Day three of this journey has been a mix of beauty, exhaustion, sun, good food, and moderate jet lag. I slept in patches last night. It was broken, but still very restful. I have hopes that I may not have too much jet lag from this trip -- being so tired yesterday probably made a difference.
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| One of the things I saw on my walk today. The water here is so incredibly beautiful! |
This morning I asked someone at the desk of the hotel to help me find the route to Diamond Head Crater on the map I had. He pointed out the road to take and said to plan on it taking me 30 minutes to walk there. More than two hours later, I finally arrived!
Wow. That estimate was wrong!
It was a beautiful walk along the shoreline. I passed many beaches, the zoo, the aquarium, fountains, a lighthouse, neighborhoods, and more. I could see the mountain, but I had no idea where the entrance was or how long it would take to get there so I kept walking.
When I got to the entrance, the real fun began. A one-mile hike up the
edge of the crater including almost 300 steep, narrow steps. Whew! The
view from the top was worth it, but those steps were not fun!
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| Along the road. |
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| The path up the side of Diamond Head Crater -- an old volcano. |
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| From the top of the crater. |
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| Diamond Head Lighthouse. I walked past this lighthouse on the way to the park, but couldn't get a good picture from the angle I was at so I was pretty excited that you could see it from the top at an even better angle. |
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| And looking toward Waikiki and Honolulu. |
After I got back down to the crater entrance I knew there was no way I was going to make it walking back to town (all told, I had been walking/hiking for almost four hours) so I asked about transportation options at the visitor center. They told me there was a bus out at the main road so I went and waited and no buses came. Finally, I found a taxi and the route the driver took was so much shorter than what I had walked to get there. Oh well!
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| Gluten-free pizza from California Pizza Kitchen. Talk about delicious! :) |
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| And the starts of a sunset on my walk back to the hotel in Honolulu/Waikiki. |
Some observations about re-entering the first world:1. When I go food shopping, my biggest problem isn't being overwhelmed by the options, it's wanting to buy it all. Today, I limited myself to two special things: cherries, which I've been craving for months, and gummy bears.
2. Air conditioning. I'm used to the inside of houses to being pretty much the same temperature as outside. Perhaps if the electricity is on you have a fan on to help cut the heat or blankets to cut the cold, but it's completely different than air conditioning in every single building and vehicle.
3. When you travel internationally, you should make sure that you have an international credit card . . . just saying.
4. When you need a salesperson, they are nowhere to be found. When you don't, they flock around.
5. It's kind of nice to blend into a crowd.
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