…makes a man grumpy when it’s 1:18am and the fire alarm at the hotel goes off. Mind you it was a much more polite ding than the blaring one we had the same issue with in London. To their credit the hotel did explain over the loudspeaker that no it wasn’t a fire and the source had been determined and there was nothing to worry about. But I still heard lots of doors being opened and closed as people must have decided it’s better to be safe than sorry. Took me a fair while to get back to sleep but all good eventually.

The first proper mission this morning was to View Boston. It doesn’t sound that difficult, you just … open you eyes, right? Well in this case View Boston is their ‘get up above it all and look over town’ – 52 floors up seems to be the highest building, and it sure gave a great outlook all across the town. Naturally I took too many photos, some of which are here:

On the way out of the View Boston they had an excellent model of the city with really good projection mapping doing some impressive displays – I counted about 30 projectors in the ceiling, making it all happen. After that, and a very cool 360 degree video display, it was time to exit-through-the-gift-shop and then down the elevator to, I dunno, become more grounded 🙂

I give myself extra credit because I managed to do all this before getting coffee. If this were Sydney I’m sure there’d be like three cafes at the top of the viewing area, but no. Not to worry, once we were back doewnstairs in the Prudential building complex, there was ‘Eataly’ – an Italian grocery but also cafe but also restaurant … kind of like a DJs food hall but only serving Italian. Delighted to say the coffee was brilliant, a solid 9.0 on the iScott Coffee scale. There was heaps of pasta and pizza and ingredients and gelato and cakes and chocolate and… yeah it’d be a nice shop to have nearby at home for all the cooking that I never actually do 😀

Now suitably caffeinated, next on the agenda was a visit to Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market, so we hopped in the train via the very fancy looking entrance at Copley, and went up to Government Centre, for a short walk to the hall and the market. Boston sure loves making signs about itself. And why not, it’s a nice place.

The hall was good, full of shops, and Quincy Market, and South Market, and whatever-other-market were all part of one big market district, kinda like Covent Garden on steroids. It was great, even if my feet were killing me, so found a Starbucks which was the one place with spare seats available. Phew.

Duly rested, we wandered over to Long Wharf nearby, saw they had a boat tour, so what the heck on a whim we bought tickets since it was leaving in half an hour. Glad we did – it was a perfect day, all the way up to a balmy 17 degrees, so it was nice to get out on the water for an hour and learn a bit more about this really-quite-lovely city. Also glad I’d bought my Dad a cap as a souvenir – I wore it to save myself getting completely burnt to a crisp. Here’s a bunch of pictures from the boat tour.

We learnt a few things

• Boston has its own version of a tiny Harbour Bridge, the Story Bridge and the Anzac Bridge. Not sure who copied who though.
• The USS Constitution is still regarded as an ongoing proper seafaring ship – to maintain that status it has to sail at least one nautical mile a year, which it does, always on the 4th of July.
• On a good day, the airport will have a plane landing every 90 seconds.

After the boat tour, we jumped on the train (Blue Line, Aquarium station), changed at Government Centre for the Green line and then back to ‘our’ stop, Arlington. Yes it’s too much irrelevant detail but I know in years to come I’ll probably want to know how got to where we were going. Another boring nerdy fact is the green line used overhead wiring and the blue line uses a third rail to power the train. Thrilling, I know.

Next, it was time for the opening of show season! No, that’s not a thing in Boston, it’s just the first show we’re seeing on our trip, a kind of entree to Broadway I guess. The show is called Shucked! and it’s playing at the Opera House – a handy 11 minute walk away.

After a surprisingly tasty chicken Greek salad from Cafe Nero, in we went to the Citizens Opera House. I thought thats a feather egalitarian name, but no, Citizens is the name of a bank, so it’s just a sponsorship thing. Anyway, the Opera House, built in 1909 is just beautiful! The set design was also very good, setting the scene and fitting the show perfectly.

