Aloha

Well we have arrived in Hawaii.  It was overwhelming right off the bat.  After a super fun car ride/drive to St. Louis, we travelled on three differenet planes to arrive in Honolulu at 5:30am.  It was probably the most exhausting trip ever.  One of the other lieutenants in A’s troop whose name is David met us and tried to help us check in and find out what hotel we were staying at.  Unfortunately, because it was 5:30am the USO wasn’t open, we couldn’t really do that.  After several phone calls and much confusion, we had a hotel to go to and it wasn’t far away since it was the airport hotel.  It’s a nice hotel, don’t get me wrong, but its in a very industrial part of Honolulu and our room has an excellent view of the H-1.

Well after we got settled a bit – with all but one bag which was only missing for a few hours – David took us to breakfast at the Navy commissary.  Interestingly, at the McDonald’s there we were able to try some local food right away.  They had taro pies, which are a lot like apple pies but with taro inside of them.  The taro doesn’t taste bad, its actually pretty sweet, but its a very unappetizing shade of pink.

At that point A and I really just wanted to collapse and do nothing, but instead we took showers (which we really needed) and called for a rental car.  They came and picked us up and we paid for the car which was one of the largest purchases I’ve ever made.  Then I got energy from somewhere so we took off for Waikiki.  That’s where I got to see the Pacific Ocean up close for the first time.  It was pretty incredible.  I waded into the water which was almost the perfect temperature.  A was less impressed than I was by the ocean since he’s seen it before, but he did send his brother and a few friends a picture with his phone to make them jealous. 

For lunch we ate incredily expensive burgers at Cheeseburgers in Paradise which weren’t bad, but weren’t worth $10 each.  Then we just wandered back to our car and headed back to the USO to finish up checking in so that A would know when he had to report at the post.  We were pretty pumped to find out that he didn’t have to go up to Schofield until Monday, so we had almost a week to do whatever we wanted.

We ended the day with some takeout from a local, indeterminate asian restaurant.  The food wasn’t too bad, but I don’t know that we’ll go back there.

Here’s a few pictures of the beach at Waikiki: