I know you all want to see my Hawaii pics and read about what GM and I did there but I’m really struggling to blog about the trip.  Why?  Because I don’t know where to start!

It’s not that we did a lot in Hawaii, nor that we did too little and there’s nothing to blog about.  It’s more like our days weren’t very structured; during this holiday we truly just went with the flow and did whatever our moods fancied.  Some days we did nothing more than go to the beach, swim, sunbathe and go for late lunches, other days we went exploring in the many many shops and yet other days we did the traditional “tourists in Hawaii” activities.  It was a truly relaxing and fun holiday but for blogging purposes it’s just a bit difficult to figure out how to organise my posts.

But obviously I’m going to try.  Haha =D

Okay first up I’m going to introduce our hotel and the surrounding area.

We went to Waikiki, Honolulu on the Hawaiian island of Oahu and our hotel was in the bestest location ever.  It was absolutely fantastic, I think the location really contributed a lot to our enjoyment of the entire holiday because it was smack bang in the middle of everything so it was never a bother trying to get anywhere at all.

We couldn’t tell at all the night we arrived though because we arrived late at night, around 11pm, so it was too dark to check out the surrounding area.  But when I first stepped foot into the lobby I was secretly relieved and impressed because the lobby was really spacious and posh looking.

Our room was lovely too!

Really spacious!

This was the night time city view from our balcony.

Our room was decorated traditional Hawaiian plantation stylee with pineapple lamp…

……. pineapple print sofa……

…… orchid print bedspread…….

……. hula girl lamp….. you get the gist.  We liked it, it was a solid, not trying to be flashy, comfortable type of room.  Really really comfortable.

That’s my hat btw, one of the first things I bought in Hawaii.  I had to buy it because the sun was blazing and it was so hot.

The next morning we got up and were greeted with this sea view from our balcony.  So basically if we faced one way we got the city view, and if we faced the other way we got the sea view – best of both worlds!

We went down to one of the restaurants in our hotel for breakfast and were given a table overlooking the beach.  How lovely!

GM ordered a loco moco which is a typical Hawaiian dish.  It’s white rice topped with a hamburger patty, a fried egg and brown gravy.  Yum.

I’d heard about the banana macadamia nut pancakes so I had that.  The waiter asked me if I wanted a short or tall stack and I didn’t understand so I asked him what the difference was.  A short stack is apparently 2 pancakes, and a tall stack is 3.  The waiter recommended that I have a short stack and good job too because even though I only got two pancakes, they were so thick and the portion so huge that I only managed about one third of it.  They were very good though, thick but fluffy, perfectly done.

This was our hotel from the beach.  It really was right on the beach which was brilliant.

This was our hotel from the other side – the street side.  There were shops right outside our hotel.

It was also next to a big shopping complex.

One with lots of nice posh shops.

Across the road there were more shops!  Including an ABC Store where we bought all our drinks and snacks.

This wasn’t our regular ABC Store but was one further up the road.  ABC Stores were everywhere in Wakiki.  They sold drinks, snacks, cheap clothes, toiletries, beach accessories like beach mats etc…. everything really.  I loved looking in them and visited one after the other because even though they all more or less stocked the same stuff, sometimes there were variations of the items and it was just a pleasant way to pass time.  Plus their air-con was good haha.

The local Burger King had surf boards on the door.

The International Marketplace was right across the road from our hotel.  I didn’t like the marketplace much as it was filled with lots of little souvenir stalls that sold stuff I wasn’t interested in.  The worst thing though was that the people running those stalls were quite persistent in trying to grab customers which was really off-putting.

There was a pond and little waterfall in the middle of the marketplace and that was nice.  A little patch of serenity in the midst of hardcore commercialism.

There was another patch of serenity across the road along the beach front walkway.

Isn’t it pretty?  A lot of people took photos here.

That cute little hut was the Honolulu Police Station.

There were statues like these dotted around Waikiki.  They were all of famous and prominent historical Hawaiian figures.

This was a statue of Duke Kahanamoku who is a Hawaiian legend considered as “the father of modern surfing”.  There was a restaurant/bar in our hotel named after him which apparently is one of the most popular eating/drinking establishments in Waikiki.  We went there for buffet breakfast on our second day and had the best Portuguese sausage (another typical Hawaiian food) that we’d had the entire trip there.

Tourists can get around Honolulu on these trolleys for $2 per journey.  They were extremely convenient and were run really efficiently.  Lots of tourists travel to places on them.

Another view of the trolley.  That’s a police car next to it.

