On 5:00 Friday, we said a heartfelt goodbye to Melbourne and its lovely trams and boarded a flight destined to arrive in sunny Hawaii at 8:00 am . . . the same day. Yes, our flight took negative 9 hours. And they said time travel wasn't possible!! Of course, this was all courtesy of the blasted international date line and, in actuality, was an extremely long flight (10.5 hours). Add to that the fact that Alan and I decided to go budget with Jet Star, thus there was no free food or drink on the flight aside from tap water, and it was downright miserable. But, despite our sleep deprivation, hunger and screwed up internal clocks, Alan and I definitely knew that we were in America when we landed. Yes, the screaming passengers and rude airport personnel were a dead give away. It really is quite amazing what a sense of entitlement that Americans seem feel when they vacation. It's like, "damnit, I've worked 50, 65-hour weeks this year to take this vacation and, by god, I'm going to have the time of my life no matter who else it makes miserable or how much it costs!" Ahh, it's good to be home.
Anyway, we got our rental car and made our way to our hotel on Waikiki Beach all before 9:30 am. After napping until about 1:00 pm (which was like 9:00 am Melbourne time), we headed to the beach. Despite the throngs of tourists, Waikiki really is beautiful. Palm trees and immaculate landscaping line the beaches and there are lots of surfers and outrigger canoes on the ocean. We hung out there for most of the afternoon just lounging and people watching.
That night, after dinner, we went back down to the beach to watch a fireworks display that is put on every Friday from one of the upscale hotels. It was beautiful.-- Kelly
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