I knew absolutely nothing about this show other than the name when I walked into it, so I wasn’t sure what I was in for, The show itself was brilliant, the jokes were, of course, incredibly corny. (I mean, one of the lead characters is called Maisy (Maize-y)) The songs were good, all the cast were incredible, The story was pretty light but that was perfect, even I could follow it 😀 I guess it had that all-important kernel of truth to it. And the ending was much more heartwarming than expected, so I guess for a light story it still had a pretty good plot twist. It had its moments of homage to other shows, at one point I thought it was going turn a bit Book of Mormon, and and another part it very much did turn briefly into The Music Man – there were probably other references that I missed. But it was fun, very smart, very very funny, and highly recommended. Should you ever get a chance to see it, definitely take that chance. It’ll have your grinning from ear to ear.

Now back at the hotel to finish this off, hit publish, and off to bed. We leave Boston tomorrow, for a new town. Start spreadin’ the news…

We started the day by taking the Boston trolley tour – another one of these ‘it’s a bus in drag’ vehicles that winds its way around Boston narrow streets and gnarly traffic. It’s a great way to feel right at home – but drivers here use their horns even more than Sydney.

The windows on the trolley were those plastic curtains rather than glass, so next to no photos during the tour because I thought they’d look pretty bad. And since the weather was sitting at about 6 degrees in the morning, no way I was going to open the window.

Our driver/narrator did a great job and give us a whole lot of facts and history during the tour, bits of which I did my best to jot down. So here’s a very random collection of bits and pieces, without much context, that I haven’t bothered to weave together in to some kind of followable narrative.

About 80% of Boston is re-claimed land.

Tomorrow is 250 years since Paul Revere had his midnight ride to keep the Massachusetts Provincial Congress aware of the movement of the British army.

Edgar Alan Poe was born in Boston, maybe 100 years or less from where this statue of his has been put. Apparently he hated the place, go figure.

The swan boats in the Boston Common have been around since 1877.

Speaking of Boston Common, it is the first public park in the USA. It used to be used for such things as livestock, and public executions – fortunately both of things no longer happen in the park.

Beacon Hill was de-hilled (flattened) by about 65 feet, and then became Boston’s fanciest neighbourhood at the time.

Parker House Hotel is America’s first hotel, and home of the apparently famous Boston Cream Pie (which we still haven’t tried yet)

And in another first, Boston had the first public school in America.

Gillette the razor company started in Boston.

Faneuil Hall – rhymes with Daniel.

It snowed here last Saturday.

Paul Revere had 16 children – the only reason he was able to sneak out for his midnight ride, was because having 16 children in the house, he was one of the few places not to have any of the British army staying with him, as it was at the time their right to stay in any house they pleased. And who’d want to stay in a house with 16 children?

Best joke from our driver/narrator – “This street is so narrow I saw a dog walking down it wagging his tail vertically”

Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone here in Boston.

A church in Boston conducted the very first same-sex marriage, in 2004.

There was a ton more in the two hours that the trolley wound its way around the city, but those are the bits that I wrote down.

But in a shocking plot twist .. there are two trollies! The other one was a short tour around the Back Bay Area. It passed by the famous ‘Cheers’ bar, Apparently for a while when the show was still on, once a year the whole cast would go out to the bar and work the bar for a day.

The driver/narrator then gave us the cheery fact that there are 30-50 thousand bodies buried under the Boston Common. Paupers, alleged switches, that kind of thing.

Also, for much of the time about 1/3 of the population is students, it’s a big university/college town.

There endeth the tours, and the random facts.

Lunch was at P.F.Changs, which was right next to the where our trolley tours started and ended. Tasty food and a really nice pomegranate lemonade drink.

After that we went back to Boston Common and yay, more squirrels etc!

There is also a series of bronze ducks, from the apparently-famous children’s book “Make way for Ducklings” but Robert McCloskey. Apparently the ducks regularly get dressed up – when we were there, they all had parasols. Lovely.

In the evening we walked down Boylston st in search of somewhere for dinner, passing this rather impressive looking building

We ended up at the ‘Back Bay Social’ – a bar/restaurant with good food and good cocktails,

That was about it for the day – now to hit publish and fall asleep, ready for whatever adventures tomorrow may bring.

