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Honolulu, Hawaii, United States
We arrived at Honolulu airport jetlagged from our 6.5 hour flight from Tokyo after not getting much sleep and the time difference between the two places. We left Tokyo at 7:30pm on the 27th and arrived in Honolulu at 7am the same day! After going through customs we grabbed our bags and headed for the fresh air. Just outside the airport entrance was a lady advertising shuttle buses to Waikiki. We jumped onboard for the short drive to our hotel. As with any new place you notice anything different and for Honolulu it was how green and lush it is here and also the amount of people jogging around the streets (we found out why for all the exercise that night at dinner as all the meals are huge here!) After checking in at the Ohana Waikiki west we crashed for rest of that day. We surfaced that night feeling the urge for some beef (didn’t have much meat in Japan) and walked around the block looking for somewhere to eat. We found a Thai/western restaurant and the beef tasted awesome.
After sleeping in (jet lag still!) we walked down to Waikiki beach. It was only a 5min walk from where we stayed. Waikiki beach is awesome (just like all those Elvis movies!) we strolled along the shore with the diamond-head mountain behind us until we found a spot that wasn’t crowded (which is pretty hard to do here) to have a swim. The beach was crowded from tourists from all over the world. There are heaps of retiree’s to young married couples to even a massive bald guy with bright fluorescent green undies and thick black moustache. He looked liked “Borats” older brother!! Along the way back along the beach we found a guy named “Deno” that operated a photo with parrots business. He was a great guy that was a perfectionist as far as taking photos goes. We passed “Duke” on the beach and checked out the price to hire surfboards. It was $15 an hour and the two foot waves were really crowded so we just kept on walking. That night on the news we saw that the North shore was pumping with 20 to 25 foot waves at “Pipeline”. So that decided where we were going the next day.
After a two hour bus ride to the North shore which went the scenic way through jungle and countryside, we got off at the Sunset beach elementary bus stop. We followed the crowd to the beach and found out there was a surfing competition on at pipeline! It was the Volcom pro that is a new 5 star event on the ASP tour with prize money of $120000. We found a spot right in front of the break and checked out the pro’s doing their thing. It was great to see as the break is pretty close to the shore (about 50m). Bruce Irons got a perfect 10 for this really long barrel at “backdoor” it was amazing to see these guys surf in such big waves that have so much power. We thought it was about 15 to 20 foot surf. After watching the comp for an hour or so the waves began to die down so we walked back to “sunset beach” to have a look and grab a burger at “Teds Bakery”. The name suggested heaps of pastries and pies etc but it was more of a deli. Later we got on the two hour bus ride back to Honolulu and dozed most of the way. That night we ate at “Chucks steak house” (we were still craving steak!) it’s a great little place that was under one of the hotels. It looked exactly like the set of the “Cheers” TV. show plus a little 3 piece jazz band and the steak was great too.
Saturday morning we woke really refreshed, we finally slept the full night through (jetlag nearly gone). We spent the morning walking around Waikiki until we had to check out of the Ohana hotel and jump back onto the shuttle to the airport for our flight to Maui.
Matt.
from: http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/shellandmatt/1/1264921137/tpod.html
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