Most days GM and I would walk around aimlessly, just looking at stuff and generally exploring.  We saw this gecko statue in front of one of the hotels and I had to take a pic of it.  Yucks.

A fire engine.

On our first morning GM and I walked all the way down the beach front walkway in the direction of Diamond Head mountain.  We got to Kapiolani Park and sat looking out to the sea, just enjoying the sunshine and beautiful views.  If you look at the buildings our hotel was right next to the short pink building so you can see we’d walked a fair way.

We met an ah pek whose back view you can see in the right of the pic.  Americans are really friendly and he stopped to chat with us.  Actually he told us two jokes.

1.  Q:  What would happen if all the cars in America were painted pink?

A:  We would have a pink car-nation.  Get it?

Oops we’ve forgotten the other joke because it wasn’t very good nor memorable.  Haha.

That’s Diamond Head mountain in the distance from our hotel’s beach.  We were going to trek up the mountain and actually set out to do so one day but then we soon realised that to walk from our hotel to the bottom of the mountain would take ages.  So we gave up.

In my next Hawaii post I will introduce something else – I don’t know what yet!

That structure is a life guard station btw.

We’re back! And severely jet lagged. I didn’t fall asleep until 7 this morning and only got up at 3 in the afternoon. Yikes (o_O)

But it was all worth it because we had a fabulous holiday. I’ll try to sort out our pics and upload a few if I get any time soon. But first we have to handle the unpacking, housework and sorting out of holiday gifts. Which brings me to…….

ta-dahhh!

Aren’t these so pretty?  They’re all so cute that I can’t decide which ones to give you, Jo and Di.  So can you pick one each and let me know which ones they are?  The leftover two will be for GM’s sis and one of my friends respectively.

Close-ups below.

Suntanned hula girl kitty.  Comes with a tag that says “Hawaii”, they all do in fact.

Suntanned Hawaii number plate kitty.

Pineapple kitty with flower on her head.  I have one of these myself.

Coconut kitty with hibiscus flowers on strap.

Okay let me know asap which ones you two want!

Hello everyone!

GM and I are going to be on hols for the next two weeks. See you when we get back with lots of holiday snaps!

Dear Ah Ma,

Millie wants to wish you “Happy Birthday” too!  It’s not midnight here yet so it’s still 22nd September and she’s still in time.  She’s just a little bit late because she’s a nocturnal creature and only just got up!

So once again GM and I, and now Millie too wish you a very happy, healthy, prosperous, lucky and smooth sailing year ahead! ♥

GM surprised me again today!

He’d told me in an email that a dress I’d ordered had arrived (I got it sent to his work address) so I didn’t think anything of it when he was digging around in his bag tonight and took out a parcel.  I soon noticed though that instead of just the one parcel there were two so I asked him what it was and he said, “A present for you”!  How exciting!

And it was…………………

The Panasonic Lumix LX3!

Wow I was so surprised!  I’ve wanted this camera for ages, MONTHS.  I contemplated buying it when I was in HK in early May but because I’d already spent lots of money in Perth and just bought a new bag in HK I was feeling guilty so I didn’t.  And regretted it after I came home.

Here’s what it looks like.  I borrowed this pic off google images.  GM has even ordered me the leather case from Japan!  It’s on its way.

I tested it on our Millie.  She’s grown a bit, can you tell?

GM and I have made real progress this last week in terms of bonding with her.  Tonight I lured her to my cupped hands with a bit of broccoli and instead of snatching it and running off to eat it somewhere else, she stayed in my hands.  But the most amazing thing is, she not only stayed in my hands, she actually sat down!  Isn’t she cute?

The pic is a bit blur because she moves a lot, very quickly.

After eating she did her normal grooming.  Soooooooooooooooooo cute!

And finally, a good shot of her looking straight at me.   Hehe.

Today has been a lovely day because it was really quiet in the office so I had a good time slacking off haha.  I met GM for lunch and we tried out a little Thai restaurant in the area which was actually pretty good.  Work gave me a mobile, a Nokia 3109, not great but at least now I will be able to call and text my friends free of charge haha.   My application for funding to study a Japanese language course was approved over the stipulated maximum amount (£200, I got £255) and I was informed that I have been accepted into the course to start on 29 September.  I came home and got the dress that I’ve been wanting for a long time which I thought might have gotten lost in the post since the Royal Mail are going through a series of strikes at the moment and apparently have a backlog of millions of letters and parcels undelivered.  And then I got a surprise gift that I have been coveting for ages!  And Millie sat in my hands and ate broccoli!

What a wonderful day!

But I feel a bit bad because GM keeps buying me all these surprise gifts and I never buy him any.