After arriving at Honolulu airport we thought we’d have a bout of time to just relax in the lounge before out flight because we’re flying “first class” – which is really business but never mind. The lounge was full so we only had a short amount of time there, but enough for a nice cold drink at last. The walk to the gate was around 20 minutes, Honolulu has a pretty big airport!

Boarding started right on time, everything went smoothly. There is no “until….” in this sentence – everything just went well, Delta really had their act together. The seating pod was a good size and looking comfy. The only wrinkle is, for my ‘window’ seat, check there the window actually is 😂

If I craned my neck around I could still glimpse outside, so, all good?

The service from the crew was great, and the good was really impressive – a little entree of asparagus prawn and beef with sundried tomato, and a giant ravioli for mains, plus salad and bread. All super-tasty, really nice.

I guess the only downsides to the cabin is all the seating pods were quite low-walled, so it offered very little privacy for anyone – not that it much matter coz with any luck we were all to be asleep soon anyway. Also, for a nice big seating pod it was quite low on storage – a flat area, and a kind of seat pocket that wasn’t big enough for an iPad.

We were supplied with a pillow and blanket (in the ‘COZ-Z-Z’ packet sitting on the chair in the photo), so after I dinner I pressed the good old ‘Turn this chair into a bed’ button. The chair itself was pretty recalcitrant,  needing some extra encouragement to go through the motions and actually lie flat, though considering the weight the poor thing had to bear with me sitting in it, I’m sure it was trying doing its best. Eventually the chair and I came to an agreement and it laid itself out fully flat.

When folded into a bed, there is *just* enough room to lie down, and not a centimetre more. I did eventually drift off for maybe 2 hours, not near as much as I would have hoped but much better than nothing. I eventually gave up and held the ‘please turn yourself back into a chair’ button and, again with additional encouragement and persuasion, it did eventually comply. I guess one advantage with the lack of sleep was that I finally got to finish reading The Picture of Dorian Gray – I was hoping to finish it before we see the play in New York so at least that mission is accomplished. And now I’m even more interested in how the play is going to work. Give it a week or two and we’ll find out, I guess.

In time, breakfast was served and it was another great meal – a quiche with chicken sausage and roasted potato bits, I’d out my phone away by this stage so no photos to show.

Breakfast was hastily tidied away as it was almost time to land – some 10 hours or so after we started. The whole flight was smooth, as was the landing, I’d happily fly Delta again.

Boston’s Logan Airport is big, shiny modern, and did I mention big? There’s like 130 or so check-in desks in a massive hall – the whole place seems to everything at a huge scale.

The area from which you catch an Uber wasn’t really well signposted, but when we did find it, it was a really well designed space making it easy to passengers to meat up with the Uber or Lyft, and get them on their way. It may be no surprise that it involved walking through some very long corridors though.

I can recommend getting an Uber from the airport – if you like a nice long walk to the pick up area at least, after that it was smooth sailing. Traffic was already very heavy at 7am, but before too long we found ourselves at the hotel.

Check-in was a right mess. I’d (accidentally I think, but I’d like to say it was definitely on purpose) booked a night early, so we didn’t have to wait til 3pm for a room to become available. I’d confirmed through the app beforehand, even checked in and selected a room, so it should just have been a matter of picking up a room key.

“There’s no booking here. I can see your confirmation number but since you didn’t turn up on the day itself you are presumed to be a no show and have no booking”. The cheek! This wasn’t called out at any point, and they didn’t bother checking in with me either. Maybe I’m a naive traveller but I’d never heard such a stupid thing. Anyway the front desk said we can’t do anything you have to ring the global pre-purchase-bookings line to sort that out. Reluctantly, they eventually gave me the number, so I called.

