After the crazy microburst storm yesterday, we still did the now typical 0500 walk (instead of run, since our knees are getting old) and stopped at Starbucks before Courtney had to go to work. I had gotten a ton of food recommendations from several friends (thank you, all!) and one of them was to go to Tropical Tribe for an açaí bowl. It was about a mile from the hotel, so that was a nice additional morning walk, and I found it tucked into the basement of an office building in the less touristy part of Honolulu. It looked sketchy, but was totally worth it.
I walked back along the beach to check out board rental again and see if I missed anything. It was still overpriced, crowded and the guys running the board rentals were still rude. This bodes well!
I stopped and bout some more sunscreen, put some BodyGlide on my feet since I had gotten blisters from walking around in the rain yesterday with wet, fabric flip flops, and grabbed my towel. I ended up purchasing a new pair of flops, or "slippers" if you live in Hawaii, that hit at a different spot because I like to walk, and continuing to rub on these blisters so early in the week was stupid.
It was time to rent a board. Unfortunately, as expected, the board rental folks were jerks. They wouldn't help me pick a board, wouldn't tell me what sizes they were, just "pick one," they didn’t offer wax but gave me a tiny piece when I asked for it, they wouldn't answer any of my questions about the break, etc. I was really irritated and even more aware of how amazing Witch's Rock Surf Camp in Costa Rica is (see previous posts! Pura vida!). On the bright side, my new wetsuit is a total win. The Rip Curl G-Bomb spring suit is perfect for warm water surfing. I paddled out into the ridiculous crowded Waikiki break (which, I might add, is a far paddle), rode a few waves, got cut off by the locals teaching people who paid $100+/hour for a lesson on these tiny waves, and spent more time paddling and avoiding people rather than actually surfing. Womp, womp. It's back to Costa Rica sometime soon for me!
I decided to relax on the beach after essentially just paddling for an hour, but Waikiki Beach is insanely crowded with (mostly) Japanese tourists. There were many selfie sticks and lots of people packed into very close proximity. I was quickly over it.
I went back to the hotel to swap out some things and look at bike rentals. I found a place with great reviews past where the Tropical Tribe place was, so off I went for another walk. I needed lunch, so I decided to stop at ChibaKen, another recommendation from a friend, for sushi. As I got closer there were fewer and fewer white people and more and more Japanese was being spoken. When I found ChibaKen and walked in, I was the only white person and everyone was speaking Japanese. Score! I sat down at the sushi bar to watch the chefs work and ordered (by pointing) the poke bowl lunch special, which consisted of miso soup, an enormous and delicious poke bowl, seaweed salad, and (oddly enough) a small side of potato salad. It was $11. I could hardly believe it. The poke bowl itself would have probably cost $20 on the East Coast. This was one of those meals that I never wanted to end! If I may say so myself, I think I did a pretty decent job of eating the whole meal with chopsticks, including the sticky rice. At least I hope I didn't look completely like a bumbling idiot.
Off I was to search for the bike shop, and I wandered and wandered around and found a sign pointing up some stairs but no shop. I searched for a bit and then gave up. What the heck? Waikiki and the surrounding areas just launched a public bike share in June 2017 called Biki (bike with aloha! is the slogan) so I hopped on a bike share bike and rode across Waikiki to the eastern part (past the Duke statue and the touristy section) and explored the local park, some public gardens and the Honolulu Zoo. It also brought me out into town where people actually live instead of just a bunch of hotels, so I walked around and explored what that part of Honolulu was like. The cost of housing is expensive!
I walked back along the beach and stopped to read all the historical placards for the many statues along the beach. Hawaii's history is pretty fascinating, if you ever get the chance to read up about it. I wandered back to the hotel to shower (again, much needed) and changed to hit up a happy hour.
Courtney had recommended Maui Brewing Co. which wasn't that far away, so I sat up on the rooftop of another tall building and had a beer, tots, and a taste test of some sugar donuts with coconut porter caramel sauce (meh, okay, but I'm not a big donut person). I was enjoying the view and a book until a guy sat down next to me and started shamelessly hitting on me despite clearly displaying a wedding right. He told me he was on business trip from Washington State, etc. No, thank you! The happy hour entertainment, however, was spot on.
Just as I was fleeing the scene of being hit on by a married man, Courtney let me know she was on her way back from work. We walked to Roy’s Steakhouse, which Jim (Coastie from Saturday's hike) had recommended. We split some of the most delicious crab cakes I have ever had, and they were about 99% crab and 1% seasoning. We each ordered a sweet potato soup, and the local sweet potatoes are this deep purple color so the soup was dark purple. Much to the chagrin of the waiter, we did not order tons of food. As Jim had advised, we had put in the order for our chocolate soufflé when we ordered the other food since it takes 30-45 minutes to bake. Normally I'm not super jazzed up about chocolate lava cake type desserts because I find them unoriginal and not usually that great, but this one is uniquely superior to all the other ones I have tried previously! Go there. Order it. You'll thank me later.
While we were walking back I noticed the Peter Lik Gallery! If you are not familiar with Peter Lik's work, go check it out. And if Peter Lik ever reads this blog and appreciates the shout out and admiration of his work, I'll gladly accept any size print as compensation :) He is a phenomenal photographer and holds the Guinness World Record for the most expensive painting ever sold. My cousin, Michael, found his gallery in Australia many years ago when he was studying abroad there and purchased one of his photographs before he became uber-famous. It was still expensive then, but nothing like what it costs for his prints now. Someday when I have that kind of expendable income, I am buying one.
We took an extra long stroll back to the hotel to walk off some of that soufflé, then to bed we went.
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