Honeymoon part 1

Day 1 Wednesday, July 23rd

We are going to skip over the ridiculously long flight from Newark, NJ to Honolulu to get to the entertaining bits. By the time we arrived in Honolulu, it was early evening on Wednesday. We were completely loopy from the flight out so when we arrived at our hotel on Waikiki, it seemed surreal. It is a strange feeling entering the lobby of a hotel without passing through any doors. We would soon find out that EVERYTHING in Hawaii is open like that. We were staying at the Outrigger Reef hotel, and like we had said, it was right on Waikiki. Knowing that we were on our honeymoon, they upgraded our room and boy was it nice! The room looked out over Waikiki beach right at Diamond Head, the crater at the other end of the beach. Hungry as we were, we dropped our things off and headed down to one of the two restaurants on the ground floor of the hotel. The highlight of the Ocean House Restaurant was the view. Again, it seemed so surreal after spending all day traveling, but here we were, sitting in a beautiful restaurant, looking out at the waves crashing no more than 20 feet away on Waikiki beach. We would be doing the whole experience a disservice if I didn’t mention the meal itself. The highlights were the mai tai’s, a unique Okinawan sweet potato (darker in color and starchier than normal sweet potato but no less delicious), fresh seafood including mahi mahi, and the fresh fruit. The mai tai’s, the seafood, especially the mahi mahi, and fresh fruit would become culinary themes for the whole trip. By the time we finished our meals, we could hardly keep our eyes open (It was about 3 am eastern standard time). So, we tipped our waiter handsomely (Another thing: you can tell that they depend greatly on tourism in Hawaii, the service is UNBELIEVABLE.) and “zombied” our way back to our room for the night.

Day 2 Thursday, July 24th

Waking up at 4 am was not what I was expecting the next morning, neither was Rachel. I think we both stayed in bed as long as we possibly could without getting completely restless. I was up at around six, Rachel around 7:30. I was able to get up and make some coffee without disturbing Rachel too much. I snuck out onto the balcony with my coffee and a book and it was then that the reality of where I was and what I was doing really sunk in. “Holy crap, I’m in Hawaii on my honeymoon!” I think I was smiling the entire trip from that point on. The view from our balcony was even better with that warm Hawaiian sun shining down.

When Rachel was awake, it was time for breakfast. We headed downstairs to the Shore Bird Restaurant and Beach Bar for their daily breakfast buffet. Again, the restaurant looked right out over Waikiki. We were able to get a table right next to the beach and it was an amazing breakfast. One can’t begin to explain the fruit to people who have not been to Hawaii. The honeydew, cantaloupe, and kiwi were better than any we’d had ever had. The mango and pineapple were just ridiculous. Top that off with some scrambled eggs, French toast, muffins, and believe it or not, mahi mahi, and you’ve got yourself a breakfast! We did try poi, a local staple made from the root of the taro plant. I believe that its history in Hawaiian legend is the only thing that keeps this food in production because it quite literally tastes like paste.

We spent the next few hours basking in the greatness that is Hawaii. We enjoyed just relaxing after a crazy couple of weeks. We swapped between the beach and the pool for both swimming and sunning. They were both like bath water, yet at the same time, very refreshing. I think I used an entire bottle of spf 50 that day…and I still got a little color. In the process of moving back and forth from beach to pool, we kept passing the information desk at the hotel. We had decided to do a Luau, so we figured that would be a good place to start. They had two recommendations, both of which sounded like a lot of fun. We also got a $100 coupon for agreeing to go look at some new timeshare opening up in the hotel (more on this later).

Later that afternoon, we boarded a bus with a bunch of other wide-eyed tourists headed to Germaine’s Luau. Many of the others were also celebrating either honeymoons or anniversaries, which we found is another theme in Hawaiian tourists. Our drive out to the west side of the island of Oahu was long, but our guide was very entertaining, keeping the mood light. When we got to our destination, we were immediately “lei’d” and led to a beautiful view with the sun low in the sky, right over the Pacific, where they took our picture and then shuffled us into the main area. There were at least 500 people at this place; it was huge. Needless to say with that kind of crowd, the line for the mai tai’s was long. The show itself was great. They had us gather around the pit while the removed the pig. They explained the whole tradition as the sun set in the background. The amount of food that was laid out was ridiculous; it could have feed twice the

number that was in attendance. It was more quantity than quality I must say, it was little more than some decent barbeque. After the meal, they had dancers giving us a sample of all of the Polynesian brands of dance. They even invited anyone to go up on stage to learn the hula. Of course, Rachel insisted that we go up and give it a try. I gave in, thinking to myself, “What’s the worst that could happen?” Well, it happened. There were a large number of men and women up on stage as they showed us some of the basics of the dance. Then, they ushered the women off the stage and just had the guys dancing in front of the whole group and I’m thinking to myself, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” The group of guys including myself with a little mai tai courage, shook it for the crowd. We were all laughing as they stared ushering us off the stage. Out of nowhere this little hula girl grabs me by the arm a pulls me aside and in so many words tells me that I’m not going anywhere.

“Oh, $#@&!!!!!”

I was on stage for about ten or fifteen minutes with just me and this hula girl as she taught me some more of the details of the hula. Turns out she thought I had “potential”. We all had a good laugh after, Rachel took about 1,500 pictures of me, and I was a hit on the bus ride home for my dancing abilities. All because of a couple of mai tai’s…and Rachel’s insistence.