Would it be a big surprise that the pre-purchase line said “we can’t do anything you need to sort it out at the hotel”? Coz that’s exactly what happened. I guess the people at the front desk were already having a bad day because they’d already faced many grumbling customers with various issues, and tbh were a little dismissive toward all of them (including me). After a little polite to-and-fro (be kind to retail staff everybody, the stupid policies aren’t their fault), the hotel decided they could ‘find’ my booking after all, and eventually provided a room key and we were on our way, maybe 45 minutes after we arrived. I was glad we had a room, even if it was much smaller than the room I’d picked out myself via the app. But with 2 hours sleep if lucky (and even less for Perry) it was good to finally be able get a bit of a snooze in before we completely turned into zombies. So yeah, not a great experience – my first, and also probably my last, stay with this particular hotel chain.

Once we got out to explore though, Boston seems lovely! It’s also 20 degrees colder than Hawaii (6 degrees here, 26 degrees there) – so definitely a different feel. It has a real mix of old and new, a chaotic street layout like Sydney, (plus chaotic drivers who like to use the horns lot like Sydney) and overall a pretty good vibe. We walked around for a short while, found some (very average) coffee and a bite for lunch.

More importantly, we found squirrels!

After that we decided to jump on the train/tram to visit Boston Public Market coz it sounded cool. NO need to worry about train tickets just Tap-on with Apply Pay so that was nice. The trams themselves are a bit on the old side, but still do the job, and they are very frequent. Which might explain why they’re not exactly in a rush either, all queued up waiting behind each other I guess.

Maybe we were just there are the wrong time, bit the Boston Public Market wasn’t exactly a hive of activity, but we had an early dinner and walked around the small number of food providers who were there. Apparently Quincy Market is the one to watch out for, which we’re bound to visit in the coming days. We stopped in at Trader Joe’s for snacks and that’s about it – it’s only half past 8 but I keep falling asleep so I think it’s time to hit Publish and leave it at that after a looong day.

This morning Perry joined the queue nice and early for the famous Eggs’n’Things. Fortunately, you can do that online, just watch your phone for when it’s time. And since we are staying directly above the restaurant, that’s all pretty easy!

Also, judging by this fire exit map, can you tell why this hotel is called the Circle?

Back to Eggs’n’Things. Sure enough – the place serves eggs, and also things. They also do not mess around. Before we’d even properly sat down someone was taking our drinks order… which was delivered approximately 30 seconds later. No espresso machine, but the percolated coffee was nice, and of course very quick to deliver.

Can’t complain about the view, either.

After reading maybe a quarter of the menu it was time to make a decision, in the end we both opted for Eggs Benedict, two different kinds. Sure enough, it was only a matter of minutes before it was delivered as well. Gotta admire this place for its efficiency!

And sure enough it was super tasty, thoroughly enjoyable, and a 10% discount due to staying in the hotel above was also most welcome.

Now I’ve just gone back and checked the blog from 2013 when we last visited Hawaii and you’d never guess what I had for breakfast at Eggs’n’Thing 12 years ago. Yup, Eggs Benedict! Ah well, I’m old, I’m allowed to be a bit set in my ways 😀

That’s a wrap for Hawaii – always an easy place to visit (maybe less so when the Aussie dollar is so weak, but still.) Now we have a little bit of time to finish packing and wait for our transport to whisk us away to the airport for the next destination.

I’ll leave you with this little gem, proof of yesterday’s blog title. Now, there’s nothing funny about UTI’s I’m sure, and I’m not making light of that by any means. I was just surprised at the language used in the ad, and how direct it was for what generally feels like a place with a pretty conservative media landscape. Anyway, I don’t know if ‘enjoy’ is the word, but … enjoy!

Despite feeling that I wouldn’t need to eat for a week after last night’s Cheesecake Factory extravaganza, breakfast time is still breakfast time. And so, we went for a wander around the two main streets here in Waikiki. Kalakaua Ave is the main one that runs along the beach, and Kūhiō Ave run parallel to it, one block back. It’s the main Waikiki tourist area, so you’re never short of places to eat or shop.

