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| Waikiki Beach |
Hawaii the land of paradise! Johnny and I were here for our honeymoon 12 years ago and loved every moment of our 3 week stay. We always knew that we would stop here on our way to the other side of the world, we just didn't intend to only stay for 3 days. As many of you know we are on a pretty tight budget (let's face it we are also cheap as hell). We have always planned on stopping in Sydney to visit our good friends Nick and Kath (and family) and were shocked at the prices from Oahu to Sydney. We were warned, and we kept putting it off, but when the day came to book the flights we almost had a heart attack. We actually considered changing our whole itinerary and going to Australia in February, but that didn't really work for our hosts (or us really), so we tried to figure something else out. SkyScanner, has this great feature- you can type where you are and then select "can't decide", it will then break down different destinations. Once we typed in Oahu, we found we could all fly to Kuala Lumpur for $1300 CAD! We were sold (literally). We then quickly looked at flight options from KL to Sydney and found a flight for $1000 CAD.... decision made, we shortened our stay in Hawaii by 1 week, and added KL to our list. The only problem with this great deal? The flight time was terrible, leaving Oahu at 3 pm January 13, arriving 4 am January 15th (OHHHH my head...this time travel stuff totally messes with my brain.). We had booked Cancun to Oahu months ago on points, so we always knew that one would be bad...We flew at 6 am from Cancun, then landed in Houston, 1 hr layover, on to LA- 4 hr layover, then Oahu, landing at 7pm Oahu time. 18 hours total travel time... was totally the pits, but we were all troupers and made the best of it.
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| on our 4 hour layover in LA |
Hawaii is everything we remembered,
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Waikiki Beach
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We decided to rent a car so we could explore the whole island, Oahu has so much to offer if you get out of Honolulu. First up Hanauma Bay for some snorkeling. It's a beautiful state park only 15 minutes outside of Honolulu, gorgeous crescent shaped beach, tons of amazing fish.
After a few hours, we got in the car and very slowly made our way to the north shore...I say very slowly as we stopped often to explore the the coastline...it is pretty spectacular.
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| Diamond Head |
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| Koko head park |
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| Waimanalo Beach |
The east Shore is my favourite in Oahu, very lush with secluded little beaches around every turn..it reminds me of our favourite island Kauai.
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| Waimanalo Beach |
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| Waimanalo Beach |
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| Kahaluu Beach |
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| Kahana Bay Beach Park |
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Kawela Bay-north shore
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I am convinced in another life I was a surfer...I have always loved everything about surf culture and dream of riding the big waves like in the movies...unfortunately for me, I cannot surf, I have tried and failed miserably and wish I could tell you a success story. I had planned on taking a proper lesson from a real-life Hawaiian surfer (I did on our honeymoon and happy to say I was actually surfing), but sadly, the day we went to go surfing on the gentle waves of Waikiki beach, the waves were too small... too bad for us, we did not surf in Hawaii. BUT I did get to watch some of the most amazing surfers ride 18 ft waves at the Bonzai Pipeline, (apparently there were 40 ft waves coming the following Saturday but we would be gone by the). It was still so impressive to watch. The camera could not capture the true size of the waves. If you look close, you can see some surfers out there to give you an idea.
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Banza Pipeline, beach was crowded with spectators watching
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we left at sunset and enjoyed the beautiful views on the way home.
The next day we went for a hike to Manoa Falls, the falls themselves were pretty unimpressive, but the hike was great, just enough of an incline, but easy for the kids so there was no complaints. We then went to the beach, intending to surf (no go), we had some delicious food truck Hawaian shrimp and the famous shaved ice. Walked Waikiki and enjoyed the sights and sounds of the area.
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| Manoa Falls |
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| Moanoa Falls |
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Waikiki beach, our Aibnb was about 10 minute walk away.
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We tried to get to bed early to prepare for the next day of hell travel. In the morning, we checked out of our hotel and just bummed around Waikiki, went to the sweet little aquarium close to Diamond head, showed the girls where we stayed when we were on our honeymoon and then headed to the airport to begin the next leg of our journey-
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| view from the area of Diamond Head |
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| the Aquarium in Honolulu |
See you soon Kuala Lumpur!
