July 10, 2011- Sunday in Honolulu…

     We arrived in Hawaii around 9:30 pm on Saturday night and after filling our tummies with some IHOP breakfast entrees, we headed up to our hotel room next door to the restaurant and fell fast asleep.  Waking up early due to our bodies still adjusting to the time change, my fiancé asked me, “What are we going to do today?” We had a whole day to hang out and having been to Hawaii many times before, there’s not much we haven’t done there in the past, so that makes it hard to come up with something new or interesting to do for less than 24 hours. I know, hard life, having to find SOMETHING to do in Hawaii, but it’s not the cheapest place to spend a few hours, and frankly the Waikiki area where we were staying is just a big, busy city. At first, I wasn’t sure what we should do as seeing the Iolani Palace (the one thing I haven’t done yet in Hawaii) wasn’t possible since it is closed on Sunday. So, I took a shower instead to get ready for whatever was in store for the day. As often happens to me in the shower, I started thinking and came up with what turned out to be a pretty good plan.  First, we’ll have breakfast at our favorite spot just two doors down, the Wailana Coffee House, then we’ll go for a walk on the Hilton Hawaiian Village grounds to see the birds who reside there, including penguins and flamingos. Next, we’ll head to the Ala Moana mall to pick out some surprises for the boys when they return home from their vacation with their dad.  Finally, we’ll catch a movie in an actual movie theater, go to dinner at Outback Steakhouse (where we can use the gift certificate that was a Christmas present we haven’t been able to use yet), and head to bed early for our 4 am check in time.  Good plan, huh?! Well, it was, and that’s exactly what we did, spent a leisurely day in Honolulu doing the same types of things most of the locals do. After all, we are by now, more local than tourist during our Hawaii adventures. The streets there are more familiar to me than my own hometown in Alabama anymore.  It’s changed so much since I left, but good ‘ole Honolulu, on the island of Oahu, is the same to me as it was the first time I passed through over 15 years ago.