My quest for anywhere with a proper espresso machine led us to a little place in a food court, called something super-memorable like ‘Hawaii Cafe’ or something. See? Memorable! 🙂 We weren’t at all worried when the person taking our order didn’t believe that one of the drinks we ordered actually existed. But once we grabbed a menu and pointed and said “that one” they then had no choice but to concede that yes it did exist and yes we could order one. (Don’t worry, it wasn’t the cappuccino, which ended up being easily a 7 on the iScott Coffee Scale).

Breakfast was a yummy açai bowl for Perry, and a yoghourt bowl for me. Tasty, and it ended up being ‘dinner and a show’ as a small troupe of aircon mechanics set up shop pretty much right at our table to run a ladder up to the roof to change some filters and check for leaks. So yeah what the little food court may have lacked in ambience, it made up for in entertainment. But full credit to the cafe for getting our order 100% right in the end, as the chances sure were looking pretty slim at the start 🙂

We took a good wander through the ‘International Marketplace’ – which has had a massive glow-up since my very first visit in the 90s. Back then it was just an open area with a bunch of portable stall kiosks – i.e. like a market, funny that. Now however it’s been built into a massive open-ish mall, with the likes of Balenciaga and Rolex, rather than many purveyors of keychains and tshirts. It still retains some of its open-air feel, thanks to multiple ponds and water features – and even a few ducks which was kinda nice. Here’s a few pics from over the years.

There was also a nice shop selling completely made-and-designed in Hawaii wooden souvenirs, so of course we could get a couple. I noted to the person at the till that I didn’t buy because the exchange rate is low with the current economic conditions and she was all “mmm.hmmm… girl’s got comments on that but, you know…” 🙂

There was also a Target in the mall so we ducked in for a look and sure enough it’s nothing like Target at home, unless Target at home sells lots of fruit and alcohol and eggs (but there’s a limit on how many eggs you can buy). The funniest part, and I don’t know if this intentional or not, is this cleaning product. It’s meant to be used on hard wood, so of course they called it…

Today we’d thought about going over to Diamond Head monument (i.e. National Park) – however the area is mostly closed up due to some construction work, not to worry. I probably couldn’t manage the hike right up to the peak these days anyway. But here’s a photo I took in 2009.

Today I also dragged out my proper camera with its big zoom lens for some shots of life out on the water.

Lunch just wasn’t, really. But we did pop into Starbucks in the afternoon for a drink and a snack. There was a baby Tern in the tree outside which seems to be a local celebrity judging by the number of people who stopped to take photos. It’s also kinda refreshing to see a Starbucks that is hardly visited – there’s so many places to go on this island for food that Starbucks almost becomes an afterthought. Glad we went though, their “Midnight Drink” was delicious – even when served at 4 in the afternoon. Coconut milk mixed with blackberries, over ice. And, um, only 24 grams of sugar. Healthy!

We also had to try the ultimate combination of Hawaiian and and Japanese cuisine fusion – the Spam Musubi. Basically, spam sushi. Except the spam is cooked (again) and it’s served hot. It’s one of those so-wrong-its-right kind of dishes, really, and I ave no regrets!

At dinner time we just went for a wander to one of the many food courts, the same where we had lunch on the first day. I had a nice dish of BBQ chicken and rice, Perry had a nice assortment of Chinese food. I’m sure you’ve seen both these things before so no food photos this time around. We followed this up with dessert at Maccas – their Sundaes are so small they should probably be called Tuesdays, but it was nice enough, and I guess more healthy since there was less of it. Umm, winning, I guess?

Anyway that is almost a wrap for our time in Hawaii. Didn’t get up to much, but it’s kinda good to just unwind from the last two years of not being on holiday. We’ll head to the airport early in the afternoon, for a flight that will be even longer than the flight we took from Sydney to get here. The hotel’s been good (love the views from the balcony!), Waikiki’s always easy to navigate as everything’s geared toward the tourists. A pleasant start to the trip, for sure. Might be skipping a day on the blog as we make our way to our next destination. See you then!

