29 December 2023 — First Day in Hawaii

 There seemed to be many problems with the room, so I thought we should work on those first.  Linda wanted food stuff and I wanted to fix the problems with the pillows and such.  So we found a market and a Walmart that looked to be within walking distance and took off.

Along the way, we saw an IHOP and figured that would be a good breakfast to start the day.  After that we continued walking, and got to Foodland.  Foodland seemed to aspire to be a Whole Foods, so we continued on to Walmart.  We found a night light, some pillow cases, a clothesline, and some foodstuffs. 

But Linda was wanting more fresh fruits, so we tried Whole Foods since it was in the neighborhood, where we got some cereal and pineapple pieces.

Then it was back to the room.  My watch had decided I must be taking an outdoor walk, and recorded it as being about 5 miles, and about 3 hours.

After we rested we went just down the street a bit further in the opposite direction from our morning hike, and found another super market which also wants to be like Whole Foods.  That provided some lunch.  Then we continued on away from our room, towards the beach.  We walked along Waikiki beach.  There were crowds of people everywhere. On the beach, in the water, on the sidewalks.  We walked down and got pictures of Diamond Head




And looking back, at the beach itself. 


The water seems warm enough we could go in, but I would need a swim suit for that.  We went in store after store on the walk back from the end of the beach, but did not find anything until we got all the way back to the room, and then found a Nordstrom Off the Rack store with a swim suit.  

As we walked, the main beach store was ABC store.  They are everywhere.  And even some stores that had different names, had the same selection of stuff, so while there are lots of smallish stores along the beach, there really only a few unique stores.

Prices of just about everything are much higher than you find at home.  Gas is over $5 a gallon.  Even bananas, which are around 50 cents a pound in Austin, are over $1.50 a pound here.  Simple meals out run $40 easily.  I think the sanest approach is to just assume prices are in Hawaiian Dollars, like we have Euros in Europe and the Yen in Japan.  It’s just a different currency here, so naturally prices are different.

To finish the day off, we went out to eat at the Paia Fish Market.  Every time we went by the building, it had a long line, so we finally joined in.  A sign in the restaurant said it had started as a fish market in Paia, a town along the coast of Maui, and after 3 restaurants there, opened one on Oahu.  Linda had Mahi on a bun; I had grilled salmon.  The salmon was, to my way of thinking, a bit dry — Linda does a much better job grilling salmon.  But live and learn.  I brought half of it back as a left over.


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