Oahu Vacation Days 1-3

Okay, I have to start this post with a totally honest (albeit spoiled sounding) admission. When Barrett and I first arrived in Honolulu Friday afternoon we were underwhelmed. We were actually thisclose to canceling/changing our vacation package and getting on a flight to Maui and just sucking up all the change fees. Now that I have said that and know how bad that sounds, because yes, we are in Hawaii for a week, and yes, we are grateful we get to take vacations in the first place, let me explain. It was very stressful getting to Oahu, but we had been up since 4AM, and were not happy campers. Then we arrived in Honolulu, and oh my the traffic!!! You'd think we were in LA or New York, only with less lanes available, and tour buses everywhere. When we got to our room, we had been planning on upgrading our room to ocean view (we had not booked it that way, but had called ahead and been told it was an option), but nothing was available for the whole week. Needless to say when we got  to our room, we were both in a mood.

 Due to a bizarre snow-storm (we honestly don't get that much snow where we live!), we left early Thursday to travel to Portland. A few errands and our drive up that should have taken 3 hours maximum (for everything) took almost 7. This is proof that the areas in Oregon with which we are most familiar with and travel through do not get much snow, because you'd have thought that the world stopped. I mean it was almost something out of one of those apocalyptic movies. We saw over 20 wrecks just from our house to Salem (which would be a little less than an hour in normal conditions). We finally made it to our hotel in Portland which thankfully we booked ahead because everything was sold out, due to flights coming in from Portland and people not wanting to drive home and thus staying in the city. Our not very nice room also lacked functional heat. Thank God my mom had insisted that we take a sleeping bag in case we got stuck anywhere. It kept us warm in our hotel room! The next morning our flight left over an hour late, and it wasn't late as in when we got on, we waited an HOUR after we boarded to even take off for our already 6 hour flight. I know, I know, it could be much worse.

After a bit of rest, our first sunset here, and some real food (not airplane picnic packs), we felt a bit better about checking out this new place. You see, Honolulu and the Waikiki Beach area is CROWDED. It is a very popular destination, and the Hilton Hawaiian Village where we are staying could be a small town. The resort is HUGE. There are 4 swimming pools, a saltwater lagoon, tons of beach access, multiple restaurants and a shopping center all on site. There are 2 wedding chapels, multiple ponds with Koi, turtles and ducks, and even African penguins (who knew Africa had penguins??). Now, I did my research before we came, but neither of us realized just how touristy Oahu really is. Apparently there are direct flights from Tokyo, and because of that many Japanese tourists come here. ALL of the signs are in English and Japanese, yen is accepted as currency, and I kid you not, we were the only Americans on our tour bus today. That is all fine, the Japanese are very nice, I am just describing how different the experience has been from Maui.

Anyhow, the tower we are staying in has a private sundeck, pool and jacuzzi, and we have found it is a lovely place to sit and wake up with a book, coffee and a sunrise (we are mostly staying on Oregon time while here, so we are up pretty early). We tried out a few places to eat and found a favorite that has mostly reasonable prices (almost everything in Hawaii is shockingly expensive), swam in the ocean, and joined the free appetizer nights in our tower. Today we went on a dolphin watching snorkel sail, and it was AMAZING! We saw humpback whales, spinner dolphins, sea turtles, many fish, and octopuses. The weather was gorgeous, and we were very happy with the tour. We are having fun, and determined to have a great vacation.