Uhh…WHAT?! Before I go through the day let’s address something I Just heard on the TV right now – and yes, that is how we got the title of today’s blog. Those exact words were the conclusion of an Amazon ad that started with “Imagine you have a UTI….at 30,000 feet”. I mean, there are small targets markets to choose to advertise to, but really?? The point of the ad was “well now you can talk directly to an Amazon doctor even when you’re 30,000 feet in the air”. Well I guess as far as an an ad goes it works – because it got me talking about it. Geez, they’re not backward in coming forward when it comes to ads on the telly!

Anyway. Here’s a photo of a boat I saw this morning, consider it a palette-cleanser.

Today was The Hapalua – Hawaii’s half marathon. Surprising as this may be, I somehow was unable to sign up in time and, sadly, was therefore not able to take part. A dreadful shame I’m sure we all agree. Lol.

We only knew it was on as there was a notice in the lift just letting us know that the event starts at about 4:30am, not very far away, and it’s going to be quite noisy. Two of those three things were true – it wasn’t that noisy. I could hear a bit of the announcer doing a bunch of very enthusiastic announcing / hyping up the crowd. Full credit to him for going full racing-commentator mode at 4:30 – it’s the kind of job I’m sure most mere mortals couldn’t take on at that hour. I woke up once or twice but not enough to motivate me to actually go to the balcony and see what was unfolding. But you can be pretty sure it was a lot of people going for a run, which let’s face it you’ve probably seen before.

When we ventured out for breakfast there were still quite a few marathoners walking around. I was thinking – “you can still walk? After that? You legends!”

So instead of a 21km run we opted for a much shorter walk to a Shaved Ice / Açai place for breakfast. They even had one of those very rare devices around these parts – an espresso machine! Mind you this was a machine that was only giving you a cappuccino if you forked out $6.95 USD for it, which at the moment is approximately $1000 Australian, give or take? 🙂 Whatever, all worth it for semi-decent cup, maybe a 7 on the iScott Coffee Scale at a pinch. The açai bowls were delicious to eat, and perhaps even more delicious to look at – beautifully presented with their abundance of fruit and a pretty flower to top it off.

Post-breakfast we took a wander along Waikiki and down the little pier that juts out into the ocean a bit, with a nice canopy on top.

It was then we experienced a most un-Waikiki phenomenon – a bit of rain. For all of, oh, 30 seconds or so, no biggie. It was so insignificant let’s see if I go back and delete this sentence if I bother to revisit this entry before pressing Publish 🙂

Next, I wanted to pop over to the Ala Moana shipping centre (or center, I guess!)

As luck would have it we happened to be standing right near a ‘trolley stop’ when we made this decision – so we bought tickets for the ‘Pink Line’ trolley and before too long, it arrived and whisked us away. Ok so by trolley I mean basically ‘a bus in drag’ – but still, it’s cute for the tourists. And we’re tourists, so, a-trolleying we went.

After a few stops we arrived so I guess it was time for me to be right off me trolley, …. and there before us was Ala Moana. The 9th biggest mall in the USA, if anyone’s counting. Or maybe that was the case when it was built in 1959. Was I fully paying attention to the driver as he was commentating? You be the judge! 🙂 The good news is that Cinnabon is still there, and every bit as delicious as it was 12 years ago. I guess waiting that long between snacks successfully makes it a ‘sometimes food’, right?

We took a look through good old Ross Dress for Less, and wandered around ‘til we ended up in Macy’s, whereupon I bought myself a pair of shoes and what would probably be the same price in Australia anyway, but hey sometimes you just need shoes. And just like I blogged about many years ago, Macy’s still looks just like Myers. Or rather, I guess Myers ripped off Macys’ look many years ago!

