Hawaii wrap-up

It was fun! It was too short, and it's definitely over... My trip to Hawaii was planned last minute in between two jobs. I booked a flight and a hotel, packed a few things and went... One goal: do nothing and escape, a sort of "retreat" in a way. I went alone and I must say that was an experience on its own :) I don't think I had ever traveled alone before and I was a little worried of getting bored.. Well, now I now I can do nothing for extended periods of time without the slight hint of boredom :-)

So what did I do? A lot of nothing by the beach and by the pool, drove around the island in a Jeep in the last three days, met new friends, ate at various restaurants and drank a lot of Mai Tais. They have really good Mai Tais, even at the airport! I barely used my laptop (and only to look up addresses and maps) and disconnected from the work world quite effectively, that was cool. I must say, I love Hawaii!

I stayed at the Waikiki Sand Villa hotel, a cheap but decent hotel two blocks away from Waikiki beach and with a decent pool. The hotel was clean and the staff were very helpful. They also have a nice caesar sald and good french fries which can help after too many mai tais ;) It's very close to the main strips in Waikiki (Kalakaua Ave & Kuhio Ave) where most shops & restaurants & bars are in Waikiki. And in case you get bored and you're a single male, starting at about dusk you'll have lots of sexy hot friends on Kuhio Ave wanting to talk to you and try to get you to "go play" :-)) (I didn't go play -- I had Mai Tais in mind.)

I'm glad I took some time to go around the island as Oahu has lots of beautiful places all around. It is a tropical island after all and the overcrowded Waikiki wouldn't let you see that. I rented a Jeep thinking I'd be happy to go on secret trails were I to find any, but I'm finding out now (dealing with Enterprise Rent-a-Car which is trying to claim I did something to their hood that I never did) that going on sand or off-roading with a Jeep violates the contract and voids any warranty you'd have purchased with them. Good to know! Next time, rent a real convertible ;) Driving around was lots of fun though, and it brought back a lot of memories from when I was there back in 1998 (Clin d'oeil Kristell! :) ) I'll be back, oh yeah, one day, I'll be back.

I've put up all the photos I ended up taking on a Hawaii picasaweb album but as of right now, it's a massive dump with no captions, lots of duplicates and nothing edited. Be warned, lots of stuff.

Until next time... Aloha!