Honolulu, HI

I’m really not loving these 5am starts – still, it’s all for a good cause: Hawaii! The flights were fine – the first leg from San Francisco was on a little jet Perry could only just stand up in, but the second was on a proper-sized 737. I wasn’t sure what to expect from Alaska Air as I hadn’t heard of them before. They were pretty impressive, handing out Mimosas as soon as we boarded, and Mai Tais shortly before we landed, to get us in the right frame of mind for Honolulu I guess. One refreshing change about this visit to Hawaii is that we were of course a domestic flight not international – so within 15 minutes of landing we had our luggage, were out the door and in to a taxi. Our friends Craig and Jase flew in to Honolulu from Sydney just a few hours ahead of us. So we caught up with them as soon as we arrived and went for a wanted around Waikiki. It hasn’t changed all that much since my last visit in 2009 – though to my surprise it was raining… I didn’t know that happened in Waikiki 🙂 We settled on a late lunch/early dinner at The Chesecake Factory – a place many people said was a ‘must visit’. They were right – delicious food, we didn’t even have cheesecake. But should you want Chesecake they have about 35 different kinds on offer. Scary! To help walk of some of the food we wandered around the shops, next thing you know I has acquires a new cap. a pair of sneakers ($32 for Skechers, good grief!), and a some small gifts. A little late we headed out to Hula’s, one of Waikiki’s few gay bars, and enjoyed a couple of drinks. They seemed to have some difficulty with accurately measuring their spirits I think, but in a good way – all the drinks were certainly strong! It also helped that Smirnoff were doing a promotion for their new flavoured vodkas, so they had people delivering free shots as well. Who would have thought a flavoured vodka called “Iced cake” would actually taste like, well, an iced cake? We eventually walked or staggered (depending upon which member of our party you were looking at) out of Hula’s, and back to the hotel for sleep. It had been another long day for us – due to the 3 hour time change we effectively enjoyed a 27 hour day. Tomorrow, some more friends arrive – Steve and Michael, and Craig’s sister Kristi and her family.