I thought I’d be able to take a ‘now and then’ Ala Moana photo from one of the pics I took back in 1992. (Here’s a note for the young folks… back in 1992, photos were expensive – you could only take 36 or so at a time on a roll of film, and then you couldn’t see what you took until you had to pay someone to process the film and get each photo printed off… and it was only after that happened that you knew if it turned out how you expected or not. If you were really lucky, all this could be done in about an hour but it was more common to wait for like a week. So if your photo wasn’t how you wanted … bad luck if you wanted to go back and have another try!). Suffice to say things are much better these days regarding taking pictures 🙂

Anyway – where was I? Ala Moana, trying to get a before-and-after shot. Of course, it’s not just photography that has changed since the 90s, Ala Moana has too. The sculpture I’d taken a photo of, in all of its mid-century metal glory, has been removed, re-homed, and re-concreted. I’m grateful it’s still there at all, but alas no chance of a shot-for-shot remake of where it was. Here’s a rough approximation anyway.

It was good to see that the koi ponds were still there as well.

It wasn’t so much ‘shop til you drop’ but ‘shop til you can’t ignore the exchange rate any longer’. So much so that we even said no to the Cat Cafe they had there, as it would have been nearly $75 AUD for half an hour with the kitties. But, taking photos through the window was free, so I got to work …

After that we were back on the ‘trolley’ and back home to Waikiki.

For dinner we followed a tried and tested Hawaiian tourist tradition and tried our luck at The Cheesecake Factory. A restaurant with a ridiculous number of dinner options followed by a ridiculous number of cheesecake options to follow. And ridiculous portion sizes so you don’t have room for cheesecake anyway. We were pretty lucky (ok, not all luck, because we went for a super early dinner around 5:30), because we only had to wait about 15 minutes to be seated, which is pretty good for that place.

Just like last time we went 12 years ago, there was way too much choice and way too much food. But hey what a good problem to have. Starting with a Yuzu Drop and a Coconut Mojito, we had delicious Pretzel Bites with a cheddar fondue, followed by a Smokehouse Burger (for me) and a plate of delicious mushroomy Chicked Madeira (for Perry), washed down with delicious cold refreshing Coconut Limeade. Despite working in what must be an incredibly hectic and high pressure environment our server was all smiles, really helpful, and totally earned her generous tip. We finished off by realising there was no way we could fit in any cheesecake … which is exactly why we ordered some to take away back to the hotel.

Now I’m in the middle of a Cheesecake Factory food coma, that’s about it for today. Absolutely zero plans for tomorrow, and sometimes, when you’re on holiday, that’s exactly how it should be.

Leaving Sydney was easy – wandered over to the gate, even managed to be the first two people on the place. Not that it really matters, I mean, it’s not going to take off until everyone’s onboard. And even though it was Jetstar, it was still nice the “turn left” on boarding and head for their three rows of “Business class” seating. Alright maybe I’m going overboard with the inverted commas, but it’s not very business-class-like. However, neither is the price. You get what you pay for and I think overall it’s good value.

Instead of a fancy lie-flat seat, you get a nice wide leather chair that can recline a bit, with a small screen in the seat back in front. Also a little amenities kit, and the loan of a little pillow and a blanket – which was nice, as the place was quite cold (which I like).

Also on the flight free of charge right nearby was a 12 month old with a good strong loud voice, and the ability to use it. But, to be fair, babies are gonna baby, and this one didn’t cause much bother. Especially once I put in my earplugs. And wore my noise-cancelling headphones.

There were drinks served as soon as we sat down – the staff were excellent, really good service all throughout the flight. Food was included – thought by the time they got all the way back to us in Row 3 my first choice wasn’t available, but my second choice of salmon was nice and tasty, served with an unhappy salad, slice of bread, and a little cake. Perry had a little lamb shank and a salad that looked slightly more cheerful.

The flight was really smooth, only a few mildly bumpy bits. Sleep arrived every now and then really didn’t get that much, but of course any is better than nothing.

Eventually it was time for breakfast, a little omelette, made from some of the finest and most flexible yellow rubber, served with some mushroom gravy and tasty roast potato chunks, plus more bread and a delicious muffin.

