Hawaii, Day 1 and 2.

Hawaii Day 1 technically consisted of flying all day, for both me and my companion, KS. She from Newark, me from Houston. Both non-stop flights which sounded good when we booked them, but not so great in practice. We arrived to lovely humid weather, for me it was similar to what I had left, for K, it was a huge difference as it was definitely winter in NY.

We took a bus to our hotel which took a very long time, but we were still pretty happy to be there. Our hotel was everything we expected for what we paid, but it did make us incredibly happy. Some lovely old lady gifted us with Hawaiian leis on our way to our room, causing us to giggle ridiculously at a facebook status update of "getting le'd by a little old lady in an elevator".

We ate dinner and pretty much tried to stay up as late as we could but despite our very long flights we were pretty tired. The next morning, it was a battle not to get up at the crack of dawn since our bodies were four and five hours ahead of local time.

We started the day off with a hearty breakfast and stopped by the International Marketplace on the way back to the hotel. When I was younger and in Florida, my mom and I did this "Pick a Pearl" thing and I had fond memories as well as a fun keepsake. Not knowing that it all started in Hawaii, I wanted to do it here as well. K and I spent too much time, and maybe a little too much money, but we had a blast and we have absolutely stunning keepsakes from our trip to Hawaii. If you're going to do it, and I highly suggest you should, go with Pearl Factory, instead of any of the others. They're the original.

We spent our afternoon walking our feet off as we hiked in inner Honolulu to Manoa Falls. The hike wasn't too hard, except for short-legs here because some of the steps up were pretty damn high. My thighs definitely got a workout but it was well worth it. Stunning views, a bit of the rainforest and a lovely waterfall view at the end.







After a dinner of sushi, we watched the sunset on Waikiki beach and crashed a little early. Our adventure had begun!









More to come...