Walking on Waikiki
^^^rikey took this silly picture of me as we were fleeing the beach when it started raining. I swear we bring the bad weather with us everywhere we go! Luckily it only lasted a few minutes :)
Honolulu definitely took us by surprise. I warmed up to it by the end of our trip, but we were thinking, if you wanted to come to and experience hawaii, why would anyone come to honolulu haha! but we did end up having a good time there, plus everywhere needs a ritzy shopping district, right? the thing with waikiki is that it’s terribly crowded and parking is outrageous. next time we probably won’t even rent a car because there are shuttles and buses that will take you almost everywhere. anyway, the main thing i wanted to do there was to see the pink palace: the royal hawaiian hotel! we didn’t get there until sunset so i didn’t get great pictures, but i still loved walking through the historical halls! and who doesn’t love a pink spanish style palace?! it felt very nostalgic and actually reminded us of tower of terror! i can’t wait to stay there someday ;)
it was fun taking madi (riley’s little sister) to hawaii for her first time! and, we lucked out because delaney (riley’s other sister) happened to be in oahu at the same time! so we met up with her for breakfast at cinnamon’s and for some late night malasadas at leonards! those would be two of the top places i would recommend eating in oahu! at cinnamon’s, we ordered the eggs benedict with kalua pork, the famous guava pancakes, and a side of spam :) madi had the french toast and said it was the best french toast of her life! everything was so delicious! anything you get at leonard’s will be life changing. we also found the best shaved ice in waikiki! everyone told us to go to matsumotos in haleiwa (we tried, but it was closed by 6 pm!) but honestly, i think this place would be better anyway. it’s just a shack called island vintage shave ice next to kate spade. what was so delicious about it was that the flavors were all natural! no nasty syrups with red #40 ;) we even went back right before we had to go to the airport to make our flight. and that’s risky considering the traffic in waikiki! try the acai and mango!
while we were walking along the beach in front of the royal hawaiian, a cute russian man practically chased us down and asked if he could take pictures of us on our camera. he was so sweet! but then he thought madi was our daughter and we were like no! she’s just our little sister haha! then he said “oh, get her out of the picture!” and then he made me and riley hold hands while we posed for the picture. he was so funny telling us how to pose! but it was nice to get some decent pictures of us :) the sunset was amazing and there was a rainbow in the distance over the mountains. waikiki ended up being pretty fun, especially people watching becuase there’s so much going on! if you’ve visited honolulu, what were your favorite things to do and eat? we’d love tips for next time!