Honolulu, Hawaii, 15th September 2013

September last year found us in Honolulu on a cruise, with a day to have a bit of a look around we were keen to make the most of it. I was wanting to do a walk, Sam was wanting to go shopping, so the compromise was Diamond Head in the morning and shopping in the afternoon.

We've just arrived in Honolulu.

We got a lift out to Diamond Head on a tour, there was only about 8 of us on the tour off the boat, obviously most of the cruisers had shopping on their minds. Dropping us of at the bottom we had a climb of around 180 metres to the summit. Should be easy hey, but after more than a week of eating and drinking on the boat I was feeling very slothful. The climb up however was fairly easy, at one stage you pass through a long curved tunnel, then you are deposited before a set of extremely steep steps, once up that we had a spiral staircase inside an old bunker, before we finally popped out at the top. The view from the top was magical, looking down at the turquoise water, and along the coast to Waikiki and Honolulu.

The track up Diamond Head, we weren't lonely.

Waikiki, from Diamond Head.

The lighthouse at Diamond Head Beach.

After taking in the view for awhile it was time to return to the car park, there was now a conga line of walkers climbing up, I was happy we got here early as crowds aren't really my thing especially on a walk. Luckily our driver was fairly flexible and he agreed to drop us of in Waikiki and not take us back to the ship, so we were soon checking out the shops. First of we went to Denny's for something to eat, when Sam and I first met there used to be a Denny's in Dandenong and we used to go there occasionally to catch up, as far as I know Denny's is long gone in Australia now.

The start of the walk on the inside of the crater.

Did I mention there was some steps.

We then headed to the International market so Sam could buy some presents for her students, an interesting place with a huge Banyan Tree in the middle of it. The next few hours are a blur of shops to me, I'm the wrong person to write a blog about shopping as they all look the same to me, my main tactic when shopping with Sam is to immediately scope out the shop for somewhere to sit and wait, even better is to find a coffee shop and get Sam to pick me up when she's finished. After the shops we headed to the beach, checking out the statue of Duke Kahanamoku. The beach looked beautiful and wasn't particularly crowded but that was because people had been warned not to swim because of a molasses spill which had attracted a lot of sharks, hmmmm.

The big Banyon Tree at the International Market Place, Waikiki.

Wondering around the shops in Waikiki.

It was now time to head back to the mother ship to drop of the shopping before we headed out again, this time to the Ala Moana Centre, the mother of all shopping centres. Luckily for me it had a good book shop so that gave me something to do. Just on dark we grabbed a taxi and headed back to the ship, after once again dropping the shopping off we headed down to the Aloha Tower Marketplace, after checking out a few more shops we headed to Hooters for dinner, now where's that camera? :) After eating enough saturated fat to last me the rest of the cruise we made the three minute walk back onto the ship. We had a couple of hours before we left Honolulu so I mucked around with some long exposure shots on my camera whilst we walked around the decks waiting to sail away. At 11pm we sailed out of Honolulu on what had been a busy day.

Kahanamoku Beach, Waikiki.

Apparently the Duke was fairly handy in the water!

The Dirt
Diamond Head is an old volcano, its a fairly easy climb to the top, maybe three kilometres, max. It gets very crowded though so go early.
Sam tells me that the shops were 'ace' so if that floats your boat check them out.
Waikiki beach looked beautiful, but as I mentioned, we were warned not to swim because of a spill.
We only had time to go to two restaurants and both were of the fast food franchise variety, still when in Rome.