Heading for Hawaii

As always that 7am flight didn’t sound so terrible when we made the reservations, but when we did the calculations and realized we had to get up at 3:25, it didn’t seem like such a good idea. Our packing had gone surprisingly smoothly and with very little stress, and the drive to the airport was very easy, with no traffic at all.

There are of course no direct flights from Portland to Sydney, and it’s about a 16 hour flight from Seattle, so we decided to fly through Honolulu with an overnight stop there both ways. We were able to use miles for this part of the trip so we splurged for first class, which meant we also got access to the Alaska lounge. We figured they’d feed us on the plane so we didn’t eat in the lounge, but we did leave there early to do some walking around the airport to stretch our legs before the 6 hour flight.  The flight was very pleasant with lots of food, and my new trtl travel pillow seemed to work very well. It’s hard to tell, given that wide comfy seats recline a lot. While I wasn’t sleeping I worked on proofreading the manual for the level 1 pilates comprehensive training I’ll be taking the weekend we get back.

We arrived in Honolulu at 10 am, gathered our luggage (one large suitcase each) and found the uber pickup location, taking note of the beautiful cultural garden in the center of the sprawling airport. We got to our hotel and they were able to give us a room right away, which was unexpected and much appreciated. We were right across the street from the “International Marketplace”, a large mall, and headed over there to window shop and get some lunch. The shops looked interesting but the food didn’t, so we ended up walking over to Maui brewing which was good beer and enjoyable food. Neither of us are really fans of Hawaiian food. We then walked along the beach to the Honolulu aquarium, which is small but interesting. They are known for their coral propagation and claim that if you’ve been to an aquarium with coral some of it probably grew from their starts. The coral in the displays was pretty cool. Unfortunately their biggest attraction, a Hawaiian monk seal, was on loan to another facility – we didn’t mind too much because we’d already met him in November at that other facility, in Santa Cruz. Since we got to pet him there I think we got the better end of the deal.

By this time we were pretty tired, so we headed back to the hotel for a couple of hours of relaxation. Dinner was a chef’s tasting menu sitting at the kitchen bar at natuRe waikiki (the capitals are where they are supposed to be). It was tasty interesting food and watching the kitchen was fascinating. Dave got the wine pairings and they were mostly unusual ones, and I had the non-alcoholic pairing (I was afraid I’d fall asleep in my chair if I had alcohol) which was super fun. A standout for me was made of just barely fermented banana and rice, which begged the question of what in the fridge is rotten and what is haute cuisine. Dave wasn’t a fan but I really liked it, except for the occasional slimy banana slice. The dinner was 6 courses, starting with a delicious oyster with a gelee, and by the end we were too full to try the dessert which was too bad because we’d watched them making them all night – including one topped with purple sweet potates pushed through something like a play-doh factory.

It felt like a very long day. We stayed up until 9 pm Hawaii time, and slept until 6.