Few trips can be more memorable than a family trip to Hawaii during Christmas.
Pandemic situation was looking up a few months ago. We were excited about the idea of a family getting together in Hawaii. Hawaii is an isolated group of islands. The state has done a great job in handling the inbounds of people. Travel.hawaii.gov covers all we need to do to avoid the 14-day quarantine. In spite of the curved balls thrown by the Omicron variant, Hawaii still came across as a safer place than many other places in the country. In mid December, my family of four got together in Honolulu.
We (mom and dad) arrived the earliest at the Honolulu HNL airport. We picked up our son from HNL a couple of hours later; and then our daughter almost twelve hours later. My daughter needed to get through 3 flights from NYC to Honolulu. That proved too much exhaustion and she ended up falling sick right off the bat. The in-home testing kits that we brought along, confirmed that it was not Covid-19. In the past two years, we have been so interrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic, that we started to have these distorted reactions that Covid-19 was the cause of all illness. This served as a reminder that we could fall sick in many different ways. The Kuhio walk-in medical clinic made an unusual itinerary on day 4 to give us our peace of mind and that she got a stomach flu that would go away by itself.
Our Airbnb has a well equipped kitchen and is a home away from home. Waikiki beach is within minutes of walking. We love the location. It has a partial ocean view from our 20th floor. In the morning, it was relaxing and refreshing to spend some time on the balcony to watch the swimming pool below and the ocean afar; in the evening, we could watch the tiny surfers during the sunset. We ended up spending tons of time at our Airbnb, especially the first 3 days.
Oahu greeted us with high rises, busy traffic and lots of travelers. Lines were very long to get food or beverage. One morning, we waited for an hour at Kona coffee purveyors for a cup of the famous 100% Kona coffee. The coffee was world class, rich but subtle; and the bakery was delicious. One evening, we waited for over an hour for a Maguro Spot Poke; and these Poke shops either ran out of sashimi or ran out of rice. It was a bit frustrating though the food was really good at the end. I did not expect Honolulu to be such a busy city, reminiscent of Hong Kong. The rhythm was something to get used to. The island rewarded its tourists with such a variety of offerings – scenic hiking trails, beautiful beaches, historical museum, shopping, cuisines. We could have spent more days.
The hiking trails were pretty crowded, even though we were told that there were less tourists this Christmas than other years.
- Diamond Head Hike, there was no choice but to walk with the crowd on this hike. We stopped a lot for the magnificent views of the crater, Waikiki beaches, Pearl Harbour and many more. The view was hard to beat in this relatively easy round-trip hike.
- Koko Tramway Hike was the most strenuous with thousands of uneven steps to the top. We were rewarded with a glimpse of sunrise (we were late for the real sunrise), beautiful views of Hanauma Bay and so much more.
- Manoa falls trail was a moderate hike, with uneven and stony grounds. We were rewarded with scenes that seemed to come directly from the Jurassic Park movies. The waterfall was all right, though I could not believe we needed to wait for 10 minutes to take a picture of it. And most ignored the “danger” sign and went on to get to the bottom of the waterfall. I was convinced they were idiots for not following the “danger” sign and then became one of those idiots.
The cuisine choice can satisfy the most demanding eaters. The Japanese presence can be felt almost everywhere, including the cuisine.
- Ginza Bairin was the best meal with super delicious Kurobuta Pork Loin Katsu and the super juicy light and fluffy “Omurice” with demi sauce. It is almost worth going back to Honolulu just for the restaurant!
- Marugame Udon had the longest line of people waiting, and we learned the lesson to order an hour ahead to pick up. The quality of the food explained the long line.
- We tried a few poke too, at the off-the-wall beer pub, the Maguro spot and the five star poke. Maguro spot has the freshest fish, I still gave it a low rating just because the line was so long, the service was so slow, and then many sashimi ran out by the time we got to the top of the line. With all these qualifiers, I like the one at off-the-wall beer pub the best.
- The Hawaii J&J BBQ served the meal with the biggest portion, enough for two meals.
- Scratch Kitchen lunch served us with the most fancy pancakes.
The beaches can be rated by the softness of its sand, the location, the view, and the water. Hawaii beaches all have beautiful water and views.
Waikiki has soft sand and long beaches, and is convenient. There are small rocks as we get to the ocean water that still hurts a bit.
Kailua beach has the softest sand from the beach to the ocean water, it has fewer people, still you can expect a line to drive into the parking lot.
With ten days on the island, it may be a surprise that we only visited two beaches.
There are plenty of places to visit. We enjoyed the Dole plantation and learned more about growing pineapples. Again, we had to wait more than an hour to get on to the train. The train tour and the maze in the Dole plantation exceeded our expectations. We expected to see pineapple trees, but then we also found the macadamia nut tree, the cocoa tree, the lychee tree, the banana tree and so much more.
That Altantis submarine was a bit of a rip-off, more of an experience to brag that we have been in a submarine.
The Pearl Harbor visit was such a rush and we should have given it a full day. After visiting the World War museum, it dawned on me that the Pearl Harbor attack could not have been a surprise to the Americans, the attack was bound to happen in just a matter of time. With the US military deployment from the West Coast to Hawaii, it put the US military to be within a few hours of flights to mainland Japan. What would you expect Japan to do differently?
Itinerary (our itinerary was often decided at the beginning of the each day)
Day 1, travel time
Day 2, stayed at Airbnb, one of us was sick.
Day 3, Waikiki beach, Moana surfrider hotel, pu’u pia trail
Day 4, Kuhio walk-in medical clinic , shop for hiking shoes, Waikiki lagoon
Day 5, Dole plantation train tour and maze, Marugame Udon
Day 6, Diamond head hike, Maguro Spot poke, Five star poke take out
Day 7, Koko tramway hike to sunrise, Scratch Kitchen lunch, Atlantis submarine tour
Day 8, Pearl Harbor bowfin submarine, Ginza Bairin lunch , shop 88 tees and neighborhood, shaved ice
Day 9, Manoa falls trail, Kailua beach park
Day 10, travel time
There are so many places we have not explored. Maybe one day we will return.
oliviatamccue 