Coastal {Hawaii 7}

Generally speaking the 5 of us went everywhere and did everything together. Today was the only exception to that. Alycia, Grace and Rachel wanted to explore the area we lived in and do a bit of shopping while Weronika and I wanted to do more water activities.

After a big breakfast and a thorough dowsing in sunscreen the 3 of them set off down the mountain for their adventures and we hopped in the car planning to snorkel at Hanauma bay.

  

I've wanted to go scuba diving for years now and Hawaii is an obvious choice for where to make it happen. However, it takes several days and lots of learning to become certified and I couldn't expect everyone else to put in that time or money. For this trip snorkeling would have to do.

 

Hanauma Bay is supposed to be an incredible place to snorkel and it's a super short drive from Honolulu so it seemed the obvious choice. Unfortunately when we got there it was closed!!!

 

A little disappointed but with hopes to come back the next day we decided to drive along the coast and see where we end up. 

With no destination in mind and no time frame for anything we simply stopped whenever we saw a scenic point or something that looked desirable to us. 
 

 

The first point was a beautiful rocky area with crashing waves and a perfect view of the watery horizon. But the best part was seeing whales!!!! They weren't close by any means but it was still really cool to spot them out in the ocean. 
 

 

A few scenic points later and we ended up back in Kailua. I'm not really sure how we got there, but it was such a charming little town that I didn't mind at all. Weronika wanted food, and let's be honest, I did too... so we got bagels and pancakes!
 

From second breakfast we enjoyed a relaxed day of beach hopping and scenic stops along the coast before we had to get home. It took us a shocking amount of time to realize that neither of us remembered to bring a towel though, so we only got our feet wet. 
 

 

 

 

 

Grace had to fly home a day earlier than the rest of us so we needed to make sure she was all ready and at the airport on time. And of course we all needed to feed so we could continue functioning. There may have been a small shopping frenzy as well.
 

 

We managed to get lost only once on the way to the airport and not at all on the way to Waikiki after! Rachel decided we should go see Waikiki beach at night and then informed us that the beach we were at previously was not actually Waikiki like we thought it was. 

Anyway, we never actually made it there because we got distracted by the shopping strip. The shopping strip we didn't know existed. It's basically any shoppers paradise. That is, if you are okay being surround by hoards of people at all times, parking a million miles away and having the constant urge to max your credit card. Paradise.
 

 

A great many highend stores were visited, some tourist shops and an ABC store. But we were eventually able to pull Alycia away and get home to bed. Tomorrow is the last afternoon and then we fly home to Canada!