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| Hanauma Bay State Park - home to tropical fish, mongoose and chickens. The most popular snorkeling spot on Oahu. |
In April this year Eric attended a work conference in Hawaii. To avoid crippling FOMO and wasting a perfectly good pre-booked hotel room, I joined too. During the first part of our trip, we were based in Honolulu, the capital city of Hawaii located on Oahu island. Oahu is the main island, ie, the one you fly into, but it is not the biggest island - that would be Hawaii island, where we spent the second part of our trip.
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| A well decorated food truck and the food it served. Nom. |
I have never felt more elated arriving to a tropical climate than arriving in Honolulu after my first winter in Toronto. It was like re-learning that planet earth is habitable, and that one does not need to feel dread and tension before walking outside. Equipped with Oreos, vodka and orange juice, the bulk of my first day was spent, not adventuring, but by the pool absorbing as much warm air as possible like some kind of lizard (speaking of lizards, there were heaps of them and they were adorable).
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| Looking down towards Waikiki Beach from the main drag in Honolulu. |
Honolulu is a very touristy city. It has a bunch of fancy malls, designer clothing stores and hotels, some of which are nice, and some of which look nice on the outside but are actually crappy on the inside. We happened to be in town during "Spam Jam", the annual Hawaiian festival celebrating all the different ways one can cook Spam. It was a big deal. The main street was closed off and filled with food stalls and stages hosting local talent ranging from professional musicians to school groups. It turns out Spam tastes OK when cut into tiny pieces and put inside deep fried macaroni and cheese balls (FYI, we waited 45 minutes in line to learn this, so in the words of Dwayne Johnson's Maui,
you're welcome).
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| Spam Jam - a real and serious thing. |
On the north side of Oahu (the opposite end to Honolulu) is a beach called Turtle Beach. Our expectations heading out there were high, and became even higher as we got stuck in city traffic for an hour due to heavy rain. When we eventually arrived, we wandered over to a group of fellow tourists staring at what could have been turtle flippers popping out of the water, but what might equally have been sticks floating in the surf. Donning snorkel gear, we took to the waves and hunted around for about ten minutes before turning back, suddenly arriving face to face with a group of chilled out turtles.
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| "Hey, get of my lawn." Not to scale, these things were huge! |
Seeing turtles was the by far highlight of Oahu. Honolulu itself was not so great. I had been warned about this prior to visiting - it is simply a very expensive city, with issues including homelessness and heavy traffic, next to an nice beach. There are few cultural experiences to be had in the city itself (the Tiki-themed tourist bar we visited, while kinda cool, does not count). Oahu gets better outside of the city, though I probably would not go back unless on transit to another island.
Next stop: The Big Island!
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| Aloha! The sun, the beach! We're back in action. |
Bonus pic: Chicken and baby chicken. Nawww.
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