buried in sand. 

The Beach on Christmas day, taken from my seated viewpoint,  lots of concrete showing

Same view, after the storm, nothing but sand.

You can see my rock on top of the concrete ledge, upper left

 

Same view, last day

This night there were very few clouds so I hoped to see and record the green flash, but there was too much haze at the horizon, so it didn't happen. It was still beautiful and inspiring. I had time to listen to just a little of the music in the program that started at 6 pm before I headed back to the room for the last time.

Christmas Day, 2014, Waikiki

Our little tree with nativity and gifts

It was nice to sleep in and wake in a leisurely way. After we got dressed we went out for a brunch timed meal at Zippys to try a local dish called Loco Moco. We got the mini size, not the full size, which was a good thing, because the Mini was really filling! It consists of a base of rice, (We elected to have brown rice) topped with a hamburger patty, topped with beef gravy, topped with a fried egg, with a scoop of macaroni salad on the side.


Mini Loco Moco at Zippy's Brown rice, hamburger, fried egg, gravy, macaroni salad

After this load of belly ballast, we headed to Ward Center, another shopping mall just on the other side of the Ala Moana Center to go to a movie. We saw 'Into the Woods' a Grimms brothers style synergistic story combining several fairy tales into one and featuring Meryl Streep as the witch. We really enjoyed it. We went to the 11 am showing, which was smart, because the line was into the lobby, four deep, when we came out.

Leaving the mall I wished I'd taken a moment to take a photo of the Photo with Santa set up nearby. It was a beach shack, surrounded by 'palm' trees and other props like surfboards. Seemed like the most fun way to get a photo with Santa here in Hawaii.

Back at our room I was thinking of going snorkeling, but it ended up that I spent all afternoon on the phone with family, which was a much better and more Christmas appropriate thing to be doing. It was so nice to get to talk to everyone.

I went to the beach for sunset again. It takes me all of five minutes to get there, so it is easy to do on the spur of the moment.

Harry fixed dinner, which was mostly microwaving or heating things in the oven, but he also cut up a small prime rib and grilled it on the electric grill with his Hawaiian seasoning, which is called Ono Hawaiian Seasoning. It contains salt, local salt, pepper, ginger and garlic. It turned out fantastic. Our dinner also included half a ham, spiral cut, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, Hawaiian rolls, gravy, sparkling cranberry cider, pumpkin pie with whipped cream and cookies. I was still not too hungry from the loco moco, but managed some of everything. It was all good.

I had suggested the day before that Harry let Chardonay know we would bring her a share of our dinner. She had to work all day, and there were 8 rooms worth of folks checking in, so she was busy. She seemed really thrilled to get the food. I felt bad for her and all the others who have to work because of the flood of tourists in town.

All in all, it was a very different, but a very nice Christmas.