Man it was hot yesterday and I decided that I was going to spend the time walking around Honolulu! Certainly don't regret my adventure but let me tell you I'm going to be taking the bus everywhere today!
My morning started out by taking the bus to Bishops Museum... except the bus took a turn I wasn't expecting and while I should have been looking to get off at King and Bernice, I impulsively got off at King and Bertona. Sadly the streets are not in alphabetical order and the map I brought with me stopped after Bertona. With that, I decided to invest in the $8 data plan for the day and using Google maps found out I had a 20 minute walk to the Museum. Sigh.
While I wasn't going to take a hat, Anna came to the rescue by strongly recommending I take a hat anyways. About half way to the museum, I really needed the hat! Thanks Anna!!!
I then arrived at the museum. I couldn't help but think that Smith (and I'm sure Parker when he is a bit older) would love the museum. My favourite part was the Hawaiian History building. The building is beautiful, old warm brown wood, it really reminded me of a classic history museum.
The other two building were far more modern. The first had a dinosaur exhibit. They were interesting but a tad creepy as when they move they make this constant clickity-click noise and it was the last day so I think they may have started to take down some of the wall decorations.
The other building, the science building, was pretty neat! They talked about volcanos, tsunamis, and animals of Hawaii. It was really interactive, you can see the different impacts of landslides and underwater earthquakes on a real water by pressing buttons that made waves below the water or dropped a heavy triangle in the water. But the coolest demo was the lava demo. It came with a 30 minute lesson on volcanos in Hawaii and ended with the instructor pouring out lava. It was pretty freakin' awesome!
From there I decided to walk to the Fosters Botanical Garden. It was around noon and I figured I would grab some lunch on the way there. No such luck... not one restaurant the whole way! I did manage to pick up some water and a protein bar at the gas station... so not a picture worthy lunch!
The botanical gardens were pretty neat particularly if you like trees. There were all types, from Breadfruit tree to coffee bushes, from chewing gum trees to bizarre cannonball trees (where the flowers and cannon balls grow from the bark.) It was pretty awesome but I was bummed I didn't bring my book because it was so quite it would have been a nice place to just relax and read.
By this point, I was pretty hungry for lunch and my plan was to head down to Aloha Tower Marketplace. From the website it looked like a happening place with shopping and places to eat. Perfect! Ah, no... I knew approaching the tower that something was wrong... lots and lots of empty stores. The place was dead! Just a few tiny tourist t-shirts places and Hooters. Yeah, not going to eat at Hooters! So I pulled out the map and thought where is the closest place to eat something. On the map, I see a building complex labelled "Restaurant Row". Perfect! Ah, no... since the map's creation it seems that heath clinics and insurance companies have taken over. Everything was closed even the Pharmacy was closed! What next? Anna and I were going to meet near Ward avenue so I decided to walk there thinking I would come across a restaurant on the way. No such luck... nearly to the place where Anna takes hula classes it looked as thought my luck had run out... but out of nowhere (literally! The street is like an industrial warehouse district) was the Fresh Cafe! I had a great turkey sandwich with Jasmine iced tea. I was fantastic. From there I hit Ross Dress for less and got a great dress and also shopped Nordstrom Rack but didn't find anything.
I then meet Anna after her class and we headed to The Fat Greek for an amazing fish souvlaki. We were talking about potential trips to other islands. I told her about this amazing 3-day camping adventure that I wanted to do but they didn't have any tours scheduled in September. In visiting the website on my phone to show her the tour (whoo-hoo, data plan), since I last checked they had added a tour starting this Thursday and going until Saturday. So in a flurry of booking last night, I bought tickets to and from Hawaii (the big island) and one night hotel, and registered for the tour. I was on a roll so I also booked my two hotels in Lisbon!
I haven't decided what to do today... it looks like a great day. I might just hang out in the park, read my book, and then head down to Waikiki to get some postcards!
This is the flower of the post. There were some amazingly neat finds at the botanical gardens but this is a bush I saw at the Bishop's museum. It had so many blooms and it seemed to be classic Hawaii.
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