Impressionist Hawaii - Day Four

Our flight to Oahu was at 12:33pm, which left us a whole morning for sightseeing in the Big Island. Again we got up early in the morning, checked out and drove to a parking lot in Kona. Gang and I took bananas to a pier and ate them up by the sea (we left apples in the car). We saw flocks of silver and black fishes swimming around; and as a bonus to those with glasses, Gang also saw a turtle floating nearby. The pier was quiet in the morning, a few people were driving motorboat, riding wake-boards and parachuting around. By the pier there was a tiny but crowded beach, which is a better choice for families with small children.

When it started to get hot, Gang and I left the unshady pier and wandered along the sea. It was interesting to see glorious sea with its powerful waves and wind on the right, and a busy Kona downtown on the left side. A 15-min walk brought us to a mansion which used to be the residence of a princess. The two-floor house was built by the sea, with big windows in each room so that owners could have a great view anywhere in the house. I wasn't able to capture details of the house, but the scenery out of the window was charming enough to attract all my attention. There I also had my first cup of dark roast Kona coffee.

What did we do after that? Oh yes we returned our car to Alamo in three minutes and took its shuttle to the airport soon after that. I taught Gang a way to tip the driver which I learned from Friends: hide the money in your palm and shake hands with the driver, who shall take the money away when touching it. Gang tried it later in Oahu, and found it an interesting way of saying thank you but avoiding the awkwardness of “paying". The Kona Airport is small with few facilities: there is even no waiting hall in the airport. We waited outside and finished apples there (yes!). An hour later, we boarded a small plane whose seats were not even assigned, and sat far in the back. I think I slept during the whole flight.

After landing in Honolulu, we had a terrible car rental experience with Advantage: an extremely slow shuttle, equally slow check-in process, uninformed deposit and additional articles. We drove to our hotel by Waikiki beach through the traffic in Honolulu, Gang kept introducing things like "financial center", "China town", "luxury", etc. I stared wide eyed around, everything was blurry, but I could vaguely tell sky-crappers, Chinese architectures and bustling pedestrians.

We checked in the hotel, and  took towels to the Waikiki beach two blocks away. The Waikiki beach was separated into four parts by the lengths of breakwaters. The one on the north end has no breakwater and therefore the strongest waves, with crowds surfing; the one on the south end has a long breakwater which almost closes the beach, and many kids are practicing swimming with life buoys there. I learned my lesson, left my glasses (actually Gang's glasses) on the beach and ran to a half-closed beach, where Gang taught me doggy paddling. Waikiki beach wasn't good as I had expected, mainly because of the crowds there; but it's still one of the best beaches I've been to - great facilities, clean and soft sands, and different levels of waves for different kinds of water sports. After sunset, people sat around a big banyan tree, under which a concert was about to take place. We joined them, but unfortunately it soon started to rain, and the concert was cancelled. We again witnessed the capricious weather in Hawaii.

The fourth day was a long day, but we had the best dinner of our journey that night. We walked along the road, looking for restaurants while checking their ratings on Yelp. There was a Japanese buffet one block away and the price looked reasonable. However the rating was terribly low. One of the reviews says, as I quote, "I give it one star because it's clean." We ended up with a seafood restaurant, where I ordered steamed clams and Gang ordered sauteed shrimp. Yummy! Btw I want to apologize at the end of this blog that I talk so much about food - it shouldn't be the focus of our trip; however I have good reasons to write so much about food: it was the only thing that I could see clearly in Hawaii...