OK OK I know it’s kinda the done thing to poke fun at Jetstar but the food was included in the price (sorry economy passengers!) and it wasn’t bad food, just kinda normal airline food, I guess. Kept us fed for the whole time we were in the air so probably time to stop whining about it and move on, and time to tack on another note about how good the Jetstar cabin crew were.

Seconds after we got off the plane, there were airport staff around saying ALoha and wishing us a good morning — this is at about quarter to 6 in the morning so full credit to these people for being able to be so cheery and early-o-clock in the morning – what a nice way to feel welcome.

After passing immigration we waited a while for the bags, then waited a bit for our transport to the hotel. I think it’s four times now I’ve been here so it was funny how so much was familiar, but how some of it’s still a bit jarring at first. People driving on the wrong side of the road! All the cars look one size bigger than they need to be! People are walking on the wrong side of the footpath. Er, I mean sidewalk. Anyway wasn’t long before we were checked into to our hotel, a little after 7 in the morning. Comfy room with a good view, it’ll do very nicely for a few days.

The only sensible thing to do then was a bit of a nanna-nap to catch up on all the sleep we didn’t get on the plane. There’s only a 4 (well, 20 I guess) hour time difference. The fun part of that is of course we left Sydney on the Saturday afternoon, and arrived super early on the morning of the same Saturday – so by the end of I guess we’ll have had a Saturday that’s like 40 hours long or something… which could help explain why we’re a bit tired.

We went out and grabbed some lunch at a food court, where suddenly paying 13 US Dollars for a tasty poke bowl becomes 28 Australian dollars when you add in a tip and a can of drink. The exchange rate is not our friend right now, but hey, what can you do.

The weather is awesome – around 26 degrees and sunny, good thing our first stop (after lunch) was the local Ross store for discount goods, in my case, a cap. We took a bit of walk around the main drag, then back to the hotel. As always, the ABC Stores are everywhere, a convenience store every 10 metres it feels like, selling what feels like crazy-cheap alcoholic drinks. ($5 for a vodka/mango seltzer!) but I settled on the much more exciting zero-calorie lemonade, because I’m wild and crazy like that.

They also had this, which I’d take back home for someone in particular if only I could:

Dinner was in one of many small food courts that seem to dot the place nowadays – but it was good stuff, a burger and a flatbread/pizza.

While walking around earlier in the day Perry had found a place offering ‘Ice Dogs’ – I’m not talking freshly chilled chihuahuas, but rather, ice cream in a hot dog bun. That sure sounded weird, so of course after dinner we had to try it. Well, it ended up being like dinner and a show. The poor person that served us was probably dreading that anyone would order an ice dog as it soon became clear that they had never seen one before in their life, never mind trying to make one. But, in a spectacular triumph of the human will with the odds completely stacked against them, eventually, two ice dogs were produced. As weird is it may sound, it actually worked! Creamy soft serve with some fruit chunks and a bit of condensed to finish it off. Nice!

Well I think that’s enough for one day, I’ve just hit the wall, and it’s only 8:30pm… needed a 5 minute sneaky nap just so I could get this last bit written and done.

Tomorrow, it’s the Honolulu Half Marathon. Now, I know you may find it very surprising that this year, because of reasons, I will not be competing. 🙂 However it seems to be starting around 4:30am, and we’re not that far away from the starting point, so just in case out day starts at 4:30 whether we like it or not, sounds like an early night would be a good idea. So that’s it for our 40-or-so-hour April 12, goodnight!

Well here we go in our next adventure. Important things are all sorted i.e who’s looking after the cat, so a big thanks in advance to my nieces.

We had a very comfy uber ride to the airport, breezed through bag check and security, and now we’re feeling fancy in the lounge (pardon, the “Business Lounge”) while we wait for our flight. Time to scoff down a free feed and maybe a cheeky champagne.

Still a few hours ‘til we board, then ten hours of sitting down. There are certainly worse way to spend a day. 🙂

See you on the other side!

*tap, tap…* Is this thing on?

One week ’til our next adventure begins. Most things are booked… all the important stuff is done just a few airport transfers still to sort out.

Anyway, let’s see what happens!